A realist is one who knows that the pessimist is right.
   -Jeff Ehrlich

For the skeptic there remains only one consolation: if there should be such a thing as superhuman law it is administered with subhuman inefficiency.
   -Eric Ambler

Technorati Tags: quotes

It has been proclaimed by some that it is the “moral duty” of newspapers in “the West” to publish the cartoons that have been used by agitators and those with certain anti-Western agendas in the Arab world to inflame passions against the United States.

Yet many of similar political beliefs as those who proclaim this “moral duty” are decrying the publication by newspapers in “the West” of yet more photographs of the abuses at Abu Ghraib as “needlessly inflaming” that same Arab world.

Is morality truly so relative?

If it is, then should we ourselves not call for that which is called for by our enemies, the complete and total destruction of all who do not think and believe as we do?

Should we follow our enemies down the path which leads to the madness of nihilism?

Technorati Tags: Abu Ghraib, commentary, opinion

I was all ready to write a post about the misconceptions involved between port management and port security when it comes to who manages what, but Daniel at Bloggledygook has beaten me to it, and in the process expressed all the frustration I feel about those who react first instead of seeking out the facts and thinking before bloviating.

As I request repeatedly, think before you react.

Technorati Tags: blogging, blogs, left wing blogs, left wing weblogs, left-wing blogs, left-wing weblogs, port management, ports, right wing blogs, right wing weblogs, right-wing blogs, right-wing weblogs, seaport management, seaports, weblogs

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

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Resolved … that it would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism— free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence.

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Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

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All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate which would be oppression.

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I am really mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, a fact like this can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too, as an offence against religion; that a question about the sale of a book can be carried before the civil magistrate. Is this then our freedom of religion? And are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule for what we are to read, and what we must believe? It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason.

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A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.

   -Thomas Jefferson

Technorati Tags: commentary, quotes

Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice has posted on the conviction in Austria of British “historian” (in quotes because I think he does not deserve that appellation) David Irving for the crime of denying the Holocaust occurred. The outcome of the court case caught my eye earlier today because of the implications of a person being jailed because of something he wrote.

Think about those implications for a moment.

Yes, denying that the Holocaust occurred is criminal, but should it be a crime in a society that treasures liberty and wishes to avoid the very mindset that permitted something as horrible as the Holocaust to occur?

Note that criminal is defined “having the nature of a crime” while crime is “a violation of the law”, a subtle but distinct difference.

In other words, where does the line between true political speech the freedom of which does indeed protect a democracy from descent into the tyranny of creeping expansion of government power versus the equivalent of “crying fire in a crowded theater” lie?

Millions died in the Holocaust, a systematic extermination of a people based upon their religion that was perpetrated in a society where dissent was punished by at the least exclusion from society and legal protection if not by the very same extermination.

Where does the line lie between the “internment” advocated by some versus the concentration camps that the Nazis created with such efficiency?

Ponder that for the time it deserves: Dissent was punished in Germany in the 1930s; in other words, the lack of freedom of political speech helped make the Holocaust possible.

Yet some democracies now make denying the Holocaust a crime. What is to prevent those same democracies from making other “undesirable” speech a crime, and more importantly, who chooses what is “undesirable” speech?

If we allow those in power to make the choice, what is to prevent them from choosing speech that is in opposition to their policies or even to their remaining in power?

Respect for the law? It appears that the law can be over-ridden by simple legal opinions written by lawyers in the pay of those in power if recent events in the United States are taken as a guide, or to put it simply, the interpretation of the law is rather too fungible to rely upon it to prevent the choices by those in power to preserve that power for the sake of keeping power rather than protecting freedoms.

I have recently been writing posts that reference the fundamentals that form the foundations of our Constitution, allusions that have been misinterpreted by some as calls to a “strict constructionist” interpretation of the Constitution. I do not follow the constructionist interpretation, I prefer to review the fundamental freedoms as laid out in the writings of the founders in the light of the understanding and culture of today.

What exactly are the fundamentals that apply to freedom of speech?

Do those fundamentals include the suppression of photos taken by American troops at the US-run prison at Abu Ghraib, where acts that were taken, regardless of whether they were sanctioned “officially” or not, have lost for the US the trust of the Arab Muslim world?

Do those fundamentals include cooperating with a repressive regime in finding dissenters when we condemn those who cooperated 70 years ago with a different repressive regime?

What exactly do we believe in now, and what do we believe is worth sacrificing to preserve?

More importantly, what sacrifices are we willing to make?

Technorati Tags: commentary, freedom of speech, opinion, patterns in the white noise

In France, I drove a VW Golf with a diesel engine. It was a fine car with lots of torque, but it didn’t quite measure up to the car I had before I moved out of the US, a 2000 BMW 328i with the sport package.

Since my return to the US, I’ve been driving different rental cars, first a Buick LeSabre which was worse than the same model car I drove in the 1970s, then a Chevy Malibu which while not as badly engineered as the Buick still lacked a lot in terms of driving enjoyment.

Friday I picked up my new car from the dealer. I had gotten so used to driving the Malibu with an automatic transmission that when I pulled out of the dealership and merged with traffic, I put my foot down about 3/4 of the way on the accelerator pedal.

The BMW 330i with the sport suspension and 6-speed manual transmission thinks this is an opportunity to show its stuff, so I was pushed back into the contoured seat hard and instead of the casual finger purchase used in the overly controlled American cars I had to grip the steering wheel to keep my hands from flying off. I was over the 45 mph speed limit long before I had even expected to be at a good speed to merge into the traffic, and once I got onto the freeway I had problems keeping the car down to the 65 mph speed limit on that elevated highway.

During my initial, unexpected acceleration out of the dealership driveway a grin formed on my face that stayed for a full 10 minutes, and those who know me also realize I never smile for that long. I’m sure everyone who saw me driving back to work from the dealership on Friday thought I was completely insane.

Damn, it’s nice to have a real car again.

Technorati Tags: geek cool