Time for a change?

Justin Gardner thinks so:

• This Is A Change Election (Donklephant)

Congress’s approval rating is in the shitter after a spectacular mid-term election comeback in 2006. The Dems promised change, and didn’t deliver. We’re still trying to pretend that Iraq is a single nation, and forcing Iraqis to so pretend at gunpoint. We’re still hassling air travellers more than ever before, and pretending that the magnitude of the hassle proves that we’re “safer”. We’re still repeating the folly of Prohibition with the War On (Some) Drugs, funding organized crime and raping the Bill of Rights in an apparent attempt to prove that half the population is perfectly willing to break the law to get high. Banks, emboldened by a blank cheque from the Federal Reserve, raised extraordinarily risky capital through extraordinarily risky mortgages and spread it around so thickly that the inevitable collapse of the housing bubble has just about everyone in a panic. And while I’m at it: waterboarding is torture even if Pelosi thinks it’s a pretty neat idea; the farm bill sucks (and this “holiday season” its artificially-inflated ethanol-targeted corn production has kicked food banks square in the nuts), tax-break-fuelled local HMO micromonopolies combine the worst features of private and public health care, the FCC is fucking evil, and the Tenth Amendment makes pretty much all of the foregoing thoroughly unconstitutional.

Most of the politicians in this country don’t want to talk about any of that. They’d rather talk about the church they attend, mostly to convince you that they’re stable and predictable God-fearing Christians (even if the God in whom they believe didn’t much like black people until 1978). They’d rather hammer on the same safe, predictable issues that haven’t been resolved in the last 30 years — abortion and illegal immigration for the Republicans; health care and gun control for the Democrats; taxes and Social Security on both sides. The fact that none of these issues is even glancingly connected to the United States’s real problems (see above) doesn’t bother them in the slightest: it’s all part of the electoral ritual, where candidates play on the fears of the party faithful and get elected based on the quality of their public relations team. It’s sort of like the Super Bowl, only with less chance of seeing Janet Jackson’s nipple, and instead of terrible commentary from John Madden you get terrible commentary from Wolf Blitzer.

Don’t let the rhetoric of the 2006 election fool you: these people aren’t even remotely interested in change. From the perspective of the aforementioned (first-paragraph) issues, Rudy Giuliani is basically the same as Hillary Clinton, John Edwards is equivalent to Mitt Romney, and they’re all about as bad as Bush 43. None of these people is going to rein in the DHS. None of these people is going to restore habeas corpus. None of these people is going to unfuck the cheap-debt economy. Those just aren’t traditional campaign issues. Policy doesn’t matter to these people. They don’t give a fuck about the country, they don’t give a fuck about the people they claim to (want to) represent… they only give a fuck about getting elected. If they do, it’ll be the same shit in a different bucket.

Mr. Gardner wrote mostly about Barack Obama. I’m not convinced that Obama is any more interested in change than any other front-running presidential candidate — I’m having a hard time distinguishing his platform from Clinton’s — and his “new ideas” image comes mostly from his lack of experience, rather than any evidence that he actually has new ideas. (Wasn’t I just saying something about style vs. substance in the past few paragraphs?) But when he says stuff like this, I warm up to him:

“I’m a Democrat. I’m considered a progressive Democrat. But if a Republican or a Conservative or a libertarian or a free-marketer has a better idea, I am happy to steal ideas from anybody and in that sense I’m agnostic.”

(Hat tip: Donklephant)

For one thing: this is the first time I can remember in recent political history that anyone has broken with the “pro sports team” model of national politics: we’re good because we’re us; they’re bad because they’re them; it’s all about identifying with the right group, waving the right pennant, wearing the right jersey. Go Canucks Packers Democrats!

For another: I’m damn pleased that Obama gives equal time to libertarianism, and that he distinguishes between Republicans and conservatives. Republicans lately have been anything but conservative in their changes to the balance of federal power and their assault upon individual liberty. (Remember, “conservative” is supposed to mean “doesn’t like change”.) And while I imagine that Obama’s talking up libertarianism to try to feed off of some of Ron Paul’s support (like, say, the guy who used to run ObamaLA) it’s nice to see that he’s taking liberty seriously.

I’m not just pleased to see Obama give a tip of his metaphorical hat to libertarians because I kinda like the idea of living in a free country; I’m also pleased because he’s the first of the front-runners to admit that people younger than the Boomers matter. Libertarianism is strongest on the internet, and most of its adherents (as far as I can tell) are — typical of netizens — younger than the Boomers. I can’t speak for the rest of my post-Boomer cohort, but Obama is the only front-runner who doesn’t alienate me entirely by focusing upon Boomer issues (the aforementioned 30-year-old party planks).

