I was so busy looking for fresh talent for the daily pictures that I missed these pictures of Iraqi prisoners being abused, apparently by Americans in military uniform.

This was brought to my attention by a writer for Antiwar who has written to me four times now since I raised question of whether the sentiments of Senior Editor Jeremy Sapienza are widely shared at Antiwar. On that score I’ve asked the writer if he disagrees with anything Sapienza said in the material I quoted, but so far he’s declined to say he does disagree with any of it.

Anyway, on the pictures linked to above, he writes to me:

Where’s the fucking outrage, John? Where? Maybe you didn’t come across these pics when you were poring through your cheesecake shots for today’s No Treason, but here they are. Where’s the fucking outrage?

I assume the photos are what they appear to be. Those responsible for what’s depicted deserve serious punishment for the harm done to prisoners and for the indignities heaped upon them.

But if those directly responsible are American soldiers I would not rule out public execution as the appropriate punishment for the harm they have done their fellow soldiers and other Americans. It’s likely those pictures will precipitate the deaths of American soldiers and civilians.

Now that we have that out of the way, I have to get back to the daily picture auditions.

I’ll be damned if I let this war interrupt my pursuit of the finer things in life.

The complete text of my novel Minerva is now available in PDF format at Strike-The-Root. I hope people who want a smaller government will enjoy the work.

UK citizens are, according to a survey overwhelmingly willing to carry a national biometric ID card, but not if they have to pay for it.

Who do they think will pay for it? The French?

It reminds me of a TV “man on the street” interview I saw during the 1980’s S&L bailout scandal in America. I was in high school at the time, and hadn’t heard of libertarianism, but still I saw and remarked on the disconnect. From memory:

Q: Do you think taxpayers should pay for the savings and loan bailout?

A: No, I think the government should pay for it.

As a Web master to several Islamic organizations, Mr. Hussayen helped to maintain Internet sites with links to groups that praised suicide bombings in Chechnya and in Israel. But he himself does not hold those views, his lawyers said. His role was like that of a technical editor, they said, arguing that he could not be held criminally liable for what others wrote.

The government feels differently:

they have argued that Mr. Hussayen’s technical assistance, even if he did not share the beliefs of the groups he helped, were like providing a gun to an armed robber.

NYTimes article here.

Somehow I’m just not comfortable with the idea that speech is a weapon that should be banned to make the world safer. Even if its speech about why to kill people. I guess this goes back to laws against treason and sedition, but it still seems kinda sad that free speech does not include the right to advocate terrorism. Or even the right to give others a forum to do so. A question for readers: do you believe that free speech includes the right to advocate violence against others? Are threats criminal?

It makes me wonder why the book Unintended Consequences has not received such attention. UC, while written as fiction, essentially advocates assassinating politicians and government agents until they agree to reduce restrictions on gun ownership. I think its awesome that a book like that was published in this country without harassment, but aren’t its publishers just as potentially liable as Mr. Hussayan? Is Amazon aiding terrorism by carrying it? Is it illegal to give it a positive review, thus spreading the word about this argument for terrorism?

This doesn’t have much to do with lib politics, but perhaps I’m not the only one who finds evolutionary biology fascinating. And from my experience, libs give fairer hearings to unpopular theories than the general public. Hopefully y’all ain’t so PC that I’ll get lynched, and if you are, JTK will like the controversy anyway.

J. Phillipe Rushton examined a number of statistics about Mongoloids, Caucasoids, and Negroids (whites/blacks/asians), and found an interesting pattern. For many variables, whites were between blacks and asians. Furthermore, there was an explanation for the order. In general, blacks appear designed for higher reproductive rates and less parental investment than asians. Hence they physically mature faster, sexually mature faster, have sex sooner, have sex more often, get pregnant more easily, have shorter menstrual periods, larger penises, shorter gestation periods, more fraternal twins, and live shorter lives. Rushton identifies more controversial elements to the pattern as well: lower IQ’s, more mental health problems, less marital stability, more crime. But the pattern can be seen from the purely physical stats, so these variables are unnecessary to establish the point.

