December 26, 2011
Gary Johnson Offically Going With Libertarian Party
His refusal to align himself with the standard Republican Presidential candidate hate-mongering has failed to get him a toehold in the primary campaigns, so Gary Johnson, former Governor of New Mexico, has announced that he will forego the Republican nomination and seek the Libertarian Party nomination instead. Of course, the fact that his views are pretty similar to Ron Paul's hasn't helped his campaign. There's only room for one tolerance-monger among the Republican leaders. His political views include opposition to the Patriot Act, support for free-market capitalism, abolition of the Federal Reserve, a complete opposition to legislative earmarking of budget items (preferring to keep all that power in White House, I guess), allowing states to determine whether abortions would be legal or not, an end to the war on drugs, ending all government regulation of marriage, and a promise to appoint only judges who interpret the Constitution "according to its original meaning" which, without further clarification, means to me a support for terminating equal rights, restoring slavery and counting slaves and Indians as three-fifths of a person.
permalink | December 26, 2011 at 05:22 PM | Comments (0)
December 21, 2011
New Hampshire Ad
Or, as we called it when I lived in Massachusetts: "New Hampster," but that's neither here nor there.
permalink | December 21, 2011 at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)
December 15, 2011
Where's Dagny Taggart When You Need Her?
"California's proposed bullet train will need to soar over small towns on towering viaducts, split rich farm fields diagonally and burrow for miles under mountains for a simple reason: It has no time to spare." Apparently, some people in Sacramento think this is a bad thing.
"In the fine print of a 2008 voter-approved measure funding the project was a little-noticed requirement that trains be able to rocket from Union Station in downtown Los Angeles to San Francisco in no more than two hours and 40 minutes" the L.A. Times says. It certainly didn't escape my notice when I wrote about Prop 1A in October 2008. For me, that requirement was essential, after having watched the lofty promises of Amtrak's Acela gradually compromised until it became nothing more than a really pretty, sorta fast, very expensive train. I also pointed out that Prop 1A required engineering so that "Trains will not be forced to slow down when passing stations." Did nobody in Sacramento read this? It all is obviously very expensive and very desirable (IMO).
And speaking of Dagny Taggart, the Blu-ray version of Atlas Shrugged, Part 1 is available at Netflix now, so I got it and watched it, and I have this to say: it is not nearly so terrible as all the reviewers said. OTOH, it's not good. I've never made a movie, so I don't know where to lay blame for actors who rush woodenly through their lines. Are they bad actors? Were they being encouraged to pick up the pace to keep the movie under 1½ hours? Were there scowling Objectivists lurking in the shadows behind the cameras making them nervous?
The novel needs to be made into a mini-series, which would give it the breathing space it needs. The smart producer would make John Galt's speech one full episode in the mini-series. This would allow those who are not fans of Objectivism or Ayn Rand to easily skip over that. Heresy, I know. But how many people who bought the book do you think actually read every word of that speech?
permalink | December 15, 2011 at 09:20 AM | Comments (0)
December 6, 2011
The Love & Warmth Of Ayn Rand
In 1963 Bruce McAllister, then age 16, mailed a 4-page mimeographed survey on the subject of symbolism to "150 well-known authors." Seventy-five authors responded, and sixty-five of those responses survive today, including replies from Jack Kerouac, Ralph Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Ralph Ellison, John Updike, Saul Bellow, and Norman Mailer.
permalink | December 6, 2011 at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)
November 21, 2011
Libertarian Calls Fire Department
permalink | November 21, 2011 at 08:37 AM | Comments (0)
June 14, 2011
Ellsberg & Hohenstein
What with the Pentagon Papers back in the news again, you may want to read Why I Did It!: An Interview with Daniel Ellsberg, a 1973 article in which Ellsberg is interviewed by Manuel Klausner and Hank Hohenstein. That's the same Hank Hohenstein who used to sit on the Desert Hot Springs City Council.
permalink | June 14, 2011 at 05:42 PM | Comments (0)
April 15, 2011
Atlas Shrugged In Theaters Today
Part 1 of 3, that is. Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers says:
Ayn Rand's monumental 1,168-page, 1957 novel gets the low-budget, no-talent treatment and sits there flapping on screen like a bludgeoned seal. It's the first in a planned trilogy of films. Let's hope the other two parts are quickly aborted. The story, set in 2016 and hailing the individual in the battle against big government, concerns the disappearance of the world's most creative minds after they are asked the question: "Who is John Galt?" Who's the idiot responsible for this fiasco? You can't blame the Tea Party, an organization of 9 million that the film's producers are exploiting to get butts into seats. There's an object lesson in objectivism for you.
