Rebel Without Some Causes

It's easy to feel like a jerk or worse on Facebook. I've changed the names of the invitees, and also the exact name of the Causes, but this is how it goes:

"Jane Smith invited you to support the cause Real Men Don't Hit Women."

"Mary Johnson has invited you to support the cause End Child Porn."

My responses? Ignore, and Ignore.

The worst part is, I don't ignore every cause or group. I know some people do as a matter of policy, but I don't. Yet, I "Ignored" perhaps the two causes that every decent person should agree with, right?

But as to the child porn thing, it seems to me that child porn as an issue is focused primarily in getting the government to monitor people's websurfing habits and forcing every business with wi-fi to keep records of everyone who ever used the Internet on their property. Eradicating child porn is the excuse, but Big Brother is the goal.

It's why I'd never join an "End Meth Addiction" cause even though it would be great if all meth addicts kicked the habit. I see that "cause" and I jump to the conclusion that it's about escalating the War on Drugs, something I definitely do not endorse.

As to the violence against women cause, I clicked to find out more. I saw that the beneficiary of donations was actually a gay rights group committed to sensitivity training in the workplace. I'm not necessarily against that, but a) it didn't seem directly related to the Cause, and b) I couldn't tell looking at things briefly whether this group had a political agenda of imposing "civil rights" by attacking property rights and freedom of association. It does seem to me that this is what most "civil rights" groups are actually committed to. I don't have time to research everything in detail, so I decided to Ignore this cause.

I was also recently invited to join a group or Cause to support the Massachusetts cop who arrested Henry Louis Gates. I wasn't there and didn't pay much attention to the story. But even if I thought the cop correctly followed protocol, which many insist he did, I'd still be reluctant to defend the police in any instance. As Will Grigg and others note, police assert too much power and have been given too much authority these days. To "support" this cop would likely mischarcterize my general views regarding the state of law enforcement in America, which is decidedly negative.

This is also why I don't join groups or causes that "support the troops." Such organizations, at some point in their literature, suggest that the troops are protecting us or defending freedom. I believe, however, that instead they were deceived by politicians and are going through hell for no reason except to protect the interests of politicians. I only join "Support the Troops - Bring them home!" type causes.

Piracy, the Next Big Scare

I really don't have much more to say about it than the title. I think piracy will be the pretext , as unemployment increases, for a possible draft and invasion of Somalia.

I haven't actually read any story, only headlines, of the siege, hostage-taking, and rescue this weekend of a ship captain, I've only seen the headlines. But I know that more and more "Somailia pirate" stories are in the news.

The only magazine-length article I've read about piracy was in either The Atlantic or New Yorker some years ago, and the emphasis then was piracy in the Malaysian area.

I have no idea if piracy off Somalia is actually more serious in southeast Asian waters, or if some pretext is needed for more military intervention, this time to provide "stability" in East Africa, from Somalia to Sudan. And our President is black, so it won't be racist and critics can't raise the colonialism/imperialism charge, see?

Is it alright to think about race?

The USA's murder rate is 2 or 3 times that of most other developed nations we would prefer to compare ourselves to. Here's the thing: the nations with higher murder rates seem to have two or three of the following features: ethnic diversity, heavy drug trafficking, and government corruption.

Race-based analysis can destroy one's standing and reputation, but I am curious how White America compares in these statistical categories to whites in other majority-white nations, and how non-whites (and/or non-Judeo-Christians) fare in those nations. Are the most homogeneous nations the most crime-free? Are there similar disparities between whites and non-whites in education and income in other countries as in the United States? What about drug laws and imprisonment rates? Is the fact that the U.S. is more ethnically and racially diverse causing the statistics to lag behind? For instance, is white America's life expectancy, infant morality, etc. as good as any, and are non-whites, with short life expectancies, dragging the average down?

One reason to ask such questions is to answer what role guns play in American society. Does high gun ownership and high gun-related deaths tell the whole story, or are not most of those gun deaths drug- and gang-related, involving a tiny segment of the population? If white crime rates and white gun deaths are already low, how will gun control make anyone safer? And don't the stiff drug penalties, reflected in our high prison population (particularly, high non-white prison population), make the drug trade that much more high-risk and lethal?

