Archives for March 2005

Well, let me put it this way: Some people have been tossing these traffic camera "tickets" straight into the trash for quite a while now…just like some people have been tossing their jury summonses straight into the round file for as long as they can remember. Some people don’t want to be willing accomplices to their own robbery or enslavement. And some people certainly don’t want to help the state be more efficient in its stealing.

Let the state undertake to deliver their traffic tickets and jury summonses by personal service. Can you guess what’d happen if a lot more people did that?

Update: It’s probably a waste of time to point this out to the first commenter, Theodore Craig. Generally, when I hear "if just one ____ is saved…," it’s just time to pack up shop, because you’re not dealing with anyone who’s yet learned the finer points of thinking.

"The statement that the plaintiff is a ‘Dumb Ass,’ even first among ‘Dumb Asses,’ communicates no factual proposition susceptible of proof or refutation."

That may be true, but I’d still say that trial judge Harry Tobias, who refused to toss this case and left that duty to the appellate court, is a Dumb Ass.

There’s a new post up at Greg Swann’s place on the heels of our discussion of the Schiavo case (see here, which leads to all previous post on both sides). I think it’s probably no accident that Greg posted this now, though he doesn’t explicitly implicate Schiavo, et al. It’s an interesting argument, the barest gist of which, is:

The purpose of civilization is to prevent rape, to make the world safe for women and children. To make a world where women are not raped and killed and where children are not stolen and sold and raped and killed. Civilization is the means by which men make the world safe from their worst impulses, and it is remarkably successful.

I encourage you to go read the entire exchange and see the argument in full.

As for myself, count me agnostic. I tend to think that civilization is just as purposeless as human evolution—as is, indeed, existence itself. I believe that purpose applies only to individuals and that such purpose is inherently selfish. To the extent that individuals cooperate on a million different levels with one-another (from romantic love between a man and woman to mega-corporations, and everything in-between), it ultimately goes to a selfish and individual purpose.

So then, why do we have civilization? Well, because we’re smart and rational. We figured things out—like agriculture. Prior to that, you couldn’t have large groups of people inhabiting one spot. They’d all starve to death because all native animal and plant sources would be quickly expended. Agriculture, a human technology, is the very heart of civilization. In short, humans found they could stay in one spot and eat rather than hunt for food and be always on the move. It was selfish individual purpose. It was then possible to invest time and resources in acquiring and improving property and shelter, and all the tools necessary to build and maintain them. Selfish individual purpose. Larger families could be raised and fed. Civility followed for the selfish individual purpose of protecting it all—not just the women and children—but all of it.

If you read Greg’s argument in its entirety, I buy most or all of it—not as an aspect of human civilization, per se—but as an aspect of pre-civilized human evolution. If anything, civilization is in part what allows us to move beyond the confines of our biology and mysticisms that are designed to get us to behave in pre-ordained ways without a lot of explanation.

No, I think that civilization has no intrinsic purpose—but that the state and religious institutions, that grew up around civilization, do. The purpose of both institutions, of course, is to control people. At first, both controlled through violence and threat of violence. Now, it’s just the state (universally) that operates through violence and threat of violence, while most religious institutions (excluding Islam in most places) operate not through direct violence, but through a veiled form of threatened violence aided by limited (curable) mental retardation, brainwashing, lies, deceits, and guilt. Of course, the threat of violence is what God is going to do to you if you don’t subordinate your will to that of the church’s authority.

It’s been a long time since I consulted the figures, and I don’t recall who’s ahead of whom, but in all history of human civilization, there’s hundreds of millions dead over nation-state wars fought over territory, and hundreds of millions dead over religious ideology. Civilization, while being a protector, appears also to be a huge and efficient killer. But, it can afford to kill because it’s so efficient at producing offspring above replacement levels.

So, how does all this relate back to Schiavo? Well, if I get Greg’s idea, civilization is about protecting and preserving life, both at the beginning and at the end, to every extent possible. I agree, but there needs to be limits, definitions, distinctions. First, begin with what life really is. What are its limits? Why is it crucially important to distinguish a fetus from a conscious, thinking being exercising its human volition? Proceed from there.