The list of theaters in California that are showing Atlas Shrugged today. It's a little interesting that four theaters in San Diego are showing it, while only one theater each in Los Angeles and San Francisco proper has it. No theaters in the Coachella Valley have it.
A long, long time ago (I'm talking like 30 years or so) a friend gave me a copy of Atlas Shrugged as a gift. He had no interest in the book, but I thought I owed him a little plot summary. That plot summary happened to come when I was about two-thirds of the way through the book and the two us had dropped acid together (yes, I mean LSD). The plot of Atlas Shrugged on acid is absolutely hilarious! The re-telling of the story like that is one of the top 10 — no, maybe top 5 — most joyful experiences in my life. It leaves you with a healthy attitude towards this giant novel. If you plan to try to see the movie in a similar state, I suggest that you should take in the late show in order to minimize the possibility that your wild cackling will alarm children in the audience.
At Rotten Tomatoes the rating from the critics is 6% (0% is bad, 100% is good). But it's doing better at Metacritic, where it's hitting 27 (again, on a 0 to 100 scale).
Silas Lesnick at comingsoon.net says:
"Atlas Shrugged" is double-feature material for "Battlefield Earth," offering a slavish interpretation of a story whose primary reason for being retold in the first place is cult devotion. While said devotees may deem the film successful at literally bringing the events of the book to the screen, there's zero sense of character, dialogue or pacing. That is, the requisite traits that even make this technically a story in the first place are close to nil. Every scene in the film is a corporate meeting between two fantastically dimensionless characters, either "good" or "bad," pretty much alternating between good/bad and good/good pairings. Cut, now and then, with footage of a train, leading to the film's dramatic climax... people riding on a train.
Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: "In ideology, it is a long-winded celebration of the free market and a condemnation of big government, noticeably short on the stew of sex and self-interest that makes other Rand adaptations (We the Living, The Fountainhead) entertaining for those who do not share her political views."
At the libertarian standard bearer Reason, Kurt Loder says:
It's a blessing, I suppose, that Ayn Rand, who loved the movies, and actually worked extensively in the industry, isn't alive to see what's been made of her most influential novel. The new, long-awaited film version of Atlas Shrugged is a mess, full of embalmed talk, enervated performances, impoverished effects, and cinematography that would barely pass muster in a TV show. Sitting through this picture is like watching early rehearsals of a stage play that's clearly doomed.
This isn't loony-bin stuff: Attention must be paid.Though a bit stiff in the joints and acted by an undistinguished cast amid TV-movie trappings, this low-budget adaptation of Ayn Rand's novel nevertheless contains a fire and a fury that makes it more compelling than the average mass-produced studio item.
Mark Jenkins at the Washington Post:
The filmmaker occasionally betrays his muse. Simply by casting flesh-and-blood actors to portray Rand's stick-figure characters, Johansson softens the story (including one of the author's notoriously severe sex scenes). Consider, for example, Taylor Schilling as the heroine, railroad executive Dagny Taggart. The blond, blue-eyed Schilling has a strong chin that gives her a Randian aspect, but when she smiles she looks too human for the role.The script also improves on Rand by compressing the narrative. The movie features more than a few inert scenes of industrialists' chatter, but it moves at a reasonable clip — although nothing like the 250 mph of Dagny's proposed high-speed train.
Joe Morgenstern at the Wall Street Journal:
I wanted to give this movie a fair shake, though I can't pretend to be an admirer of Ayn Rand's writing. But the movie, the first installment of a projected trilogy, doesn't give the book a fair shake. In terms of craftsmanship it's barely professional, except for Taylor Schilling's tightly focused performance as Dagny Taggart, the heroine trying to keep her railroad company from being destroyed by a government that's hostile to individual achievement.
