My government needs to lose some weight

Here's an interesting essay on government size, telcos, and privacy from Radley Balko. He talks about how the governments' sheer size makes it difficult for companies to say no for fear of losing its business.

It's a good argument, but not flawless. Still, I don't think anyone would say that the government should employ 3 million people (that's 1% of the entire country). It's time to face the fact that we need to drastically shrink our government. There has got to be tons of waste that we could cut out, leaving the machinery operating better than before. Besides, people are always the most expensive part of any project, and we could save tons of money with some massive layoffs.

But it'll never happen.

Republican hypocrisy and other thoughts

This story about Quotes from Republicans when Clinton was president is interesting, but not surprising. Basically they're saying the things that the Democrats are saying (and being heavily criticized for) now. This was happening before I paid attention to politics at all, so I'm wondering if Democrats were using the same rhetoric Republicans are using now. Frankly, I'd be more surprised if they didn't than if they did.

It's just another sad commentary on our ridiculous partisan politics. I've never really researched it, but I've always felt Washington was right when he urged no political parties in his farewell address, and thought we'd be much better without the dumb loyalties they demand. It seems to me that in a party system, ideas lose to allegiance to the party, whereas without them ideas dominate. Of course, that could be wrong, and a representative system without parties is hard to imagine (although I'd be interested in knowing if one exists). Oh well, we're stuck with what we've got, might as well make the best of it.

Bring back the OTA

Are you sick of having a government that has no idea about technology or science? Do you want the people making policy decisions that affect the entire country to have some kind of clue about the issues they're legislating? Are you frustrated that there's no way to achieve these goals?

Well fret no longer, Mark Hoofnagle at Denialism Blog has an idea to help ameliorate this problem, bringing back the Office of Technology Assessment. Here's Mark's description of the OTA:

It used to be, for about 30 years (from 1974 to 1995), there was an office on the Hill, named the Office of Technology Assessment, which worked for the legislative branch and provided non-partisan scientific reports relevant to policy discussions. It was a critical office, one that through thorough and complete analysis of the scientific literature gave politicians common facts from which to decide policy debates. In 1994, with the new Republican congress, the office was eliminated for the sake of budget cuts, but the cost in terms of damage to the quality of scientific debate on policy has been incalculable.

This sounds like a critical organ of the legislative government, and if done right it would be. I agree that the OTA should be recreated, and I'll be contacting my representatives, if you care about this issue I recommend you do the same.

Seat belt laws, paternalism, and federalism

New Hampshire has declined to pass a seatbelt law, making it the only state in the Union lacking one. A senator who voted against the bill said:

The citizens of New Hampshire don't like to be told by anyone else what to do. It preserves New Hampshire's way of not succumbing to the bribes of the federal government and New Hampshire's belief that every adult can make his or her own choices in life.

I love the sentiment, but I'm not sure I agree in this case. It's entirely possible that not wearing your seatbelt puts unfair pressure on other people, such as your medical bills when your dumb ass gets catapulted out of your car (not a common scenario, I know). If there was some kind of reasonable conclusion about that (and there very well may be, I'm just not aware of it) I'd be unequivocally for what they did.

But the better example of this is something like the drinking age or drug laws. I don't know anyone who thinks that the drinking age is sensible, but somehow it remains unchanged. And our drug laws are just insane, but now isn't the time for that story. I think we'd be much better served if these things were actually up to the states, instead of this crazy federalism run amok that we currently have.

And then we get into the even crazier paternalistic tendencies we're developing. We've outlawed internet gambling, for crying out loud. Our government thinks that you shouldn't be able to spend your own money playing a game online. It makes as much sense for them to outlaw World of Warcraft.

That's just one example though, for some reason we're being increasingly regulated, and decisions that the government has no damn part in are being made for us by them. I don't want to sound like one of those crazy anarchists who blame "THE GOVERNMENT" for everything, but I think we're moving in a bad direction when it comes to personal choice and personal responsibility. A person should be free to make their own choices regarding themselves, their life, and their body, but many legitimate choices are off limits for incomprehensible or impossibly flimsy reasons. I think the best example of this is drugs (both recreational and prescription), but there are tons more (namely any vice, we love regulating so much that I think regulating vice has become its own vice, I wouldn't be surprised if some people get off by restricting other people's ability to get off).

