Issuefish

Perhaps This Blogday Doesn't Count

2008-05-30T23:32:00.000-07:00

A whole year and a few days have passed since my last post, celebrating Issuefish's second birthday. A whammo! combination of a new baby boy at home and my being loaned out at work to a project team that was in big schedule trouble left me without time for anything as frivolous as political blogging.

The good news is that something like sanity has returned on the work front, freeing up time for me to do some blogging again. (Sanity on the home front ain't ever going to return, but it's the good kind of insanity!)

The neutral news is that I have decided to consign Issuefish to laursen.org's archives, and start up a new general-topic blog. Maybe because I'm a new dad, there are more non-political topics I want to cover. Even the political topics I want to write about center around the theme that politics is unhealthfully crowding out civil aspects of our society that have traditionally been free of politics.

The switch to a general-topic blog is also helped along by Blogger's having added the ability to assign posts to categories. The new blog will have a "Politics" category with, hopefully, plenty of entries.

Happy Second Blogday, Issuefish!

2007-05-21T12:47:00.000-07:00

Issuefish is two years old today! If I've counted correctly, this is only my twelfth post since the last blogday, and this one doesn't really count.

You'll have to trust me: I've had lots of brilliant ideas for posts, but they haven't made it from my brain to the blog. Goes to show what happens to a blog when you're preparing for a new baby and remodeling your house. Maybe next year.

Peace out.

'Tis Better To Trade Than Tax

2007-04-03T18:00:00.001-07:00

After Al Gore's Congressional testimony the other day (I'm going to pretend like it was just the other day; it takes me that long to get around to blogging these days), it looks like the two leading proposals being considered in Washington for doing something about greenhouse gas emissions are either to impose a carbon tax or to create a cap-and-trade emissions exchange. Here's why I think a carbon tax is likely to derail and lose its original purpose, while cap-and-trade could actually help the environment a lot:

No doubt taxing greenhouse gas emissions would spur us all to decrease the amount of those gases we produce. But, the tax would also become a source of revenue. Especially if the carbon tax were to replace existing income taxes, as Gore proposes. Before long, ongoing government programs would come to depend on that income.

Just like any other situation where two forces oppose each other, an equilibrium would be reached: at first the carbon tax would result in some reduction in emissions, but politicians would have a strong motivation to make sure we don't cut emissions too much. If a carbon tax is enstated, don't be surprised if you flip on the TV one day and see Senators arguing that we'll have to live with global warming because cutting greenhouse gas emissions will cause cutbacks in vital social services. The original purpose of the tax, the environment, would be clouded with other concerns.

Don't think the politics can get that twisted around? Rob Reiner, on the board of First Five, a health and education program for children, funded by a cigarette tax backed by Reiner, threatened to sue the California Hospital Association because it planned to put a proposition on the ballot to increase the cigarette tax. His concern: if California's cigarette sales were hurt, First Five would lose revenue:

Michael R. Blood, Associated Press: "Director Rob Reiner threatens hospitals on ballot issue"

(By the way, I wouldn't characterize Reiner as a hypocrite for taking this position. As far as I know, he's always been about helping children, never about getting smokers to quit.)

So, what about cap-and-trade? On Science Friday the other day, Bill Chameides, chief scientist for a group called Environmental Defense did a great job of explaining the benefits:

http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/2007/Mar/hour1_032307.html

One of the nice qualities of cap-and-trade that Chameides doesn't go into is that creating a market for greenhouse gas offsets would boost the monetary value of environmental assets. For example, an acre of preserved rainforest.

Cap-and-trade isn't a no-brainer, though. It worked well in reducing acid rain in North America, but the greenhouse gas trading in Europe set up under Kyoto hasn't met targets because the cap part of the cap-and-trade was set too high. And setting the cap too low could harm the economy: as in higher prices and unemployment.

Even if cap-and-trade succeeds, I doubt it will be a magic bullet. We're going to see some climate change. The best news I've been seeing on climate hasn't been coming from the world of politics, but from an environmental technology bulletin I've started to follow:

MIT Technology Review

There are lots of ideas out, but it's going to take some time for the great ideas to develop.

Issuefish has moved...

2007-03-24T13:41:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed that your Issuefish bookmark or RSS feed now takes you to the laursen.org website. The Issuefish blog is now located at:

http://laursen.org/Issuefish/

And there's a new RSS feed at:

http://laursen.org/Issuefish/atom.xml

I decided to shut down the libSpot.org website. My original idea for libSpot was to create a Slashdot-like discussion site for small-L libertarians. It was something that somebody needed to do, but I sure never got around it.

In the meantime, Reason magazine's Hit & Run blog has developed into the place for small-L libertarian news and discussion. And it's gotta be the only political blog where the readers regularly comment in haiku.

