compassionate conservatism indeed 2003.Aug.31 11:50

My problem with conservatism is that the term is misused. Instead of protecting American ideals and traditions, such as the idea that "all men are created equal" and we all have "the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,," conservatism seems to be a synonym for religious intolerance, greed and exploitation, the anti-democratic, un-American establishment of an oligarchy, and the perpetuation of a status quo of inequality.

In other words, forgive me for saying it, but George W Bush is completely full of shit.

(Mirrored at www.saveamericorps.org)

The quote that makes me laugh out loud and which is widely circulating throughout the Internet is this:

...Mr. Bush had told him as president-elect that "I don't understand how poor people think," and appealed to him for help by calling himself "a white Republican guy who doesn't get it, but I'd like to."

If W wins the 2004 election (or more likely, "wins" the 2004 election, with quotes and all), I am skipping the country. Otherwise I'm afraid I'll end up like all those Jews, homosexuals, Slavs, and Catholics who stuck around Nazi Germany.

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religious fanatics 2003.Aug.26 23:16

These guys are just as dangerous as Al Qaeda, if not more so, because they live in this country. Say what you will, but it is entirely this kind of intolerance that drove people to emigrate to what would become the United States, and therefore, by extrapolation, this kind of behavior is entirely un-American. This is the reason why Church and State must be separated.

With this kind of intolerance, how can this country be considered free? What place is there for Taoists and Buddhists, for example?

If there really is a God, he needs to out this judge for the evil that he truly is.

"Roy Moore suggests Sept. 11 link to erosion of religious rights."

Only evil people, people who cling to outdated doctrines, who insist on a rageful God instead of the loving God that most of the civilized world embraces (assuming that they do believe in God. Consider the aforementioned religions above, where there is no shortage of very holy people despite their lack of belief in a Supreme Deity.)

I can tell you that evil people who commit abhorrent acts like the WTC attacks, or who kill abortion doctors, indeed, anyone who kills in the name of God, have no place in a civilized world. These people do not believe in God. They are hypocritical blasphemers. They are the true evil that is destroying our world.

I can't stand it.

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personal responsibility 2003.Aug.24 01:31

OK, I admit it, I didn't read this blog post on Eject! Eject! Eject! (link from popdex.com) in its entirety yet, but I just wanted to comment on my first impressions.

The thing that I have a problem with when a conservative mentions "personal responsibility" is that what they mean tends to be very self-centered. I mean, sure, I've never read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I know that many libertarians have views that relate to this book. And obviously, my personal biases and family upbringing (both my parents are in health care, and I myself am entering the health care field) really do prevent me from believing that abandoning altruism would make things better. Really, as far as I'm concerned, that idea is faulty on purely biological grounds. (We'll get to that later.)

But, seriously, though. If you're advocating personal responsibility, and you consider yourself an intelligent human being with a modicum of efficacy upon the small part of the world around you, then you have to take it further than your own selfish needs. If you really want to be responsible, well, then you have to work to improve the conditions around you. You have to accept responsibility for the current condition of your world. Now, I very acutely recognize that chances are you had nothing to do with how fucked up the world is now (unless you are George W Bush, but that is another rant altogether), but, to my mind, that is what accepting responsibility is. Taking care of things that aren't your fault.

But really, what is commonly termed altruism–social safety nets for the poor and the ill, a focus on rehabilitation rather than criminalization, trying to uphold the Constitution when it comes to cruel and unusual punishment, etc.–is really just trying to keep things in working order so that you can live your life in relative peace. Indirect selfishness. Because, if you are really an intelligent person, you will come to grips with the fact that we are all interrelated in some way. What affects your fellow human being on the other side of the world tends to ripple across to you somehow. This is the unintended consequences of globalization.

Again, health care. For example, I was reading this article in the Chicago Reader about how hepatitis C is running rampant throughout the prison system. Again, unintended consequences. But it's pure epidemiology. A lot of it has to do with the fact that we criminalize drug abuse, rather than treating it as the illness that it really is. It needs to be treated medically, not punitively, in my opinion. So we have all these IV drug abusers who get infected, or maybe they get infected because of being raped in the prison system, and then they don't get treated properly. I mean, this stuff is contagious. It is truly reaching epidemic proportions. So, of course, should these guys get out of jail, or get out on parole, they can very easily infect innocent people. Notably, girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands, wives. And then maybe they do get out. Well, they will have jobs. Food service, for example. (OK, I know that HCV is transmitted hematogenously, but, stranger things have happened in food service.) Guess who else is gonna get sick. All because we tout "personal responsibility" and don't take care of the problem while it's still controllable.