While this could be a case of bias in the statistics or finding a pattern in noise, the pattern is strong and consistent. For example, “In the U.S.A., Negroids have a shorter gestation period than Caucasoids. By week 39, 51 % of black children have been born, while the figure for whites is 33%; by week 40, the figures are 70 and 55% respectively”. Dizogytic (fraternal) twins are born at a rate of 16/1000 among blacks, 8 among whites, and 4 among asians. These are some big differences.

As far as I’ve seen, Rushton doesn’t make any normative statements. There are no judgment that one race is more highly evolved than another. Different reproductive strategies are appropriate in different environments. And to some degree, we can change our strategies, as evinced by the lower birth rate and higher parental investment in rich countries. He’s just identifying an interesting pattern to increase our understanding. Yet the work has been criticized extensively for both moral and scientific reasons. The former type of controversy is rather sad, apparently many people still believe in the Ostrich Strategy for dealing with unpleasant facts. Rushton may be incorrect, but how can it be wrong to speculate about why things are the way they are?

Here is a basic explanation and an archive of Rushton’s work.

This did not turn out the way we wanted it to turn out,” [Portland police cheif] Foxworth said Friday. “Looking back, and I know the officers feel this as well, they may have done something differently. We would have wanted the minimal amount of force to have been used. But I feel we need to recognize Ms. Crowder has some responsibility. She contributed to the situation.”

Standard cop boiler-plate when some untermensch gets uppity with ‘em, right? Yep, except that this case centers around a 71 year old blind woman:

Eunice Crowder, you see, didn’t follow orders. Eunice was uncooperative. Worried a city employee was hauling away a family heirloom, a 90-year-old red toy wagon, she had the nerve to feel her way toward the trailer in which her yard debris was being tossed.

Enter the police. Eunice, who is hard of hearing, ignored the calls of Officers Robert Miller and Eric Zajac to leave the trailer. When she tried, unsuccessfully, to bite the hands that were laid on her, she was knocked to the ground.

When she kicked out at the cops, she was pepper-sprayed in the face with such force that her prosthetic marble eye was dislodged. As she lay on her stomach, she was Tased four times with Zajac’s electric stun gun.

And when Nellie Scott, Eunice’s 94-year-old mother, tried to rinse out her daughter’s eye with water from a two-quart Tupperware bowl, what does Miller do? According to Ernie Warren Jr., Eunice’s lawyer, the cop pushed Nellie up against a fence and accused her of planning to use the water as a weapon.

You get me, boy? Disobedience is not an option here in America, and the sooner you get that through your thick head the less hurt you’ll be in. Just shut up and do what you’re told. What, you got nothing to say? I’ll tell you what, you’re a smart citizen. You know your place. Keep that mouth of yours shut, and you won’t bump up against a squad car and get your feelings hurt. Now move along, Citizen - nothing to see here.

Via John Venlet.

Pursuant to a recent comment thread here, I asked posters at anti-state.com whether any of them wanted to acknowledge cheering on those fighting against U.S. forces in Iraq. Jeremy Sapienza, the founder of anti-state.com and the Senior Editor at antiwar.com offered this response:

“I will stand up proudly for it. I have cheered on men attacking US troops. I will continue to cheer any defeat US troops meet.”

Sapienza made good on that promise yesterday in comments at The Agitator on the death of Pat Tillman. There he wrote:

“Football player gives up millions per year to get shot dead in Afghanistan. As far as I’m concerned, this just proves the perfection of natural selection.”

And:

“Ted Bundy also “willingly gave up everything for something he believed in” — he liked to kill young women, and he gave his life for that. Is that honorable? No. I bet Mr. Patriotic sent a few chunks of lead into the skulls of a few young women himself. But they’re ragheads right? Who cares about them!?”

Later Sapienza explains that he got carried away, but ends with a backhanded slap at Tillman:

“So yes, it sucks that people die. But I’m not gonna cry for professional killers.”

I don’t think Sapienza needs to cry for Tillman, but it’s pretty unfair to characterize him as a professional killer when he obviously wasn’t in it for the money.

