Re: Fasten-ating

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holy failed risk/reward calculation, ron paul!


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 9:54 PM
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then again, I've ridden as a motorcycle passenger through rural cambodia, without a helmet, "because it was hot." other similar experiences show I won't wear a motorcycle helmet unless I think I'll get arrested, and the existence/quality of nearby hospitals is, if anything, inversely correlated with my helmet-wearin. so, I'm probably more of a dumbfuck in this regard, but at least I'm not an insane, gold standard propertarian.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 9:59 PM
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NMM to Christopher Hitchens.
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Posted by: Cady | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 10:04 PM
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RTFVRA.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 10:06 PM
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Whoops, wrong thread AND pwned. Carry on with the Paulist madness. I wonder if it annoys or amuses him that his Biblical name, Paulus, basically translates as "That little guy"?


Posted by: Cady | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 10:09 PM
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What part of Live Free or Die don't you understand Stanislaus?

In 1971, the New Hampshire state legislature mandated that the phrase appear on all non-commercial license plates, replacing "Scenic."

Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 10:09 PM
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When I was a kid I found the existence of NH POW plates just a delightful irony.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 10:10 PM
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Real nice, POW/MIAs never have a nice day don't even own a license plate.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 10:13 PM
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The children mocked them, do you understand? Mocked!


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 10:14 PM
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Apparently, the cool kids don't buckle up:

We leave the restaurant and jump in his Audi; he rolls a cigarette with a Dutch brand of tobacco called Samson. I notice that Malkmus does not wear a seat belt, nor does he tell me to wear mine. I am immediately more comfortable.



Posted by: lemmy caution | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 10:15 PM
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then again, I've ridden as a motorcycle passenger through rural cambodia, without a helmet....

I refuse ever to use alameida as the standard of comparison for anything or anyone. She can be as sui generis as she wants, fine, but for that very reason she'll never be the International Prototype Platinum Alloy Bar In Paris for anything. The International Prototype Platinum Alloy Bar In Paris neither is nor is not that for which it is the standard, but alameida -- bless her heart -- just plain *isn't*, no two ways about it.

I obviously mean this in the friendliest way. And yet, I fear that she may regard this as hurtful.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 10:20 PM
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The nice thing about motorcycle helmets is that pretty much an impact sufficient to cause brain damage will be fatal 'cause of other injuries.


Posted by: Biohazard | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 10:21 PM
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The nice (from an organ donation view) flip side of that is that a fatal head injury from not wearing a helmet often leaves the other organs intact.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 10:46 PM
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Helmets and speed limits (with exceptions for areas like school zones) should be optional for motorcycles. Some problems have a way of correcting themselves.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 10:57 PM
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14: Agreed. I always rode faster than the surrounding traffic so I could have more control over the passing clearances and timing. However, all skill aside, I have some unfaded flash memories of moments where I was simply lucky. Everyone's luck runs out no matter what though, might as well have fun until it does.


Posted by: Biohazard | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 11:25 PM
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It bugs me that many tv shows and movies show people not wearing seat belts. I notice.

My attention was heightened by a cousin's tragic car accident. She now lives in a nursing home, just this side of vegetative state. Her husband remarried and raises their young kids (youngest was

Wear your seat belts, folks. Please.


Posted by: parodie | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 11:35 PM
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Argh, tags. Youngest was less than one at the time of the accident.


Posted by: parodie | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 11:36 PM
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I drove a motorcycle in rural Cambodia with no helmet on my trip there, and i am a total wuss.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 11:37 PM
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The thing is, the bikes are under 500cc and you can't go very fast because the roads are so bad.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 11:39 PM
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We leave the restaurant and jump in his Audi; he rolls a cigarette with a Dutch brand of tobacco called Samson.

Really? Rollups are hip now? Bad enough when flatcaps suddenly went haute culture, but I do hope it doesn't mean whippets will suddenly be the dog to own.

(And Samson? Mostly smoked by old men out on the dole for decades; also a smattering of slightly cynical but still well meaning and tough social workers of the old sort, ex-commies but still socialist.)


Posted by: Martin Wisse | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 11:43 PM
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This reporter must be trying to drive me insane.