There is something deeply ironic about the Schiavo case, however. Can you guess? It is religious doctrine that gives both sides of the conflict their necessary premise. The real argument here is nothing more than about who plays God. And this is why religionists will ultimately loose. They have granted the premise that a higher authority can decide when to take a life, for whatever mysterious purpose—you know, like how God murdered those 300,000 people in Southeast Asia on his Son’s birthday—and it need not even make any sense. So if God can see fit to wipe out millions every year in preventable accidents, disease, state tyranny, crime, then can’t a well-meaning family decide when it’s time for a loved-one to go?

But humans are coming to know the fact that they are God, and rather than a slippery slope (because, then , they’ll go and play God, and we can’t have that!), it’s really the dawning of real, universal civilization. Guess why? Because, at his best, God has always been far, far more evil than our worst human beings. Think about it. We’ve always been real-God, and we’ve always been far better than imagined-God, as evidenced by the simple fact of all the human suffering “he’s” caused or allowed to happen in human history. Suffering that dwarfs the evil of men.

We’re so much better. We always have been.

We can be trusted with decisions like Terri Schiavo—or at least those she entrusted with such decisions.

Oh, I know, your store front is always bright and shiny and fast. But become a pay-per-click advertiser and actually log in, and one is suddenly on the absolute most consistently slow, buggy, and intermittently inoperable major commercial website ever. E V E R !

It was like that a year ago, when I first began, and several hundred thousand ad-dollars later, it’s just as bad. And, yes, I’m on a frame relay data circuit.

Too bad Google’s AdWords doesn’t deliver anywhere near the consumer-based traffic at cost that you seem to be able to do, ’cause their web interface is somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 times better than yours, I estimate.

C’mon, for the kind of money we’re paying you (and the service is effective), you ought to be able to put together a decent website that runs a lot faster.

Greg Swann kindly takes time out to reply to my last:

…but my view is that Richard’s take falls apart because consent can only be expressed–or revoked–in real-time, not in advance.

If I understand and am restating it accurately, Greg argues that you cannot rightly hold someone to something they have consented to in advance—if—either they revoke such consent later—or—are in a state where they are unable to affirm or revoke consent later.

Assuming I’ve treated his argument fairly, then I’d have to say that I just don’t agree, in general. The whole point of this exercise is about being in a predicament where one cannot affirm or revoke consent (otherwise moot). What Greg seems to be arguing is that you should not have the moral authority over your own disposition to lay out in explicit terms, that: "If I ever end up incapacitated, cannot communicate, and the mediacal prognosis is for no material improvement, then kill me, no matter what, by any means you choose." I understand Greg’s argument to be that if I were to do that for myself, and were then to end up in such predicament, then it would be morally wrong for someone to carry out my explicit wishes of this sort that had been given in advance.

Greg’s position, to me, implies a restriction on my freedom that I find intolerable. So, regardless of what my firm and steadfast wishes are presently and for as long as I am able to express cogent thought (that I do not ever want to live as a drooling idiot who can’t feed himself, needs his messy diapers changed twice a day, and has no reasonable expectation of recovery); I should have no moral authority to insist upon my disposition now, and that no one else should have the moral authority to carry out such disposition later. If ever I am incapacitated, my sentence is to exist and breath as a drooling idiot without a shred of dignity, regardless of my past accomplishments or heights of splendor attained. My goodness, what an inspiration to me now! No wonder some people find it important to be humbled by the notion of God. This sort of potential future requires one helluva lot of humility, in my book.

…What matters is that, outside of an immediate emergency, it cannot be righteous for one person to kill another without the victim’s consciously expressed consent at the time the killing is to take place. Whatever that person said or wrote down in the past, it is not possible to know what his wishes are now unless they are expressed now.

But this is the whole reason for all of this. If wishes could be expressed, now, then all of this is moot. Moreover, this argument presumes that there are wishes in the present. I don’t believe there are; and I do believe that’s an important distinction.

Here is a very simple metaphor for understanding the entire issue:

"It wasn’t rape, your honor! She consented to sex before she passed out!"