Hell, I’m convinced that the sudden interest in nationalized health care is due to the Boomer generation suddenly realizing that they’re getting old and worrying about their health. (I’ve also noticed that the War On Drugs began in earnest in 1969, when the Boomers started to graduate from college, cut their hair, and get “real” jobs. That’s probably just a coincidence.)

Now that Obama has acknowledged that Boomers actually had kids, and that those kids are human, maybe he’ll pay attention (or at least lip service) to other “younger” issues: shoring up privacy rights, scaling back the drug war, net neutrality, and so on.

I’m not precisely thrilled with Obama as a candidate, but he beats the hell out of the other people with “strong main-stream support”. He’s far worse than Paul — he’s a statist; that pretty much goes without saying — but he’s far better than the rest of his kind.

And at least he isn’t entirely more of the same.

Beers of Milwaukee, vol. 14

I’m going to have to expand my standards.

The last time I wrote on this matter, I declared Flying Dog Brewery’s Gonzo Imperial Porter to be my favourite beer ever.  I’m pretty sure that it’s my favourite porter of those I’ve sampled in the last, say, twelve months, but my favourite beer of all time?  That’s a rather hasty conclusion to which to jump.

That’s funny; my grammar may improve when I’m drunk.

In the future, I shall be more cautious.  For instance, since I have no Gonzo I.P. with which to compare it, I shall not immediately declare North Coast Brewing Company’s Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout to be my favourite beer — as the kids say on Facebook these days — ev4r.  In fact, if you were to force me to choose between Old Rasputin and Gonzo, I’d probably alternate happily between the two, never managing to decide on a favourite, until I passed out.

(The festivities may end rather more quickly than I’d like; Old Rasputin is 9% alcohol by volume.  Nonetheless, we could resume the next morning… or perhaps the next afternoon.)

I didn’t expect to find a Russian Imperial Stout, but NCBCo. claims to produce Old Rasputin “in the tradition of 18th Century English brewers who supplied the court of Russia’s Catherine the Great” — and that much I’ll believe.  This beer tastes very much like most beers that happen when American microbrewmasters consider a British beer type and think to themselves, “This is pretty good… but it needs more balls”.  When you cross that tradition with a ruler who, though female, is reputed to have more balls than all of her male contemporaries put together, you make great things happen.

Old Rasputin has the sort of intense almost-sweet bitterness that I’d usually associate with very dark chocolate (90% or better cacao), but with more of a burnt caramel taste to it than any notes of chocolate.  It hits you like a sledgehammer full of love right in the front of your palate, but finishes with a mild aftertaste.  This makes it hard to stop drinking: the flavour vanishes from your mouth too soon, so you take another sip.  Suddenly, your glass is empty, as are the eight bottles on the table before you.

Of particular note to people who don’t live in Milwaukee is the fact that I found this delightful ambrosia in a fucking Sentry supermarket, next to a giant stack of cases of Miller Genuine Draft.  This, friends and gentle neighbours, is how the free-market economy is supposed to work.

Since I seem to pair beer more with music and literature than with such mundane things as foodstuffs: Old Rasputin goes well with dark and moody industrial, like Sephiroth and Gridlock and Godflesh — and oddly enough, also with prog-rock.  It is also an excellent accompaniment to the works of Robert Anson Heinlein.

Even the crusty residue that Old Rasputin’s head leaves on the lip of the glass tastes good.  Have you ever licked a pint glass clean?  I just did.

Claire Wolfe is my hero

And this is just one reason why:

• Criminals have more rights than police (and be glad they do) (SWAT Magazine; PDF)

Yes, she wrote stuff like this in a magazine targeted at the most aggressively violent arm of law enforcement:

Down that road lies the police state. At the end of that road, we won’t find a crime-free society, though the prisons will be full. At the end of that road, we won’t find good citizens, working together with trusted and valued police officers, both committed to justice. At the end of that road, police won’t find themselves respected and valued for their role in protecting the rest of us.

We’ll find merely millions of cowed and resentful citizens who’ll consider
police their oppressors and their enemies. And no one—not even the police—will benefit.

…wow.

Read.