I've mentioned this before, that I'm not entirely sure if this is truly a crucial time in our history or if it just appears that way to me. After all, pretty much everything I believe in is being systematically ignored or trampled on. Time will tell, I suppose.

Obscene toys

Here's a pretty insane story about a Lingerie shop being raided for selling sex toys. Apparently it can be illegal, (which is absurd), and the law is so convoluted that it sounds like simply calling something a "sex toy" makes it illegal (which is even more absurd). But the winner was this quote by the Lubbock Assistant DA:

"What’s considered obscene in LA is different than Lubbock and different than Des Moines. The community ultimately decides what is obscene" says Grace.

He says obscenity laws have been on the books as long as they`ve had books as a way of protecting the community from what he calls the secondary effects of obscenity which are child pornography, money laundering and prostitution.

How on earth could someone say that obscenity will lead to child pornography? That's just crazy! But it's the kind of crazy you come to expect from the South.

I hope that the woman who works at the lingerie shop isn't labeled a sex offender for selling some stupid "obscene" toys, but given that she's in a state more concerned with what people do in the bedroom than, oh I don't know, the welfare of their constituents, she probably will be.

Hooray police state!

Every time I read a story like this I get more depressed about the state of this nation, and more convinced that we're headed down a very, very bad path.

Not that it is particularly bad, but even a cursory review finds that we are drifting inexorably into a police state, a nanny-state, and that's somewhere we don't want to go. I hope I'm wrong, and I hope we're not going to end up being a nation afraid of those who protect us, where the people have no power over their "protectors", but that appears to be where we're going.

I love hypocrisy!

Check out some neocon drug-war hypocrisy here.

Religious Discrimination

Via Reason, Newt Gingrich, speaking at Falwell's aptly misnamed Liberty University, drops this incredible bomb:

"Basic fairness demands that religious beliefs deserve a chance to be heard.... It is wrong to single out those who believe in God for discrimination. Yet, today, it is impossible to miss the discrimination against religious believers."

First, religious beliefs don't deserve to be heard. All religious people instantly dismiss all other religions; they only want fairness when it comes to other people respecting theirs. Second, who is discriminating against religious believers? Ronald Bailey gets it right when he says:

Discrimination against religious believers in the United States? Give me a break! "Discrimination" in country in which a Newsweek poll on March 31st found that 91 percent of Americans say they believe in the Big Guy in the Sky and 82 percent say that they are Christians? The good news is that only 26 percent think that an atheist can't be a moral person.

Remember folks, there's currently one open atheist in the entire House, and as soon as he announced his atheism there were calls for him to be removed. The rank hypocrisy of these people is simply astounding. But it's nothing new, and it's not even surprising. How sad of a testament to the state of our nation is that?

The case for staying in Iraq

I plan to make a coherent, logical, factual case for why pulling out of Iraq is a bad idea. This is not the argument of some fringe Bush-loving lunatic, it’s the academic argument for keeping troops in Iraq. It comes to me second-hand from Larry Diamond, who served on the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.

The main point can be summed up in one word, “Somalia”. The problem with withdrawing the troops is the same problem we had back then, that the country would destabilize and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people would die. (As an aside, the same characters who are refusing to “cut and run” now wanted to back then, and vice-versa. It appears that politicians only want to get out of wars the other side started.) Somalia is the only place in the world (besides Antarctica) that has no government. It is in a perpetual state of civil war. 25% of children don’t see the ripe old age of five. It is hell. If we leave Iraq now, it will end up like Somalia.

Look at it this way, if we leave Iraq, we’ll create another Darfur (we didn’t actually make Darfur into what it is now, but the situation there would be very similar to the one in Iraq). The same thing will happen, with one ethnic group massacring the other. If we pull out, without any kind of stabilizing force in our place, the Mahdi Army (the Shiite militias run by Sadr) will sweep into Baghdad and kill all the Sunnis. That’s five million people, nearly another Holocaust. Every day I see T-shirts and fliers saying “Help Darfur!” The very same people would almost certainly want to pull out of Iraq and condemn all those people to death; they want us to be responsible for another Holocaust.