The Nation-State: The Water We Fish Are All Swimming In

2007-02-19T12:10:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, an in-law made an allusion to the United States' trade imbalance and how it indicates the ailing state of our economy. I try to avoid talking politics unless I'm sure that the poor, captive victims of my brilliant discourse are interested in what I have to say, but sometimes I have lapses in self control. I launched into an ill-timed dissertation on how the popular idea that we should worry about trade imbalances goes back to the 18th-Century concept of mercantilism. And ended up offending my relatives, who probably couldn't care less about mercantilism, but do care a lot about their having recently gone through a period of unemployment. I may have thought I was talking about fascinating economic theory, but what they probably heard was me saying that I think Bush is doing an A-OK job running the country.

I don't want to write about mercantilism in this post, but I do want to write about another 18th-Century concept that underlies our worries about trade imbalances and most other modern political controversies, from illegal immigration to the Bush Administration's rejection of proposals to partion Iraq into separate Kurdish, Shiite, and Sunni areas. It's the water that we fish are swimming around in, but never notice because we think that it is just how the world is. The 18th-Century concept is the "nation-state".

We live in a world where virtually all of the land on our planet is divided up into nation-states. Virtually every person on earth is a citizen of one of these nation-states. Representatives from the nation-states meet in a big building in New York City and negiotiate with each other. We see this as normal, but the nation-state is a relatively new invention, and one that, in many ways, doesn't mesh with aspects of our modern world like globalization, international trade, and the Internet.

A lot has been written about the nation-stated, but here are a couple of interesting articles to start with:

A "Z Magazine" interview with Noam Chomsky on the relationship between states and the corporation.

Murry Rothbard, "NATIONS BY CONSENT: DECOMPOSING THE NATION-STATE" (PDF, 460 KB). This essays explores the difference between nations and the concept of the "nation-state".

Please note that there are lots of things I would disagree about with both Chomsky and Rothbard, but both articles are interesting in pointing out how odd and artificial the nation-state concept is.

John Inks for Mountain View City Council

2006-11-04T14:49:00.000-08:00

I just got in from walking neighborhoods for John Inks, who is running for the Mountain View City Council. The highlight of my day was meeting a very elderly woman, Mrs. C, who said she would make sure to get someone to drive her to the polls Tuesday morning just so she can vote for Inks.

As you'll see if you visit his website, John Inks is a long-time Mountain View resident with an impressive record of community service. And quite accomplished in his career and hobbies, too. As far as I know he has no hidden agenda -- he just wants to offer his time to help keep the city a great place to live and make sure our tax dollars are spent wisely.

That's why I'm voting for John Inks, and I hope you do, too.

Measure A: What Does It Conserve?

2006-10-27T00:38:00.000-07:00

Some thoughts on Measure A: The "Santa Clara County Land Conservation Initiative". I'd have a hard time pulling these thoughts together into a common theme, but that's fitting: Measure A itself is scattershot in its approach.

Proponents of the initiative claim it will "preserve our region as a desirable place to live and work." Opponents claim it "threatens the survival of farming in our county, endangers our economy and jobs, and encourages premature annexation of rural lands and sprawl." After reading the actual text of the initiative, my impression is that it doesn't have the potential to do as much good nor cause as much damage as either side claims.

Many parts of the Santa Clara landscape that probably pop into your mind when you read the word "conservation" aren't covered by this initiative: Coyote Valley, the 101 corridor to Gilroy, the open space around Stanford University. Furthermore, most of Measure A's changes are tweaks to existing county land use policy.

Still, it's a poorly thought out proposal and should be rejected. If we're going to undertake the serious business of mucking with people's property rights, which ultimately means mucking with their livelihoods, we should know what we are doing.

I think most people would say that one of the major goals of land conservation is environmental protection. How Measure A's bumping up an already large minimum size for rural parcels by an arbitrarily-chosen factor would necessarily translate into more environmental protection is fuzzy. Also, a lot of the measure is concerned with preserving sight lines and other aesthetic concerns. While an uninterrupted view of a ridge line looks more environmental-ish, it shouldn't be confused with actual environmental protection. Intelligent land use planning for environmental protection would, for example, be more concerned with limiting pollution, preserving habitat, and establishing easements for wildlife migration routes for wildlife than setting arbitrary size and building limits on uncoordinated parcels of land.

Section 9, which lays down some rules that say you can't develop where there's fire danger or inadequate plumbing makes some sense. But, I imagine there are already regulations covering that kind of thing.

Finally, if you are concerned with high housing prices in Santa Clara County, think twice before voting for Measure A. The biggest driver of high prices in our county are all the restrictions we have on converting land to residential use, and restrictions on housing density. I'm not advocating runaway development of all our remaining rural areas, but I do want to point out that land consevation entails serious economic tradeoffs.

A Big Me-Too To WGLA's Initiative Recommendations

2006-10-19T22:15:00.000-07:00

Once again Allen Rice and the Willow Glen Libertarian Alliance have come out with excellent recommendations on the upcoming ballot initiatives. And once again have saved this lazy political blogger from the shame of having no idea what the current crop of initiatives are, let alone having any opinion about how you should vote on them.