3 white men charged in stabbing, beating of Hispanic man

Aaargh. I know all those foolios involved (regulars in my beat). Granted the reporter might not be personally with these guys but one of them has a name that's obviously southeast asian. And DJ's myspace page hints just a tad at their gang affiliation. I shit you not, the white kid in that article has that giant Aztec eagle tattooed on the back of his head. They're NOT SKINHEADS, you idiot.

|>


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 11:47 PM
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"personally familiar", bah


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 11:49 PM
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The nice thing about motorcycle helmets is that pretty much an impact sufficient to cause brain damage will be fatal 'cause of other injuries.

A good friend was in a motorcycle accident just over a year ago; his hearing and his memory haven't been the same since. He was wearing a helmet, and it did some serious crumpling. It's hard to believe it didn't save him from worse.


Posted by: x.trapnel | Link to this comment | 12-15-11 11:51 PM
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The problem with not wearing a seatbelt in the back seat is that, in a crash, Ron Paul will shoot forward against the back of the front seat "with the force" (according to one UK driving safety ad I remember) "of a charging elephant". You're not even supposed to carry heavy objects on the rear shelf of a car for that reason - and a person is a lot heavier.

Not wearing a seatbelt in the front seat is defensible on individual liberty grounds - it's only your life at stake. Not wearing one in the back is deliberately endangering yourself and others because of laziness or some minor personal benefit.

A really libertarian thing to do, in fact.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 2:53 AM
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A friend in the organ transplant business (ice baths/mexican hotels) gets very sensitive when I ask him why he sponsors motorcycle events.


Posted by: will | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 3:21 AM
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11: no, that seems reasonable. throughout my life I have suggested things and everybody in the room looks at me like, "what the fuck are you thinking?" just now my friend was talking about going on a date with a guy who still (maybe?) has a girlfriend. I said it's all on the guy and not unethical if my friend has sex with him. she said it was OK as long as "there was no drama." I said "what's wrong with drama?" and both my friends looked at me like I had 2 heads. so, no, no one should ask me questions like "is this normal" or "is this safe?" or anything like that.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 4:28 AM
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I refuse ever to use alameida as the standard of comparison for anything or anyone.

I have never been to Cambodia, but I've ridden as a motorcycle passenger through downtown Karachi without a helmet, which is probably comparably dangerous, although there are hospitals. I don't think this one is a very big deal.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 5:18 AM
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And how do you ask a man to be the last man killed by a flying Ron Paul?


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 5:37 AM
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Clearly drivers and front-seat riders have weighed that risk and deemed that it is outweighed by the utility of being thus situated in an automobile with Mr. Paul. It is demonstrable and could not be otherwise.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 5:53 AM
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Do you guys want to know what's funny? JOKES ABOUT POLISH PEOPLE! Because they're dumb and stuff! One time I watched this Will Ferrel thing on Youtube where he made fun of Polish people and I laughed so hard some pee came out. Sort of a lot of pee. But I didn't care because IT WAS SO FUNNY! GET IT? POLISH PEOPLE! HAHAHAHAHA!


Posted by: Pauly Shore | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 6:23 AM
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I will boringly use this thread to restate my admiration and respect for Ron Paul. You can spend much happy time on Youtube watching clips of him in Republican debates the drug war is a dismal failure with massive human and financial costs, Muslim terrorism is mainly a response to U.S. imperialist aggression, Iran is seeking a nuke because the U.S. is a rogue state and our foreign policy creates huge incentives for people to go nuclear in self-defense, the Patriot Act and the national security state are gross violations of Constitutional liberties, Israel should fend for itself, and a huge share of our budget problems are driven by imperial overcommittment and massive defense spending. The best part is the other candidates staring at him agog, like 'is he really allowed to say that?'. There are also clips of him basically calling Bill O'Reilly an ignorant ass, which should also earn points.

As for the craziness of the gold standard -- it's not my preferred economic policy, but all monetary systems have a strong element of craziness. We just don't like to look too closely at whatever we've currently got going. If you look at the fallout over the last 15-20 years from the current regime of total convertibility/no capital controls/pure fiat money it really looks pretty wacky too.


