that's only because I haven't started tickling yet.
I don't even know what that means, text.
Charlie Stross had a nice entertaining rant the other day about the Megrahi fuss.
Yeah, I find this one really hard to get worked up about. Some terminally ill dude gets to go home to die. Sounds fine by me. Two points: 1. The US doesn't seem to make a distinction between justice and revenge. 2. I don't think dying of cancer features in the plans of suicide bombers.
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/08/merciless.html
Sorry, forgot to include it.
Yeah, good rant and good comment thread. I felt he steered too close to vulgar anti-Americanism at times, but I thought his analysis was spot on.
I also liked the guy in comments who pointed out that the second objective in the preamble to the constitution is to promote the general welfare. Damn commie, that Jefferson.
I think part of the outrage (which is, of course, crap) is that plenty of Americans don't trust that he's really dying of cancer. Nothing specific about the Scottish justice system, but they have a vague impression generally of foreigners as unserious about punishment, and I'd bet lots of the sentiment is driven by a vague impression that he's just been let go, not to die, but because the darn foreigners got soft and wanted to let him go for the hell of it.
10. Ah, I see. The oncologist who diagnosed him probably works for the NHS, so s/he can't be trusted.
re: 10
Yeah, probably. The only sensible response to that, though, is to tell people to grow the fuck up.
The impression that foreigners have of the US system is that it's barbaric and unserious about actually reducing crime [rather than, at worst, just satisfying atavistic revenge fantasies].
I would quick like to have a private word with John Bolton, mind.
The rant was very good, but it made me unwillingly defensive in a quasi patriotic way. I started to think, "Don't knock America in toto. I am an American, and I don't think that." And then I thought that I bet that the Daily Mail has said something awful about the release, and that I heard the Scottish Conservative Justice spokesman say that Scotland was now a pariah or something.
11.2: an impression shared by a majority of the Americans who comment here, I imagine.
US system is barbaric and unserious about actually reducing crime. It is just about satisfying atavistic revenge fantasies.
Hi LB - I'd bet lots of the sentiment is driven by a vague impression that he's just been let go, not to die, but because the darn foreigners got soft and wanted to let him go for the hell of it.
Maybe, and I'venot read the Stross, but lots of us here think he's been released in order that his appeal not be heard, so the fact that the bombing was done via London by Lebanese agents of Iran (which had an airliner shot down by a US warship, didn't it?) wouldn't be raised.
an impression shared by a majority of the Americans who comment here
Not to mention the many Americans with first-hand experience of our criminal justice system.
From the article ttaM linked to.
there is a small but significant proportion of the US population who hate the poor and want them to die.I was thinking this exact thought all morning. Stross links it to propserity theology, which is obviously a part of it, but a much bigger component is race. You don't see this if you watch the health care debate in the news, but I don't have to talk very long to a student about health care reform before I start hearing racist code words to describe the people who would benefit from any change.
Many people will only be satisfied if we reject the basic principle that hospitals should treat people in emergencies even if they can't pay. This is logically implied by the way they people discuss the "problem" of illegal immigrants getting "free health care." The people who make the argument are aware of this consequence, but do not voice it. I'd really like to see more people called out on this idea.
As for what heasman said, he gave up his right to appeal so that (they say) he could get released on compassionate grounds. But as a legal matter, there was no need for an ongoing appeal to prevent his being let out on compassionate release.
19: BG, that is heasman's point, I think.
Did 11 turn into 12 somehow?
I haven't read Stross' essay yet, but even the title hits the nail on the head. I'm so sick of pseudo-christian sadists barking away on Fox, in the WSJ, and in the rest of Rupert Murdoch's disgusting rags; self-righteous libertarian prigs preening and sneering in blogs associated with formerly respectable periodicals; and the dirtball "men on the street" shuttled around to Townhall meetings in buses by the morally bankrupt Republican Party. They should all be too ashamed to leave the house in the morning. But are they? Fuck no, they're fucking proud of themselves. It's almost enough to make you wish there was a god, so he could smite them. What a world.
mcmc's 21 made me smile. I love a little rage in the morning. She is absolutely correct.
20: I was just trying to flesh it out.
mcmc: some trollish comments were removed. Perhaps that caused renumbering.
When I heard some Scottish guy on the radio talking about mercy for some evil terrorist named Al McGraghy, I figured it was just ethnic solidarity, Scots taking care of each other.
the second objective in the preamble to the constitution is to promote the general welfare. Damn commie, that Jefferson.