But, this doesn’t work. If she consented to sex, in general, that would be one thing. The presumption is that she meant that she’d be an active participant (i.e., conscious), because that’s what people usually mean. However, what if she explicitly consented (let’s say in writing, and it was notarized), and in fact specified sex from her lover while in a state of unconsciousness…because, uh, I dunno…perhaps one or both get off on it…? Then, next day she catches him with her lesbian lover (because, they all are, after all, a bit kinky), and, well…, hell hath no fury, you know, and, …uh, it was rape!

The fact is, if you’re in for a penny, you’re in for a pound. I fear that Terry Shiavo will lay at the bottom of a vast mound of corpses. And that doesn’t even take into account the millions slaughtered in abortuaries. Mercy, it turns out, is a virtue of insatiable ferocity…

Well, I don’t share Greg’s fear of a slippery slope for practices such as concerns Terri Schiavo, any more than I share it with respect to abortion. I see no evidence whatsoever that any of this is in any way unified. Young women, by and large, get abortions because they are rational and understand their situation. Families turn off life support, and in some cases, kill by withholding nutrients, because they are rational (never moreso, in fact), serious, and they know what’s best for themselves and their loved ones.

In such cases, human beings approach Godhood, because, after all, human beings are God.

Under an entry of the same title, Greg Swann comes forth with an argument that’s counter to mine (here and here) and other similar arguments. Greg knows that I take everything he writes very seriously, as well I do this piece. But, this time, I have to say that I think he’s wrong. To be clear, I don’t think anyone is wrong to prefer that Terri Schiavo remain incapacitated as she’s been for 15 years. I do think it’s wrong, however, for those with the authority and responsibility, to not respect her wishes and to carry them out. Failing explicit knowledge of precisely what her wishes were or would have been in this situation, then I think it’s wrong for anyone to prevent her husband from carrying out his wishes in the matter.

I am stoutly opposed to "sanctioned" violence in any form, with the only exception being where to fail to act with immediate force will result in even greater injury.

That’s a different formulation than the standard non-initiation of force principle I’m familiar with. I confess that I’ve not seen it before, but I think I get it. What this does is deliver the classic principle of not initiating force with the added caveat that you shouldn’t, in “defensive retaliation,” shoot someone dead for running off with your lunch money—believing it righteous, well, because he initiated force—as if any initiation of force, no matter how small or insignificant, justifies up-to-and-including the death penalty against the perpetrator.

But I also think there’s a context problem in Greg’s absolute stand. Can there not be some allowance for intent? What about professional boxing, for example? It’s hard not to describe it as violent, and indeed, the intent is to do real physical harm by means of that violence. Moreover, there’s no potential greater injury by abstaining from boxing—much as that potential for greater injury exists in abstaining from a necessary surgical procedure where significant “precision violence” might be done.

This may be splitting hairs, but if you’re going to use the principle of non-initiation of force to argue against situations where “violence” is being done to someone per their own wishes, then I don’t think it’s obtuse to raise an example such as boxing. There may be other or better examples, but only one need suffice to undercut any claim to absolute authority in this matter.

Greg then raises the abortion issue as perhaps the root justification for the way the Schiavo case has played out. But I don’t think I really need to get into that, much. If indeed it’s the quintessential wedge working against the sort of celebration of human life that ultimately leads to Greg’s Hellenic civilization (which I endorse), then I think we’re all doomed, because abortion is a worldwide practice and I don’t see it changing, until, as I’ve said before, contraception becomes free, effortless (if you catch my drift), and foolproof. I believe that abortion is an inextricable and universal aspect of human culture. It aint never gonna change, so I don’t see any point in fighting against it (not that I would want to, anyway).

First, in the world as libertarians idealize it, there would be no circumstance under which a state could "justly" harm an innocent homo sapiens.

But we don’t live in an idealized libertarian world. In such a world, for many libertarians, the state would not exist as we know it and so this point is moot. Whether or not we exist with the state around our necks, the key identification is not who, but what. That is, if justice is done, I’m less concerned with who has carried it out than I am the fact of the matter. So, as concerns Schiavo, I think we need to first determine if the outcome being sought is a just one. If it is, then it doesn’t matter, really, who enforces it.