Beyond the fact that five million people would die, the country would have no stabilizing force. It could quite easily start a regional war. It wouldn’t take much for Iran to go in. If the Muslim countries starting fighting each other, there’s a decent chance that Israel could fly off the handle and get into the fight (it’s happened for less). This situation is more speculative, but it’s definitely possible that pulling out right now would lead to a Middle-East brawl. No one wants that.

I understand that no one wants to be there. It seems pointless. It seems stupid. And it was. We overthrew a stable government for no good reason, which is completely and totally stupid. Our leaders were incompetent, we took many missteps, most of which trace back to Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, or Bremer. We shouldn’t be there because we never should have invaded. But we can’t leave now, not yet. There’s still too much at stake, and we have to wait until there’s some form of stable government. I know people will disagree with me, but remember, five million people, innocent people who have done nothing wrong, will likely die if we leave too soon, will die because of our actions. Just remember that when talking about withdrawing from Iraq.

Who polices the police?

Via Radley Balko comes the shocking news that a Connecticut police officer who put a gun to a woman's head and pulled the trigger has been reinstated.

According to court documents, the woman contacted Windsor Locks police April 1, 2004, and told them that on March 27 Adams held an unloaded Desert Eagle semiautomatic pistol to her head and pulled the trigger.

The woman told police she met Adams in mid-2003 and they had a nine-month affair. According to the arrest warrant, the woman said that on March 26, 2004, a friend accidentally called Adams' wife, whose number was stored in the woman's cellphone. The woman then received a return call from Adams' wife and hung up, according to the warrant. Adams then called the woman himself a few moments later in a rage, the warrant said.

Adams made that call while he was on patrol duty, police said.

According to the warrant, Adams and the woman made arrangements to meet at his home in Windsor Locks on March 27, 2004, where the incident allegedly occurred. Adams was subsequently arrested and charged.

And now this guy is being rehired. While he's on trial for disorderly conduct, second-degree harassment and coercion. He put a gun to a woman's head, and he's being rehired.

Does anyone else think that's insane? This guy obviously has some stability problems if he pulls a stunt like that, and he's being given the powers of a police officer?

We need police reform. Badly. Just click on the first link in this post, and there are a half-dozen other incidents like this. They happen so often that they don't get even get reported. SWAT teams regularly break into the wrong houses, police regularly abuse their power. It seems that many have forgotten "Protect and Serve".

I know that not all officers are bad people, and that most of them aren't. But the current state of affairs breeds corruption, just like it did during Prohibition Mark I.

And look what just showed up in my feed reader, Code Inspectors" Target Wrong House, Cop Shoots Dog, Hits Mom, Daughter. Apparently police officers are pretending to be "code inspectors", and this guy shot a dog he thought was a fleeing perp and fragments hit a mother and daughter. He was at the wrong address.

How many people have to die like Katheryn Johnston before we demand reform?

(And yes, I have used this title before, but I still want to know who polices the police.)

Three GOP Candidates Deny Evolution

Three GOP candidates deny evolution. The actual words used were "don't believe", but since evolution is scientifically proven (as proven as anything can be science), you deny it. You don't believe your daughter when she tells you that she didn't draw on the wall with crayons (to borrow from Douglas Adams), but you deny something that's scientifically proven.

Frankly, I'm surprised it's only three. I'm not surprised that only three actually do deny it, but that the rest aren't pandering to the idiots in the primaries who also deny evolution. Every single one of the front-runners has changed their positions on issues because of that, I'm shocked that evolution isn't one.

But then again, maybe it's getting to the point where saying that you deny evolution makes you look too stupid for even the GOP. I can only hope.

Rhode Island Controversy

My home state, Rhode Island, seldom makes the news. But it has done so twice in the past five years or so over the same thing: a scholarship for white males. The first time this happened it was by the College Republicans at Roger Williams University (some five minutes from my house), this time it's the same group at the University of Rhode Island (this time they tacked on "heterosexual" to white male). It was even for the same amount, $100, not even enough to buy my Electromagnetics book.