Government in a nutshell

The only thing a government can do that a private institution fundamentally cannot is kick your ass and get away with it. Governments give their people the authority to:

• Murder you (capital punishment; warfighting; Taser abuse, &c.; by “murder”, I specifically mean killing someone who poses no immediate and deadly threat)
• Kidnap you (most — probably all — arrests)
• Imprison you (most — probably all — jail and prison terms)
• Rob you (taxes, eminent domain, property seizures; by “rob”, I mean “make you give us your stuff under threat of force”)
• Break into your home (“no-knock” police raids and search warrants; mandatory building code and fire code inspections, &c)

About the only aggressively violent act which most governments don’t give themselves the authority to commit is rape whomever they please. (Many do; see, for example, Nanking 1937-38.)
A private institution can ask you for money — an insurance company can ask you for dues, for example — and punish you (presumably by withdrawing benefits or something) if you don’t want to pay up. A private institution can cloister you — for example, a detox clinic — and make it really hard for you to leave. Neither institution is within its rights to shoot you if you try to opt out. The difference between public and private institutions is that government grants itself the authority to kill, cripple, maim, imprison, or otherwise inflict indignities upon you if you try to opt out of what it’s doing to you “for your own good”.

If you try to opt out of the legal system, one or more police officers will either subdue and imprison you or (if you try hard enough) simply shoot you (perhaps in the back of the head, in self-defence). If you try to opt out of the tax system — at least in Canada — Revenue Canada will send you a polite letter asking you to file taxes. If you persist, they will send you a rather less polite letter demanding that you file taxes. If you persist further; well, see above. Extracting money from someone under (implicit) threat of force is robbery, last I checked.

Now, one reason that most private interests can’t do these things with perfect impunity isn’t that it’s Against the Order of Nature or some such — it’s that their governments forbid it. How can those governments make that stick? By threat of aggressive force, of course. (The cynical reader might suspect that governments simply want local monopolies on fucking with people, and have no moral stake in the matter.) You can go around breaking into people’s houses, raping them, and killing them, but odds are excellent that you will be arrested (eventually).

However, another reason why most private interests don’t go around committing aggressive acts of violence is that — in most places — other private interests will quite enthusiastically offer defensive violence against them. If you break into my apartment while I’m making dinner to murder, kidnap, imprison, or rob me, I’ll pick up my chef’s knife and ask you to leave with as much force as I need to. Here, however, governments demand a double standard: if their guys break into my apartment, I mustn’t defend myself. It’s considered somehow wrong to object when government agents break down your door and stomp to death your kittens.

I consider aggressive violence immoral, full stop. (In fact, I think libertarianism follows entirely from the consequences of that statement.) But morality and utility aren’t the same thing (alas; it would be easier if they were). I think it’s immoral to force people at gunpoint to, say, pay their taxes, but it might be more useful to do so. Maybe it is worth moral damnation to force the rich to support the poor, or to make deadbeat parents support their kids at the point of a bayonet (which most of the parents will anticipate intuitively but never actually see).

But if we take this road (ethically speaking; in practical terms, we’ve been pulling this shit essentially forever), let’s not pretend that we’re doing capital-g Good. The best we can hope for is Bismarckian realpolitik.

There’s another angle to this question: if we were to suddenly switch to an entirely moral, non-coercive system of government, odds are excellent that a lot of people would suffer and die because most of their compatriots simply wouldn’t give a damn. (I think far more people would give a shit without coercion than most do, but that’s not really the point.) If you believe Sartre — and you should — then everyone is responsible (inescapably, if not solely) for all of the consequences of their every action. In other words, I’d be (only partly, but undeniably) responsible for every instant of suffering and neglectful death of such a “free” system. Why? Because I’m advocating it, and if it comes about it’d be hard to argue that I hadn’t helped at least a little.

In a coercive nation, however, we can always blame someone else. “It’s such a shame that homeless guy froze to death outside Waterfront Station. Hey, I pay my taxes, I did my part. Someone ought to have done something. Such a shame. Hey, d’you want to go for an eight-dollar coffee?”

I can’t escape the feeling that I’d rather have governments steal from millions of people (only it’s a half-assed kind of stealing, since all but noise of those millions will comply without making the government pull its guns) and tacitly support an aggressively violent state — all while telling myself that there’s nothing I can really do, it’s not really my fault, I’m not really part of the problem, really — rather than own up to my responsibility for those deaths.

This is an article in itself. Stay tuned.

Beers of Milwaukee, vol. 13a

I’d just like to remind all y’all that Flying Dog Brewery’s Gonzo Imperial Porter is possibly the best beer ever brewed. There’s only one good reason not to buy Gonzo I.Ptr. when you have the opportunity to do so: that is to leave it for me. (And if you decide to make such a sacrifice: thank you very kindly!)

Gonzo Imperial Porter is the best beer I’ve ever tasted.