"Atlas Shrugged: Part 1'' is set in 2016, but people still get breaking news from a fictional Fox-like cable station and — heartening for some of us — newspapers are still sold in vending machines. Wealthy industrialist Henry Reardon (Grant Bowler) joins forces with like-minded entrepreneur Taggart to bring a high-speed train through Colorado despite government attempts to thwart their ingenuity. Meanwhile, billionaire CEOs are vanishing as a shadowy man in a hat, trench coat, and Dark Knight rasp (director Paul Johansson doing double duty) arrives at their doors.
The tinhorn film version of "Atlas Shrugged: Part 1" fails to rise even to the level of "eh" suggested by Ayn Rand's title. But with so little going on in cinematic or storytelling terms, we can cut straight to the fascinating, tea-stained politics of the thing.
Peter Debruge at Variety shreds it:
A monument of American literature is shaved down to a spindly toothpick of a movie in "Atlas Shrugged," a project that reportedly once caught the eye of Angelina Jolie, Faye Dunaway and Clint Eastwood. Part one of a trilogy that may never see completion, this hasty, low-budget adaptation would have Ayn Rand spinning in her grave, considering how it violates the author's philosophy by allowing opportunists to exploit another's creative achievement -- in this case, hers. Targeting roughly 200 screens, pic goes out hitched to a grassroots marketing campaign, hoping to break-even via by-popular-demand bookings and potential Tea Party support.
Bill Goodykoontz at The Arizona Republic also misspells "Rearden," causing me to wonder if he has some long-secret connection to Loren King at the Boston Globe or did the PR people for the movie misspell it in a press packet?!
Dagny Taggart (Taylor Schilling) runs Taggart Transcontinental, the largest railroad company left. She's independent, determined to run the company on her own terms - unlike her brother James (Matthew Marsden), who is a tool of government toadies and special-interest dopes, drawn comically broad. They conspire to suppress individual creativity and success, pushing through legislation in favor of something that sounds an awful lot like - gasp! - communism.They want to cripple Henry Reardon (Grant Bowler), whose company has come up with a new, better steel that would be perfect for railroad tracks. James is aghast at doing business with Reardon, but Dagny is drawn to his ideas, his integrity, his . . . oh, those dreamy eyes. Dreamy something: They are clearly meant for each other, in the most obvious of movie ways.
Roger Ebert at the Chicago Sun-Times writes an absolutely hilarious review:
And now I am faced with this movie, the most anticlimactic non-event since Geraldo Rivera broke into Al Capone’s vault. I suspect only someone very familiar with Rand’s 1957 novel could understand the film at all, and I doubt they will be happy with it. For the rest of us, it involves a series of business meetings in luxurious retro leather-and-brass board rooms and offices, and restaurants and bedrooms that look borrowed from a hotel no doubt known as the Robber Baron Arms.During these meetings, everybody drinks. More wine is poured and sipped in this film than at a convention of oenophiliacs. There are conversations in English after which I sometimes found myself asking, "What did they just say?" The dialogue seems to have been ripped throbbing with passion from the pages of Investors’ Business Daily.
So OK. Let’s say you know the novel, you agree with Ayn Rand, you’re an objectivist or a libertarian, and you’ve been waiting eagerly for this movie. Man, are you going to get a letdown. It’s not enough that a movie agree with you, in however an incoherent and murky fashion. It would help if it were like, you know, entertaining?
There is also a love scene, which is shown not merely from the waist up but from the ears up. The man keeps his shirt on. This may be disappointing for libertarians, who I believe enjoy rumpy-pumpy as much as anyone.
Todd McCarthy at The Hollywood Reporter predicts there will be no parts 2 and 3:
[S]creenwriters Brian Patrick O'Toole and John Aglialoro (also a producer) have themselves bungled in their attempt to remain faithful to the letter of the sacred text while moving the action to the near-future (specifically, 2016). Many scenes are devoted to dull conversations among business fatcats about the economics of railways and steel, central industries that helped drive the nation 60 years ago but seem like afterthoughts today (Amtrak, anyone?). Updating the story would provide a provocative test to any writer but could certainly be done; however, to do so without acknowledging the present-day realities of high-tech industries, outsourcing, shifting transportation modes and advanced information technology (the characters here actually read newspapers) places the action in an unrecognizable twilight zone. So does the fact that the central manufacturing triumph here is the construction of a high-speed train (managed from scratch within a few months, no less). Not only is it unremarked that Asia and Europe are decades ahead on this front, but conservatives who might be perceived as the core audience for this film are the very ones currently fighting against fast-train funding and construction in the U.S.