Usually, I agree with all but one or two of WGLA's conclusions. This time I agree with the whole lot of them.

For Governor, I recommend you leave that part of your ballot blank. I wish I could recommend the Libertarian candidate, Art Olivier. An often-repeated simple definition of a libertarian is someone who is "fiscally conservative and socially liberal". Olivier is certainly fiscally conservative, but, if his Archie Bunker-worthy us vs. them stance on immigration is any indication, he is also very conservative socially. Let's see ... fiscally conservative ... socially conservative ... that would make him a ... conservative.

For those of you who live in Mountain View, I recommend my friend, John Inks, for city council. I'll be writing more about Inks later.

And remember, never, ever, ever vote based on anything you saw or heard in some political ad on TV.

[10/22/2006] WGLA has changed their recommendation on Measure 1E, the "Disaster Preparedness and Flood Prevention Act" from Yes to No. Without doing some further study, I can't say whether I back up their conclusion or not. After Katrina, it came out that California had some of the most at-risk levy systems in the country. However, I'm not sure of the current state of our state's flood control plan; there have been stories in the papers the last few days saying that the state government gave the go ahead for some of the worst parts of the system to be fixed, at least temporarily, before this winter.

Dr. Norman Borlaug

2006-08-11T22:53:00.000-07:00

I don't want to turn this blog into a Penn Radio review. But, just a couple of days ago, he did a very noteworthy show: an interview with Dr. Norman Borlaug.

I suspect that most people, like me, have never heard of Norman Borlaug. He should be more well-known. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his work in developing agriculture in third world countries. Some have credited him with saving over one billion people from starvation -- that's about one-sixth of the world's current population.

Joining Dr. Norman Borlaug for the interview is his long-time associate, Leon Hesser, whose biography of Borlaug, The Man Who Fed The World, has just been published.

No Getting Around Nuclear?

2006-08-08T23:01:00.000-07:00

After Howard Stern got pushed off of the public airwaves a few months back, it was looking like the old morning commute was going to be pretty boring. Yeah, I know, Stern's a racist, sexist jerk, and I'm a cretin for listening to him, but he's also funny as hell, and the greatest celebrity interviewer ever.

But then, just a short time later, Penn Jillette's new radio show appeared to save the day. A typical Penn Radio show is pretty silly, although several grade school levels ahead of Stern in maturity. And Penn is a Libertarian to boot.

One of the most interesting shows Jillette has done was relatively serious. The other day he had environmentalist, Patrick Moore, on for an interview. Moore was one of the founders of Greenpeace, but split from the group when, in his opinion, they became too involved in leftist politics and anti-scientific thinking. The split was not amicable -- some of the remaining members refer to him as the "Eco-Traitor" or "Eco-Judas" because he has had good words to say about things like nuclear power, genetic engineering, fish farming and managed forestry.

The interview covers a lot of environmental topics, but the part I found most interesting were Moore's views on the necessity of using nuclear power in any meaningful effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He brought up something I'd never heard before: that nuclear power is our only non-polluting option for a power source that can drive the base load of our power grid. More hydroelectric isn't an option because we've already built out all the good sites. And, although alternative power sources like solar and wind have an important role to play, they aren't steady state enough to drive the base load.

I also liked Penn's anecdote about his brother-in-law, Ed, who worked at the nuclear plant. Penn figured he couldn't possibly know anything since he had a crew cut. So, he got his information about the nuclear energy from "guitar players" like Bruce Springsteen. Then, one day, after he had grown up a bit, it dawned that maybe the guy with the crew cut knew more about the subject than the musician.

They also talk about the unfortunate irony that the people who care the most about global warming tend to be against nuclear power, while at the same time global warming deniers are very open to nuclear power. That is starting to change: prominent environmentalists are starting to talk about nuclear energy and climate change deniers are getting harder and harder to find.

(The nuclear power topic starts up about 18:30 minutes into the interview.)

Thinking Beyond Non-Aggression

2006-07-10T21:25:00.000-07:00

About a week ago, at the Libertarian Party convention, a coalition of moderates managed to lead a voting out of many of the stranger planks in the Party's exhaustive platform. This small advance for the moderates set off intense reaction (well, at least, intense grousing on Internet blogs) from hardcore purists who saw the entire platform as flawlessly deduced from the "non-aggression principle", the moral axiom that no person should ever initiate the use of force against another person.

While I think the non-aggression principle is an excellent guideline for working out the rules of a free society, I also think it can lead to absurd conclusions when used without grounding in reality. (See my earlier post: The Importance of Discomfort.)

Now, let me step a little deeper into my heresy against Libertarian dogma and say that the non-aggression principle is not the be-all and end-all of moral precepts. Especially when in the service of someone who sees it as an invitation to unlimited retaliation. Why stop at the Biblical "an eye for an eye", when you can use your enemy's aggression as an excuse to exact both his eyes, his fingernails, his liver, and his spinal cord.