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 6:29 AM
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whoops, should be 'in Republican debates saying'


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 6:30 AM
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27: sure, but it was also a really bad idea.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 6:37 AM
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31.2. Certainly all monetary systems have a strong element of craziness, but to respond to craziness which became undeniable twenty years ago by advocating craziness which became undeniable a hundred years ago seems at best not constructive.

However attractive Paul's other positions are, he's not actually going, as President, to be in a position to do much about them. He might, however be in a position to constrain money supply sufficiently to perpetuate the coming depression forever.

33. Not going to argue with you about that.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 6:48 AM
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You know what? I'm totally cool with gay people. I'm kind of down with the gente. DID YOU GUYS SEE TAHT!! I USED AN UNFOGGED TRADITION! Are you proud of me? Please be proud of me.


Posted by: Pauly Shore | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 6:56 AM
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I learned the value of helmets when an overlarge paraglider had its way with me one breezy morning. Have you ever noticed how many rocks are just lying on the ground, doing nothing until you happen to fall on them?


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 6:57 AM
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My mother refused to wear a seat belt, even after my youngest sister was killed in a car crash while not wearing a seat belt.

I used to think my Mother had a death wish, but I softened that to thinking perhaps she was like the paraplegic in Forrest Gump who dares God to take him during the hurricane.

There are many defensible attitudes between the Catholic "Life is precious so we must cling to it to the last remaining shred, despite the cost to anyone" and "Eff you, Universe, when you take me it will be on my terms, not yours."

Ron Paul strikes me as an "Eff you" kinda guy. I've turned into an "Eff you" kinda guy. He was riding a motorcycle. Without a helmet. Ar Ar.


Posted by: Tripp | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 7:15 AM
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31: And Christopher Hitchens hated Kissinger, and he could be funny sometimes, too. He was still a prick.

And to 31 last, we truly have learned something about economics in the last hundred years. There are absolutely non-crazy ways to run an economy, and Paul's is against 'em.

Plus racism. And there's a special place in purgatory for libertarians who are also anti-abortion zealots.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 7:20 AM
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25: "This motocross brought to you by LifeShare"?


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 7:23 AM
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friend in the organ transplant business (ice baths/mexican hotels)

Is this a joke?


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 7:25 AM
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Like you don't have friends who steal the odd organ here or there.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 7:28 AM
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"WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF AIDS", urple.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 7:30 AM
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And there's a special place in purgatory for libertarians who are also anti-abortion zealots.

The Paul type zealots though are least kind of coherent. Paul believes life begins at conception and so being a zealot is pretty much where that belief takes him. The anti's with "except for rape and incest" are totally full of shit.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 7:33 AM
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The anti's with "except for rape and incest" are totally full of shit.

agreed. if it's murder because the fertilized egg is a human being with rights, then it's murder regardless of how the fertilization occurred.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 7:39 AM
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I think organ donors should be exempt from helmet and seatbelt laws. Non-donors should have to wear helmets and go everywhere encased in foot-thick layers of bubble wrap.


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 7:44 AM
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I have seen two guys on a scooter weaving through crazy Taipei traffic with the guy behind the driver holding a pane of glass about 2 feet square.

If anyone chooses to take this as a challenge, they have to go to Taiwan or someplace, because Singapore traffic couldn't be crazy enough.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 7:55 AM
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Plus racism.

Paul speaks up against the drug war, which has some pretty massive effects on the black community, he speaks up for the hundreds of thousands of brown people we've killed over the last decade and against the idea of killing a couple of hundred thousand more over the next decade, he speaks up for Muslim civil rights when no one else will. But someone digs up some old articles written by somebody else in a newspaper he helped publish a couple of decades ago and now he's racist? If the shit ever comes down I'd trust him a lot more than the NPR anti-racist types who wax endlessly pious about the 60s civil rights movement and ignore all the people we're killing and imprisoning this week.

However attractive Paul's other positions are, he's not actually going, as President, to be in a position to do much about them.

technically, based on recent precedent, he'd have the most untrammeled executive power in the areas where he's the best -- foreign and national security policy. He couldn't cut the Pentagon sufficiently without Congress though.

Sorry, I'll stop now, since we've done this before. I just worry about us heading for a situation where the choice is between an imperialist authoritarian state plus Medicare and Social Security, vs. an imperialist authoritarian state without Medicare and Social Security. I like Medicare and SS as much as anybody, maybe more, but I do wonder about the value of that choice.