Mick La Salle at the San Francisco Chronicle gives what might be the most positive review:
What is a selling point are the boldly drawn characters, played by a cast of unknowns, some of whom deserve to be known. I'm thinking in particular of Taylor Schilling as Dagny Taggart, a railway heiress, and Grant Bowler as Hank Rearden, a manufacturing magnate and the inventor of Rearden Metal. Even with director Paul Johansson practically missing in action, giving them nothing, Schilling and Bowler are forceful and attractive.I'd be willing to sit through Part 2 right now.
This is all making me think I need to start looking around for some LSD again. OTOH, maybe some more decades of patience will do the trick. There were failed attempts at the Lord Of The Rings trilogy before Peter Jackson's glorious success.
permalink | April 15, 2011 at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)
April 4, 2011
"Dagny Confronts The Union [Rep]"
Unidentified and fading into the background in this clip is, of course, my favorite: Eddie Willers.
permalink | April 4, 2011 at 10:07 AM | Comments (0)
March 20, 2011
Charles Chaplin Speaks On Current Events
permalink | March 20, 2011 at 09:57 PM | Comments (0)
February 27, 2011
Libertarian to Classical Liberal
As [Chris] Hedges admonishes in his latest Death of the Liberal Class, authentic, classical liberalism is the only political force that can check corporations because it assumes that power craves power, as Shakespeare teaches. Tragically, today's mainstream liberalism, together with our president, has by and large sold itself out to corporate paymasters—witness the Huffington Post/AOL buyout, the Times' and New Yorker's fear-driven support for the Iraq War and Obama's capitulations to Wall Street, the insurance industry and war profiteers—leaving us with a shattered economy, an angry populace susceptible to the emergence of a radical charismatic leader and corporations with enough power to impose classical fascism on the population if force becomes the only option left to preserve the system.
permalink | February 27, 2011 at 08:35 PM | Comments (0)
February 21, 2011
Hank Comes Home
I don't know if I need to set this up or not, but just in case: all the people in this scene are living off of Hank Rearden's money.
BTW, when the right wing nuts try to latch onto this film, watch to see if they talk about Ayn Rand's hardcore atheism. I expect they'll try to sweep that under the rug.
permalink | February 21, 2011 at 10:56 AM | Comments (2)
February 11, 2011
I Can Hardly Believe This Is Finally Going To Happen
Atlas Shrugged Part 1. There will also have to be Atlas Shrugged Part 2, Atlas Shrugged - John Galt's Speech and then Atlas Shrugged Part 4.
Taylor Schilling as Dagny Taggart.
Grant Bowler as Hank Rearden.
Edi Gathegi plays Eddie Willers, my favorite.
Jsu Garcia as sexy Francisco D'Anconia.
Who is John Galt? Actually, I thought they might try to keep that secret until the movie opens on April 15, but no. John Galt is simply Paul Johansson who happens also to be the movie's director! Well, it is all about ego.
Screenplay by Brian Patrick O'Toole and John Aglialoro who's got no other movie credits at all, but is the producer of Atlas Shrugged. He's the Chairman and CEO of Cybex International and is supposed to be the 10th richest executive of a small public company.
There will be a private screening held February 24 at Sony Studios in Culver City.
permalink | February 11, 2011 at 09:04 PM | Comments (2)
February 9, 2011
Iowa Senate Majority Leader Gronstal On Marriage Rights
A video interview in the Des Moines Register:
I'm not going to put to a vote of the people anybody's constitutional rights. Because if I can do that to gay people, I can do it to Catholics, I can do it to Methodists, I can do it to Baptists, I can do it to blacks, I can do it to Hispanics. If I can put to a vote of the people, people's constitutional rights, then you may be popular today - old white guys like us might be popular today and our rights will be fine - but someday the baby boom will be gone and there won't be enough old white guys left to protect us from the tyranny of the majority.
permalink | February 9, 2011 at 05:27 PM | Comments (0)
February 5, 2011
Religious Freedom
Elder Dallin H. Oaks, one of 12 apostles who lead the LDS church says the first amendment right to freedom is under siege. I find this hard to believe. From my point of view, religion saturates this country top to bottom, with government endorsement at all levels. I've learned to live with it, just as I've learned to live with the fact that a lot of people enjoy the Super Bowl, too. Try running for public office in this country as an atheist or as someone who cannot abide football, and see how far you get.