Think how poorly the non-aggression principle applies to a quagmire like Palestine. It just doesn't matter any more who started it. Both sides have lots of blood on their hands. No sensible approach to building peace there would center around compiling lists of grievances, looking for the side that committed the first aggression.

Is it possible to do better than the non-aggression principle? I think so. I've started thinking along those lines since I took up studying the Japanese martial art of Aikido a few months ago. The jumping off point for the moral philosophy behind Aikido is essentially the same as the non-aggression principle.

Aikido has only defensive techniques. In practice sessions, there is plenty of attacking, but anything one learns about attacking is incidental. In fact, the point is driven home over and over again that attacking other people is a bad idea -- every bout ends with the attacker neutralized or overpowered by the defender.

But mastery of Aikido goes beyond mere non-aggression. The student's never-ending goal is to develop his power to control situations and to control himself, so that he can use the minimum amount of force needed to resolve any conflicts that come his way. Mastery is exhibited by promoting peace and harmony, resolving conflict by turning one's enemies into friends if possible.

Now, I don't want to oversell Aikido as the answer to all the world's problems. In actual practice, the potential of the moral philosophy behind Aikido hasn't been explored much outside of its applications to hand-to-hand fighting. One brilliant Aikido master, Terry Dobson, put a lot of thought into how Aikido could be applied to one's personal life, but, as far as I know, nobody has tried to extend the same ideas to the political world.

Libertarians have the potential to evolve political principles much more sophisticated than the non-aggression principle. The Party is full of so many people who passionately defend free thought and exchange of ideas in general; it should tolerate the same free thought and exchange of ideas internally.

In closing, I'll link to a wonderful story from Terry Dobson, that is often repeated in Aikido circles, because, well, its a really cool story:

The trained clanked and rattled through the suburbs of Tokyo...

T-Shirt Che, Movie Che, Real-Life Che

2006-06-24T21:09:00.000-07:00

Just like a lot of kids who grew up in the Sixties, I absorbed a vague idea of who Che Guevara was. Maybe because I grew up in one of the mellow beach towns of Southern California instead of, say, Berkeley, I never saw anyone actually wear a Che t-shirt. There was always one hanging on the wall in any t-shirt shop in counterculture-ish places like Venice Beach, though.

Still is. Right next to the Jim Morrison and Bob Marley t-shirts. As many have pointed out, the great irony of Che Guevara is the sheer amount of capitalist enterprise that has been built around his image.

We just finished watching The Motorcycle Diaries, in which a pair of adventurous young men travel throughout Latin America on an old Norton motorcyle. One of them happens to be Che Guevara, idealistic young medical student, a few years before his involvement in the Cuban revolution.

And we're talking extremely idealistic here: it wouldn't be out of line to compare Movie Che to Jesus, right down to his healing lepers.

It's an entertaining movie and the lead characters are appealing. Although we all know historical movies are almost always completely made up by screenwriters who have never cracked open a history book, I have no reason to doubt that Guevara was an honorable young man who saw widespread poverty among the natives of Latin America, not incorrectly pinned it on imperialists, and saw communist revolution as the best way to oppose those imperialists.

I found myself wondering about the motivation of the filmmakers, though. Either they purposely told a dishonest story or they purposely told an incomplete story. I feel a little insulted when I sense I'm being propagandized.

Politics aside, wouldn't it be a much more interesting movie, if the filmmakers had explored how the idealistic young man evolved into Generalissimo Guevara, presiding over the execution of thousands of Cubans and founding Cuba's labor camps? I remember an episode of "The Twilight Zone" that more deeply explored the tragic paranoia of power in a mere half-hour screenplay. Not everyone can be Rod Serling, but they could have given a shot.

On the DVD's extra features, Robert Redford enthuses about the Young Che character. It made me think of the accusations I've heard conservative talk show hosts make about "Hollywood liberals". Is Robert Redford just an empty head living in an insular world? I suspect not. I'll bet it has more to do with invoking Che being a great way to piss off conservatives.

To sum up. T-shirt Che: pretty cool. Movie Che: pretty cool. Real life Che: not so cool.

Pre-Election Quickie

2006-06-04T18:43:00.000-07:00

Too busy with our home remodeling mega-project to do a proper pre-election day blog entry. Here are some editorials I've collected over the last few weeks:

San Francisco Chronicle: Some children left behind

But the most troublesome aspect of Proposition 82 is the question of how many -- and which -- children it would reach. State and federal programs now cover preschool for about 160,000 California youngsters at the lowest income levels. Studies have shown that preschool benefits are particularly dramatic among children from lower-income families. Yet the bulk of the Proposition 82 funding would be subsidizing preschool for kids whose parents are already paying for it.

Shikha Dalmia and Lisa Snell commenting in the San Francisco Chronicle:
Universal Preschool Is Inviting Universal Disaster

Preschools that do participate will have to pay wages on the K-12 teacher scale negotiated through a mandatory collective bargaining process that the unions lobbied for. They will also face other onerous regulations such as minimum staff-child ratios. All of this will raise the cost of doing business, driving many private day care centers out of the market and leaving fewer affordable options for low-income parents for whom three hours of state-funded day care covers less than half their needs.

