Marshall McLuhan famously wrote "The medium is the message." I don't know the context. I have one of his books in paperback, somewhere in a box. Over the last 30 years I've picked it up several times and tried to read it, but don't get past a page of two before laying it down semi-permanently. It's that kind of book: that you put ostentaciously on a living room shelf to impress your latest conquest with how intellectual you are. With the passage of the years, it even comes to look like it has been read.
This morning I was thinking about ghosts of television past, and writing a little about them in response to a post in a forum.
Trying to crystalize my perception of what is different about television today, I remembered McLuhan's words.
You know, that's it. Entertainment network TV today is mostly about ... TV. Many of the reality shows that form a red tide over the airwaves are really about us watching them on TV. Instead of actors playing a part and pretending there is no camera watching, so that we the viewers can pretend the same, the cameras and the audience have become part of the show.
More and more, actors are personalities, and we see a drama or comedy in order to see performers we know about separately from their performance.
The medium has finally become the message.
I hate that. I hate it when an actor's presence or personality overshadows the play.
More honest today? Maybe. But also more hammy and less honest when everyone is playing to a camera and microphone. IMO.
Hide the cameras, hide the audience. The play is the thing.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Persistent Rummy
Don Rumsfeld was still at it Sunday on the news show circuit, selling his version of history.
To hear him tell it, Muamar Khadaffi was scared stiff by the Iraq invasion, the winkling out of Saddam Hussein from his spidy-hole, and subsequent execution.
Truth to tell, Khadaffi started getting downright domesticated in the 1990s, and after 9/11, acted as an informer on terrorist operations. Before Saddam was winkled out of his spidey-hole, December 13, 2003, the UN had removed sanctions on Libya. And Saddam was not executed until December 30,. 2006.
Everything Don Rumsfeld says is filtered through Republican mesh. He quoted Secretary Gates, who is still a Republican and a holdover from the lame duck years of George W. Bush, and who was making the rounds Sunday as a team with Hillary Clinton. He studiously avoided mention of Clinton. Hear no Democrat, see no Democrat, speak no Democrat. If one is in the room, avert the eyes.
Truth is, another reason for the Iraq invasion was to teach home truths to recalcitrant nations like Iran and North Korea, on the principle that to bully one little kid on the playground bullies all of them. Invading North Korea or Iran would open up a whole new can of worms that might possibly lead to world war, and so Iraq was the weaker target. This is in despite of information the government possessed prior to invasion showing closer al Quaeda connections to Iran than to Iraq.
The problem with all that is that the lesson taught and learned is that said recalcitrant nations need nuclear weapons in self-defense, to discourage future invasion by the United States.
To hear him tell it, Muamar Khadaffi was scared stiff by the Iraq invasion, the winkling out of Saddam Hussein from his spidy-hole, and subsequent execution.
Truth to tell, Khadaffi started getting downright domesticated in the 1990s, and after 9/11, acted as an informer on terrorist operations. Before Saddam was winkled out of his spidey-hole, December 13, 2003, the UN had removed sanctions on Libya. And Saddam was not executed until December 30,. 2006.
Everything Don Rumsfeld says is filtered through Republican mesh. He quoted Secretary Gates, who is still a Republican and a holdover from the lame duck years of George W. Bush, and who was making the rounds Sunday as a team with Hillary Clinton. He studiously avoided mention of Clinton. Hear no Democrat, see no Democrat, speak no Democrat. If one is in the room, avert the eyes.
Truth is, another reason for the Iraq invasion was to teach home truths to recalcitrant nations like Iran and North Korea, on the principle that to bully one little kid on the playground bullies all of them. Invading North Korea or Iran would open up a whole new can of worms that might possibly lead to world war, and so Iraq was the weaker target. This is in despite of information the government possessed prior to invasion showing closer al Quaeda connections to Iran than to Iraq.
The problem with all that is that the lesson taught and learned is that said recalcitrant nations need nuclear weapons in self-defense, to discourage future invasion by the United States.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Bush and Iraq Revisited
Bush supporters fall somewhere between rewriting history or ignoring it as it happens. And then when you get to talking about what happened, you are accused of rewriting history. Here's a little History 101 for Bushaphiles.
Following UN Resolution 1441, UN inspectors combed Iraq finding nothing except some chemical containing rockets that they saw destroyed. Iraq filed a compliance statement in 12000 pages detailing their compliance with Resolution 1441. The UN inspector then said on the record that Iraq had not accounted for some worrysome weapons including anthrax and nerve gas and that while not found, there was no proof it was destroyed.
The UN refused to act further. Resolution 1441 was not self-executing, meaning it did not authorize the use of force against Iraq. Ambassador Negroponte (the Bush appointed representative to the UN) himself said it was not self-executing.
Even so, Bush & Blair declared that Resolution 1441 was violated and that the USA and the UK had the right to use force under 1441 without further UN authorization. Which was their justification for invading Iraq.
Now the U.S. claimed, under Bush, to have found traces of chemical substances. The UN concluded years after the invasion that Iraq had destroyed its chemical weaponry back when Clinton was president.
Why was Bush so certain Saddam had WMD? Mainly it all boiled down to a single source, codenamed "Curveball." Curveball's uncorroborated reports were discounted by the Germans who debriefed him.
Not, apparently, by the CIA, who gave Colin Powell data concerning all kinds of non-existent Iraqi activities, some concerning al Quaida training facilities, others including Curveball's reports.
This has been old news for years now. See the New York Times in 2005:
"...The defector's claims were not discredited by the C.I.A. until May 2004, 15 months after they featured prominently in Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's address to the United Nations Security Council that made the case for war.
"Among Curveball's most alarming claims was that Iraq had assembled a fleet of mobile laboratories to manufacture biological weapons without being detected.
"The commission described the episode as a remarkable breakdown in tradecraft and communication, and said it had contributed heavily to the broader failure of American intelligence to learn that Iraq did not in fact possess chemical or biological weapons at the time of the American invasion in March 2003...."
The Germans concluded in 2002 that Curveball was telling lies and so informed the CIA.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9507E7D8173EF93BA35757C0A9639C8B63
Curveball's misstatements were aired on 60 Minutes in 2005. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/06/opinion/main685931.shtml Part of the book Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq Invasion by Ischikoff and Corn, published 2006, had to do with Curveball.