Madison, actually. Though Jefferson could be similarly convicted based on the preamble to the Declaration of Independence.
25: supposedly many converts to Islam will take a name reflecting where they're from (like Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti, from Tikrit). A friend who used to follow this sort of thing once mentioned to me a convert whose supposed chosen last name was al-Scotlandi. Too good to check, I suppose, but still...
I am so fucking irritated with the American "official" response to this issue. And, frankly, really surprised at Yglesias' objection to al-Meghrahi's release.
I am reminded of a client for whom we tried to secure clemency based on her terminal illness. After years and years of trying, she managed to keep holding on one more month because we thought the release was imminent. She made it, and died the following month. Not before going to a Rolling Stones concert, though.
If I never hear "deprecate the seriousness of the offense" again, it will be too soon.
26. Interesting bloke, Madison, it turns out.
An increase of population will of necessity increase the proportion of those who will labor under all the hardships of life, and secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings. These may in time outnumber those who are placed above the feelings of indigence. According to the equal laws of suffrage, the power will slide into the hands of the former.
When is this scheduled to happen?
Many people who voted for Obama did so believing he would work for the scheduled power shift in 2075, as specified in the Democratic Party platform. Unfortuneately, it looks the Republicans are going to successfully pass a measure putting the power shift off until 2082. Obama says that while he still supports empowering the powerless in principle, with only 60 Democrats in the Senate, he cannot stop an override of any veto he uses.
"the general welfare" was intended to refer only to military officers.
18:but I don't have to talk very long to a student about health care reform before I start hearing racist code words to describe the people who would benefit from any change.
A perfect example from the NY Times article that Witt quoted in the other thread:
Furthermore, Mr. Collier recognizes that were he to lose the job he has held for 39 years, his wife's pre-existing condition might well make her uninsurable.
"We've got to do something about those people who can't get insurance," he said. "There has to be a safety net there. But I don't want that safety net to catch too many people."
And my favorite "shocking" tidbit: They receive much of their information from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh's radio program and Matt Drudge's Web site.
"There has to be a safety net there. But I don't want that safety net to catch too many people."
It is not enough for us to succeed, our neighbors must fail.
[T]here is a small but significant proportion of the US population who hate the poor and want them to die.
I like being lectured about how much America sucks as much as the next guilty white liberal, but I think I have read that statement, or its equivalent, more often than I have met people who hate the poor and want them to die, even assuming, arguendo, that the population of the United States is peerlessly degenerate. I suppose I ought to get out more.
I'm kind of with Flippanter on that. I'd say that positions that look like "hate the poor and want them to die" more often represent "honestly believe, on some insane level, that someone has to be miserably poor, and so if the people who are currently miserably poor aren't kept down, then it's going to be me."
It's not motiveless malignity (I love that phrase), so much as craven fear of being the one on the bottom of the heap.
I've come across people who basically hate the poor here, too. It's not a specifically US thing. I think 34 and 35 are being charitable.
The viewpoint, which is pretty common, I think, is more, "poor people don't really deserve our help, if they worked harder and were more enterprising/less feckless then they wouldn't BE poor. Not only should we not be directly helping these people, we shouldn't be removing all the hardships that hurt the poor because i) they provide motivation for those who can get out to get out, and ii) the remainder are worthless shits who deserve what is coming to them." With the usual implicit coda that, "and I am superior to them."
IME, 'it's about tribe' is a much better predictor of human behavior than 'it's about money.'
37, yes. Not that all us greedy little shits don't sell out for money all the time. But people typically are much less willing to sell "the poor" down the river when the poor is one of their own.
"There has to be a safety net there [to catch deserving people like us]. But I don't want that safety net to catch too many [of those other] people [who are not like us]."
I guess that another relevant factor is interest and ability for thinking about complex social problems, without which it is hard to even imagine a better healthcare system.
The democrats have NOT produced a clear picture of what a better system will look like (because they don't have the votes, so can't discuss specifics). Seen from the outside, there are vague proposals to change healthcare; the current system is bad, but can certainly get worse. There is definitely a "just trust us" element to the discussion at this point, IMO. Unless you can hold your nose and think about what's wrong with healthcare, and also have some understanding of how it works in other places (where doctors are not nearly so well-paid), there's not much ground to stand on.
Simple racism applies for many opponents, but I do not think that it is a sufficient explanation for the widespread opposition.