Mountain View Voice: Call the bluff on Measure A tax

But there is a catch built into Measure A, an unwritten "understanding" that up to half of the $5.2 billion or more that would be raised over the 30-year life of the tax would be spent on country transit projects, including the controversial BART extension to San Jose.

Greg Perry, vice mayor of Mountain View commenting in the Mountain View Voice: Measure A is against the spirit of democracy

Multiple polls over two years indicated that the VTA tax could not pass. So they slipped the VTA tax inside a county tax that was polling better.

Well, whomever or whatever you vote for on Tuesday, please don't base any of your decisions on anything you saw or heard in the TV ads. Be hip -- get your disinformation and viciousness from blogs, instead! Happy voting!

Happy Blogday, Issuefish!

2006-05-21T08:36:00.000-07:00

Issuefish is one year old today!

In just one short year this blog has become ingrained in the national psyche. Millions of Americans can't imagine starting their day without a cup of coffee and the latest issue of Issuefish.

OK, well, err, our webmaster (me) informs the staff here at Issuefish (also me) that we have garnered an audience of as many as tens of readers. Most-read posts:

Good Wal-Mart, Bad Wal-Mart

Très Imperial

Registering Independent

Real ID Snuck Past Anna Eshoo

I'm most proud of the Eshoo story, because I captured a bit of news that the newspapers missed. And that, after you've filtered out all the noise, is the greatest value of political blogging.

Internet Rant of the Whenever: TIME CUBE

2006-05-20T10:07:00.000-07:00

It's time to bring back the "Internet Rant of the Week", except I'm too lazy to update it every week.

Today's IRoW: Nature's Harmonic Simultaneous 4-Day TIME CUBE

Stupid Educators know of the Truth I speak and know that it will indict them as the most evil bastards on the Earth. Only a dumb student can be educated - as in brainwashed and indoctrinated. Time Cube debate denial is educator evil.

If Only Those Meddling Voters Weren't In The Way

2006-05-15T18:59:00.000-07:00

I got involved in politics largely because, after working in downtown San Jose for several years, I saw example after example of the astounding wastefulness of the San Jose Redevelopment Agency and blatant corruption in the San Jose City Council. I've come to the conclusion that San Jose is simply too big -- it's like a big honey jar for ambitious politicians.

According to a Mercury New poll asking the voters of San Jose if they favor spending public money to bring an (unspecified) Major League Baseball team to San Jose, the voters are strongly opposed:

S.J. voters jeer ballpark plan

Surely, this strong disapproval for the plan must influence Mayor Gonzales thinking on the subject. Well, not exactly:

"Any city where you have to tell the baseball team owner or the basketball team owner or you-name-it owner that they have to go to the voters, you're going to be bypassed,'' Gonzales said. ``The requirement that you have the voters approve any sort of public involvement in a facility is a tremendous hurdle for team owners.''

Silly voters. Don't they know that their job is too pay their taxes, shut up, and get out of the way of more visionary minds.

Fantastical Facts About Illegal Immigrants

2006-05-05T00:48:00.000-07:00

A list of ten scary "facts" about illegal immigrants has been making its way around the blogosphere. For example, Scary Fact #2 claims that "95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens." Scary indeed, and, apparently, completely made up.

The list left the staff at the Los Angeles Times scratching their heads, since they are the purported source of the facts, yet have been unable to find any Times articles backing up any of the claims. The list of scary factoids is dissected in detail on their new "immigration" blog:

http://opinion.latimes.com/immigration/2006/05/according_to_th.html

Arturo Shrugged

2006-05-01T00:14:00.000-07:00

I sincerely hope that this Monday's labor strike by illegal laborers is a big success. I hope it effectively demonstrates the huge contribution they make to our economy.

My prediction for tomorrow, though, is that the majority of illegal laborers will show up for work as usual. It's just too big a risk for many of them not to do so. They need the income with a level of need that most American citizens will never experience nor relate to.

Patrick May, San Jose Mercury News: "Imagine if they vanished"

What would happen? What would this county, with about 100,000 undocumented immigrants -- one out of every 18 residents -- look like? Would the fallout gum up the local economy as stores closed and construction sites shut down? Would tech workers call in sick because their nannies didn't show? Would luncheons and banquets that grease our social skids be canceled as kitchen staffs went missing?

There are few political issues that I take as personally as the need for decent treatment of Latin American laborers. I'm not Hispanic, but my parents, after losing their farm in Nebraska, did a lot of the same jobs that are now typically done by Hispanic immigrants. My father was a gardener and my mother a cafeteria worker. After their day jobs were done, I helped out with our family janitorial business at night.

My parent's story could be taken as an example of American citizens willing to do the kind of jobs that are now taken by illegal immigrants. Not really. Our economic circumstances were not typical of the American families in the area where we lived.