Here's the transcript of Mr. Oaks's speech at Chapman University School of Law. Let's go through it and find his examples where religious freedoms have been abridged. I'm sure he must have some big, alarming ones.
You've got to get clear down to part III before he gets into any specifics. He says that 25 years ago "I took sad notice of the fact that the United States Supreme Court had diminished the significance of free exercise by expanding the definition of religion to include what the Court called 'religions' not based on belief in God." Yeah, what the hell were those activist judges doing extending religious freedom to Buddhists and Hindus, when everybody knows that it should only apply to belief in the one true Mormon god.
He cites the case of Employment Division v. Smith in which the Supreme Court ruled that it did not violate the first amendment for the state of Oregon to withhold unemployment benefits from two men who had been fired from a drug rehab clinic for using peyote as part of a religious ritual. Mr. Oaks said this "significantly narrowed the traditional protection of religion." I look forward to Mr. Oaks actively supporting those people who are creating sort of flimsy (IMO) religions that practice marijuana use as a sacrament. He fails to mention that Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act three years later that effectively reversed the Supreme Court's decision, restoring religious protections to the use of peyote as a sacrament by Native Americans.
Mr. Oaks cites one author who he does not name (Amos Guiora) who is opposed to free religious speech. That's one person. There have always been individuals who have held opinions like that. Their free speech rights guarantee they get to publish books about their views. That does not constitute any diminution of religious freedom.
He says that religious preaching "of the wrongfulness of homosexual relations" is being threatened. I know of no such thing in the United States, and he cites examples in Canada, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Singapore. I'm know too little about legal religious freedoms outside the U.S. to say much about that, except that if he wants to say that religious freedoms are under threat outside the United States, I would certainly agree with him. One of the things that has set America apart from most of the rest of the world is that the threats to religious freedom are out there, not in here.
He cites the case of a New Mexico photographer who refused to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony. You can read the court's decision here. More to the point, the relevant part of the New Mexico Code is here.
It is an unlawful discriminatory practice for... any person in any public accommodation to make a distinction, directly or indirectly, in offering or refusing to offer its services, facilities, accommodations or goods to any person because of race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, spousal affiliation or physical or mental handicap
There are civil rights laws like this in every state, although most do not include "sexual orientation" in the list. It's part of the burden of putting yourself out there as a business available to all. If the photographer wanted to limit her work to, say, just Christian weddings, or only Jewish weddings, she would have to have kept her business informal, no license, no advertising, relying on friends and word of mouth. In a purely libertarian society, there would be no such civil rights laws, and private businesses would be free to make decisions on any criteria they liked. Mr. Oaks may need reminding that without civil rights laws like this, LDS church members would not be nearly as successful as they are today.
He mentions the case of the United Methodist Church pavilion in New Jersey. This story has gotten very twisted and distorted by those opposed to gay marriage. The pavilion is on a boardwalk that is owned by the church. The church had voluntarily made the boardwalk and pavilion open to the public, in return for which the state of New Jersey extended a real estate tax exemption to that part of the property. When the church refused to rent the pavilion to a lesbian couple, they went against their own pledge to keep it open to the public. So the church lost its tax exemption. The lesson here is not some loss of religious freedom, it's that if you suck at the government's teat, then you take what the government gives you. If you want freedom, stay away from taxpayer money.
And then he mentions the case of an adjunct professor being fired from the University of Illinois because of an issue about his teaching about Roman Catholicism. IMO, based on the news story, it sounds like an incredibly stupid student failed to grasp the subject, got offended, and the university caved on the issue. It's an issue of academic freedom, however, not religion. It's a state university class about Catholicism. They fired the instructor. The course remains and the instructor is still free to be a Catholic. See my earlier comment about sucking at the government teat.