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 7:59 AM
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"Life begins at conception" only *sounds* coherent. No one actually thinks that and it doesn't actually make any sense. For example, you'd need to believe that most human lives only last until the several cell stage. Thus the most important medical research is on doing things that would increase implantation rate. I also think you'd have to use condoms all the time because of the high risk of conception.

Furthermore it's just not true that "life" begins at conception. An egg is alive! If your argument is that a *separate* human life begins at conception then that runs into problems with identical twins: is it one separate life or two?

There are plenty of consistant arguments for being anti-abortion, but "life begins at conception" is incoherent or scientifically wrong.


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in." (9) | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 8:03 AM
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The anti's with "except for rape and incest" are totally full of shit.

Plus "rape" should cover it, because if you're talking about incest that isn't consensual or involves someone below the age of consent, that's called rape. And if you're talking about sex between consenting adult relatives, then you belong in the eugenics thread instead of this one.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 8:05 AM
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Er, high risk of conception *followed by immediate death*. It seems to me that unprotected sex would be obviously immoral and possibly negligent manslaughter.


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in." (9) | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 8:06 AM
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47.1: sadly, things like "I think we can safely assume that 95 % of the black males in Washington DC are semi-criminal or entirely criminal" fall into "but you screw one goat..." territory.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 8:06 AM
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43: He's not alone. (Although Wikipedia says conception is sometimes used to mean implantation, and Ron Paul hasn't signed the Personhood pledge which would settle the matter.)

PGD, it's really not very hard at this point to sound like a breath of fresh air on foreign policy. His domestic policy is not limited to a monetary system guaranteed to produce long, painful deflation at regular intervals, but Gilded Age all the way - eliminate Social Security, minimum wage, antitrust, income taxes, and judging from his son and his old newsletters, civil rights.

In short, he wants to disentangle the country from foreign affairs so as to more easily make it into a sea of dark Satanic mills.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 8:08 AM
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31: I would rephrase that. I would say that one of the strong indicators that our political and social system are not viable is that the only guy in either party speaking reasonably about civil liberties, the drug war, or foreign policy is a hard core bigot, a little-government utopian, a free-market absolutist, and a gold bug.

Gold buggery used go along with deflationary tight money policies and was the fetish of creditors who wanted not only to keep all debtors in thrall, but also maintain control of any future development through their control of credit. It worked, which was why the Populist party came into being.

Nowadays even business conservatives want moderate inflation because of the strangling effects of tight money. The gold bugs of today are small time bourgeois who want their wealth to be something physical that can be hefted and kicked and hidden under the bed, invulnerable to the ups and downs of the rest of the economy or the world. But no one's well-being is independent of the general well-being.

So anyway, I don't agree about goldbuggery being no worse than our present system. One peculiarity is that the discovery of a big, highly productive gold mine throws a gold standard financial system out of whack with inflation.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 8:08 AM
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But someone digs up some old articles written by somebody else

Under his own fucking name.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 8:09 AM
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So in other words, PGD's error is in believing that there's hope. We really seem to be at about the place where nations have historically had a coup d'etat followed by one man rule in the service of the wealthy. A few more shocks should do it.

I doubt Paul's ability to put his foreign policy into effect if elected. There's definitely executive autonomy now in foreign policy, military policy, and to an increasing degree, internal security policy, but we can't be sure that the elected President will dominate the executive.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 8:15 AM
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Under his own fucking name.

No, that's his real name. Little known piece of Ron Paul trivia: his preferred fucking name is "The Gold Buggerer."


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 8:15 AM
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Maybe I don't follow the guy closely enough, but it really seems ridiculous to apply the term 'libertarian' to someone who favors an overarching state: his issue isn't about government vs. individual liberty, but about whether the federal or state government should have the whip hand.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 8:16 AM
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Implantation is more reasonable, though it lacks the simplicity of "conception", still runs into twin issues (one soul or two? And if one, what happens if you intervene surgically?), and has really really bad artificial womb issues (eventually you'd have full-grown babies who were never in a literal womb.

There's a reason that the historical Christian position here is that life begins at quickening which happens towards the end of the first trimester. It's a much more coherent and sensible position.