36: This American Life rebroadcasted a classic David Sedaris piece about being a gay kid at summer camp. The main theme was that the gay kids knew who each other were, and felt an enormous wave of relief and gratification when *some other* gay kid was bullied for being gay. After Sedaris and another boy have a furtive encounter, they immediately set upon each other, trying their best to get the mob of boys to bully the other child, out of intense self loathing and the joy of getting to be at least better than one other person.
41: Right. Even what looks like hatred is often fear -- bad things have to happen to poor people, and they have to deserve it because being poor means they're bad people, because if they're not bad people and they don't deserve it then bad things could happen to me, regardless of whether I deserve it.
Simple racism applies for many opponents
Sometimes it isn't so simple of a racism. I talked with an in-law recently, a smart, moderate person who does lots of charity work and giving, who I'd never heard make any sort of racial statement in any direction previously. They felt *something* had to be done about the health care situation, but I was shocked to hear them add that their concern was that the problem with universal access was that "blacks would swamp the system".
I was, for one of the first times in my life, completely speechless.
re: 42
Yes, that last, definitely.
Just heard that apparently there are petitions being circulated in NY for a boycott of Scottish products. I am unconcerned, since as far as I am aware Scotland's main exports to the US are 1) whisky and 2) golfing trips for corrupt Senators.
As for 1), the Japanese will mop up any left unsold to the US, and as for 2), corrupt senators are, ipso facto, unlikely to act out of principle.
Also, I suspect that most of the people who would join such a boycott are probably unaware that Scotland is part of the UK, and so will only boycott recognisably Scottish goods like tartan dolls, shortbread and jimmy hats, and I think that a bit of boycotting of those might do both Scotland and the US some good.
42: this is also, more or less, a big reason why people in dangerous jobs (firefighter, infantry, fisheries) tend to be very superstitious.
re: 45
Heh. We might need to rebrand haggis, as Freedom Sausage.
recognisably Scottish goods like [...] jimmy hats
Before looking it up just now, I had never known that jimmy hat referred to anything other than a condom.
recognisably Scottish goods like [...] jimmy hats
This is one of those transatlantic dialect failures. I think I know what you mean, but I'm pretty sure nobody in the US would consider condoms to be "recognisably Scottish".
No, here in the US, we would consider them to be recognizably Scottish.
50: Especially if you rinse them out and re-use.
45: I'm not going to give up shortbread without a fight.
Ooh, if there's a boycott, does that mean that smoked salmon will be cheap?
I wonder if the high level of certain types of religiosity among certain classes in America affects the sense that things must happen for a reason and be part of the grand plan. Therefore people who are poor and die uninsured must deserve to have it happen.
Whereas in a country like Britain, where most people don't care enough about "higher things" to be called agnostic, the idea that shit happens and a lot of what you experience in life is at most contingent and often totally random has a lot of purchase. So if you're down on your luck, it's just that - luck.
I also echo the sentiments that condoms are not recognizably Scottish. And in fact, that word for them is recognizably mid-90s hip-hop.
54.1: Part of it is that being poor isn't considered necessarily bad ("camel through the needle's eye"), nor is death.
56: Visit Britain: Life is Cheap and the Beer is Warm!
I'm fairly sure I've seen machines selling tartan condoms, next to the french ticklers and the strawberry flavoured numbers. Which tartan, I couldn't say.
And McVities Penguin bars (kind of like a Twix bar). Although I've never seen those for sale in the States (my Scottish great-uncle Jimmy had boxes of them in his house, I'm not sure why), so even if they were cheaper, I still wouldn't know where to get them.
57: If they switch to plastic glasses in pubs, I'm boycotting Britian.
Oooh, I had Colman's mustard for the first time while I was traveling recently. That is from (gesturing vaguely east) somewhere around Scotland or something. Man alive, is that stuff good. I wanted to drink it straight.
60: Stabby stabby stab stab stab stab.
62: To my mind, the occasional stabbing is worth it to drink beer out of glass and not plastic. If I wanted to drink beer out of plastic, I'd go to a Pirates game (if the Pirates could manage to suck a bit less).
Colman's mustard is certainly the dog's bollocks. But not Scottish, in the same way that you are not Canadian.
63: The Brits wouldn't have nearly so many knifecrimes (awfully awkward word, by the way) if they let people shoot one another settle their differences on the field of honor like Americans Christians God Colonel Colt intended drive on the right side of the road.
The Brits shoot each other if they want to. Fairly powerful air rifles are legal, and ordinary firearms can be got. Even legally, if you're prepared to hold a license. Crossbow crimes are not unknown.