In my experience, there are few unemployed Americans willing to do the shitty jobs that illegal immigrants are willing to do. Later on, when my dad started his own housepainting business, there were only two groups of people in our area willing to take on the short-term jobs we often needed assistance with: illegal immigrants or surfer dudes. The former were uniformly hard-working, honest, reliable, and pleasant. The latter usually didn't show up -- either the waves were totally awesome, or they were too hung over.

Human dignity and rights are not just for people who happen to have been born on the lucky side of the border. Everyone should have the opportunity to seek out work to support their families. I couldn't care less whether someone who is willing to work hard is here legally or not. We should be making it easier for Latin American laborers to come here legally, not moving towards classifying them as felons.

Give 'Em Hell, Nall!

2006-03-23T23:17:00.000-08:00

Speaking of Libertarian candidates, one of the most interesting to watch is over on the opposite end of the country ... in Alabama.

I first heard of Loretta Nall, who is running for governor of the Heart of Dixie against, among others, Judge Roy "You'll Remove The Ten Commandments From My Courthouse Over My Dead Body" Moore, when she wrote about the Alabama Department of Corrections' inordinate interest in whether she wears panties.

Then the other day, I read the transcript of her excellent speech on the Drug War delivered to the Alabama Conference of Black Mayors on the anniversary of the Selma marches. Nall's reflections on giving the speech here.

The latest campaign story is about a conservative Alabama columnist showing an inordinate interest in her cleavage. What is it with Alabama, anyway.

Buy Your Way Out of Greenhouse Gas Guilt?

2006-03-23T22:41:00.000-08:00

This Merc story caught my eye because I've been meaning to blog about TerraPass, a company that basically sells shares in anti-pollution. Or, as some might see it, sells relief from environmental guilt:

Matthai Chakko Kuruvila, Mercury News: Businesses will put clients' money to work to help alleviate gas emissions -- and guilt

I've been thinking of signing up, to assuage my own guilt over driving a very poltically-incorrect, climate-destroying 4Runner. And, I suppose, we should pay a little more to offset the greenhouse gases caused by our family Prius, too. As far as I can tell, TerraPass, is a legitimate operation that really does invest its proceeds in projects and credits that offset greenhouse gas production. TerraPass is pretty small, though, and it's not clear if what they do could scale up.

The other thing that caught my eye is that the Jason Buberel they interview in the article was (loosely) a contemporary of mine. At the same time I was circulating petitions to get on the 2004 primary ballot as a Libertarian candidate, Buberel was circulating his own petitions to get on the ballot as a Libertarian candidate for California Assembly District 22. We had a small group of Libertarian candidates who were running our campaigns as an informal team, sharing experiences and emphasizing similar issues. We tried several times to get in touch with Buberel, but never succeeded. I thought he had qualified for the ballot, but, since there isn't any information about him in SmartVoter.org, he must not have gotten enough signatures.

The Biggest Threat To American Security

2006-02-26T21:46:00.000-08:00

60 Minutes aired a segment tonight in which seaport security expert, Stephen Flynn, claims, "The number one national security challenge to confront us is a weapon of mass destruction going off in a U.S. city".

I can't deny that terrorists planting a dirty bomb in a cargo container is a big thing to worry about, but I find myself worrying more about what we Americans are doing to ourselves. I worry about a coming complete breakdown of civility and unity among citizens of the United States. If my occasional fears that America is moving towards a second civil war are exaggerated, I'm not going too far in fearing that political idealogues are doing an effective job of manipulating us all into choosing sides in a civil cold war.

David R. Remer writes about America's civil breakdown from a liberal point of view: Religion - America's 2nd Civil War

What if the Fundamentalist Right is successful in overturning Roe V. Wade, or reinstating the Sedition Acts, or mandating the Lord's Prayer in public schools? What if, at the same time, both sides are 'recruiting' through news media coverage of violence and pitched emotional infomercials denigrating each other? [...] The first Civil War was decades in the coming. News traveled far more slowly, and dissemination of the issues and their divides were hampered by illiteracy, and the slow speed of paper printed publications. America's second Civil War, if it occurs, could come upon us as fast as the internet, and before we are aware things had gotten so bad.

If you care about keeping America safe, do everything you can to resist those who want to divide our society. Resist putting politics above treating your fellow human beings with dignity and respect.

Arguing For Our Freedoms From Different Angles: A Good Thing

2006-01-15T22:52:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, I found myself in the unusual situation of watching two political organizations to which I belonged arguing opposite sides in front of the Supreme Court. And I couldn't have been more pleased about it.

The case was Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, in which the Supreme Court was considering the constitutionality of a school voucher program in Cleveland. Attorneys from the Institute for Justice were there to defend the voucher program, while Americans United for Separation of Church and State were there to oppose it.

Why was I pleased? Because both sides were there to argue for our freedoms: the Institute for Justice for the freedom of parents to have a choice about where their children go to school, and Americans United to argue against public funds going to religious schools.

In a country that is supposed to be the paragon of freedom, it shouldn't be as rare as it is to see two sides advocating for different aspects of our liberties. Good stuff would come of more of this type of debate.