Another example: people are always bitching about welfare. How those lazy bastards should just get a job and we should stop giving them handouts. Well, guess what those "lazy" bastards do when they don't have money to eat. They are going to rob you. They are going to kill you and your family. Because, by taking away the safety net, you have backed them into a corner. Sure, you can imagine that you are secure behind your gates and fences, your security systems and guards, armed with your assault rifles and such, but you know, you are just one man, and there are a lot of poor people, and despite what you think, a lot of them are smart, and a lot of them are leaders. One man with an AK-47 still probably won't be able to take out 1,000 people armed with bats and bricks. Maybe this is alarmist, but, you do recognize that revolution surely happens, that just because you have the technology doesn't mean you are going to be the victor.

Seriously, though. Think about it. Think about how wealth is concentrated. Only a few people have it, and they tend to keep it. Thank God that life really isn't a zero-sum game, because if it was, the Revolution would've happened a long time ago.

The way I look at it, paying taxes are membership dues. This was pointed out to me in high school. Think about it, who needs the police, the fire department, the hospitals, and the schools more? The poor? Surely not. It is the rich who benefit the most, because they have the most at stake. Does a poor person on the street care if their shopping cart catches fire and they lose their personal possesions? Well, sure, but it's only a shopping cart worth of stuff. Now, on the other hand, I'm sure that people like Bill Gates and George W Bush would freak out if their houses caught on fire. So guess who needs the fire department more?

I could go on and on, but I'm sure you get my point. If you're really going to tout personal responsibility, then you've got to take it all the way. Because, seriously, you're right. No one else is going to try to make any of this shit better. You're going to have to do it. And don't be so naieve to think none of this affects you. Because, some day it will.

Hmmm. The L.A. riots. Oklahoma City. Columbine. September 11. Our personal actions have consequences that we cannot foresee. The world is a very complicated place. For us to believe that everything is "somebody else's problem" is just plain stupid.

But back to the biological grounds for altruism. I'm only going to mention the thought experiments by Richard Dawkins based on game theory that shows that altruism is actually a workable strategy by which one can optimize their personal gain. But seriously, think about. When the human race started off, we were not exactly the most robust species out on the savannah. One man, I can tell you, even now, is unlikely to prevail against a lion or a tiger, much less a pack of them. So clearly, what helped us survive is the fact that we are social organisms. On a biological, natural selection level, it is our social structure that allows us to prevail against predators. Without each other, we are just weak, helpless creatures without claws or natural armor, without remarkable speed or impressive dexterity, and we would've gone extinct a long time ago. It's not enough to be smart. You've got to be able to act on your plan, and a lot of times, that requires cooperation of other people. So it's in our nature to help each other out. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. One hand washes the other.

Yeah, I'll go finish the article and read what it really says, but I just wanted to rant and get that off my chest. Because, don't tell me about personal responsibility. As a physician, it's my job, for chrissake. Taking care of problems that I didn't cause. That's what it should mean, but I've never heard a conservative use it in that sense.

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kick all agricultural subsidies 2003.Aug.24 00:55

KICK-AAS, a blog about abolishing agricultural subsidies in developed nations, for the benefit of developing nations. Link from popdex.com.

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the dynamics of race and culture 2003.Aug.18 09:45

I forget exactly how I stumbled onto this piece on Tacitus about MEChA [link goes to the UC Berkeley chapter, Cal being my alma mater], specifically, Cruz Bustamante's membership in MEChA as a college student. Tacitus links his membership to the extreme potentially racist rhetoric ensconced in their founding documents.

Now, I must admit that, as a non-Chicano who grew up in Southern California, I have always been troubled by the phrase "La Raza." It does, indeed, smack of "racial purification." But in the context that I have seen it, it is nothing of the sort.

I have never worked with MEChA directly, although many of my college friends have, and my sister has also worked with them, and while the extremist rhetoric is there (not unlike in many ethnic associations of people of color), this is not the kind of stuff they do.

In a state, in a region, whose majority is, not illegal Mexican immigrants, as conservatives are wont to believe, but Chican@s, many who have been living as Americans, often for generations now, who indeed pay taxes, who vote and serve in the military, it is really disturbing to see how few their numbers are in the University of California system. While I can't source any hard proof that this is deliberate policy making, it at least makes me think that something is horribly wrong with the system, somehow. Something needs to be fixed.