Still the saga continues. The Guardian published a follow-up last month, after Curveball finally confessed to reporters. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/15/curveball-iraqi-fantasist-cia-saddam
So, the whole lethal mess came down to the Bush administration accepting one primary, dubious intelligence source. Was Bush at fault, or was he an unwitting dupe?
I am critical of Bush, because if someone tells me something important, my first inquiry is, "How solid is this information?" Before launching a war and ending the lives of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, Bush should have dug for answers instead of taking a report at face value.
"George [Tenet], jes' how good is this info?" "A single source you say?" "The Germans have got 'im? What do they think about him?" "Well, don't you think we'd better get on the horn and check with German intelligence--or do you want me to call Chancellor Merkel? I like to give her back rubs you know."
That's all it would have taken to derail the invasion. Bush didn't do it.
IMO, Bush had a reason for not digging. He wanted an excuse for invading Iraq, because of the investment opportunities for his friends and in order to clear what he saw as a glaring failure in his father's record (and perhaps as he said, because Saddam tried to kill his dad). And nothing, not a paucity of intelligence, not the fact that he had no legal grounds for war under international law, would stop him.
Following UN Resolution 1441, UN inspectors combed Iraq finding nothing except some chemical containing rockets that they saw destroyed. Iraq filed a compliance statement in 12000 pages detailing their compliance with Resolution 1441. The UN inspector then said on the record that Iraq had not accounted for some worrysome weapons including anthrax and nerve gas and that while not found, there was no proof it was destroyed.
The UN refused to act further. Resolution 1441 was not self-executing, meaning it did not authorize the use of force against Iraq. Ambassador Negroponte (the Bush appointed representative to the UN) himself said it was not self-executing.
Even so, Bush & Blair declared that Resolution 1441 was violated and that the USA and the UK had the right to use force under 1441 without further UN authorization. Which was their justification for invading Iraq.
Now the U.S. claimed, under Bush, to have found traces of chemical substances. The UN concluded years after the invasion that Iraq had destroyed its chemical weaponry back when Clinton was president.
Why was Bush so certain Saddam had WMD? Mainly it all boiled down to a single source, codenamed "Curveball." Curveball's uncorroborated reports were discounted by the Germans who debriefed him.
Not, apparently, by the CIA, who gave Colin Powell data concerning all kinds of non-existent Iraqi activities, some concerning al Quaida training facilities, others including Curveball's reports.
This has been old news for years now. See the New York Times in 2005:
"...The defector's claims were not discredited by the C.I.A. until May 2004, 15 months after they featured prominently in Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's address to the United Nations Security Council that made the case for war.
"Among Curveball's most alarming claims was that Iraq had assembled a fleet of mobile laboratories to manufacture biological weapons without being detected.
"The commission described the episode as a remarkable breakdown in tradecraft and communication, and said it had contributed heavily to the broader failure of American intelligence to learn that Iraq did not in fact possess chemical or biological weapons at the time of the American invasion in March 2003...."
The Germans concluded in 2002 that Curveball was telling lies and so informed the CIA.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9507E7D8173EF93BA35757C0A9639C8B63
Curveball's misstatements were aired on 60 Minutes in 2005. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/06/opinion/main685931.shtml Part of the book Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq Invasion by Ischikoff and Corn, published 2006, had to do with Curveball.
Still the saga continues. The Guardian published a follow-up last month, after Curveball finally confessed to reporters. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/15/curveball-iraqi-fantasist-cia-saddam
So, the whole lethal mess came down to the Bush administration accepting one primary, dubious intelligence source. Was Bush at fault, or was he an unwitting dupe?
I am critical of Bush, because if someone tells me something important, my first inquiry is, "How solid is this information?" Before launching a war and ending the lives of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, Bush should have dug for answers instead of taking a report at face value.
"George [Tenet], jes' how good is this info?" "A single source you say?" "The Germans have got 'im? What do they think about him?" "Well, don't you think we'd better get on the horn and check with German intelligence--or do you want me to call Chancellor Merkel? I like to give her back rubs you know."
That's all it would have taken to derail the invasion. Bush didn't do it.
IMO, Bush had a reason for not digging. He wanted an excuse for invading Iraq, because of the investment opportunities for his friends and in order to clear what he saw as a glaring failure in his father's record (and perhaps as he said, because Saddam tried to kill his dad). And nothing, not a paucity of intelligence, not the fact that he had no legal grounds for war under international law, would stop him.
Excessive Sensitivity to International Opinion
I get accused pretty often of being a bleeding heart liberal. [Wonder why? In my neck of the woods Jesus and the Founding Fathers are considered dyed-in-the-wool conservatives, Republicans before their time. Why can't I be extended the same indulgence?]
Anyway, I got accused of being too sensitive to world opinion of us, of the United States. There is something to this. The poor of the Earth tend to be too critical, too envious of those of us in America and to blame us for all kinds of problems. For example, in ans because of Iraq.
We spent a lot of money and lives trying to help out Iraq, and what do we get? Except for those on our payroll, we are not terribly popular over there. And after all we did for them! Some people! There ought to be statues of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld in town squares all over Iraq.
Yeah, Guess there were some hurt feelings over in Iraq.
We bombed them back to the stone age to the point that 8 years later, the capital city still does not have utilities that are on all the time. Took 2 years to get water and power working part of the time in Bosra, and that is the port city that was first to be liberated. Not our fault. Their infrastructure was antiquated ant not helped any by the years of embargo.
Ten percent of the population of Iraq became refugees, many of who are refugees still. Still not safe to walk or drive around in Bagdad, btw. (Ten percent. Hmmm. That would be equivalent to 30 million Americans. And look at the trouble we had with a few tens of thousands of refugees from hurricanes a few years ago.)
The number of dead is anybody's guess: Iraq Body Count is pretty conservative and tolls about 100,000 non-combatants killed by coalition military action, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ ;
then there was Saddam's military, which had to have taken at least 10,000-20,000 killed and maybe up to 40,000; then there are the insurgent dead who might number anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000;
then there are those who have died because of bad water, sanitation, lack of access to medical services, and undocumented crime, and that is anywhere from 100,000 to a million.
Then there are those who were wounded or permanently maimed. Does anybody try to count them?
[Remember estimates were Clinton's embargo in the 1990s killed 50,000 Iraqis a year from lack of medical supplies. That was another of President Bush's rationales for invading Iraq -- people were dying anyway because of the embargo. After it was shown that Saddam was not running schools for al Quaida terrorists, after it was shown Saddam currently had no weapons of mass destruction, then our reason for invading Iraq was to help the Iraqi people, to spread democracy and capitalism and the American Way.]