What I find interesting is that such sentiments of the Senior Editor find no public expression at all on-site at anti-war.com. On the contrary, the only reference I’ve seen on antiwar.com to Tillman so far is this glowing tribute. I’m not an avid reader of antiwar.com but I don’t think the site has ever published a piece explicitly cheering for any defeat of US forces.

So why the disconnect? Does antiwar.com frown on the sentiments of it’s Senior Editor? I don’t think so; I don’t think Sapienza is alone in these sentiments at antiwar.com.

I think they have one face for the general public and another for the trenches.

Today was a good day, with Butler Shaffer’s On Moral Authority and Harry Goslin’s Why Men Follow Masters.

Butler Shaffer makes the point that moral authority resides in the individual, and cannot be assigned to someone else. In other words (mine, not Shaffer’s) if you’re capable of choosing between two people/groups who will make moral decisions for you, you’re capable of making your own moral decisions. In fact, you are making one in so choosing.

Harry Goslin touches on the same point as he attempts to explain why men enjoy obeying the state (as opposed to reluctantly obeying, as I mostly do, in order to remain slightly more free.) He draws heavily on Etienne de la Boétie’s The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude:

La Boétie said “men take orders willingly” because “they are born serfs and are reared as such.” To la Boétie, servitude to the state throughout history had been conditioned since birth and passed from one generation to the next. What else could explain why so many people, populating the many kingdoms, nations, and countries that have ever existed, could allow the state, always composed of a minority of the whole of any people, to oppress, steal, and murder, with nary a peep for most of the annals of history?

It almost makes me think I should Take TCS‘ers Seriously as I raise my two budding young anarchists. Almost.

Goslin gets bonus points for quoting Lysander Spooner’s No Treason, after which this web site is named.

At Catallarchy, Randall McElroy argues that libertarians ought to endorse the expansion of the legal institution of marriage to include same sex couples. One of his arguments is that in an imperfect world we should favor and pursue equality under the law:

In the long run, this is not the best solution. The government has no proper role in marriage. Ultimately we want to roll back its powers far, far beyond this area. But in the meantime, equality before the law and a little bit of pragmatism should be our guides.

McElroy and others continue the argument for equality under the law in comments to the piece.

That argument fails on more than one level. In the first place, the legal institution of marriage is intended and designed to produce inequality under the law. If single individuals were equal to married individuals under the law, then there would be no reason to raise this argument in the first place.

“But Kennedy”, some will argue, “there is no issue of inequality between single individuals and married individuals, because singles are free to legally marry.” Yes, that’s true, but gays are also free to legally marry, they’re just not free to legally marry members of their sex. In fact, there are gays who are legally married to members of the opposite sex.

“But that’s not fair, because straights are free to legally marry someone with whom they are sexually compatible while gays are not”, comes the reply. That’s also true, but if it’s not fair to legally require gays to jump through a hoop they don’t want to jump through to qualify for benefits given to others, then how is it fair to require any single person to jump through the hoop of legal marriage to qualify for the same benefits?

Legally married gays may be legally equal to legally married straights, but they will enjoy legal benefits and privileges exceeding those of single individuals. Those legal benefits and privileges over single individuals are what is being sought. Expanding a pool of legally privileged individuals does not produce equality under the law. Legal marriage, by it’s nature, produces inequality under the law, it produces privileges and benefits which cannot be justified.

Libertarians arguing for “equality under the law” are also forgetting how such “equality” will be used to directly attack individual liberties. Micha Ghertner tugs at the heart strings with this story:

There were two older men at the bookstore last night, both of whom were in their mid-70�s. They had been �married� for over 50 years. And yet they understood the political reality of the situation and realized that even if things go as the gay rights movement hopes for, chances are they will not have an opportunity to marry within their lifetimes. In my mind, whether you think extending marriage to homosexuals will strengthen or weaken the government�s role in the institution, at a certain point you just have to look at and sympathize with the people who are suffering from this unequal treatment under the law.

But what about these people?

Atlanta’s Human Relations Committee has ruled that a local country club is in violation of the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance by refusing to allow domestic partners the same rights as member spouses.

