People don’t really want to know anything that changes their worldview.
   -Eric Alterman

I had some inspiration to write while I was driving home from work today, but now, a few hours later, I’m feeling rather burned out and incapable of assembling something coherent.

I have noticed a few bumper stickers on cars I see almost every day either at the parking lot at work or somewhere along my commute. Some have provoked a lot of thought in me, even though I don’t always agree. The first:

Never shoot to kill
Always shoot to live

I was raised in two different subcultures, the newly-evolved suburbia of subdivisions and the old, Southern rural farms. I was exposed to guns both for target shooting and for hunting, and they were not considered something evil in and of themselves. The philosophy expressed by “Never shoot to kill, always shoot to live” was really a part of my life, with no indoctrination of the sacred importance of the second amendment.

Another one I see frequently that always makes me think:

War is terrorism
with a bigger budget

Given that the now traditional philosophy of war is defeating the will of the enemy to fight, not merely killing the enemy, this succinct statement isn’t as far off base as a knee-jerk reaction against it might lead one to believe.

A related one:

We are making enemies faster than we can kill them.

The truth of this statement can be debated, but it is indeed a risk. However, the key is that it also prompts the thought that perhaps killing is not the best approach to defeating enemies.

A final one that prompts more wondering than real thought is a black square pasted on many rear windows, with the text in white, large, times-roman font:

W.
The president

While it may be viewed as an expression of strong support for George W. Bush, in this irony-saturated age it is almost impossible for me to see in it the simple message I suspect the car’s owner is trying to convey.

Technorati Tags: random thoughts

On Wednesday, 19 July 2006, on a windy Florida beach with thunderstorms surrounding us but somehow avoiding our little stretch of white sand, I married a woman I love deeply. This is why I haven’t been around to post here.

Since this is a complete surprise to the majority of readers here, you can guess that I’m a bit guarded with respect to my personal life. I will give details later, but I need to put it in a form I’m comfortable with first. I’m also searching through the photos I took to see if there are any that I can put up, so come back later if you are interested!

…returned in a big way.

This week my company, Freescale Semiconductor, announced the availability of MRAM parts. This is a new, non-volatile memory (as in it keeps the stuff stored even when the power is off) that has the potential to make many devices start up faster and in some cases store data more quickly.

What I found interesting though, was my own personal history with the development of the technology. Around nine years ago, I was on an ad-hoc committee which was charged with studying the MRAM technology and deciding if it was worth pursuing.

Needless to say, we decided the cost of development was worth the potential payoff.

It is nice to see something that I played a small (but non-trivial) role in come to fruition.

The Wall Street Journal (posted online at OpinionJournal.com) betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of the rule of law in an editorial on the recent ruling by the Supreme Court on the applicability of part of the Geneva Conventions to the prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay by the United States.

In the editorial Osama in Genevaland (subtitled Terrorists are now getting lawful-combatant legitimacy) they write:

The Geneva Conventions of 1949 govern the treatment of lawful combatants and civilians during wartime. But now a new Pentagon memorandum concludes that Common Article 3 of the Conventions also governs the treatment of unlawful combatants: pirates, drug mafias and especially terrorists. So, five years after 9/11, the U.S. is about to give to people who ram commercial jets into buildings many of the same legal privileges and immunities as the average GI.

This hyperbole makes the unstated assumption that everyone held by the United States as an “unlawful combatant” is indeed merting of that designation, despite the fact that there has been no process put in place to establish that status for prisoners. Through what means was it decided these people are “unlawful combatants” and who made that determination? Was it fair? Was it based on evidence, or merely hearsay?

This does not even address the basic flaw in the subtitle regarding giving legitimacy to terrorists, because we have already done so in our reaction to the murders of September 11, creating an inflated “War on Terror” from our fear and anger thereby giving the terrorists their victory and elevating them from a bunch of thugs to an “enemy of the homeland.”

We claim we are fighting against uncivilized opponents, yet we are throwing away the basis of our civilization when we ignore the principle of the rule of law when dealing with those we declare are our enemy.

Is each and every person at Guantanamo a terrorist? No, the release of some of the prisoners held there show that as in every human endeavor, mistakes were made. Once it was said, “better to let 1,000 of the guilty go free than condemn one who is innocent.” If this is no longer one of our fundamental beliefs, what level of collateral damage in the form of condeming those not guilty is acceptable? Remember, though, when you make this grim calculation, with every innocent punished for no reason we create not one but many enemies.

The end of our Pledge of Allegience states that we are a nation with “liberty and justice for all.” Depriving people of their liberty is one of the most feared powers of a government, and the arbitrary use of that power has sparked more revolutions than can be easily counted. This confers a grave responsibility to use that power through a system of justice that is understandable and fair, and if we feel the principles upon which our Constiution is based are fundamental in applying to all humanity, what does it say when we choose to ignore those principles when dealing with non-citizens?

The editorial is partially redeemed by this statement:

What the world needs is a new legal framework for distinguishing between legal and illegal combatants, but instead we are now heading toward the European model where terrorism is seen as just another fact of life and not a unique evil or grave threat. In Germany, the High Court earlier this year released from custody Mounir El Motassedeq, an accomplice of 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta, on a technicality. Germany may be able to afford such legal exquisiteness; as the main terror target, the U.S. and its citizens cannot.