I once said that Gonzo went well with “caustic and cynical nonfiction”, but it goes even better with the unforgivingly libertarian works of von Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, and Wolfe. (You might wish to risk drinking Gonzo Imperial Porter whilst reading Ayn Rand, but I imagine that Hunter S. Thompson would chomp off your gonads halfway through your first sip… and I’m not about to risk it. Stick to the less Objectivist types with this beer.)

Hell, even if you think that some bureaucrat thousands of miles away does know what’s best for your children, you should drink Gonzo I.P. (although Gonzo will probably eat your gonads for doing so… don’t let that stop you; it’s probably worth the sacrifice).

FISA retroactive-immunity bill delayed

Three cheers for Chris Dodd:

• U.S. Senate postpones consideration of spy bill (Reuters)
• Harry Reid — compare and contrast (Salon.com)

So I’m in the States again, visiting family (again), and while I’m genuinely pleased to be here it’s a little bit odd to be immersed in a two-party zeitgeist. It’s not that I didn’t see it coming — I’ve been paying rather obvious attention to American politics — but it’s different on the inside.

Fortunately, the combination of naked avarice on the part of the Bush 43 administration and craven cowardice on the part of each and every opposing Democrat leader has made some of the sports-team cheerleading seem rather (realistically) hollow. For example, this FISA bill thing.

See, back in August, the Dems passed a FISA bill that gave Dubya &c. more powers than they’d requested… and essentially raped the Fourth Amendment. Now, nine months and change earlier, a clear majority of American voters gave the Democrats some sort of a mandate to end the dubious war in Iraq (which they haven’t), curb the Executive’s more egregious breaches of civil and personal liberties (which they haven’t), and so on. When Reid and company passed the aforementioned FISA bill, they touched off a shitstorm of protest that may well cost them the White House in 2008. (More on that later.)

Now, American politicians are (at least technically) permitted to have consciences. Moreover — and unlike their Canadian compatriots — they’re allowed to act upon those consciences every once in a while. And fortunately for those of us who don’t enjoy having our doors kicked down, Chris Dodd reached into his trousers, grabbed his balls, and filibustered a new FISA bill that would grant retroactive immunity to telecomm companies that had (need I say it? illegally) spied upon their customers at the behest of the Bush 43 government.

This does not, of course, mean that the Fourth Amendment is out of danger just yet. The FISA doesn’t sunset until early next year, and it’s entirely likely to be renewed with even more odious provisions than it has already accumulated. Still, it’s a nice thought.

Now, about that filibuster: you might remember that the Democrats control the Senate these days. Yeah, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada — enough caps for you? I’m just being respectful) tried to push this damn bill through. (You might recall that the Congressional Democrats recently caved on yet another Bush 43-dictated budget. Go team! That’s going to hit the Senate in the near future. We can only hope that Sen. Dodd will still be there: one hand wrapped firmly around his gonads, and the other grabbing the microphone in a death-grip.)

You might have heard the name “Chris Dodd” before. That’s probably because he’s running for the Democratic nomination for President. He’s not alone: three other Senators with “D-” in front of their names are doing the same. However, Senators Obama, Biden, and Clinton were missing in action — still on the campaign trail, while Dodd did what he was elected to do. (The Huffington Post indicates that Obama, Biden, and Clinton offered “rhetorical support” to Dodd’s filibuster. Isn’t that just special?)

This adds particular weight to an editorial coming out of the most self-spied-upon nation in the world:

• At last the great divide is coming into focus (The Observer)

It’s not left versus right that matters any more. The real division is between authority and personal liberty.

Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich (and the sadly mostly-forgotten Mike Gravel, and now perhaps Chris Dodd) have more in common with each other than they do with whom they ostensibly share a party.  These fine people choose essential liberty over temporary safety (for the most part… each has campaign planks with which I strongly disagree) and do so without apology.  They choose liberty over authority, freedom over statism.

On the other side of the coin, neither mainstream party lacks for candidates — depressingly popular candidates — who value authority over freedom, coercion over liberty.  (Clinton; Giuliani; I’m looking at you.  Not exclusively, of course.)  It’s easy to see why this is the case: government represents power (in much the same way that free enterprise without competitors represents money, and government, unlike most corporations, has no competitors within its market) and there are a lot of things that government can do, at least in theory.  This makes the gratuitous use of governmental power irresistible to those who dearly want to solve their neighbours’s problems… but I’ve ranted thus dozens of times before, and once more isn’t going to make much of a difference.  Suffice to say that I try my damndest to avoid government “assistance” out of self-preservation, not misplaced pride.