BTW, the central issue in the University of Illinois had to do with the Catholic church's position on homosexuality. I wonder if Mr. Oaks will cite anything other than gay issues.
Nope. He goes on to mention master's degree candidates who think homosexuality is sinful. And another case where "A Los Angeles policeman claimed he was demoted after he spoke against the wrongfulness of homosexual conduct in the church where he is a lay pastor." Here's the news story as reported in Catholic News Agency and it pretty well matches the L.A. Times story in Google's cache, so I think I've got the facts. At the funeral of Officer Nathaniel Warthon Jr. (who did not die in the line of duty) Sgt. Eric Holyfield delivered the eulogy. This took place at Gospel Word of Life Apostolic Church where Sgt. Holyfield is a lay pastor. When he gave that eulogy he not in his police uniform, but he did identify himself as an L.A. police officer and the supervisor of the deceased. Many uniformed police officers were in attendance. He read from the King James version of First Corinthians: "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminates, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the Kingdom of God." I'm sure that gave great comfort to the Widow Warthorn. Who would care about homophobia at a moment like that? I would question the sergeant's sanity for reading something like that at a funeral. Was he suggesting that the deceased had committed some of those sins? What in the world was his point?! Anyway, I'm sure the LAPD have something in their code of conduct for officers that says something about not besmirching the reputation of the department. There was a similar thing in the code of conduct for Social Security employees, and I think we can agree that the position of police officer is much more publicly sensitive than that of a Social Security desk drudge. I was free to go out on a street corner and read any horrid thing out of the Bible I wanted to, but if I did it at a funeral for a Social Security employee and announced that I worked for Social Security and then launched into a tirade about fornicators and bastards and what-not, you can bet the shit would have hit the fan. And in the LAPD the shit hit the fan by moving Sgt. Holyfield to a less desired position and withholding promotions. Hey, at least he wasn't sent for a mental health evaluation. He sued claiming that "The department has 'historically discriminated . . . and continues to discriminate against officers that cite from the Holy Bible.'" If that were true, every officer who ever recited the Lord's Prayer would be held back, creating a rather gigantic backlog of low-ranked police. The case was settled out of court. Sucking government's teat, etc. etc.
Mr. Oaks finds a couple of more gay issues to cite: "The Catholic Church's difficulties with adoption services and the Boy Scouts' challenges in various locations are too well known to require further comment." Again, both he Catholic church and the Boy Scouts are completely free to hold and practice their anti-gay positions. But the Catholic Church can't do that and simultaneously be involved in state-sponsored adoption activities. And the Boy Scouts don't get to use government subsidized facilities to further their anti-gay teachings while practicing that beautiful knot-tying that they do. It's the government teat again.
After briefly mentioning a non-gay issue (President Obama said "freedom of worship" rather than "freedom of religion" - oh my god, the sky is falling.) Mr. Oaks comes back to the gay thing. Specifically, "President Obama's head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Chai Feldblum." She is not the head of the EEOC, but just one of five commissioners. He objects to her ideas as presented in this 66-page essay in which she is trying to formulate a way to resolve conflicts between gay rights and the rights of religious believers based on recent court decisions - Lawrence v. Texas, for example. Mr. Oaks quotes a few partial sentences out of context and misconstrues them. His position seems to be that anything that prevents him from imposing an LDS theocracy on the country is an infringement on his religious liberty.
Finally he comes to Perry v. Schwarzenegger. He says there "are the current arguments seeking to brand religious beliefs as an unacceptable basis for citizen action or even for argument in the public square." He doesn't cite any specifics or explain why it would restrict his right to his religious freedom if my marriage did not conform to the rules of the LDS church.
That's the end of his examples. It was all gay this and gay that, except for the peyote story and Obama's "freedom of worship" thing. He did start out by saying "I am not here to participate in the debate on the desirability or effects of same-sex marriage. I am here to contend for religious freedom. I am here to describe fundamental principles that I hope will be meaningful for decades to come." It's not about those gay people being gay, you see, it's that his religious liberty requires them all to behave like Mormons.