No reason to get one's underwear in a wad over casualties. We are all born to die, right? We may have hastened the time and changed the circumstance of death, but we didn't kill anybody who wasn't going to die anyway. So what's the big freekin' problem?
We spent a fortune building a great big American Embassy in Iraq. We had to spend more in order to make it as strong and defensible as a fortress. It sits there, a great gray half empty monument to America. Iraqis ought to have appreciated the tribute to our relationship with their country. But no! (Maybe one day the Iranians will take over that big embassy building, so it won't be a completely wasted effort. Or maybe it could become a bizarre bazaar.)
Them doggone Iraqis are too damn sensitive, ain't they? Get their hair mussed a little and they go all blame-mode, like the little woman who gets teary and upset and punitive because you beat her up a little.
We are the good guys here and we shouldn't forget it, right? We kill for the best of reasons, and if a few hundred thousand Iraqis no longer breathe because of us, well, hell, Saddam would have offed that many in less than 20 years, huh? At least now the Shia in Iraq have about the same or better prospects as those in Iran.
Anyway, I got accused of being too sensitive to world opinion of us, of the United States. There is something to this. The poor of the Earth tend to be too critical, too envious of those of us in America and to blame us for all kinds of problems. For example, in ans because of Iraq.
We spent a lot of money and lives trying to help out Iraq, and what do we get? Except for those on our payroll, we are not terribly popular over there. And after all we did for them! Some people! There ought to be statues of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld in town squares all over Iraq.
Yeah, Guess there were some hurt feelings over in Iraq.
We bombed them back to the stone age to the point that 8 years later, the capital city still does not have utilities that are on all the time. Took 2 years to get water and power working part of the time in Bosra, and that is the port city that was first to be liberated. Not our fault. Their infrastructure was antiquated ant not helped any by the years of embargo.
Ten percent of the population of Iraq became refugees, many of who are refugees still. Still not safe to walk or drive around in Bagdad, btw. (Ten percent. Hmmm. That would be equivalent to 30 million Americans. And look at the trouble we had with a few tens of thousands of refugees from hurricanes a few years ago.)
The number of dead is anybody's guess: Iraq Body Count is pretty conservative and tolls about 100,000 non-combatants killed by coalition military action, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ ;
then there was Saddam's military, which had to have taken at least 10,000-20,000 killed and maybe up to 40,000; then there are the insurgent dead who might number anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000;
then there are those who have died because of bad water, sanitation, lack of access to medical services, and undocumented crime, and that is anywhere from 100,000 to a million.
Then there are those who were wounded or permanently maimed. Does anybody try to count them?
[Remember estimates were Clinton's embargo in the 1990s killed 50,000 Iraqis a year from lack of medical supplies. That was another of President Bush's rationales for invading Iraq -- people were dying anyway because of the embargo. After it was shown that Saddam was not running schools for al Quaida terrorists, after it was shown Saddam currently had no weapons of mass destruction, then our reason for invading Iraq was to help the Iraqi people, to spread democracy and capitalism and the American Way.]
No reason to get one's underwear in a wad over casualties. We are all born to die, right? We may have hastened the time and changed the circumstance of death, but we didn't kill anybody who wasn't going to die anyway. So what's the big freekin' problem?
We spent a fortune building a great big American Embassy in Iraq. We had to spend more in order to make it as strong and defensible as a fortress. It sits there, a great gray half empty monument to America. Iraqis ought to have appreciated the tribute to our relationship with their country. But no! (Maybe one day the Iranians will take over that big embassy building, so it won't be a completely wasted effort. Or maybe it could become a bizarre bazaar.)
Them doggone Iraqis are too damn sensitive, ain't they? Get their hair mussed a little and they go all blame-mode, like the little woman who gets teary and upset and punitive because you beat her up a little.
We are the good guys here and we shouldn't forget it, right? We kill for the best of reasons, and if a few hundred thousand Iraqis no longer breathe because of us, well, hell, Saddam would have offed that many in less than 20 years, huh? At least now the Shia in Iraq have about the same or better prospects as those in Iran.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Rumsfeld's Selective Memory on Coalitions and Leadership
The world according to Rummy: http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/03/23/rumsfeld-libya-coalition-might-be-trouble
Rumsfeld's memory is flawed and selective.
1. Yes, Bush 2's coalition was suited to the Dubya-Dickie task of invading Iraq and ending all vestiges of Saddam's regime. That was because other potential allies wouldn't touch it with a ten mile pole. So it was the USA and Blair's UK and some other anglo-Brits and some insignificant forces and that was it. A coalition by default, enhanced by bribes in the form of foreign aid, that proceeded despite the UN's refusal to authorize invasion.
2. Rummy is one to be talking about advance planning considering the disaster he helped inflict in Iraq. And he actually wanted to invade with a smaller force than was used! And there was NO relevant planning on how to maintain control and to establish order in Iraq. Short term military objectives were achieved stunningly; everything else, the harder task, was chaos.
3. Rummy is as wrong in his pesudo-memory about the influence of Saddam's capture on Khadaffi as Hillary was in her memory about stepping off an airplane into a war zone. Ghadaffi was an ally and informer for the West before the Iraq invasion. Qadaffy started turning in the 1990s and the UN removed sanctions against Libya in 2003, before Saddam was captured. Totally bogus and self serving memory.
Rumsfeld's memory is flawed and selective.
1. Yes, Bush 2's coalition was suited to the Dubya-Dickie task of invading Iraq and ending all vestiges of Saddam's regime. That was because other potential allies wouldn't touch it with a ten mile pole. So it was the USA and Blair's UK and some other anglo-Brits and some insignificant forces and that was it. A coalition by default, enhanced by bribes in the form of foreign aid, that proceeded despite the UN's refusal to authorize invasion.
2. Rummy is one to be talking about advance planning considering the disaster he helped inflict in Iraq. And he actually wanted to invade with a smaller force than was used! And there was NO relevant planning on how to maintain control and to establish order in Iraq. Short term military objectives were achieved stunningly; everything else, the harder task, was chaos.