Second, in the world as it exists now, if Terri Shiavo’s husband sought to kill her with his own hands, he would certainly be prosecuted for murder by the State of Florida.

Indeed; or, in a libertarian society, someone other than the state might prevent him or punish him after the fact. But if killing Terry Schiavo (and, no, I’m not going to make meaningless distinctions between “killing” and “letting die” in this context) is just, then it doesn’t matter. The state does an injustice by preventing or punishing him.

This establishes the proper libertarian political position in this matter: It’s none of the state’s damn business, not on either side, not at any level of government.

I agree, but the state has asserted its business into the matter, and that’s the reality we’re (unfortunately) dealing with.

Another bogus argument being propagated by seemingly thoughtful people, an advanced symptom of the Communist ploy cited above, is this claim:

No one would want to live in that state.

Why is this specious? Because the words are a canard, a decoy intended to disguise the true claim:

No one who actually is alive in that state would want to live.

This is clearly false to fact, both in the instant case and universally. If you poke Terri Schiavo with a knitting needle–which, unlike giving her water, is probably lawful–she will demonstrate that, to the extent that she is capable of expressing wants, she wants to live. The invalid move in "no one would want to live" is the substitution of a claimed hypothetical desire now, without any risks or consequences, for actual expressed desire later, in the actual imagined future circumstances.

Later, Greg finishes with the statement, “And the victim is not ever a volunteer.” I don’t see how such a blanket statement could be made. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the argument, but this suggest to me that a person’s involuntary recoil, fight-or-flight reflex is somehow equivalent or to be taken with the same weight as their conscious, thoughtful decisions and wishes. I think another simple example serves to invalidate this claim. Try poking someone with a knitting needle who’s just about to blow his own brains out with a gun (if you dare). People commit suicide every day—some for perfectly rational reasons—but they are making a choice as to the time, place, and method. If they recoil because you poke them, I don’t think it’s any evidence that they really want to live. Obviously they don’t.

I can’t claim my experience is universal, because I haven’t spoken with everyone, but I indeed cannot find a single person who’s willing to tell me, unequivocally, that given similar circumstances, their wish now, even remotely, is that they would want to be kept "alive" indefinitely. And if not indefinitely, then how long? No, without exception, every single person I have spoken with would wish to be “let go” (killed) once it was competently determined that no hope existed for anything approaching a productive life.

Given that, and given her husband’s sworn declaration, I believe that Ms. Schiavo’s and her husband’s legitimate wishes—their rights—have been intruded upon and violated for fifteen years. The state, at the engineering of Ms. Schiavo’s parents and other relatives (and, let me say, she never chose any of them; she chose her husband), have perpetuated and prolonged this injustice. While it’s true that it’s none of the state’s business, I can hardly complain if the state is now in the process of marginally undoing an injustice it has been conducting for fifteen years.

…people in Terri Schiavo’s circumstances very clearly do want to live, and it is twice obscene to claim that the allegedly "sanctioned" murder of an innocent homo sapiens is allegedly "justified" by the victim’s alleged past desires.

Why? First, I don’t think it’s at all "clear" that people in her circumstance “want to live.” They have involuntary reflexes, but that’s no evidence at all that they want to live in that circumstance. If they were conscious in the human sense, they would certainly express their desire to live a normal life, but then all this is moot. According to the overwhelming preponderance of medical evidence, Terri Schiavo does not presently want anything, if "wanting" is taken to mean "a conscious act" in the human sense of the word. She’s not conscious in the human sense, for if she were, she would communicate via eye blinking. Given that, it’s not only justified to carry out her past wishes, but it is wrong for those with the authority (her husband) not to see to them. To his credit, he’s been trying to do that for fifteen years.

If you want Terri Schiavo–or your ailing Grandma–dead, then kill her yourself. But call things by their right names. The act is murder. The actor is a murderer. And the victim is not ever a volunteer.

Again, why? If she has the authority as a human being to set out wishes for her own disposition when incapacitated (and why should a human being not be able to do that with the comfort and confidence that those wishes will be carried out?), then what does it matter who carries them out? In fact, if her husband actually did want to carry out these wishes personally, then I’d suspect his motives and would question his declaration. Only if there was no alternative in the world would you expect a spouse to be willing to do such a thing—and even then, it would be rare.