Pretty much the same thing happened this time as last time, except this got slightly less national press and the university didn't handle it as well. Oh, and no one won it this time. Here's the backlash:

The student senate was not amused, and in February the Student Organizations Advisory and Review Committee demanded that the College Republicans: A) not award the $100 scholarship, B) apologize in writing for having violated the anti-discrimination section of the senate’s bylaws, and C) seek permission from the senate before mounting any programs in the next 12 months. The group cheerfully agreed to A – why not? – and declined to comply with B and C.

In response the Advisory and Review Committee exercised the nuclear option and voted to derecognize the group, in spite of the fact that Robert Carothers, the university’s president, had declared on April 6 that it was unconstitutional to require the College Republicans to “make public statements which are not their own.” (The relevant First Amendment category is “compelled speech.”)

The funny thing about this, and what most sane people usually recognize right away, is that white males are automatically denied many scholarships. Don't believe me? Go to any scholarship search service, and large numbers of them are directly for minorities. Even when I told Fastweb that I'm a white male, I still got tons of minority- or women-only scholarships. All that the college republicans are doing is pointing this out, and showing that when someone discriminates the other way people get angry.

I'll never understand why this matters to those people. This is like when College Republican groups have bake sales and charge more to minorities (reverse affirmative action), they want the backlash, they want it because it shows how intolerant the supposedly tolerant people are.

Honestly, tolerance isn't accepting people with different skin color or sexual orientation; it's accepting people with different ideas. Every decent human being understands that all people are the same when skin or sex is concerned. It doesn't take any kind of feat to accept them; it's much more difficult to accept people with whom you vehemently disagree. (Yes, I'm aware that there is still discrimination against some people in the world. I mean acceptance at an individual level, not at a societal level. We're not even close to acceptance at the societal level for many peoples.)

By pulling these stunts the College Republicans showcase one of the many hypocrisies of our culture. If the liberals who disagree with their positions want to deal with them in a liberal way, then debate their ideas, don't shut them down. I find that far too often that's the reaction to things that liberals don't like to hear (especially on college campuses), and it's more disgusting than some Republican positions.

What do I think about the scholarship itself? They make a good point that there are many scholarships that outright bar white males from applying. But there are two things to keep in mind: First, there are thousands of scholarships available, most of which are open to anyone; Second, it's private money and people are free to do what they want with it. If I wanted to give a bunch of money to college students, I'd pretty much go for those who need it regardless of outer characteristics, but some people feel the need to correct for past and present inequalities based on superficial characteristics. Just as they are free to offer scholarships to one group, so should the College Republicans be free to offer their puny scholarship. As a form of protest against the state of scholarships, I think it's weak. But as a demonstration of how intolerant college liberals are, it's beautiful.

The First Ammendment strikes back

The full text of the essay that got a student arrested (as I talked about here) is below (with expletives erased).

Blood sex and Booze. Drugs Drugs Drugs are fun. Stab, Stab, Stab, S…t…a…b…, poke. "So I had this dream last night where I went into a building, pulled out two P90s and started shooting everyone…, then had sex with the dead bodies. Well, not really, but it would be funny if I did." Umm, yeah, what to wright about…… I'm leaving to join the Marines and I really don't give a [expletive] about my academics, so why does the only class that's complete [expletive], happen to be the only required class…enough said. The model citizen would stay around to vote in new board member to change the 4 years of English policy, but no one really stays around to vote for that kind of local crap, so whoever gets there name on the Ballet with a pretty face gets to do what the [expletive] ever they want with local ordinance. A person is smart, but people are dumb selfish animals. We can't make rules for ourselves so we vote others to do it for us, but we can't even do that right, I meen seriously, Bush for President? And our other option was John Kerry who claimed to parktake in Vietnam Special Forces missions that haven't been declassified…. [expletive]. So Power Flower Super Mario. Pudge, hook, rot, dismember "Fresh Meat." Most new/young teachers are laid back, and cooperative with students as feedback and input into the curriculum and atmosphere. My current English teacher is a control freak intent on setting a gap between herself and her students like a 63 year old white male fortune 500 company CEO, and a illegal immigrant. If CG was a private catholic school, I could understand, but wtf is her problem. And baking brownies and rice crispies does not make up for it, way to try and justify yourself as a good teacher while underhandidly looking for complements on your cooking. No quarrel on you qualifications as a writer, but as a teacher, don't be surprised on inspiring the first cg shooting.