3. Rummy is as wrong in his pesudo-memory about the influence of Saddam's capture on Khadaffi as Hillary was in her memory about stepping off an airplane into a war zone. Ghadaffi was an ally and informer for the West before the Iraq invasion. Qadaffy started turning in the 1990s and the UN removed sanctions against Libya in 2003, before Saddam was captured. Totally bogus and self serving memory.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
"The Real Owsley," Dead at 76
In an era when bootleg and contraband pharmaceuticals of dubious potency and ingredients are hawked on American streets and threaten the very lives of their users, there was one man whose very name was synonymous with purity. No filler or disagreeable poisons in his products! "This," your host or vendor would say proudly, "is the REAL owsley!"
"If a man bakes a better loaf of bread, or manufactures a better plow or horseshoe, the world," it is said, "will beat a path to his door." And so, even in the shadowy anonymous world of illegal substances, individual reputation and brand trumped the uncertainties and dangers of the marketplace.
One of those universal geniuses, he did much more with his life, which you can read about at http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-owsley-stanley-20110315,0,3733346.story
R.I.P. Owsley Stanley, who, if he didn't do it legally, at least did it well and with respect for his customers.
"If a man bakes a better loaf of bread, or manufactures a better plow or horseshoe, the world," it is said, "will beat a path to his door." And so, even in the shadowy anonymous world of illegal substances, individual reputation and brand trumped the uncertainties and dangers of the marketplace.
One of those universal geniuses, he did much more with his life, which you can read about at http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-owsley-stanley-20110315,0,3733346.story
R.I.P. Owsley Stanley, who, if he didn't do it legally, at least did it well and with respect for his customers.
Monotheism and the Contorted Illogic of Paulinism
Monotheism has a certain appeal. However, the Jewish scriptures, taken overall, are not monotheistic. The commandment is, "you shall have no other gods before me." So there is recognition of other gods. Plus in numerous places there is mention of entities such as angels, which Genesis said interbred with humans to create a superhuman race.
Neither is the God of the Old Testament all-powerful. He sent spies to Sodom and Gomorrah to investigate and come back and report to him. Is that an all-knowing, all-powerful God? And what about the way that the God of the Mountain (El Shaddai) was carried in a cart by the Jewish people? Or the way that God lived in the holy of holies in the Jerusalem temple? Was that an omnipresent God?
Neither was the God of the Old Testament kind, loving, or even ethical. Time and time again, that God commands his people to commit atrocities in his name or does them himself. In the Bible, sublime ethics are interspersed with actions worthy of Moloch or Baal.
Neither is the New Testament monotheistic, with all the demons and angels and Satan. (Remember that "lucifer" was created through a misreading of the Bible, as was the "virgin" prophecy. Then there is the problem of the trinity, which we are assured does not keep Christianity from being a monotheistic religion because "the three are one." Ah, that explains that.
The form of Christianity that has survived (among the several different forms that existed in the first century) is Paulinism. And take a look at the logic of the teachings of Paul--
1. God is perfect
2. God established laws for man to follow
3. Which man couldn't
4. So man, or at least some men (the Bible is unclear on this point, but it is claimed that Abraham and maybe Isaac were "saved" whatever that means before the coming of Jesus by believing in Jesus' coming in the future, of which there is no evidence he was told of said coming) being sinners, were condemned by God, which presumably included all those generations of Jews who thought they were following God's laws and got a harsh surprise!
5. And you have to wonder how an all-knowing, all-powerful God would have estalished rules he/she/it knew would be broken and could then blame the thing created for breaking laws that God knew were not going to be complied with in the first place because of the nature of the creature God created
6. But God, being kind and loving (hah! read the Old Testament!) wanted to "save" mankind
7. But God, even though all-powerful, could not back down and revoke the laws God set in place (why? If God is all-powerful, then why can't God amend his/her/its laws and back down a little? Are God's laws more powerful than God? Isn't that a contradiction?
8. Therefore, God is compelled to follow God's own laws (again, why? God made the laws for humans, so why is God bound to follow them?)
9. And by the laws of God the sinner must die
10. But apparently there is a loophole in this perfect law, and it's okay with God or with the so-called "perfect" laws God set in place if another dies in the place of the sinner (how the heck can anyone buy into this nonsense??? I mean if you discipline your kid for misbehaving, is it okay with you to discipline somebody else in your kids place? If someone is a convicted murderer, is it okay with the DA and judge and society that somebody else jump in and take the punishment instead?? What kind of screwy logic is that???)
11. And so God decided to put a piece of himself on earth to live and die as a man in place of all the sinners alive or dead or who shall live and impregnated a human female who was probably between the ages of 14 and 16, without her prior permission (=rape, God is a confessed sex offender under the laws of the 50 states)
12. And so Jesus died but did not really die (!) because being God as well as man he couldn't die, not really, and this is somehow supposed to "save" that portion of human kind who is confused enough to believe in it! I mean, if Jesus was God then Jesus couldn't die except in a sham way -- and a sham way in which Jesus didn't really die somehow satisfies the requiremens of the perfect law?
13. But the law says the SINNER must die. Jesus they say, did not sin. So how in a blue moon is it possible to satisfy the law by Jesus' fake death? This logical chain is nothing but a collection of broken, unconnected, links.
All this is a twisting of reason and a playing with words. But so many of us never follow it through; we get lost in the pseudo-logic of Romans and Hebrews and we go to church and sleepily follow through the rituals because others do and it is expected of us, because it is easier to do so than to resist.
What do I believe in? That as Socrates (or Plato) said, that the unexamined life is not worth living. Christians --and those of other religions-- do not examine themselves and the religions they profess to believe in. Religion is a form of mass insanity.
Think about what you believe in.
Neither is the God of the Old Testament all-powerful. He sent spies to Sodom and Gomorrah to investigate and come back and report to him. Is that an all-knowing, all-powerful God? And what about the way that the God of the Mountain (El Shaddai) was carried in a cart by the Jewish people? Or the way that God lived in the holy of holies in the Jerusalem temple? Was that an omnipresent God?
Neither was the God of the Old Testament kind, loving, or even ethical. Time and time again, that God commands his people to commit atrocities in his name or does them himself. In the Bible, sublime ethics are interspersed with actions worthy of Moloch or Baal.
Neither is the New Testament monotheistic, with all the demons and angels and Satan. (Remember that "lucifer" was created through a misreading of the Bible, as was the "virgin" prophecy. Then there is the problem of the trinity, which we are assured does not keep Christianity from being a monotheistic religion because "the three are one." Ah, that explains that.