Although I still hold Americans United in high regard, I let my membership lapse when I realized the organization is as much concerned with preserving the virtual monopoly of government-run schools as it is with preserving the separation of church and state.

School vouchers would be an imperfect system, but if done right they could lead to higher quality schools than we have today. It's especially critical that we provide more choices for poor kids who are trapped in their poorly-performing neighborhood public school. I've heard the argument that we need to help such poor kids by straightening out all the problems of the public education system, but its unfair to not give them the opportunity to get out of a lousy school immediately. Vouchers are at least worth experimenting with in limited pilot programs.

I am comfortable with the Institute for Justice's argument that, in a voucher system, it is the parents who may choose to send their children to a religious school, so the government has no direct ability to establish religion through a voucher program. I worry more about the opposite scenario where religious fanatics gain control of public school boards, thereby subjecting all the public school students in their district to religious indoctrination. Think Kansas.

Still, I understand and respect anybody who argues that school vouchers are wrong because they funnel public money into religious schools. Perhaps a suitable compromise would be to require any religious school accepting voucher funds to (a) keep secular academic instruction separate from religious instruction and (b) allow any student to skip the religious part of the day.

Free Starchild!

2006-01-06T21:42:00.000-08:00

Starchild, a flamboyant Libertarian from San Francisco, was recently arrested for prostitution in a sting operation in Fremont, California. Well, "flamboyant" is an understatement when describing someone who shows up at LP of California conventions wearing butterfly wings and hot pants, looking a lot like Peter Frampton in drag. That description no doubt makes him sound like yet another Libertarian whacko, but the other side of the story is that, unlike those whackos, Starchild is a brilliantly intelligent person with a great deal of integrity.

And most importantly, Starchild is completely harmless. He is certainly not a criminal mastermind whose capture was worth setting up a sting operation involving seven Fremont police officers.

Here's a (long) email from Starchild telling about his arrest, and giving some good arguments against treating prostitutes as criminals:

First of all, please forgive if this personal message is unwanted,  
off-topic or you receive it multiple times. As most of you getting this  
have probably heard, I was arrested last month in an entrapment  
operation by the Fremont police for peacefully trying to make a living  
as an escort. They charged me with 647b "soliciting prostitution,"  
which many governments consider illegal thanks to their vested interest  
in having lots of laws to enforce and to puritan anti-sexual morality  
which is still unfortunately widespread.

 So, my arraignment hearing is scheduled for tomorrow:

WHERE: Fremont Municipal Court, 39439 Paseo Padre Parkway, Fremont
WHEN: Friday morning (Jan. 6) at 9:00 a.m.

 I realize 9:00 a.m. on a weekday is a bad time for most people. They  
obviously don't schedule these hearings for the convenience of people  
who don't work for the criminal justice system! But if you are able and  
willing to attend, I will certainly be grateful. If you are planning to  
come or need a ride, please call me for details - [snip...]

 If you can't attend (or maybe even if you can), would be willing to  
call and/or email Fremont's mayor and city council members? This is not  
just for me, though naturally I'd also like to see the Fremont police  
get some negative feedback from their bosses as a result of what they  
did to me, but so that other people won't be similarly victimized.

 Here are the city leaders' names, phone numbers, and email addresses:

Bob Wasserman
Mayor
(510) 284-4011
bwasserman@ci.fremont.ca.us

Steve Cho
Vice Mayor
(510) 494-4895 x5901
scho@ci.fremont.ca.us

Dominic Dutra
Councilmember 
(510) 492-4148
ddutra@ci.fremont.ca.us

Bob Wieckowski
Councilmember 
(510) 494-4895 x5904
bwieckowski@ci.fremont.ca.us

Anu Natarajan
Councilmember
(510) 494-4895 x5902
anatarajan@ci.fremont.ca.us

 And here are some possible talking points for communicating with the  
politicians:

-Prosecuting prostitution is a waste of police resources and taxpayer  
money
-The police claim they are underfunded and understaffed; if they have  
money and personnel to do this kind of thing, obviously that's a false  
claim
-How can the police claim not to have the resources to investigate auto  
theft or burglar alarms if they have the resources to entrap escorts  
(see memo below)?
-I don't want Fremont to get the reputation of being an intolerant  
place that doesn't respect different lifestyles
-Allowing police to keep proceeds from sting operations against  
prostitutes and drug dealers encourages abuse
-People want their police to focus on responding to real crimes
-Are you aware of abuses in the Fremont City Jail? (e.g. being  
threatened by a police officer with transfer to an institution where I  
could be raped, if I didn't cooperate with them; denied meals; kept  
shivering in cold rooms, all of which happened to me)
-See if you can find out any information about:
    (1) How much money the city spends on going after prostitution in  
particular and/or victimless crimes in general
    (2) Why the police are engaging in these operations
    (3) How many escorts have been arrested? How many clients?