The purpose is not to "blame minorities," but to get a more realistic assessment in differences in quality of life in America. As a nation becomes increasingly diverse, people with values and lifestyles different from the established white norm will probably not perform as well in the statistical measure that nation values. Some of this will be inevitable, but some policies, such as the War on Drugs, only make things worse for non-whites.

The New Republic Article

Four years ago, I wrote, "A Presidential campaign can be a useful means of furthering the cause, but on the other hand it would be easy, in this age of media groupthink, to see us all written off as racists and extremists."

Last year, I wrote, "And let’s suppose that Paul’s campaign is effective. That it pulls off a few surprises, and success will breed success. What happens then? The newspapers and news programs will be forced to take a closer look at Ron Paul."

What I had in mind was that a story like Jamie Kirchick's piece would appear, and it is in some ways worse than I would have predicted. Berin M. Szoka rebuts it, but concedes that some of the statements attributed to Paul are "truly odious," whereas others are "merely politically incorrect (but accurate) and/or contradict Kirchick's ignorant, knee-jerk misconceptions of American history." Jim Babka calls the piece a disaster, and asks, if Ron Paul did not write what was put out under his name, that the writer(s) be a man, stand up, and take the heat.

Here's my theory. Ron Paul's career has not just been about spreading a libertarian message. When he began, he ran in a southern, conservative district with a general, Reaganesque "anti-Washington" message that appeals also to non-libertarians, and probably on its surface is not too different from that of other post-Civil Rights era southern conservatives. Apparently, in the years where much of the offending material was published, libertarian leaders aligned with Paul began to reach out to paleo-conservatives and speak at events hosted by organizations like Chronicles magazine, where talk of race and ethnicity would often be blunt. At the same time through these years, the racial politics at the time were intense. There were high rates of crime and welfare in the black community, and a great deal of Bell Curve-style prejudice on the far-Right. (I don't think The Bell Curve was published yet, but the assumptions were already there.) Combined with what were perceived as generally deteriorating social conditions and boiling anger toward liberalism, there was a market for a politically incorrect, right-libertarian newsletter.

This provided an opportunity to earn some extra money for Paul and his friends. If Paul had little connection with newsletters going out under his name, and this allowed for offensive remarks to be published that Paul would never endorse, then one can only conclude that the newsletter was largely written and/or edited by someone, or some people, in whom Paul had absolute trust. Long-time friends and advisers. Perhaps they still are friends and advisers, and perhaps they are now too ashamed to come forward because it would rock the libertarian movement at its foundations.

All that said, what I saw in James Kirchick's piece doesn't seem to be much worse than what Rush Limbaugh or National Review might have said at the time - in context. (If a conservative at the time called a black looter or criminal an "animal," that is certainly offensive, but does not imply that all blacks are criminals or animals, or that blacks are not entitled to equal natural rights.) Views of race and homosexuality have certainly evolved over the past 15-20 years, and this really is a more politically-correct time. (In the sense of greater tolerance and acceptance, this is good; in the sense of lawsuits, suspensions, and firings, it is most unfortunate.)

And we should point out that much of what is "offensive" in Paul's newsletters really isn't. To be critical of Israel is not the same as to be anti-Semitic. To support the right of secession is not to defend slavery. And what, exactly, is so threatening about militia movements? And there are unanswered questions about Waco, and the federal police are thugs. Former Paul staffer (30 years ago) Gary North is a Reconstructionist, but his agenda is not to use The State to impose Old Testament law, but to abolish the State as we know it. As such, his ideas are dangerous to the status quo, but only in the sense that libertarianism is.

Paul has taken "moral responsibility" for what went out under his name. I assume by this he means, he has apologized to all those he should apologize to. On the whole, I think this is an unfortunate but minor episode in Paul's career, and that his peace-and-freedom platform would advance race relations and gay-straight relations by leaps-and-bounds. I understand how some blacks or gays may feel differently, and this may be a reason to withdraw support from Paul. If so, please consider the Libertarian Party, or focus less on candidates and more on direct action through organizations like DownsizeDC.org. It's understandable to withdraw support from a candidate who was responsible for disseminating bigoted views decades ago, but that is no excuse to then support a pro-aggression, anti-civil liberties, pro-counterfeiting candidate, which seems to be all that is left in the Democratic and Republican fields.