The form of Christianity that has survived (among the several different forms that existed in the first century) is Paulinism. And take a look at the logic of the teachings of Paul--
1. God is perfect
2. God established laws for man to follow
3. Which man couldn't
4. So man, or at least some men (the Bible is unclear on this point, but it is claimed that Abraham and maybe Isaac were "saved" whatever that means before the coming of Jesus by believing in Jesus' coming in the future, of which there is no evidence he was told of said coming) being sinners, were condemned by God, which presumably included all those generations of Jews who thought they were following God's laws and got a harsh surprise!
5. And you have to wonder how an all-knowing, all-powerful God would have estalished rules he/she/it knew would be broken and could then blame the thing created for breaking laws that God knew were not going to be complied with in the first place because of the nature of the creature God created
6. But God, being kind and loving (hah! read the Old Testament!) wanted to "save" mankind
7. But God, even though all-powerful, could not back down and revoke the laws God set in place (why? If God is all-powerful, then why can't God amend his/her/its laws and back down a little? Are God's laws more powerful than God? Isn't that a contradiction?
8. Therefore, God is compelled to follow God's own laws (again, why? God made the laws for humans, so why is God bound to follow them?)
9. And by the laws of God the sinner must die
10. But apparently there is a loophole in this perfect law, and it's okay with God or with the so-called "perfect" laws God set in place if another dies in the place of the sinner (how the heck can anyone buy into this nonsense??? I mean if you discipline your kid for misbehaving, is it okay with you to discipline somebody else in your kids place? If someone is a convicted murderer, is it okay with the DA and judge and society that somebody else jump in and take the punishment instead?? What kind of screwy logic is that???)
11. And so God decided to put a piece of himself on earth to live and die as a man in place of all the sinners alive or dead or who shall live and impregnated a human female who was probably between the ages of 14 and 16, without her prior permission (=rape, God is a confessed sex offender under the laws of the 50 states)
12. And so Jesus died but did not really die (!) because being God as well as man he couldn't die, not really, and this is somehow supposed to "save" that portion of human kind who is confused enough to believe in it! I mean, if Jesus was God then Jesus couldn't die except in a sham way -- and a sham way in which Jesus didn't really die somehow satisfies the requiremens of the perfect law?
13. But the law says the SINNER must die. Jesus they say, did not sin. So how in a blue moon is it possible to satisfy the law by Jesus' fake death? This logical chain is nothing but a collection of broken, unconnected, links.
All this is a twisting of reason and a playing with words. But so many of us never follow it through; we get lost in the pseudo-logic of Romans and Hebrews and we go to church and sleepily follow through the rituals because others do and it is expected of us, because it is easier to do so than to resist.
What do I believe in? That as Socrates (or Plato) said, that the unexamined life is not worth living. Christians --and those of other religions-- do not examine themselves and the religions they profess to believe in. Religion is a form of mass insanity.
Think about what you believe in.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
The Book of Job and the Modern Pharisees
The Book of Job has a lot to teach us today. Yes, humility is part of the lesson, but I'd put it in a different way.
The story of Job is this: Job was a pious and upright man, blameless before God, but misfortunes befell him anyway; and then an assorment of judgmental, hypocritical onlookers began preaching and moralizing that in some way Job deserved his misfortunes.
None of those trying to draw a moral from Job's condition do so adequately. They are all exposed more or less as blowhards.
This was a shift from traditional Jewish thinking. The traditional view was that those who were faithful to God would be rewarded here and now, on earth, not in Sheol or heaven or whatever. That if you obeyed the law and sacrificed as prescribed, then you would be rewarded with if not wealth, then a reasonable measure of peace and prosperity.
Which is of course, absurd. Doesn't happen in the real world.
Christians were typically poor and subject to starvation and persecution, and so early Christians could only hope for heavenly rewards, not earthly ones, and to them, the Book of Job was common everyday experience.
Christianity left that behind a long time ago, as it became associated with wealth and power.
The smugness of self-satisfied phariseeism is with us today in the doctrines of many churches and the quick judgments of believers. In American churches today, there are so many who moralize about poverty or failure being self-deserved, the result of ungodliness or moral flaw. Who believe and preach that wealth is a measure of spiritual achievement. That if you are a good Christian, you will prosper. Just read the newspaper comments to articles about the homeless.
This is why the Book of Job is so relevant today. Time and chance happeneth to all. Sickness, business failure, divorce, all kinds of personal tragedies happen without any necessary connection to one's faith or relationship to God. And no one should have the hubris to preach or moralize over the misfortunes of another. "There but for the grace of God go I."
In my opinion, Job and Ecclesiastes are the two modern books of the Old Testament. They are works of philosophy, not law or prophecy.
The story of Job is this: Job was a pious and upright man, blameless before God, but misfortunes befell him anyway; and then an assorment of judgmental, hypocritical onlookers began preaching and moralizing that in some way Job deserved his misfortunes.
None of those trying to draw a moral from Job's condition do so adequately. They are all exposed more or less as blowhards.
This was a shift from traditional Jewish thinking. The traditional view was that those who were faithful to God would be rewarded here and now, on earth, not in Sheol or heaven or whatever. That if you obeyed the law and sacrificed as prescribed, then you would be rewarded with if not wealth, then a reasonable measure of peace and prosperity.
Which is of course, absurd. Doesn't happen in the real world.
Christians were typically poor and subject to starvation and persecution, and so early Christians could only hope for heavenly rewards, not earthly ones, and to them, the Book of Job was common everyday experience.
Christianity left that behind a long time ago, as it became associated with wealth and power.
The smugness of self-satisfied phariseeism is with us today in the doctrines of many churches and the quick judgments of believers. In American churches today, there are so many who moralize about poverty or failure being self-deserved, the result of ungodliness or moral flaw. Who believe and preach that wealth is a measure of spiritual achievement. That if you are a good Christian, you will prosper. Just read the newspaper comments to articles about the homeless.
This is why the Book of Job is so relevant today. Time and chance happeneth to all. Sickness, business failure, divorce, all kinds of personal tragedies happen without any necessary connection to one's faith or relationship to God. And no one should have the hubris to preach or moralize over the misfortunes of another. "There but for the grace of God go I."
In my opinion, Job and Ecclesiastes are the two modern books of the Old Testament. They are works of philosophy, not law or prophecy.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
2012 Insanity, Installment (n+1)
Crazier and crazier, and I'm trying to be a gentleman and leave Palin out of it. There is Romney who ignores the socialist teachings of Mormonism in order to embrace Ayn Randian capitalism. There is Huckabee, who in an interview discoursed at length on President Obama's psychology, on Obama's growing up in Kenya and being influenced by the Mau Mau and so on. Giuliani whose daughter just made the news, an ivy-league student who got arrested for shoplifting. And now ... now there's the Grinch.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20041100-503544.html Newt Gingrich says his "not appropriate" behavior stemmed from his passion for America.