We just tend to prefer the personal touch offered by a blade. Call it the pride of craftsmen.
Crossbow crimes are not unknown.
Someone's been reading my dream journal.
67: The fact that the pint glass is used so often suggests less 'pride' and more 'grabbing whatever is near when they happen to get angry.'
Crossbow crimes are not unknown.
Presumably only when there's a serious quarrel.
Yes, but if you wanted to, could you kill dozens of people in a minute with a knife or a crossbow before turning it on yourself? Only with some sort of specialized military training. Whereas in our country any man has that freedom.
71. Women aren't allowed to be mass murderers in America? What a great country! But seriously, if you want to do that sort of thing here, you just have to join a gun club. It happens from time to time. Not as often, but too often.
The fact that the pint glass is used so often suggests less 'pride' and more 'grabbing whatever is near when they happen to get angry.'
Maybe British saloon louts are masters of the occult martial art known as "Naked/Kill".
74: You should try to sell your dream journal to Quentin Tarantino.
Pride in a pint glass (Damn good pint, that). Oddly, if you google "crossbow murders", the first three cases are American, before you get to the one I was thinking of.
I'm thinking if they had any sense of tradition, they'd use a long bow.
British pubs have had stab-resistant glass pint glasses for ages. A friend of mine told me about when they changed over when he worked as the shift manager in a busy Glasgow pub.*
The stab-resistant glasses shatter like safety glass, into chunks rather than into big jagged shards.
* ironically, as part of a story in which he described the only time he ever lost his temper at work, and reached for a glass to smash/slash/stab the guy with.**
** said friend is a very peaceful cheery chap, and that would utterly out of character. I can't remember the details but he was provoked ..
77: Archery is a lot of fun. I wish there were a place to shoot in Manhattan.
S--A--F--E--T--Y Glass
We can smash if we want to.
We can beat your friends blind.
Cause your friends don't smash,
and if they don't smash, they're no friends of mine.
79: There's a range in Queens -- we looked it up because Sally was interested, but haven't gotten around to it.
I felt he steered too close to vulgar anti-Americanism at time
Aw, look how OFE is sticking up for us! Or possibly is just against vulgarity as a rule.
I wonder if the high level of certain types of religiosity among certain classes in America affects the sense that things must happen for a reason and be part of the grand plan. Therefore people who are poor and die uninsured must deserve to have it happen.
I was thinking of this just this morning, in the context of certain conservative friends who oppose universal health care and how on earth do they square that with a religion that calls for charity to the poor and downtrodden?
Hrm. Maybe I will have to boycott Scotland. Johnnie Walker -- well, Diageo, one assumes -- is lobbying hard against healthcare reform. Fuck off, assholes! (Ack! They own Lagavulin, too.)
that with a religion that calls for charity to the poor and downtrodden
I noticed during my time with the college Christian scene that there are some seriously radical evangelicals out there, but that they tend to all be very young and ignored in the larger realm of the fundamentalist world. But I've seen more people making conscious choices to be very poor and serve others out of a desire to do so for God than any other reason, including DFH-type reasons. I remember hearing multiple speakers on the virtues of giving away your possessions, turning away from your families, and going out into the world. (Scared me, frankly. I like my possessions.)
But that's a hard life, and as with most liberals who admire Frowner's activism or the like but don't do anything ourselves, the easier route is chosen.
I've likely said this before, but my irrigation professor refused to ever work on water projects in India again. He said they didn't care about the reservoirs and canals working right. Sure, the water all ran out before you got to the end of the canals (very classic tail-ender problem). But if the people at the tail ends had deserved to get water, they'd have been born to land closer to the top of canals. Perhaps in their next lives they will be.
seriously radical evangelicals out there
I read Shane Claiborne's books because I am so curious about how evangelicals end up living just like DFH's.
overwhelm the system
This is unlikely to be a rational basis for the fear, but there are socioeconomic differences in what people want for end-of-life care now. I suspect that these differences are a consequence of distrust, and that a less vicious healthcare system would minimize the desire for heroic measures to add a little more time for the terminally ill. But denying that different preferences exist does not seem like the way to go.
||
This seems as good a time as any to announce my departure. I'm not mad at anyone, particularly. Rather, as with soup biscuit, I'm going to be doing some different things with my life in the near future, so I'll be adjusting my online presence accordingly. Of course, I'm sure I'll be lurking a fair amount (although I am going to go on an internet fast for a week or so) and who knows, maybe in the future I'll come back. It's certainly been a fun 3 years, with far fewer flame wars than I would have thought possible. Perhaps I'll see some of you in real life or other places on the Net, which would be nice.