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin has 30 days in which to react to the ruling, and according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, she may well pull the country club’s city licenses unless they come into compliance with the law.

Two members of the Druid Hills Country Club filed a complaint after repeatedly asking the club to change its “family-only” policies. Although psychologist Lee Kyser and lawyer Randy New both paid the $40,000 startup fee and are writing monthly checks of $475, neither of their partners is considered a member. While heterosexual spouses have full run of the club, including free green fees, neither Lawrie Demorest nor Russell Tippins can join their significant others on the links without being considered guests.

The case is a carbon copy of a dispute at Bernardo Heights Country Club in Southern California. There, Birgit Koebke joined the club in 1987, and tried unsuccessfully to enroll her partner, Kendall French, for many years. Koebke was obliged to exhaust her guest privileges and pay green fees for French, while her straight friends enjoyed unlimited golf with their wives and husbands. Koebke’s case is being pursued by Lambda Legal, and is under appeal in California state court.

Although the Atlanta case might be the first pro-gay ruling in a golf club discrimination matter, the decision follows a line of related gay rights victories. When institutions and organizations condition benefits on marriage, gay partners often find themselves on the short end of the stick.

Such legal inroads against freedom of association are happening even in advance of the legal recognition of gay marriage, but who can doubt the process will accelerate with it’s recognition?

McElroy writes:

I don�t see how the current inequality can be justified, nor can I see how using people as means can be justified.

But aren’t the private owners of the Druid Hills Country Club being used as a means to the end he seeks, and by his very argument of “equality under the law”?

I realize it may be convenient to dismiss them as bigots, but should libertarians actively endorse the use of the state to to benefit some individuals at the expense of the rights of others?

No.

[Haven’t found any news stories on this, but this is what the rumour mill says happened]

European poker player David Benyamine was arrested when he flew to the states for the Bellagio/WSOP tournaments. His name was the same as someone on a terrorism watch list, and he was carrying a lot of cash. He was held in jail for a number of days before they decided that it was just a name confusion. Meanwhile they asked him what he was doing here, and with all that cash. He replied that he was a professional poker player, here to gamble. They said this meant he was here to work, and since he didn’t have a work permit, they deported him.

Sounds like they were annoyed at him for their own mistake. There is an important lesson here: once the feds get on your back, they’re going to find something to bust you for. Sigh. They confiscated the cash too, but I suspect he’ll get it back. I’m surprised things weren’t easier given that the WPT episode where Benyamine won (season two, Paris) had already aired. The feds tend to be nicer to celebrities (remember the Penn Jillete airport incident?).

Anyway, welcome to a country where even the gamblers get protectionism. I wonder if the WPT will refund him the $25K since he was unable to play in the championship event?

The West is fundamentally conflicted between the individual and the collective and has been since the beginning. The Greeks were divided evenly into the Aristotlelian-quasi-liberal and the Platonic-totalitarian. The story of Socrates’ trial and death is not a Aristotlelian vindication of the individual but a Platonic triumph of a man who recognises that society is more important than he is. No one forces the hemlock down his throat - he commits suicide because society has condemned him, and therefore he recognises that he no longer has a place in the world. He is incapable of considering himself apart from the society. Socrates himself says that his life is over before he drinks the hemlock, and this is why. Despite the flowery, oft-quoted line, “I will obey the gods rather than you,” in Apology, Socrates obeys men with gladness. Plato is, sadly, half of the West.

Nor is the story of Jesus a story of a triumph of individualism. Jesus recounts on several occasions - both directly and indirectly - that he does not do his own will, but the will of another. He humbles himself to the death of the cross, and he does so not for himself but for the whole world. The sacrifice of one for the many, especially altruistic self-sacrifice, is fundamentally anti-liberal. Those who wrote about natural law, even Christians, had to reject the words and deeds of Jesus because they were at odds with human reality. How many Bible verses are cited in the Second Treatise of Government? Blackstone’s Commentaries? The Declaration of Independence?

The scourges of fascism and communism are not the East poking into the West, but the sad reality that the West has a long strand of collectivism, at least as strong and deep as its individualism, probably more so.