He tries to explain how we've come to this sorry state of affairs where the rest of us just don't do what the LDS church expects of us. "Each person is free to decide for himself or herself what is right and wrong." Oh my god, we can't have that. That would be like religious liberty or something. Only properly constituted authorities (such as the 12 apostles, I imagine) should be able to decide what is right and wrong. He goes on to describe the views that the only morality is the one dictated by god, that no mere human can determine what is right or wrong without a book of instructions.
permalink | February 5, 2011 at 03:52 PM | Comments (2)
January 31, 2011
Alta at the Koch Protest
Photo by NancyCain. L.A. Times news story here.
permalink | January 31, 2011 at 10:26 AM | Comments (0)
January 30, 2011
"Concerned American Citizens" Halt Further Action To Oppose Temecula Islamic Center
Light has finally dawned in the minds of some of the key opponents to the construction of a new Islamic Center in Temecula. The only valid legal issues were land use issues, and the Islamic Center has got all of those nailed down tight. Other issues that may have motivated the opponents were irrelevant or unconstitutional.
The blog of the Concerned American Citizens has not been updated since the unanimous vote of the Planning Commission in December 2010, other than to add the note: "All future additions to this site will be found on our companion site below" which links to a blog called "Dangers of Allah." That blog has nothing but anti-Islamic content. It does have a blog entry before last week's Temecula City Council meeting, but nothing about the unanimous vote there.
permalink | January 30, 2011 at 10:13 AM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2011
10 Years Of Legal Drug Possession
The Portuguese experiment with legalizing the possession of all drugs in 2001 is discussed in this Boston Globe article. There has been a 63% increase in the number of drug users in rehab. Drug use among young people is declining. Much of the data is mixed and open to various interpretations.
permalink | January 17, 2011 at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)
January 11, 2011
The Political Spectrum
You've seen this if you've ever passed by a Libertarian Party recruitment table at a political rally. It's a more meaningful way of displaying the political spectrum than the standard left-right line we usually use. The left is usually good on civil liberties and bad on property rights. The right is the opposite. But in the last 10 years things have gotten all wacky.
The axis they label "Personal Issues Score" would more accurately be identified as "Civil Liberties Score." The "Economic Issues Score" is okay that way or could be called "Property Rights Score." This graph puts fascists and communists together in the lower quadrant. They do have a lot in common, even though the usual left-right perspective puts them at opposite ends of the spectrum. Libertarians are in the top quadrant.
Clicking on the graph above will take you to a brief quiz (10 questions) that will generate a graph with a red dot showing your place on it.
permalink | January 11, 2011 at 11:03 PM | Comments (5)
December 12, 2010
Cowardice At The Smithsonian
In 1987 David Wojnarowicz created a short film (4 minutes) entitled Fire In My Belly. Mr. Wojnarowicz died of AIDS at age 37 in 1992. That film was included in the National Portrait Gallery exhibit that opened October 30, 2010, called Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture. The exhibit continues until February 13.
This is the first major museum exhibition to focus on sexual difference in the making of modern American portraiture. "Hide/Seek" considers such themes as the role of sexual difference in depicting modern America; how artists explored the fluidity of sexuality and gender; how major themes in modern art—especially abstraction—were influenced by social marginalization; and how art reflected society's evolving and changing attitudes toward sexuality, desire, and romantic attachment.
The film drew no special notice and generated zero complaints until late November when William Donohue, a notorious hatemonger whose main claim to fame is defending Mel Gibson's anti-Semitism, called it "hate speech."
It does not matter that private sources funded this exhibition: the majority of the money afforded the Smithsonian Institution comes from the taxpayers. Accordingly, I am writing today to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees asking them to reconsider future funding.
Donohue had been alerted by this article in CNSNews. The Smithsonian immediately caved.
A critique of the piece in the N.Y. Times.
The incident is chilling because it suggests that even in a time of huge progress in gay civil rights, homophobia remains among the last permissible bigotries in America. "Think anti-gay bullying is just for kids? Ask the Smithsonian," wrote The Los Angeles Times's art critic, Christopher Knight, last week. One might add: Think anti-gay bullying is just for small-town America? Look at the nation's capital.The Smithsonian's behavior and the ensuing silence in official Washington are jarring echoes of those days when American political leaders stood by idly as the epidemic raged on. The incident is also a throwback to the culture wars we thought we were getting past now — most eerily the mother of them all, the cancellation of a Mapplethorpe exhibit (after he died of AIDS) at another Washington museum, the Corcoran, in 1989.