Soooo, he wanted to get it on with Lady Liberty but found her a little...cold, and marble-like? And so he went for ever younger flesh & blood chicks?
I have this mental image of Newt and his love making out under an 8' X 12" American flag. "This is not for our pleasure," he says, "This is for the good of the Party and the Nation. I am screwing around out of patriotism."
So there he was, a guy who married his high school teacher with whom he'd had an affair while he was underage, then when she was in the hospital with cancer informed her he wanted a divorce, in order to marry a younger woman he had already proposed to, then he did the same thing to that wife, in order to marry a still younger chick whom he proposed to while he was still married? And all this came about because of his passion for his country?
Makes sense to me.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20041100-503544.html Newt Gingrich says his "not appropriate" behavior stemmed from his passion for America.
Soooo, he wanted to get it on with Lady Liberty but found her a little...cold, and marble-like? And so he went for ever younger flesh & blood chicks?
I have this mental image of Newt and his love making out under an 8' X 12" American flag. "This is not for our pleasure," he says, "This is for the good of the Party and the Nation. I am screwing around out of patriotism."
So there he was, a guy who married his high school teacher with whom he'd had an affair while he was underage, then when she was in the hospital with cancer informed her he wanted a divorce, in order to marry a younger woman he had already proposed to, then he did the same thing to that wife, in order to marry a still younger chick whom he proposed to while he was still married? And all this came about because of his passion for his country?
Makes sense to me.
Chance, Free Will, and God
[The following is my response in a thread about same-sex marriage. I said something about God creating us as we are, then another poster brought up the idea that God created us with free will in order to give us a moral choice, etc.]
...quite right. What the government accepts as "marriage" does not have to conform to how religious groups use the term.
Which is the way it is right now. For example, if you are Catholic, and divorced without jumping through the hoops and paying (=bribing) the Vatican to have your marriage annulled by the church, then when you remarry, that marriage is not recognized as a marriage. You are living in sin just as you would be if you cohabited without beng married. The state recognizes your remarriage, but the Catholic Church does not. Strictly speaking, you are not entitled to the sacraments if you do this.
[The Catholic Church is not going to refuse your tithes if you are living in sin
, and they probably will look the other way if you don't flaunt it in their faces. So basically, Catholic parishioners and priests practice a kind of "don't ask, don't tell" policy outside of confessional. As the Church does with priests in sexual relationships in Africa; the church needs priests, priests need sex, so the Church looks the other way, as it did for eons. (You didn't think that priestly, or popely, celibacy was a strict rule, did you? Remember that after the decline of Rome, there were two thriving industries in Rome, the Church and prostitution. Choice of male, female, or child prostitutes of course. "We cater to all specialties.")]
Free choice. Thousands of gallons of ink have been spilled over how a perfect creator could create an imperfect thing. Which is stupid, because to the idealist, imperfection is all around us and not only in humankind. The dodge that theologians have employed to get around that logical dilemma is to say that God created man with free choice. But it's just a dodge, a verbal escape hatch, a cheat.
Because, you see, in theory there is no such thing as chance or free will.
When a gambler at Vegas blows on the dice and hurls them away, is it chance that dictates what numbers will come up? Of course not. If you could measure all the vectors and the forces involved and had a good enough computer, you could predict the result of the roll as soon as the dice left the gambler's hand. You would need perfect information and a perfect computer.
What we think of as "chance" is nothing of the sort. It is just a way of saying, "My ruler and protractor are not accurate enough, and I am not smart enough or fast enough to calculate what will happen before it happens, so instead I treat it statistically, and pretend it all happens by chance, which it doesn't.
According to theology, God has perfect knowledge. Is omnipresent and omniscient. Which means that God, assuming there is such a thing, could predict the roll of the dice. Even before the gambler took the dice in hand. Because God would have knowledge of the neurons buzzing away in the gambler's head and muscles. God would know what the gambler was going to do before the gambler did, would know exactly what force vectors were going to be involved in the roll of the dice.
So, if you posit perfect knowledge and perfect calculation -- God, if you will -- there is no such thing as chance or free will. God, with the qualities theologians give Her, even bypassess Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which is the only scientific basis for supposing there is anything like chance or free will.
So from the moment God created a human being, God would have kown exactly what that human being would do each and every minute of it's life, and what it's offspring would do a hundred generations hence. Assuming God is omniscient. All-knowing, all-powerful.
Therefore, if God created imperfect man, then God is either not perfect, all-knowing, or all-powerful, or God intentionally created an imperfect being, in which case it is God that broke God's rules and not man.
...quite right. What the government accepts as "marriage" does not have to conform to how religious groups use the term.
Which is the way it is right now. For example, if you are Catholic, and divorced without jumping through the hoops and paying (=bribing) the Vatican to have your marriage annulled by the church, then when you remarry, that marriage is not recognized as a marriage. You are living in sin just as you would be if you cohabited without beng married. The state recognizes your remarriage, but the Catholic Church does not. Strictly speaking, you are not entitled to the sacraments if you do this.
[The Catholic Church is not going to refuse your tithes if you are living in sin
, and they probably will look the other way if you don't flaunt it in their faces. So basically, Catholic parishioners and priests practice a kind of "don't ask, don't tell" policy outside of confessional. As the Church does with priests in sexual relationships in Africa; the church needs priests, priests need sex, so the Church looks the other way, as it did for eons. (You didn't think that priestly, or popely, celibacy was a strict rule, did you? Remember that after the decline of Rome, there were two thriving industries in Rome, the Church and prostitution. Choice of male, female, or child prostitutes of course. "We cater to all specialties.")]Free choice. Thousands of gallons of ink have been spilled over how a perfect creator could create an imperfect thing. Which is stupid, because to the idealist, imperfection is all around us and not only in humankind. The dodge that theologians have employed to get around that logical dilemma is to say that God created man with free choice. But it's just a dodge, a verbal escape hatch, a cheat.
Because, you see, in theory there is no such thing as chance or free will.
When a gambler at Vegas blows on the dice and hurls them away, is it chance that dictates what numbers will come up? Of course not. If you could measure all the vectors and the forces involved and had a good enough computer, you could predict the result of the roll as soon as the dice left the gambler's hand. You would need perfect information and a perfect computer.