Wow. I can really see why this boy is an imminent threat to his peers. He doesn't like English! He doesn't like his English teacher! He has dreams! Holy shit, lock the bastard up!

Go here for some notes by the author. He has passed the psych exam needed to join the military (Marines), and notes that, "If I'm qualified to defend the country, I believe I'm qualified to attend school."

This was absolutely an overreaction by the school. Hands down, no doubt. They screwed up. They should have talked to him first, and found out what was up with him. Moreover, any teacher who has had a student for that long should have some idea if they were a screwed-up kid who was actually dangerous, and this kid comes off as completely normal. Granted, you can never truly know who's going to do something crazy and stupid, but if you suspect someone might the correct route is not to have them arrested (at least without specific threats).

I hope he takes that school to the cleaners, maybe then educators will finally come to grips with the first amendment.

The terrorists you never hear about

A bomb was found in a Texas abortion clinic's parking lot. There's no information on who did it, but I'm pretty sure it was one of the many anti-abortion terrorist groups. These people, like the anti-animal testing terrorists, are people who use terror to get their way. But we never hear about them. They're right here. They're in our country. They're terrorists. But they're not Islamic fundamentalists, so no one cares. It gets a three paragraph story. Imagine if an Islamic terrorist had been been foiled? It would be all over the news for weeks. But no one will hear about this.

It's just infuriating how out of whack our priorities are.

On SWAT Teams

One of the things that really makes me angry is the overuse of SWAT teams. They will routinely serve minor drug warrants and break up poker games, and you hear terrible stories of them killing family pets for no reason, shoving gun barrels down children's throats, and frequently killing someone on accident. No-knock warrants scare innocent people, and when those people have a gun and think that they're being robbed, police and citizens die.

I think that we need a major overhaul of when SWAT use is acceptable, which should only be high-risk situations (they did a bang-up job in Virginia last week). We also need to reduce the number of no-knock warrants and night raids, so that when the police get bad information or make a mistake (neither of which are too problematic if the follow sane protocol) people don't die.

Radley Balko over at Reason Hit&Run has given me some hope that things might change. The well-publicized case of Kathryn Johnston, who was killed during a botched raid on her home, may bring about actual change. As always, Reason's staff does a better job with the story than I ever could, so check it out.

The first ammendment surrenders

A Chicago high-school student wrote an essay, following his teacher's instructions to be creative, turned it in, and was arrested for disorderly conduct.

Disorderly conduct, which carries a penalty of 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine, is filed for pranks such as pulling a fire alarm or dialing 911. But it can also apply when someone's writings can disturb an individual, [Cary Police Chief] Delelio said.

"The teacher was alarmed and disturbed by the content," he said.

But a civil rights advocate said the teacher's reaction to an essay shouldn't make it a crime.

"One of the elements is that some sort of disorder or disruption is created," said Ed Yohnka, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. "When something is done in private—when a paper is handed in to a teacher—there isn't a disruption."

Experts say the charge against Lee is troubling because it was over an essay that even police say contained no direct threats against anyone at the school. However, Virginia Tech's actions toward Cho came under heavy scrutiny after the killings because of the "disturbing" plays and essays teachers say he had written for classes.

Simmie Baer, an attorney with the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University, called the Cary incident an example of zero-tolerance policies gone awry. Children, she said, are not as sophisticated as adults and often show emotion through writing or pictures, which is what teachers should want because it is a safe outlet.

This is absurd. I could see the school taking some kind of disciplinary action against him (which may or may not be justifiable), but arresting him? If creative writing doesn't fall under the first amendment, then what does?

I hope the kid gets a good lawyer and sues the crap out of that school and that police department. I hope that every idiot involved with this decision is fired and never works again. I hope that every administrator learns that you can't inhibit free speech when it's not threatening anyone. But that won't happen.

The kid will probably get off, but the idiots who put him through this won't learn their lesson or get their comeuppance. There's no justice in the world.

[Edit: Several people have asked, so I thought I'd mention that I have no idea what the essay specifically said. All I know is that it was violent (or scary) enough to make the administrators think that arresting him was a good idea, and that it contained no specific threats against any individual. But I do know that instead of discussing the matter with the student they sent policemen to his house to arrest him, which is ridiculous and irresponsible.]