In its initial press release the Smithsonian says "It generated a strong response from the public. We removed it from the exhibition Nov. 30 because the attention it was receiving distracted from the overall exhibition." The same reasoning could be used to justify the removal of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. Then the Smithsonian came out with this brief FAQ. In answer to the question of why they removed the video, they say this:
Smithsonian officials and museum leaders are sensitive to public perceptions of the Institution’s exhibitions. In this case, they believed that the attention to this particular video imagery and the way in which it was being interpreted by many overshadowed the importance and understanding of the entire exhibition. Thus the decision was made to remove the video from the exhibition.
This is the video itself:
And here is a video of a protest that occurred after "Fire In My Belly" was removed. In answer to questions about the Smithsonian's reaction to the protest, the Smithsonian says...
The two people were asked to leave the museum because they were violating Smithsonian policy: They were videotaping in a no-photography area; distributing leaflets; and displaying a placard (iPad) – all of which are prohibited in Smithsonian museums. When the protestors refused to leave, Smithsonian security contacted the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. The police did not arrest them. The Metropolitan police issued the protestors a citation (barring notice), which states they are barred from the building for 12 months. The protestors were not banned from the museum for life.
permalink | December 12, 2010 at 11:30 AM | Comments (4)
December 6, 2010
Bigotry Within The Libertarian Party
Dallwyn Merck, who just became President of the Stonewall Libertarians has resigned from the New York State Libertarian Party because of bigotry he has seen within the party. The Stonewall Libertarians is a group of gay libertarians. Or, I suppose to be more perfectly libertarian, they are a group of libertarians who seek to reach out to gay people and those who are gay-friendly to bring them within the libertarian fold. What the members actually do (or want to do) in bed is their private libertarian business.
Mr. Merck slams the N.Y. party as both anti-Muslim and anti-gay. He says gay men have been driven out of leadership positions in the party. Some members of the party questioned the patriotism of one prominent Muslim libertarian and and have called him a "bad representative for libertarianism." This from the party that is proud to run prostitutes as candidates.
His resignation letter goes on at length. It brings up issues that have bothered me increasingly over the last few years. I haven't mingled shoulder-to-shoulder with real live Libertarian Party members since the 1980s, but I used to occasionally send them a check to be an official party member (when I could figure out who to send the check to - "organization" is not a word to be associated with the Libertarian Party), and I was registered as a Libertarian with the Registrar of Voters until earlier this year. But I haven't sent them any money in least 10 years and now I'm registered as "decline to state."
Over the last 10 years there has been an influx of former Republicans who, using the eyes in their heads, had seen that the Republican Party was most certainly not the party of small government, balanced budgets, and private property rights. Seeing that the Libertarian Party was indeed a party of small government, balanced budgets, and private property rights, they looked no further and joined. But that was like picking up a box in the store (a box of cereal, the box of a Blu-ray player, a box of whatever), being fascinated by the pretty picture on the front, and not turning the box around to read the fine print. Because the Libertarian Party is also the party in favor of legalizing drugs, ending public education, full equal rights for gay people, allowing polygamy, pulling our military forces back to our own territory - it goes on and on. A long list of things that a standard Republican would not support.
Worse, the party also attracted some far right-wingers who saw that the Libertarian Party favored private property rights so strongly, that it supports revising the law so that the government would no longer restrict racial discrimination on private property. These people confused what the Libertarian Party considered a private property right with an actual endorsement of bigotry. You began to see Libertarian Party candidates with racist backgrounds. Homophobia became widespread. The right wing edge of the Libertarian Party now blurs into that morass of ignorance, the Tea Party.
On the subject of gay marriage, many Libertarians argued that the government shouldn't be in the marriage business at all - which is the official party position. But that's where they stopped. If those people loved liberty and small government as much as they claimed, then they would have been organizing movements to repeal all marriage laws with as much energy as they opposed equal rights for gay marriage. But no, they didn't do that. They simply opposed gay marriage, and that was enough small government for them.
There are still people in the Libertarian Party who really support liberty across the board, but I think they're outnumbered (or at least outgunned) right now by the unenlightened right wing.