Goodbye and thanks for all the fish,
Au revoir, les enfants,
Catch it in the next edition, baby,
I remain, as ever, your most humble and obedient servant,
minneapolitan
||>
overwhelm the system
Oops.
This is unlikely to be a rational basis for the fear, but there are socioeconomic differences in what people want for end-of-life care now. One more cite I suspect that these differences are a consequence of distrust, and that a less vicious healthcare system would minimize the desire for heroic measures to add a little more time for the terminally ill. But denying that different preferences exist does not seem like the way to go.
the easier route is chosen.
I realized that I should acknowledge that I too am mystified by the larger trend that Di notices; for so many, not only is the easier route chosen, the basic principles of compassion are also missing. I wonder if that's not where cultural training (from within and without the church, but mainly without) kicks in and overrides the specific teachings of the Christianity; I can't imagine that many of these people would have radically different ideas about the poor, etc., if they weren't Christian.
Smooth roads and kind journey, Minneapolitan.
91: Write if you need bail money.
91: Call us when you find America.
And remember to hang by your thumbs.
Do drop in now and again to say hello, Minneapolitan. I'll miss having your perspective here.
96: It's on the New Jersey Turnpike, right?
100: One car. Two cars. Three cars. [Kathy beats narrator to death with blunt instrument].
Oh, I'll miss you, Minne. Best of luck with everything.
Minne, congratulations and good luck.
91: Write if you need bail money.
And remember to hang by your thumbs.
Why am I not surprised that LB is a Bob and Ray fan? pleased and amused, but not surprised.
101: Kathy was sleeping (or pretending to at least).
You try sleeping with someone counting every goddamnit car on the New Jersey Turnpike right next to you. You know what the worst bit was? There wasn't a lot of traffic, so there'd be these long pauses, and I'd drop back off to sleep. And then "Four hundred fifty two." No jury would convict me.
Good luck Minne. This seems like a good place to note that Facebook stalking really is as easy as everyone says and I apparently kind of knew you in an earlier life (read, college). I'll say hi if I see you around town.
108: That's easy for you to say. At least you had a magazine to read. And thanks for smoking the last cigarette, bitch.
OK, good, good, so now it comes out, right here in front of everyone! Keep going. I guess you laughed at the my bow tie camera line merely out of pity? Right?
Good luck, minne, choose your life journey companions carefully.
OPINIONATED S&G SUCKS ASS!
I hope that this just means that you'll be too busy working, minneapolitan, during the day to participate, not that you'll have to go completely incognito. Can Frowner keep us updated?
OT:
I saw Liam Neeson this morning. (He lives a few blocks from me.) He and I are of a size, which is a couple of sizes larger than most movie star types, but bereavement has left him rather more drawn, pale and stooped than the last time I saw him. Sad.
Thanks for the warm regards everyone. Frowner will certainly let you know if I get arrested or win the Irish Sweepstake or something. My thought was to put a solid amount of distance between the real me online and this persona. So maybe I can come back in the fullness of time.
Now I am dying of curiosity about who Jimmy Pongo could be, so send me a FB message, eh?
Okay, really goodbye. For real.
And I'm sorry to see soup biscuit has left too. I must have missed that.
Good luck, minne
Good luck, soup
We regulars will keep the homefires burning and a candle in the window.
Dammit!
I guessed wrong. It's Chopper I knew.
Oh well. As long as you're wearing your unfogged t-shirt, I'll be sure to say hi anyway.
good luck, M, you are also a responsible being
i sometimes wonder what happened to FL, Cala and Tripp, leaving English like is that, deprecated
/kidding, sure there are many more things more important than the internet forums, but one gets used to people and miss them even though will never meet them, strange
my own ESOBlessM operation is pending/postponed for some time
87: I grew up around a lot of those people. Heck, my Dad was one of those people, a hippy for Jesus before there really were hippies. Good folks, for the most part. Any harm done by proselytizing is more than compensated for by the actual hands-on help they deliver. There are far more of them than most people realize, but they are low visibility because their efforts are directed towards delivering help to the needy, and that's just not a high visibility demographic. They are what I think of when I hear the word "christian" and it pisses me off to see that word used to describe the likes of Rick Warren or Jimmy Swaggart.