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in." (9) | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 8:17 AM
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I just worry about us heading for a situation where the choice is between an imperialist authoritarian state plus Medicare and Social Security, vs. an imperialist authoritarian state without Medicare and Social Security. I like Medicare and SS as much as anybody, maybe more, but I do wonder about the value of that choice.

That, now, that I can sympathize with.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 8:18 AM
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Gold isn't a hedge good against inflation, but it's a good hedge against governmental collapse and the fiat currency's collapse, except that after the government collapse your gold holds its value and increases in value, but you'll be lucky to keep your gold. A lot of the world's gold supply has been buried underground, by people who didn't survive to dig it up.

If you have gold you'll also need lead, the smart goldbugs say.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 8:21 AM
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47, 59 -- [Long screed started, but became too boring, even to me, to finish or post partially. Check your settings on values, gentlemen.]


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 8:32 AM
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No one's ever accepted my test for fetal personhood, which is that if you can have one in your eye without noticing it, it's not a person. Very commonsensical, not like all those fancy-schmancy "scientific" tests. I looked it up ance, and as I recall a two-cell zygote is about .1 micron across, or something like 0.0000001 meter. I may have misremembered by an order of magnitude or two, but if we grant personhood to something that small and undifferentiated, we might have to grant personhood to a lot of bacteria, e.g. the Epulopiscium fishelsoni .


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 8:35 AM
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To say nothing of Thiomargarita namibiensis.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 8:36 AM
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61: To respond to what I think you were going to say, my doubts are not about the absolute value of the social safety net, but its value relative to a non-authoritarian state. I'm certainly exerting most of my personal and professional effort on behalf of the former even though I value the latter similarly.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 8:40 AM
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26: I crossed a wide road in Bangkok on foot, I'm at least as nutty.


Posted by: Biohazard | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 9:04 AM
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Not to mention the difficulty of distinguishing micron sized "babies" from cancer. Is it human genetically? Yes. Is it distinct genetically from the parent/host? Yes. Can it eventually live outside the host human body? Sometimes (see HeLa cells, Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumor Disease).


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in" (9) | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 9:04 AM
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Actually I was off by 3 orders of magnitude. A human zygote is .1 mm, not .1 micron, 10,000 per meter and visible to the naked eye under ideal conditions. Epulopiscium fishelsoni bacteria are still twice as big. The largest virus is way smaller, though.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 9:39 AM
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Yeah. "An egg cell is about the size of the period at the end of this sentence," as I recall some grade-school health textbook saying.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 9:53 AM
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60: If you have gold you'll also need lead, the smart goldbugs Tripods say.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 9:58 AM
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"An egg cell is about the size of the period at the end of this sentence,"

The book I had said "the point of a sharp pencil."


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 10:03 AM
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"10,000 to the meter" is more scientific. That's a largeish town. A million to the kilometer. NYC would be about 10 kilometers. North Dakota would be about 600 meters.

Quantitative modeling are very powerful, which is why economics has been successful. It shouldn't be that hard to convert these statistics to units of volume, pints, quarts, bushels, and hogsheads.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 10:09 AM
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Oh, wait. Orders of magnitude again. Never forget them, kids! Ten million to the kilometer, so NYC would be one kilometer and ND would be 60 meters.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 10:18 AM
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see HeLa cells, Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumor Disease.

No thanks, I really don't want to see this.

May respond to some of the above when I have time later.


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 12-16-11 10:24 AM
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This thread is dead, but a few quick notes:

--the Paul=bigot thing was put out there by Jamie Kirchick, protegee of Marty Peretz, two of the nastier racists on the journalism scene, as a punishment for Pauls non-support of Israel. Paul is one of the few guys willing to take political fire defending unpopular groups from the operational, active forms of bigotry in our social arrangements today. I'll go by that rather than poking around in the two-decades old murk of libertarian Texas right.

--there is as much money locked up in right-sizing the Pentagon as there is in raising taxes to levels sufficient to fund our safety net / retirement programs. You could save $3-4 trillion fairly easily over the next decade by cutting the Pentagon to pre-9/11 levels and focusing on actual national defense instead of global military domination. There is less than $1 trillion in repealing the Bush tax cuts for the top 1 percent, also less than $1 trillion in a realistic financial transaction tax, etc. Of course if we're going to fantasize why not have all of that plus a bag of chips, but I'm just saying that military spending is a very first-order fiscal issue.