 A couple interesting articles are attached below. The first in  
particular is good ammunition to use when writing or calling the  
politicians (big thanks to Morey Straus for posting the blog entry that  
turned it up). This is a memo from the Fremont Police Chief, describing  
how because of an alleged lack of resources they (a) no longer  
investigate auto thefts, (b) eliminated a street crime unit, (c) no  
longer dispatch police to respond to alarms going off unless there is a  
"verified problem," etc.!

 And yet they apparently have PLENTY of resources to:

(1) Find my ad on the Internet, and have an undercover officer think up  
a bunch of lies and call me in San Francisco posing as a client to get  
me to come to Fremont
(2) Have 7 officers and a police dog, along with two patrol cars,  
waiting around the hotel for me to show up (!!!)
(3) Book me, keep me in the Fremont jail overnight, and then drive me  
to Santa Rita the next day, only to be cited and released with a piece  
of paper telling me when to show up in court (which they could have  
simply given me at the time of my arrest and sent me on my way -- but  
no, evidently I was such a threat to public safety that they had to  
keep me in jail overnight even though the legal standard is supposed to  
be "innocent until proven guilty" and I had not been convicted of any  
crime... sorry if I rant a little bit here!)

 The second article below talks about how the police department stands  
to profit from prostitution and drug stings. This may partly explain  
why they like to devote resources to this even as they cut back on  
trying to catch real criminals. The first article in particular is good  
ammunition to use when writing or calling the politicians.

************************************************************************ 
***

 I'm also encouraging calls to the Best Western Garden Court Inn (5400  
Mowry Avenue, Fremont) where the arrest took place. They need to hear  
from the public that hosting police stings is bad for business - (510)  
792-4300  or Info@GardenCourtInn.com.

 Here are some possible talking points for the hotel:

-I want to speak with your manager
-I want a written response from the manager
-I won't stay at your hotel because of this incident
-I'm a customer and want to be able to have an escort come to my room  
without fear of either of us being arrested
-Allowing police stings against people who are guilty of nothing more  
than peaceful, consensual acts between adults is going to cost you more  
business from escorts and their clients and supporters than you get  
from the police
-Don't be intimidated by law enforcement; it's important we all stand  
up for our rights
-The Best Western Garden Court Inn is already mentioned on Craigslist  
and other venues warning people to stay away
-People are going to associate your establishment with bigoted and  
intolerant attitudes
-People are not going to feel safe staying at your establishment if  
they know the police might be hanging around

 Oh, and I'm also interested in publicizing this case, if any of you  
know anyone in the media who would like to do a story about my  
experience.

 Finally, if you aren't the activist type, there is one other way you  
can help, which is to contribute to my legal fund. Unfortunately I have  
not found a lawyer to take this on pro bono; it looks like it may cost  
me about $2500, or more if the case goes to trial. As of right now, I  
will have to pay this out of pocket. Please don't send money if you're  
just getting by yourself and don't have it to spare. But if you are  
financially secure, any donation you care to send to help me with the  
costs of fighting this would be most welcome. Checks may be sent to  
Starchild, 3531 16th Street, San Francisco, CA 94114.

 Whatever you can do, thanks from the bottom of my heart for your help  
and support. Even when you know you have nothing to be ashamed of,  
being arrested is a demoralizing and disheartening experience. It's  
good to know that I have friends, and that people who understand that  
this prosecution is an affront to justice are paying attention and care  
what happens to me. No one should have to go through this as a  
consequence of simply offering an honest service to consenting adults.  
With your help, perhaps my case will have some impact in making this  
less likely to happen to others.

Happy New Year and best wishes,
       <<< starchild >>>
        (aka Chris Fox)

[The Fremont Police Department memo Starchild mentions is here:

http://www.fremontpolice.org/alarm/chiefs_ltr.html

and a copy of the Oakland Tribune article Starchild referenced is here:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20051205/ai_n15902716]

Reason: Cheney Dreams of Nixonian Glory Days

2005-12-30T11:14:00.000-08:00

It's hard to make the call who is the worst President of modern times: Richard Nixon or George W. Bush. On the one hand you have a classic scowling villain, on the other you have a guy with a very simplistic world view that thinks anything he does is justified in a war against Evil.

I never made the connection that the Bush Administration is consciously trying to resurrect the Camelot that was the Nixon Administration. Check out these quotes from Cheney on the Reason Hit and Run blog:

http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2005/12/swamp_zombie_1.shtml

Hugh Downs on libertarianism

2005-12-18T10:18:00.000-08:00

An interesting interview with former 20/20 co-host, Hugh Downs:

An Interview with Hugh Downs

BW: If you were the president right now, what would you do about our presence in Iraq?

HD: I'll tell you why I would bring the troops home. There are several options -- all of them bad. And when you look at the option of bringing the troops home right away, you got to admit it's a terrible option -- there would be an awful, immediate increase in bloodshed. But I examined the other options, one by one, and they are all worse. And if we insist on staying there, that's the worse thing we can do. So, I think, yeah, it's going to be awful, but I'd like to bring them home.