What we think of as "chance" is nothing of the sort. It is just a way of saying, "My ruler and protractor are not accurate enough, and I am not smart enough or fast enough to calculate what will happen before it happens, so instead I treat it statistically, and pretend it all happens by chance, which it doesn't.
According to theology, God has perfect knowledge. Is omnipresent and omniscient. Which means that God, assuming there is such a thing, could predict the roll of the dice. Even before the gambler took the dice in hand. Because God would have knowledge of the neurons buzzing away in the gambler's head and muscles. God would know what the gambler was going to do before the gambler did, would know exactly what force vectors were going to be involved in the roll of the dice.
So, if you posit perfect knowledge and perfect calculation -- God, if you will -- there is no such thing as chance or free will. God, with the qualities theologians give Her, even bypassess Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which is the only scientific basis for supposing there is anything like chance or free will.
So from the moment God created a human being, God would have kown exactly what that human being would do each and every minute of it's life, and what it's offspring would do a hundred generations hence. Assuming God is omniscient. All-knowing, all-powerful.
Therefore, if God created imperfect man, then God is either not perfect, all-knowing, or all-powerful, or God intentionally created an imperfect being, in which case it is God that broke God's rules and not man.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Attacking the Messenger As Per GOP Handbook: Target John Holdren
John Holdren is a science/climate change advisor of the Obama Administration. Naturally he, like everyone else having anything to do with global warming and climate change is under attack.
What he is currently under attack for is his opinion expressed 40 years ago that global cooling -- a new ice age, for example -- is a threat to human survival. Which to be precise is a misleading conclusion about what Holdren said all those years ago. Here's my response to an attack on Holdren from the far right.
Always looking for the quick sound bite, huh, Mr. _____?
You got that from Prison Planet. http://www.prisonplanet.com/john-holdren-in-1971-%E2%80%9Cnew-ice-age%E2%80%9D-likely.html
If you'd read farther down, you would see that this guy Holdren was saying even then that the ultimate threat was global heating and not cooling. He thought cooling was the most immediate threat at the time; plainly he was wrong, about that.
What he was really saying is that we thrive in a narrow window of temperature here on earth. Dead right. Cool things down a few degrees and it's a catastrophe. Warm things up a few degrees and it's a catastrophe. What about that do you not understand?
You are trying to manufacture an inconsistency when there wasn't any. You may be okay as a Tea Party spin-doctor, but you get an "F" as a scientist or informed citizen.
Holdren was also wrong about the source of global heating. Then, around 1970, he was expecting more reliance on nuclear power than has been the case.
See, with nuclear power, or thermonuclear, you are creating heat from matter. When you burn fossil fuels -- or non-fossil fuels like wood or peat or dry grass, for example -- you are (1) releasing solar energy that had been stored up as chemical bonds, sometimes for hundreds of milions of years, and (2) releasing CO2, which, when it accumulates in the atmosphere traps heat on the earth's surface and keeps as much heat from radiating out into space. You get a twofer by burning hydrocarbon, capice?
Holdren thought nuclear energy would heat the earth more than the burning of hydrocarbons -- and he might have been right, if nuclear energy were politically acceptable and widespread. In 1970 and before, it looked like most of man's energy would soon come from nuclear reactions. Didn't happen.
Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl and the movie "China Syndrome" and worries about third world nations going nuclear sure cooled down nuclear energy.
What he is currently under attack for is his opinion expressed 40 years ago that global cooling -- a new ice age, for example -- is a threat to human survival. Which to be precise is a misleading conclusion about what Holdren said all those years ago. Here's my response to an attack on Holdren from the far right.
Always looking for the quick sound bite, huh, Mr. _____?
You got that from Prison Planet. http://www.prisonplanet.com/john-holdren-in-1971-%E2%80%9Cnew-ice-age%E2%80%9D-likely.html
If you'd read farther down, you would see that this guy Holdren was saying even then that the ultimate threat was global heating and not cooling. He thought cooling was the most immediate threat at the time; plainly he was wrong, about that.
What he was really saying is that we thrive in a narrow window of temperature here on earth. Dead right. Cool things down a few degrees and it's a catastrophe. Warm things up a few degrees and it's a catastrophe. What about that do you not understand?
You are trying to manufacture an inconsistency when there wasn't any. You may be okay as a Tea Party spin-doctor, but you get an "F" as a scientist or informed citizen.
Holdren was also wrong about the source of global heating. Then, around 1970, he was expecting more reliance on nuclear power than has been the case.
See, with nuclear power, or thermonuclear, you are creating heat from matter. When you burn fossil fuels -- or non-fossil fuels like wood or peat or dry grass, for example -- you are (1) releasing solar energy that had been stored up as chemical bonds, sometimes for hundreds of milions of years, and (2) releasing CO2, which, when it accumulates in the atmosphere traps heat on the earth's surface and keeps as much heat from radiating out into space. You get a twofer by burning hydrocarbon, capice?
Holdren thought nuclear energy would heat the earth more than the burning of hydrocarbons -- and he might have been right, if nuclear energy were politically acceptable and widespread. In 1970 and before, it looked like most of man's energy would soon come from nuclear reactions. Didn't happen.
Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl and the movie "China Syndrome" and worries about third world nations going nuclear sure cooled down nuclear energy.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Gomes
The Rev. Peter Gomes has died. He walked a long path in his life, most recently from conservatice Republicanism to the Democratic Party and his own crusade against homophobia and intolerance.
From today's New York Times obituary at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/us/02gomes.html?src=twrhp, quote:
“I now have an unambiguous vocation — a mission — to address the religious causes and roots of homophobia,” he told The Washington Post months later. “I will devote the rest of my life to addressing the ‘religious case’ against gays.”
He was true to his word. His sermons and lectures, always well attended, were packed in Cambridge and around the country as he embarked on a campaign to rebut literal and fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible. He also wrote extensively on intolerance.
“Religious fundamentalism is dangerous because it cannot accept ambiguity and diversity and is therefore inherently intolerant,” he declared in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times in 1992. “Such intolerance, in the name of virtue, is ruthless and uses political power to destroy what it cannot convert.”
From today's New York Times obituary at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/us/02gomes.html?src=twrhp, quote:
“I now have an unambiguous vocation — a mission — to address the religious causes and roots of homophobia,” he told The Washington Post months later. “I will devote the rest of my life to addressing the ‘religious case’ against gays.”