--I am no fan at all of the gold standard or 'end the Fed', basically for the tight-money reasons Emerson mentions above. But I just think it's a more complicated discussion than "that's crazy". The classical 19th gold standard was much more flexible and governmentally driven than is generally understood. (I wonder what gold bugs would say if the gold standard was presented as 'nationalizing the gold market'). I don't think there's much evidence that the kind of random stuff like Emerson mentions in 53.4 had much of an effect on economic policy, central banks had too much capacity to sterilize gold flows. Presumably Ron Paul would want to return to something like the free banking era or the National Bank Act, and in that sense 'end the Fed' is just as important as the gold standard. I disagree with that too, but again it's a more complicated discussion than "that's crazy". A real irony is how the same instabilities we saw in that era started to return once the New Deal banking laws started to get seriously taken apart starting in the 1980s or even 70s. We may not be quite as far from a chaotic 19th century financial system as we think we are -- although in a souped-up highly computerized 21st century version, and weirdly entwined with a massive but ineffectual regulatory infrastructure.


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 4:22 PM
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No, Milton Friedman in his financial history of the US said that the gold discoveries of the 1890s reduced the deflation the Populists complained about. It may be different now.

My opinion is of no concern to anyone, but I'd just nationalize the fed. The Non Partisan League in North Dakota established a state bank in ~1916 that still function. They were about as populist as you could get, with a socialist flavor, and like many populists they were greenbackers. Silver was really a gimmick to pull in silver Ds and Rs, and money from the silver miners. Even so McKinley outspent Bryan 20-1 and maybe 40-1.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 4:30 PM
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43 44

agreed. if it's murder because the fertilized egg is a human being with rights, then it's murder regardless of how the fertilization occurred.

This is silly. Murder is unlawful killing and society can define it however it wishes. It is not murder (in many states) to kill a trespasser in your home but it is murder to kill a guest. Distinguishing pregnancies resulting from rape is not any more illogical.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 4:43 PM
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This isn't really a law argument, though. It's an argument about the reasons for law, sort of a meta-law or proto-law argument about how society should define murder in the case of fetuses. It does include aspects of legal argument, but it's not mostly that.

And the argument is that once you define a fetus as a person with rights who can't be murdered, the rape exception doesn't work because it isn't about the mother or the rapist.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 4:54 PM
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--the Paul=bigot thing ...

There aren't a lot of people who don't have some bigoted views and the evidence is against Paul being one of them. So I don't see the point of arguing about this. It isn't the end of the world.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 4:55 PM
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And the argument is that once you define a fetus as a person with rights who can't be murdered, the rape exception doesn't work because it isn't about the mother or the rapist.

The fetus is still a trespasser. And lawful killing is not murder.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 5:02 PM
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No, fetuses are underage and not responsible. Way underage.

But the point really is, the people making the "Abortion is murder" argument aren't really thinking in legal terms at all, but in religious and moral terms, and for them to say that a precious snowflake which is the result of rape can be killed, but no others, is very strange. To my knowledge no American Protestant group believes in that kind of hereditary guilt, though it's historically common enough, even in Christianity I think.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 5:10 PM
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75.1: it was different then too, but of course the main actors who managed the effect of supply changes in gold were central banks and we didn't have one then. Not saying that fluctuations in supply didn't matter, they definitely did, but the idea that policymakers had no control over monetary policy in the gold standard era is an oversimplification. Less control, sure.

75.2: I think our Federal Reserve is pretty close to nationalized already. Outside of the NY Fed the regional Feds are not very important and the Board of Governors / majority of the FOMC are presidentially appointed, Senate confirmed. I would agree if you're saying that we seriously underuse the potential of our fiat currency. But IMO that is driven by political problems that in our current political culture would not be solved by greater democratic control and might be accentuated by it.

78: seems to me real bigotry by a politician in their professional capacity -- a willingness to use the power of the state to attack people on the basis of membership in marginalized groups -- is incredibly dangerous and a very serious issue. I suppose I might agree if all you're saying is that having purely personal dislike for some group that doesn't affect policy views is not a big deal.