In that regard, what I have seen MEChA do mostly, is high school student outreach. Trying to convince Chican@s to seek higher education at the University level. In some cases, no one in their family has yet achieved this goal. Is there really something wrong with encouraging people to better themselves?

I will not talk about underrepresentation of certain minorities in public universities. Much better minds have had plenty to say about this. All I can tell you is that people of my own ethnic background suffer the same predicament. (Don't succumb to the model-minority myth and think that all Asians are created equal.) So I can see where they are coming from.

Suffice to say, while that extreme rhetoric about secession and armed revolution does exist, often in the extreme conversations that tend to occur after episodes of heavy drinking and pot smoking, given the position we brown people are in, on the scale of power dynamics, can we not have the occasional delusion of grandeur? While I admit, it is probably not the best idea to codify such things into official documents, there is a reason why there is difference when white people say this and when brown people say this. White people have more power than brown people, simple as that. Any attempt to say different is simply not accepting the facts. And when a person who has a perceived power advantage speaks, they tend to get heard over the one who doesn't have the same advantage. So when you are disadvantaged in this regard, sometimes you have to say and do extreme things to get the necessary attention. People simply do not pay attention to people who are not in power, so other tactics are necessary.

I am tempted to misinterpret what Tacitus is saying and mislink it to the idea that he somehow is against Chican@s in the University from encouraging Chic@nos in high school to go to University.

Because, rhetoric aside, this is what MEChA does.

And Tacitus goes on to justify that he is not just a white guy who has no knowledge whatsoever about how a person of color's experience in America is radically different, citing his own heritage. Well, unfortunately, I suppose we are all slaves to our history. If this is his experience, well, this is his experience. I can't gainsay that. But in the same realm, he shouldn't be able to gainsay my own perspective, either.

I feel like that for much of my life, I have been acutely aware of the disadvantage of being a person of color in a world where most of the power belongs to whites. Consider that L.A., where I grew up, is at this point in time a city whose majority are people of color. And still, the power still does not belong to them. Consider that my parents are both skilled professionals, my father a physician, my mother a nurse, and yet, their income levels nowhere correspond to those of white professionals with the same credentials. Consider that I have had racial epithets indeed hurled at me. I have really been told to "go home," and been called a "monkey." By white people. Consider that my mother has been, for the longest time, a card-carrying Republican who in fact voted for W, only to have her faith in the system trashed entirely because it seemed that a certain corporation decided to increase the pay of their nurses at a predominantly white hospital while refusing to increase the pay of their nurses at a predominantly Filipin@ American hospital, forcing her to actually join the union to demand equal treatment.

I think that's what gets me the most. Both my parents came here believing strongly in the American Dream, in the Horatio Alger myth, and, it seems to me, their faith in it all has not been repaid at all.

Other things made me realize this. My oldest friend, who is white, is well aware of this power dynamic mismatch. He recognized it even before I did, in fact.

So, we are all slaves to our experience I guess. These are the reasons why I believe what I believe. Tacitus undoubtedly has his own for believing what he believes.

Yes, I realize that this has strayed far from the article.

What do I think of Aztlan and La Raza? Well, in the less extreme circles, La Raza seems to be a sentiment of inclusion among all people of color, and to white people who are sympathetic to our cause. Simple as that. Because, really, is there oppression? Hell yes. Don't even try to deny that. There are extremist wackos in every organization, and it's really easy to point fingers at them, because they will be the most visible. But to tar and feather everyone with same brush, to rely entirely on the printed word for experience, and not actually have a look at what these organizations actually do on a day-to-day basis (because, in California, this is not just some fringe radical group. This is often the initial point of contact for Chicano college students. They really do things to benefit their community. It's not all political rhetoric and throwing raging wild parties) well, I feel it's a little unfair. But what do I know?

Seriously, though. To attack MEChA as a non-Chicano hating racist group is a little like attacking the Catholic Church as being aggresively hostile to gays. (And while I am inflamed about their talk denouncing gay marriages, there are real supportive Catholic lesbian and gay communities.) The day-to-day, the specifics, may be at odds with the "official" doctrines of their parent organization, but I think the organization should ultimately be judged by what they do, not what they say.