[Edit 2: A reader gave me a link to an updated story that includes some of the actual essay. Here are some parts:

[First assistant state's attorney] Carroll said the complaint against Lee quotes his essay as saying: "Blood, sex and booze. Drugs, drugs, drugs are fun. Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, s ... t ... a ... b ..., puke. So I had this dream last night where I went into a building, pulled out two P90s and started shooting everyone, then had sex with the dead bodies. Well, not really, but it would be funny if I did."

According to Carroll, another passage said, "as a teacher, don't be surprised on inspiring the first CG shooting."

Lee said he was "just following the assignment." Asked if the Virginia Tech massacre had anything to do with the content of his essay, Lee said: "I had no influences outside the class."

Lee's essay, written in class Monday, also refers to lyrics from a song by the band Green Day and violent images from a Super Mario Bros. video game, according to Jamie Emling, a close friend of Lee's who is in the same creative-writing class.

Emling is scheduled to begin Marine boot camp with Lee in October. He said he has talked to his friend several times since the arrest, Emling said.

"He wrote about the dream of killing with P90s, which is a sci-fi gun from the show 'Stargate,'" Emling said. "It's a really cool gun. Top-loaded. And it's in 'GoldenEye,' the Nintendo 64 James Bond game."

The new article also quotes the teacher as saying "Don't censor yourselves." Sounds like she meant "Don't censor yourselves unless what you have to say is somewhat violent."

Now that we have this I think that I'm even less sympathetic with the school. Why didn't they just go talk to him? He probably doesn't even have access to weapons and he clearly wrote "I had a dream..." I don't know about other people, but I've had dreams that involve shooting before, better arrest me before I go on a shooting rampage! Ridiculous.]

Oklahoma declares watermelon state vegetable

As if we needed any more proof that politicians are idiots. Oklahoma has named watermelon its State Vegetable.

OKLAHOMA CITY Oklahoma already has the strawberry as its official fruit, so the state Senate cleared the way Tuesday to declare the watermelon the state vegetable.

The measure was introduced in the House by Democratic Rep. Joe Dorman of Rush Springs, site of an annual watermelon festival in August.

Sen. Don Barrington, R-Lawton, sponsored the bill in the Senate.

"The controversy on whether watermelon is a fruit or vegetable has been officially decided by the Oklahoma Legislature," Barrington said. He said watermelon comes from the cucumber and gourd families, which are classified as vegetables.

I like that this Barrington character thinks science is up for vote. Sorry buddy, that’s not how it works. The botanists say that watermelon is a fruit. In fact, it’s a special kind of fruit called a pepo (or more technically an epigynous, or false, berry). In fact, contrary to what mister Barrington claims, cucumbers and gourds are indeed fruits.

A fruit is the ripened ovary (seeds included) of a flowering plant, while a vegetable is pretty much any part of a plant that you eat that’s not sweet (or a nut, grain, herb, or spice). Things (like cucumbers and tomatoes) can be both, since one is technical and the other traditional (which is why asking “Is it a fruit or a vegetable?” is fairly meaningless).

Because the word vegetable isn’t precise, but generally doesn’t include sweet fruits, classifying a watermelon as a vegetable is pretty dumb. But hey, non-technical words can mean pretty much whatever people want, so Oklahoma can say that they’ve expanded the meaning of vegetable to include any part of a plant that we eat, but they can’t say that they’ve settled the matter and watermelon isn’t a fruit. That’s just stupid.

Am I just young?

I can hardly read the news any more because it makes me so angry. I see SWAT teams serving minor drug warrants, getting the house wrong, and killing someone. I see nearly one out of every hundred Americans in prison, most for ingesting a substance the government doesn't think they should ingest. I see an absurd imbalance between how the law is applied to different races. I see loving people who are unable to marry because, for some inexplicable reason, other people don't want them to. I see a $200 billion dollar deficit in the budget declared a win. I see an insane war in a far-off country started for no reason, fought for no reason, and continuing for no reason. I see politicians with no ideas, the same ideas, and bad ideas. I see a country that can't continue existing like it has been, because it will collapse under its own weight.