Yet the call for a new legal framework is weakened by the complaint about “legal exquisiteness” for it is precisely that attention to the law that is what makes us civilized as compared to those who say they can do whatever they want to their enemies.

Fundamentally, the rule of law is not about selectively applying the law only to the lawful; it is about applying the law to the unlawful, preventing their unlawful nature and despicable acts from degrading our society and our civilization.

If we ignore the law or only apply it when it is convenient, what exactly differentiates our system from arbitrary rule?

It appears that the most poular weblogs capture the personal take on the topic of discussion, whether politics or art or science or technology or whatever.

Unfortunately for me, and for this weblog, I tried to argue reason in an arena filled with those who are not interested in reason, I tried to present fact in a venue where facts are unimportant, and I tried to use logic in a battleground where raw emotion rules the day.

It wore me out, through both frustration and disappointment, and events in my personal life did not help.

Where to go from there, though, especially after a hiatus that has only been partially abandoned in favor of writing something, even if not on a different path than that which created the frustration and disappointment?

I am not comfortable revealing the personal for reasons that arise from events long past that are unimportant to anyone other than me.

Recently I re-watched the movie Gattaca, a movie which resonated on many levels with me when I first saw it and reverberates with meanings that go far beyond those of a decade ago in ways that no one anticipated before the events of a half-decade past.

What are the implications in the larger context?

First, one must understand the context, and it is that milieu that troubles me a great deal.

What are the components of this disturbing tableau?

They are almost too numerous to mention, and unfortunately for me, some of the components have been lost in the churn of the web that cannot be tracked despite my attempts.

One of the most notible is a study on how the maturity of people in America has been on the decline, and I truly wish I could find the link to that research, not only because it reinforces my observations and conclusions, but because I feel it is required reading where even those who disagree with my beliefs will find it illuminating.

The reason I wish I could find the study is that I have found the collective reaction to September 11, 2001, incredibly immature, emotional rather than reasonable, reactionary rather than thinking.

Unfortunately for us all, reacting rather than thinking tends to lead a society down a path of destruction rather than survival.

What is the true worth of our principles if they can be so easily undermined by events?

Who is the patriot and who is the traitor among those who question the actions of the government, especially when they seem to violate both the Constitution and the principals upon which it was based?

I am a patriot; I believe firmly and deeply in the principles upon which the Constitution is based.

However, I am NOT a nationalist.

There is a key difference, as noted by Christopher Dickey in an outstanding essay from which I lifted the definitions of “nationalist” and “patriot”.

Yet this subtle yet key difference is now blurred because of the reckless use of the word “traitor” by the extremists.

Ask yourself, divorcing your thoughts from the screeching of supposed fellow-travelers, and look at actions. Whose actions are consistent with our fundamental principles, and whose actions are concentrated solely on getting power for “their side”?

An open government is an absolute necessity for a democracy.

Here is how our president approaches journalism:

Remarkable how it is similar to the approach to journalism taken in China:

And here is how the right-wing in the US wants journalists to be treated when they “get out of line”… oops, this is how they are treated in China:

Do we really want to be following in the footsteps of the last large Communist regime that gained and keeps power through repression, imprisonment for speaking out against the misdeeds and crimes of the government, and profits through slave labor?

It seems that is what some are calling for, whether they realize it or not, and likely not since thinking and making connections and rational comparisons seems to be outside their capabilities.

And speaking of the right-wing, let’s talk about flag burning:

What is being desecrated, the flag or the Constitution for which it stands?

As stated by President George W. Bush in his remarkably rare (for his presidency, anyway) news conference in Chicago yesterday:

“It didn’t say we couldn’t have done — couldn’t have made that decision, see?” Mr. Bush said at a news conference in Chicago. “They were silent on whether or not Guantánamo — whether or not we should have used Guantánamo. In other words, they accepted the use of Guantánamo, the decision I made.”

In what twisted universe is it that the President of the United States has to be TOLD by the courts that an extra-legal prison that uses “stress positions” and other “coercive” means of interrogation is not only ill-advised in a war that depends more on image than on casualties but also completely contrary to the most fundamental of American values including the rule of law?

I wish I could say this type of “thinking” along with the willingness of many people to actually support it is incomprehensible to me, but it is not. It merely shows how some are willing to twist responsibility into a rationalization of “they didn’t tell me not to” while others are willing to believe whatever their leader tells them. America is not the first nation to support this idiocy, but I had hoped we would be immune.

He that changes his party by his humour is not more virtuous than he that changes it by his interest; he loves himself rather than truth.
   -Dr. Samuel Johnson (1707 - 1784)

Truly there is less here than meets the eye.
   -Tallulah Bankhead (1903 - 1968)

It is a fine thing to face machine guns for immortality and a medal, but isn’t it a fine thing too, to face calumny, injustice and loneliness for the truth which makes men free?
   -H. L. Mencken

Christina has suffered an unexpected loss inflicted by nature. Thankfully, she and her family are well even if no longer with their house, which was struck by lighting during the incredible electrical storm we suffered here in central Texas on the Fourth of July.

Please keep her and her family in your thoughts and/or prayers.

…that the oath one takes upon entering the Armed Forces of the United States is to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” not to “provide political cover for the President of the United States.”

Not all bravery is exhibited on the battlefield, and not all difficult choices involve death.