In any case, kudos to Chris Dodd.

Government: Helping you by helping you not help others

This is what happens when you stick a whack of good intentions in a centrifuge, mix them together, extract the combined idiocy, and inject it into government:

• Official language rules block immigrants from donating blood, stem cells (CBC.ca)

In November, Canadian Blood Services launched a program to persuade more people from ethnic minority groups to register as bone marrow and stem cell donors, but Health Canada regulations only allow those who speak one of the official languages to register.

I am shitting thee (O-)negative.  Good goddamn thing I speak english.

Here’s the rationale: if you fill out a form in a language you may not understand (through a translator, even), you’re Threatening the Safety of the Blood Supply.

Ed Yee, the regional director of Canadian Blood Services for B.C., said the rules are for everyone’s safety because the mandatory donor form has many difficult questions that require accurate answers.

Some of the questions are technical in nature, and others are sensitive, he said, adding that using translators or family members to help people fill out the forms would not be safe.

So, that’s awesome: the safety of Canada’s donated blood is apparently guaranteed by pieces of fucking paper.  For some reason I don’t want to get a transfusion in this country, ever.  (I don’t concur with the government that people who speak english and/or french are apparently fundamentally incapable of lying on government forms.)

But it’s not like anything important is at risk, as far as Health Canada’s concerned:

The One Match program was intended to increase the number of people from minority ethnic groups registered to donate bone marrow and stem cells for a wide range of medical treatments. Without donors, many with serious medical conditions such as leukemia may die.

Go government.

“Dems 4 Dubya”

(Is that a sufficiently illiterate title?  I’m trying to convey a sense of profound, bone-deep mockery.)

Now, I’m not a big fan of The Huffington Post.  For the most part, they expectorate the same old progressive drivel that big coercive government is awesome if and only if — you guessed it — progressives have the guns.  (They also keep trying to open popup windows on my desktop, and keep getting, shall we say, pwned by Firefox.)  However, unlike Daily Kos, they have some integrity: they don’t always give the Democrats a free pass and a blowjob.  For example:

• Democrats Need To Admit They Have A Problem: They Are Addicted to Backing Down

Those members of my audience who plan to vote Democrat because they don’t like the excessive human rights violations of the War On Terror will be dismayed to note that the Dems who ran on what was purported to be an anti-torture platform caved way back in 2002:

“Mostly quiet acquiescence, if not outright support.”

That is how, according to the Washington Post, officials present characterized the reaction of lawmakers, including Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi and Jane Harman, when they were briefed in 2002 about waterboarding and other severe interrogation techniques being employed by the CIA.

Oh yeah, and that 2006 platform we all thought was anti-war?  Not so much.  I mean, we’ve all seen that the Dems we elected didn’t do sweet fuck-all about “the war” (by which most people mean Iraq, having forgotten Afghanistan the same way the Clintonistas have forgotten Bosnia), but it’s useful to be reminded:

It’s no wonder Democrats have already decided to capitulate on the war funding bill coming before Congress next week. As recently as three weeks ago, Speaker Pelosi said there would be no more votes on Iraq funding this year (she said the same thing — both about no votes this year and no votes in ‘08 without a withdrawal date — when I interviewed her in October), and last month Sen. Chuck Schumer thundered, “The days of a free lunch are over.”

Well, over in the same way that U.S. state-sanctioned torture is over. Which is to say, not so much.

What, Pelosi and Schumer backed down, again?  It’s shocking.  We’re shocked.  Shocked is what we are.  (Well, that and sarcastic.)

But, y’know, it wasn’t their fault — just ask them.  They’ll be glad to pass the buck:

Why can’t the Democrats do anything about it? According to Jim Manley, spokesman for Harry Reid: “Republicans, Republicans, Republicans. The real problem here is the president and his Republican backers” who have “staked out an increasingly hard-lined position.”

Yes, we know the Republicans are by and large a nasty bunch.  That’s why we elected you to stand up to them, you fucking sycophant.

Instead, the Dems trying to out-do the Republican executive by giving away our liberties even faster than requested.  That’s just awesome.

I’ll give Huffington credit for pointing out one of the elephants (heheheh) in the room, but I have a problem with this remark:

The Republican aren’t going to change. If the disastrous foreign policy the U.S. has pursued for seven years is going to change, it’s going to have to be because Democrats force it to change.

There’s (at least) one Republican with more change than the Democrat establishment can handle, and at least a few Democrats get it… but I guess Huffington’s still just too fucking progressive to spot the second elephant.