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keeping the lights on versus "free enterprise" 2003.Aug.17 14:46

"Power Outage Traced to Dim Bulb in White House" This article consigns blame to the Bush dynasty, among others. At some point, the people will have to decide whether they will continue accepting the lies that the ultra-rich 1% of our country keep feeding us, or whether we will really stand up for what this country stands for, and take back our rights.

I do not think that the forces that be can keep anarchy at bay if these kind of catastrophic failures continue to occur, and without completely revamping the way electricity is delivered in this country, both in terms of finance and economics and in terms of technology, we run a grave risk.

Seriously, though, especially if the Department of Homeland Security continues to hawk the threat of terrorism, could you imagine the devastation if someone actually took advantage of this power failure?

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More About the Blackout 2003.Aug.16 15:51

Reading through Slashdot of course. A tutorial on the power grid at howsstuffworks.com

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Speaking of Superconductors 2003.Aug.16 15:43

Ah, the things that never became. Check out this article at the New York Times: "Company Plans Power 'Valve' Employing Superconductors" This ironically came out a day just before the massive blackout. Link from slashdot.org.

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Synchronicity 2003.Aug.16 15:08

OK, because I have been screwing with setting up blosxom, I'm really behind with the news. (This post is mostly to test that it's working OK.)

But <tin-foil-hat> I found it interesting that the timing of the massive blackout vis-a-vis the day the MSBlaster worm is set to DDoS Microsoft to be interesting. <tin-foil-hat> Not that they have anything to do with each other. It is very unlikely that the power plants were running Windows on any of their critical systems. I'm sure some of those relays are not even run by computers, but by hardwired circuitry or some such. (IANAE: I am not an engineer!)

I also find it interesting how all this stuff can be linked so easily by conspiracy theorists. More likely, the massive blackout was an effect of the policies of the deregulation of electricity (which incidentally netted certain Texas energy companies a shitload of money.) Deregulation wreaked havoc in California about 7 years ago. I remember the rolling blackouts, and how me and my relatives joked around about how we didn't have to go to the Philippines that year because we were already having a Third World experience.

If you peg the turning-point of the Information Age to 1993 when NCSA Mosaic came out, one might wonder if the constant power outages in Silicon Valley helped cut short the expansion of technology, essentially setting the timing of when the tech bubble would finally collapse. (I am of the opinion that the bubble would've collapsed either way, but if not for the energy crisis, maybe it would've happened later than sooner.) One thing I remember is that electricity companies were considering entering the broadband sector, given that they had all this wire already crisscrossing the country. I mean, sure, it might have been more of a Slashdotter's pipe dream, but, imagine if broadband had been deployed much earlier?

Or what if the energy crisis never happened, and electricity companies spent time continuing research on superconductors, greatly increasing the efficiency of current transmission? (I remember another Slashdot article about how if superconductors could be deployed at a reasonable price, it would be possible perhaps to switch to DC—versus AC—which would be incredibly efficient, less dangerous, and would have less catastrophic side effects should something go horribly wrong. Sure, it would be a massive infrastructure switch that probably would've taken a generation if at all, but, well, we'll never know.) I also wonder if electric cars might have taken off more, if electricity companies had had the leeway to start building the infrastructure for recharging them.

Conjecture, conjecture, what-if, what-if.

In any case, what is evident, is that the current budget crisis in California that is apparently leading to demise of Gov. Gray Davis' political career and to this recall chaos that could very well degenerate into outright anarchy, is not unrelated to the deregulation of electricity. (I think that this is when my distaste of Texan energy companies, and by extension, of W, began. I felt that they were basically plundering California, and laughing all the way to the bank.)

Ironic that Enron still had to cook its books though.

We live in interesting times.

Of course, what all of this is, is a situation rife for apophenia. Just because of the timing, and the superficial evidence of possible causality, it is very tempting to imagine patterns that very well might not be there.

In the end, it might not matter why something happened anyway. We might argue for generations, really. Perhaps it all is just an expression of emergent behavior: things that happen which cannot be predicted based on what is known about their component parts.

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Changes 2003.Aug.16 14:04

I have transitioned to using blosxom as my blog engine, having given up with messing around with my own Perl scripts, with XSLT/XML, and with Makefiles. I just couldn't keep up with all the new features.

Now is as good a time as any to make some changes. I will slowly try to reimplement features such as comments, blogrolls, and recent entries.

The old stuff is still at the old URL: http://fatoprofugus.net/decline.

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

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