Some people are incapable of killing, dressing, and butchering their own meat (I am, and have done so). They are no less deserving of such spoils if able to have someone else voluntarily do it for them.

I believe that labeling the actors in this scenario “murderers” really dilutes the concept and meaning of actual murder. It’s a killing, to be sure, but we already know that there are categories of justified killing, as well as unjustified killing (manslaughter). These are valuable concepts. Let’s not wipe them out. There’s no malicious intent here—at least not that many, many courts have been able to detect, and I tend to trust their circumspectness in such matters.

I do agree with one implication of Greg’s argument, however, which is that we ought not sugar-coat it. It’s a killing, plain and simple, and when that’s determined to be the proper course of action, it should be done actively, by lethal injection or some such mechanism. That’s how you put a human-check on it—as concerns both those deciding now what they want for themselves in similar circumstances, as well as for the actors who’ll be charged with seeing to it.

There’s a new comment to this previous entry that really deserves to be quoted as an entry of it’s own. Now, I realize that anecdotes can be made up. All I can say is that based upon my own first-hand experience, I have no particular reason to doubt any of this.

I had a rude awakening only yesterday at the hands of the TSA. I have read your comments and could not agree more. I did not feel safe, I felt incredulous ,then I felt intimidated, then angry. Now I am afraid, those that question anything are searched more. They actually try to break things in their search. Any suggestion is met with escalation in intimidation. This is how government power and oppression starts and I am truly fearful, even in writing this. Wow, next time I fly I’ll be stuck 2 hours or more and purposely made to miss my plane. Or better, arrested on some made up charge. I am not sure if it is Bush alone, it is the rest of our elected officials too. I was guilty ,as they are, of mostly taking a private jet everywhere. They have no idea that standing in a security line at BWI just a few miles from the hallowed halls of freedom, they would think they had been transported to an alternate universe where Hitler was still in power and the TSA agents were made up of Hitler youth and the gestapo and TSA were synonymous agencies. I found people, as you said, calmly allowing the constitution to be tossed right out the window. As a doctor, I tried to explain that the line of people in socks standing on a moisture wicking, unsterilizable carpet is a terrific health hazard. I have a planter’s wart on my foot that I did not care to share with others thru my hose. There were several athletic gentlemen on line that I did not want, that their possible foot fungus, was easily transmitted to me thru my walking where they had, as we shuffled along. Then here come the "TSA gorillas", after taking, all be it gloved hands(for the TSA worker’s protection not mine), from some man’s dirty underwear, ready to put her hands thru my toothbrush holder and toiletries.Then to take my underwear and place it in a bin that seconds before had contained a man’s dirty boots and his razor. Even restaurants won’t allow folks in with out at least sandals on. The suggestion that folks could stand on paper towels got me a pat down and extra time, my stating so that other passenger’s could possibly hear, that diabetics’ lives and limbs(literally) could be in danger should they contract infections in their feet was met by an offer stating that if I did not "STOP talking immediately the police would be summoned and I would have my name run." I asked do you think I am a criminal because, as a doctor I am concerned for people’s health. That was too much for this bradyphrenic, power hungry,all American 5 letter word. She had 4 burly officers on the scene immediately. They demanded ID and I was told to not say any thing.

When I asked what the problem was-WOW you would think that they were dealing with a 3 year old. I was never disrespectful, I did not speak louder than a conversational tone,I spoke in what other civilians said was a calm way. I never made any fast moves and yet they got more and more agitated as if they were trying to find some way they could do something else. They went thru every nook and cranny in my bag taking 30min. to do so and having by then 6 officers and TSA folks standing there. I observed and then unfortunately stated that now I was scared and concerned because with all of them involved with this feigned concern over what horrible weapon I could have hidden among the contents of a clearly middle aged women’s personal belongings,there could be terrorists going thru on the other side.

The TSA women now tells the police that I told her "there were terrorists over there" She knew she was lying but had to justify this escalating encounter. The idea that someone had asked questions and others may continue with them ,was unacceptable and had to be squelched at all costs.