He was true to his word. His sermons and lectures, always well attended, were packed in Cambridge and around the country as he embarked on a campaign to rebut literal and fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible. He also wrote extensively on intolerance.
“Religious fundamentalism is dangerous because it cannot accept ambiguity and diversity and is therefore inherently intolerant,” he declared in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times in 1992. “Such intolerance, in the name of virtue, is ruthless and uses political power to destroy what it cannot convert.”
Wikileaks and World Revolution
To what extent did Wikileaks' exposure of the contents of U.S. diplomatic cables set off the demonstrations that have since occurred? I think there is some relationship, and would be most curious to hear from anyone with an opinion or information.
Did any of the demonstrators read Wikileaks' material? There was a lot there, on Mubarak, Qadaffi, Adbullah and others.
Also. I think Wikileaks had an influence on the stilling of the latest crisis between North and South Korea. Why? How would you feel if you read that your ally and bulwark of strength was anticipating extinguising your regime and merging your country with South Korea? Like a deer in the headlights? Like a dinosaur as the meteor comes down near Yucatan? Shoot, yeah.
The internet is not just a meeting place, or a bulletin board for relaying messages and organizing demonstrations. It's prime function is to allow unrestricted access to information, which is exactly what Wikileaks purports to do.
These demonstrations in North Africa, the Arabian peninsula and the Middle East mainly involve the young. One reason for that is that the young are more into technology and the internet than their elders.
So I see a sequence:
Youth => Internet => Access to Uncensored Information => Demonstrations => Revolution => Change
I do not agree with George W. Bush's boycotting an affair because Julian Assange would speak by teleconference. It is quite possible that Assange has had more of a salutary effect on the world than George Bush did. (I do agree that one is a criminal, however.)
Did any of the demonstrators read Wikileaks' material? There was a lot there, on Mubarak, Qadaffi, Adbullah and others.
Also. I think Wikileaks had an influence on the stilling of the latest crisis between North and South Korea. Why? How would you feel if you read that your ally and bulwark of strength was anticipating extinguising your regime and merging your country with South Korea? Like a deer in the headlights? Like a dinosaur as the meteor comes down near Yucatan? Shoot, yeah.
The internet is not just a meeting place, or a bulletin board for relaying messages and organizing demonstrations. It's prime function is to allow unrestricted access to information, which is exactly what Wikileaks purports to do.
These demonstrations in North Africa, the Arabian peninsula and the Middle East mainly involve the young. One reason for that is that the young are more into technology and the internet than their elders.
So I see a sequence:
Youth => Internet => Access to Uncensored Information => Demonstrations => Revolution => Change
I do not agree with George W. Bush's boycotting an affair because Julian Assange would speak by teleconference. It is quite possible that Assange has had more of a salutary effect on the world than George Bush did. (I do agree that one is a criminal, however.)
Healthcare Act Unconstitutional?
I'm not discussing whether it is or is not here. I am responding to the comment of a slavering dog of a Tea Party goer who is drooling over the possibility that the act will be struck down.
80-90% of federal government activities are unconstitutional. 95% of the federal code and cfr. So what? You want to bring down social security and medicare? Require that war be declared before the president has authority to start mustering an army, navy and AF? Fire all those legions of federal workers and soldiers and see unemployment jump up?
Whether you or I like it or not, all sides including those claiming to practice strict interpretation (such as the arch-hypocrite Scalia), have been "growing" the Constitution to meet modern needs. So it is here. 5 of 9 may see it one way, or another. Who knows?
Now personally, I'd rather see the states enact health insurance programs, like Gov. Romney has done in his state. Reduce the feddies' share of taxes to about 5-10% of the total tax haul by all governments, and let states lead the way in social programs. Supreme court judges like to talk about "the laboratories of the states" in referring to the way states can initiate and experiment in different ways. But what do you think are the chances of all that happening?
As a practical matter, something has to be done to insure that all Americans are covered by some kind of health system. A majority of Americans agree on that much.
What would you suggest? Why are you so enthusiastic at burning our bridges ahead of us by setting up a Supreme Court legal blockade?
[As an academic exercise, consider this in connection with States' Rights and the Xth Amendment and that "laboratory of the states" idea. What would happen if some states had excellent programs in one thing or another? You would see an influx into that state of those benefitting from those programs. States whose programs were austere and ungenerous would lose that segment of population. And this doesn't apply just to welfare for the poor--it also applies to policies to attract and protect the rich. SO! What you would get would be osmosis: a movement across a boundary that eventually works to negate anything a state did that stood out from the herd. Think about it. Some things are necessarily done by the federal government, or they don't get done. Plus there is the matter of treating all U.S. citizens equally, regardless of place of residence.]
80-90% of federal government activities are unconstitutional. 95% of the federal code and cfr. So what? You want to bring down social security and medicare? Require that war be declared before the president has authority to start mustering an army, navy and AF? Fire all those legions of federal workers and soldiers and see unemployment jump up?
Whether you or I like it or not, all sides including those claiming to practice strict interpretation (such as the arch-hypocrite Scalia), have been "growing" the Constitution to meet modern needs. So it is here. 5 of 9 may see it one way, or another. Who knows?
Now personally, I'd rather see the states enact health insurance programs, like Gov. Romney has done in his state. Reduce the feddies' share of taxes to about 5-10% of the total tax haul by all governments, and let states lead the way in social programs. Supreme court judges like to talk about "the laboratories of the states" in referring to the way states can initiate and experiment in different ways. But what do you think are the chances of all that happening?
As a practical matter, something has to be done to insure that all Americans are covered by some kind of health system. A majority of Americans agree on that much.
What would you suggest? Why are you so enthusiastic at burning our bridges ahead of us by setting up a Supreme Court legal blockade?
[As an academic exercise, consider this in connection with States' Rights and the Xth Amendment and that "laboratory of the states" idea. What would happen if some states had excellent programs in one thing or another? You would see an influx into that state of those benefitting from those programs. States whose programs were austere and ungenerous would lose that segment of population. And this doesn't apply just to welfare for the poor--it also applies to policies to attract and protect the rich. SO! What you would get would be osmosis: a movement across a boundary that eventually works to negate anything a state did that stood out from the herd. Think about it. Some things are necessarily done by the federal government, or they don't get done. Plus there is the matter of treating all U.S. citizens equally, regardless of place of residence.]
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