Is America ready for a [insert here] President?

Yesterday I briefly heard one of the right-wing talk radio guys discuss the Iowa caucus results. In 2004, two African-American candidates performed disastrously in Iowa, suggesting that this overwhelmingly white state was somehow not "ready" for a black President. Then Barack Obama comes and kicks but, putting the lie to that notion. The host was getting a lot of mileage on this point.

I tried to think: who were those black candidates in 2004? Then I remembered: Al Sharpton and Carol Mosely-Braun. I had to laugh. They were not credible candidates not because they were black, but because they aren't credible people. Whatever one thinks about Barack Obama's views, his style and personal and public record are such that he could persuade Iowa voters to vote for him than for far more experienced old white men like Chris Dodd and Joe Biden.

Does this suggest Iowans are prejudiced against old white men?

And now - surprise - it's dawning on some people that Hilary Clinton's campaign is in trouble not because she's a woman, but because she's Hilary Clinton.

I don't know if race or gender is still a large factor in Presidential politics. Of the two, I would posit that being a woman would be a bigger obstacle than being black.

The reason is, racism in America has no religious basis (except in some really far-out people with theories on the curse of Ham or whatever), whereas sexism does. Racism tends to be statistics-based: crime rates, education performance, etc., but is not personally directed against high-achieving blacks. In other words, a white may be anxious in some quarters of the city, and be skeptical about the grades of a black job applicant from a black school, but would be glad to have her son play for Tony Dungy or work for Colin Powell.

On the other hand, no matter how successful or smart a woman may be, a not insignificant part of the population still believes in gender roles they believe are mandated in the Bible or some other religious texts. Because the Presidency has been conflated with a pastoral role, people who wouldn't want a female pastor would probably be uncomfortable with a female President. Such voters may be small in number, but could provide the margin of defeat.

Moreover, while many whites object to the "radical" agenda of civil rights activists, they still feel sufficient guilt that they agree on principle with many of the goals of equal rights. But they have much less sympathy with the socialistic "radical feminist agenda."

That said, I think both sexism and racism continue to recede in American life. Before GW Bush, I figured the best chance we had for a female or black President would be if she or he ran as an economically conservative, socially moderate Republican - someone who wouldn't cram the "liberal agenda" down are throats Now, the Republican Party has governed so badly, it appears more people are willing to vote Democrat and take their chances.

Who Gets To Presume What

"It's not about race, it's about black street culture." Okay, so Neal Boortz didn't actually use those words, but that's how it comes across in his column on Michael Vick and dogfighting." In the same piece, Boortz both denies that dogfighting it's a "black thing" and suggests that it is.

I don't know if African-Americans are disproportionately involved with dogfighting or not. But leaving aside the question whether or not dogfighting should be banned, I know one thing: the argument that anti-dogfighting laws are racist, or that Vick is being prosecuted only because he's black, will not fly with anyone who isn't into dogfighting. It will, in fact, provoke a reverse reaction. False charges of racism actually provoke more racial hostility than had previously existed.

Boortz raises another interesting point, about "innocent until proven guilty":

A person who kills a girlfriend because she merely wants out of the relationship is a murderer as soon as his victim's heart stops beating .. you don't have to wait for a jury to come in with a verdict.

So, where does this "innocent until proven guilty" stuff come in? The presumption of innocence is, in my view, a limitation that is primarily place on government. Generally speaking, only government can use force – deadly force – to deprive you of your property, your liberty or your life. If the government is going to do so as punishment for the commission of a crime, then the government must afford you your constitutional rights and prove your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It is the government, then, that must consider you to be innocent until otherwise proven. After the act, the rapist is only innocent in the eyes of government. The victim views him quite differently.[emphasis added]

I don't disagree. The only people who must presume Vick is innocent is the jury of his peers. Everyone else, including employers and others in an economic relationship with the accused, has the right to come to their own conclusions and proceed accordingly, even if the State's verdict isn't in yet.

Unless Vick has a convincing case that he knew nothing about the dogfighting "camp" on on his property, I doubt he will ever play a down of football again. His pariah status will be more of a liability than his athletic skills an asset for a franchise.