But I'm not dumb. I know that people have always thought that the present is different than, more urgent than the past. And I know that young people (more or less) always feel cheated, always hate those in power, always rebel against it.

For the past few weeks I've been wondering if I should be so pissed off. I'm never going to stop caring about the injustices in the world, but I can't help thinking that maybe the present isn't so different, isn't so special. I feel like it is, but I have no perspective. I wasn't even old enough to vote in 2004, how can I know what people my age felt like in the past?

So I'm asking those who are older, those who have seen more, read more, heard more, and experienced more than I, should I be so pissed off? Is this hour somehow different from the last? Is there cause to worry that we may soon pass the point of no return on the descent into our self-destruction? Or am I just an uppity young man discovering the ugliness and absurdity of the world for the first time, and finding its taste too bitter?

I'm not asking whether or not I should pay attention and get involved, there's little choice in that matter. But I must know, should I get so angry, or is it just my youth?

Why Free Speech is Necessary

I got a bit more negative reaction to my recent free-speech post than I was expecting. This is one of those things I find so obvious that I didn't really consider that any thinking person would disagree with me. I realize now that this is not the case, and I will briefly present the rationale behind my stance.

I think that the case against the "total and complete" free speech position that I take is most sensibly voiced by commenter JeNn:

I think you're inflating the importance of freedom of expression. Heck, it's probably because people like you think it's ok that "if they want to make a big effigy of Muhammad and burn it then they should be able to do that too" that Muslim extremists are able to recruit radicals so easily - because they can then justifiably say that Americans are bigoted and disrespectful of the beliefs of other people.

I would argue that freedom of expression is not a right; it's a privilege that's accorded to responsible and mature people who will not abuse this power to influence others. If you're going to abuse the religious beliefs and cultural identities of others under your right to freedom of expression, you're just going to create discord and make the world a worse place than it already is.

Even if it is a right, it should still be exercised responsibly, with respect and brevity. That's why censorship exists, because they're impressionable people who could easily be influenced negatively and because they're irresponsible people who would use this to their advantage.

In short, I think your stand's too extreme. I'm all for freedom of speech and whatnot, but not if it's going to cause me to turn against my neighbours or create a climate of fear and social instability. Better safe and alive than living in fear under a false distorted notion of freedom.

This is about as well as I've seen it put, so I'm going to argue against this (and more or less only this).

First, the slippery slope. I don't generally like slippery-slope arguments, but here it is totally valid. If my (admittedly ridiculously extreme) example of burning an effigy of Muhammad shouldn't be allowed, where do we draw the line? Am I allowed to call Islam stupid? Am I allowed to condemn radicals? Am I allowed to condemn the moderates who allow the radicals to get away with their radicalism? Am I allowed to criticize Islam at all, on any level? I don't think that there's a clear place to draw the line, and trying to put it at something like "respectful criticism" just won't work, because to many people the only respectful criticism is none. We're seeing this happen in Europe right now, where people are being sent to prison for criticizing Catholicism, and the UN is trying to go the same for Islam (and presumably other religions).

If you put the cutoff somewhere, then what's stopping someone from moving it? If I say "Christianity is full of shit", should I be arrested? What if I say "I believe that Christianity is wrong"? It's the same exact statement, one is just worded provocatively. If I can't use provocative language, then I've effectively been neutered as a writer.

And moving further along the slope, what stops people from banning unpopular but valid opinions? What's stopping the grand arbiters of censorship from declaring the President (or any politician/party/idea) beyond critique? You could try to put careful laws in place, but once you do that you're setting precedent for outlawing more and more speech. What starts as a campaign to keep the mouths of the citizens clean and decent could very, very easily result in stifling dissent. I think everyone can agree that is a very, very bad thing.

Moving past the slippery-slope, we get to "Speech is a privilege, not a right." I can't think of any new way to combat this other than to say, "Says who?" Every document I know of (which I will admit is only the UN Declaration of Rights and the US Bill of Rights) explicitly lists freedom of speech as a universal, unalienable human right. Saying that speech is a privilege is pretty silly when it's so universally regarded as a right.