Bye Bye, my beloved Hummer H2. Bye bye..any thought of a hybrid in my future. It’s too late for that.

I must have one of these.

First order of business: A drive down Market St. in San Francisco. I have the greatest time when I do that in the Hummer. Just imagine what fun it will be with one of those.

Yippee!

To: Dave, my dear brother:

Since you’re Cc’d, I must assume that you have something to do with this illiterate’s uninvited intrusion into my inbox (see below).

Who is this?

You know, I neither invited nor asked this "person" to read my blog. I’d certainly never invade his private afternoon with such a message to his private mailbox–to him personally–from out of the wild blue yonder–like–who and what the hell is this?

At any rate, if you emailed out a link to my most recent dose of Uncommon Sense, please refrain from including Mr. Richard Shencopp in any further distributions. It appears that he is unable to handle it.

Of course, the foregoing will comprise my next blog entry. I’ll be sure and put Mr. Shencopp’s name in bold.

R

From: Richard Shencopp [[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 6:33 PM
To: Richard Nikoley
Cc: David Nikoley
Subject:

I think you should take your fucking Hummer & attach it to your fucking hangglider [sic] & sail off into the fucking sunset & join John Wayne you dumb-ass pilgrim. Get a fucking clue about being a Mormon, oops, I mean a Moron.

Want proof? Read this article in The New York Observer.

You know what? I don’t think Terry Golway of The New York Observer is an idiot because he doesn’t like the Hummer H2 or other SUVs. His likes and dislikes are his. I also don’t think that Terry Golway of The New York Observer is an idiot because he likes the Toyota Prius and the other hybrids, and the new ones coming out. Hell… I’m seriously interested in the new 270 hp Lexus SUV hybrid myself, and whatever else is coming on line (hybrid SUV-wise) over the next few years. I have no doubt that the hybrid is the future, and even already, the next generation of Lithium-Ion batteries that go into the hybrids will last the life of the car. The price premium will be gone in a few years. The last downsides are going away. There’s no stopping it. And anyway, who’d want to?

No, the reason Terry Golway of The New York Observer is an idiot is because he has no idea what the fuck he’s dealing with. There’s not a single person of his ilk (journalists, environmentalists, bureaucrats) who have a goddamned thing to do with any of this. This is happening because of some really smart people in Silicon Valley who came up with the technology and those in the auto-industry who saw the potential marriage and market, once perfected. In the meantime, fuck-head busybodies like Terry Golway of The New York Observer were busy ejaculating all over themselves alongside fantasies of an electric-car future.

I’ll bet that if I did a little research into Terry Golway of The New York Observer, I’d find that some time ago, he was all over that electric car debacle–either personally or professionally–and so I’d be able to call Terry Golway of The New York Observer and idiot for that, too. You see, the thing that people of his ilk were all about, and had their enviro-silly, bureaucrat bedfellows all over, was the electric car. There was going to be all sorts of mandates, standards, laws, regulations and such shit–and now they’re all a laughing stock. You can’t even give an electric car away. You stupid fucks got completely blindsided by people who actually know what the fuck’s going on and know how to create and produce things. You got blindsided because you’re so damned clueless about any of this.

And if that isn’t enough, you’re too fucking stupid, now, to know how clueless, wrong, blind, and narrow-visioned you were. And you still are. What an unbelievably stupid fuck you are, and those other stoopid fucks who think like you. And you preach to us about our likes and dislikes in a newspaper? Jesus.

And oh, by the way, I’m a proud Hummer owner. That’s right. It’s a vehicle to my liking. Mileage sucks, but I’m not asking you to pay for it, asshole. And screw you anyway…how much of that $60-$70 fill-up is going to taxes (not that I’m "proud" of that, by any means) that you no doubt-in-the-world cream yer britches over at each pump sighting? And, yes, the company took a whopper of a tax write-off last year. Not "proud" of that, either. It’s rather like being in the midst of being mugged and having your assailant suddenly become more interested in someone else, leaving you alone for a while. What are you going to do? You’ll take it. Nuthin’ to be proud of, though.

Here she is, in all her glory, with a hang-glider atop, no less.

(link to article: Beck)