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 5:13 PM
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As I understand the Fed's profits are private. This isn't something I know a lot about. A pure state bank would be a lot better, though it's probably true that a US State Bank would be more fucked up than a Swedish State Bank. (North Dakotans are close enough to Swedes.)


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 5:20 PM
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The U.S. Government receives all of the system's annual profits, after a statutory dividend of 6% on member banks' capital investment is paid, and an account surplus is maintained. In 2010, the Federal Reserve made a profit of $82 billion and transferred $79 billion to the U.S. Treasury.


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 5:50 PM
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I guess the question is, is 6% high or low? For a no-risk investment, it looks high.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 5:59 PM
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But the point really is, the people making the "Abortion is murder" argument aren't really thinking in legal terms at all, but in religious and moral terms, and for them to say that a precious snowflake which is the result of rape can be killed, but no others, is very strange. ...

It doesn't seem strange to me. The issue isn't the innocence of the fetus but of the woman. A woman pregnant as the result of rape has not voluntarily assumed any obligations with respect to the fetus and in general there is no duty to rescue. If you need a bone marrow transplant to survive and I am the only potential donor in the world I still don't have to provide it.

Even if you believe a fetus has rights the woman has rights also and I don't see anything illogical in believing she has more rights if she was raped. Just as you have more freedom of action in dealing with trespressers than with guests.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 6:05 PM
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Well, this is a rich argumentative dilemma. I'm moderating between Christianists I disagree with, a legal system I can take or leave, and Shearer's personal version of libertarianism.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 6:08 PM
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... and Shearer's personal version of libertarianism.

It's not my personal version of libertarianism in as much as I am not a libertarian, I don't believe fetuses are people and in general I don't think abortion should be illegal. But I think it is absurd to argue (as in 43 44) that the only two reasonable positions are complete legality or complete illegality. This is the thinking of fanatics.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 6:28 PM
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Well, we're talking about fanatics.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 7:01 PM
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To go further, if your ground for opposing abortion is the rights of the fetus as a human being, the exception is impossible to justify. Executing someone for someone else's crime. Or tainted blood, but that's pretty archaic thinking.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 7:03 PM
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To go further, if your ground for opposing abortion is the rights of the fetus as a human being, the exception is impossible to justify. ...

This simply isn't true. The woman has rights as human being also so it is a case of balancing conflicting rights (and obligations). It is reasonable to believe both that a woman has fewer obligations towards a fetus resulting from rape and that it is a greater imposition on her to force her to carry it to term. These factors could tip the balance.

How about the exception for the life of the mother? You think that has to be thrown out also?


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 7:22 PM
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Nobody believes any of this. We're just talking about what other people believe.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 7:27 PM
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It's perfectly consistent to believe in a rape exception for abortion if you think that abortion is wrong but not as wrong as killing an infant, or if you think that the real reason abortion is bad is that non-procreative sex is bad.

But no one believes in a rape exception for infanticide.


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in" (9) | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 7:33 PM
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vThe fetus is still a trespasser.

Of course the fetus is still a trespasser regardless of rape, if the woman isn't interested in carrying a fetus.

Unless of course, you're viewing this from the point of view of the culpability of the fetus, rather than the wishes of the mother. In that case, the fetus isn't a trespasser in either a rape scenario or a consensual sex scenario, since the fetus had no volition in the matter.



Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 7:43 PM
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But no one believes in a rape exception for infanticide.

Maybe not infanticide but I don't think you should be forced to support a child resulting from your rape.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 7:49 PM
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Of course the fetus is still a trespasser regardless of rape, if the woman isn't interested in carrying a fetus.

You can consider consenting to sex to imply consenting to care for any resulting conception.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 7:53 PM
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In the past men killed bastard children along with their unfaithful mothers. Never say "no one".


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-18-11 8:07 PM
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83-84 I guess the question is, is 6% high or low? For a no-risk investment, it looks high.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-19-11 5:39 AM
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The obvious remedy is to work out how to safely remove and grow a fetus into a baby outside of the womb. Then send it directly to a pair of loving adoptive parents. The biological mother should never have to see it again if she doesn't want to.

Anything else is just an interim measure.


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 12-19-11 11:33 AM
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