Moving on to offensive speech. No counting the slippery-slope arguments against restricting offensive speech, I only have one left: No one has the right to not being offended. I'm not certain where this idea came from, but it's flat-out stupid. If I say something that offends you, have you not considered that it might be your problem? If the offensive remark is baseless, then you can dismiss it out of hand, but if the remark has a basis in truth, then perhaps you need to reconsider your beliefs. For example, offensive racial remarks speak loudly about the person saying them. However, offensive religious remarks tend to speak loudly about the religion (or at least that's my view).

People sometimes forget how powerful a tool indignation is. Some of the best, most powerful, and most poignant works are offensive or controversial, and that's precisely why they're so powerful. TV shows like South Park use ridicule as a tool to point out flaws in people and organizations, and it works. Taking that away would kill an entire means of expression and argument, perhaps the most effective one.

JeNn mentioned Islamic extremists being inspired by acts against their religion, and perhaps they are (however, extremism is built into Islam itself, and I very much doubt that the actions of individuals in the west inspire radicals in the Middle-East). But if they are, is that the fault of our speech? Should we kowtow to their demands? Again I refer to South Park, that did a brilliant two-parter on exactly this topic:

Woman: Mr. President, we're awaiting your orders!
Kyle: Sir, just think about what you're doing to free speech!
Cartman: No! Think about the people who could get hurt!
FOX President: Ah... I don't know who to listen to!
Cartman: Okay, I'll make it easy for you. [pulls out a gun and aims it at the president] Pull the Mohammed episode, now!
FOX President: Okay, I'll listen to you. [gets back to the phone] Julie?
Kyle: Noo! Wait! You can't listen to him! He's a lying deceitful monster who only wants Family Guy off the air!
FOX President: But he has a gun.
Kyle: You can't do what he wants just because he's the one threatening you with violence!
Cartman: Shut up, Kyle!
FOX President: I can't be responsible for people getting hurt. Especially me.
Kyle: Yes, people can get hurt. That's how terrorism works. But if you give into that, Doug, you're allowing terrorism to work. Do the right thing here.
Cartman: Give the orders to pull the episode, Mr. President!
FOX President: I shouldn't even be in the office still. It's supposed to be half-day Friday.
Woman: Mr. President, thirty seconds to airtime. What do you want us to do?!
Kyle: Do the right thing, Mr. President.
FOX President: How about I allow the episode to air but, just censor out the image of Mohammed again.
Kyle: I wish that was good enough, but if you censor out Mohammed, then soon you'll have to censor out more.
Cartman: No gay speeches, Kyle!
Kyle: If you don't show Mohammed, then you've made a distinction what is okay to poke fun at, and what isn't. Either it's all okay, or none of it is.
Woman: Five seconds, Mr. President! [the programmer J. Walker has his finger hovering on the button]
Kyle: [softly] Do the right thing. Show Mohammed. [Cartman still has his gun on the president] Do. The right. Thing.
Woman: Mr. President, we need a decision now!
FOX President: Family Guy goes on air as planned. Uncensored.

This has been quite long. Perhaps I haven't addressed everything, I probably can't. But I hope that I've convinced some people that free speech is not a privilege, or even just a right, it is a necessity. If you live in society where your speech is restricted in any way, you do not live in a free society. It's just that simple.

Free Speech on Campuses

If you want to get really pissed off about the state of free speech in colleges and universities, read this. I'm definitely a strong believer in "I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." I don't understand how anyone could ever try to limit anyone else's expression in any way (with the obvious exceptions of inciting riots or libel and that kind of thing).

If those students wanted to take a Hezbollah flag and stomp on it then they should be able to. Hell, if they want to make a big effigy of Muhammad and burn it then they should be able to do that too (provided, of course, that they're safe with the fire). And you know what, I have the right to call them idiots, and that's what should be done. It's the same reason that the KKK has the right to hold their rallies, and non-bigots have the right to have counter-rallies with 10 times the participants.

It just makes me so angry that this happens (and it happens all the time), and especially that it happens at the very places that tout themselves as havens for creativity, speech, and discussion. It's just sickening.

Remember, everyone has the right to free speech, whether it's unpopular, bigoted, hateful, or intolerant. If we lose that, then we have nothing.