Post Modern Extremism: Steven Best, Civil War and Animal Rights

A post modernist world view is full with important conversations. The world as we know it is rife with uncertainty and instability is a way of life. The status quo of the Western world is political upheaval, economic turmoil, cultural clashes and a growing discontent with political and traditional social institutions. It is bleak picture, chaotic and at times simply terrifying. For some the obvious choice is to latch tight and hard to the familiar - religion, patriotism and a past who's sun has set. For others it is obvious that we must accept change, while working hard to minimize the chaos of inevitable extreme social transformation - holding onto the past as we develop viable new paradigms. But for some, nothing short of total revolution will suffice. A complete shredding of the past for a presumably bright new future, heretofore only viable on paper and in the classroom.

For some taking the important discussions fostered by postmodernism to an extreme is the only answer.

A couple of posts ago, I linked a clip of Dr. Steve Best discussing terrorism, which he euphemistically described as "direct action." The shorter clip I embedded in that post provides a taste of the linked clip from which it was edited. If you have not watched it and don't want to spend ten minutes of your life with Dr. Best, I highly recommend that you check it out now - it is only about three and a half minutes. The longer clip actually makes for a much more intensive watch, but the shorter clip encapsulates the points that I want to touch on here quite reasonably.

There are a lot of things that jumped out at me, but the most obvious and I suspect the most important involve the past of Dr. Best. As the chair of the philosophy department at the University of Texas, El Paso, Best teaches Anarchism, Marxism, Feminism and Postmodernism. Yet he feels that none of these philosophies is radical in the sense that animal rights is radical. What is striking is that he virtually throws the rest under a bus, completely marginalizing them with the statement that unlike animal rights activism, none of these philosophies requires us to change our daily habits.

While I am not an anarchist, Marxist or ultimately a postmodernist (I am, as I consider it, a feminist), I have a fair grounding in all of these. And ultimately I believe that if the human race survives, a responsible anarchy is inevitable - though a very long ways off. The thing is, one needn't even fully embrace any of these philosophies to find them changing their daily habits and behaviors. While the only one of these I would consider a part of my identity is feminism, all of these have changed my daily habits, in that they have significantly influenced my thinking and the decisions that I make. I suspect that I have rather more respect for the philos that Best has spent his life teaching, than he does.

What really strikes me and is rather a continuation of this point, is when best describes his relationship with his university, in the context of teaching animal rights. While I have little doubt that Best is a true believer, I also have little doubt that part of his reason for embracing animal rights, is that he finally found a philosophy that created conflict with his university. His whole demeanor changes when he is describing this, his mouth turning up into a smirk of obvious glee.

To be clear, I do not think that Best bases his support for animal rights on the controversial nature of his teaching. Nor do I think that Best has completely rejected the rest of what he has taught. I have no doubt that Best is passionate about human rights philosophies. What I suspect is that the quest for controversy has largely driven his movement through radical philosophies, until he landed on animal rights and the advocacy of full out civil war. I believe his passion for it is genuine and unwavering. But I suspect what brought him there was being a radical extremist in need of a Cause, a priest in need of a Faith.

The other thing that Best does that is extremely important, is that he is wedding himself and the AR movement to several other causes. In the video he is wedding it to the larger environmental movement. In this essay, he weds it to a great deal more, including the very important and very real struggle for civil liberties. This is a very important tactic to take, because it garners him and the AR movement peripheral allies. People who disagree with virtually everything that the AR movement stands for, are standing with him and with the AR movement on certain issues. This creates the illusion that the AR movement carries considerably more weight than it actually does.

Words define reality, and the animal and Earth liberation movements must resist being defined as violent fanatics and extremists. They must defend themselves rhetorically and philosophically, establishing a sharp distinction between animal and Earth liberation, property destruction, protests, and demonstrations on one side, and bona fide violence and terrorism on the other side.

Notice that he is including property destruction on the side of non-terrorist actions. This is important because the primary tactic of AR terrorists is to burn down or blow up cars, labs and businesses. These are actions that are meant to intimidate scientists and businesses that exploit non-human animals, to terrorize them into submission. And these actions are not happening in a vacuum. Right along side this, is rhetoric about escalation - Best engages in this himself, calling for acts of violence directly against scientists, businesses and institutions that use or engage in animal testing and other people who exploit animals.

It is one thing to engage in peaceful protest and even engage in acts of civil disobedience. It is quite another to terrorize people with carbombs and arson and threats against their person. While he is calling for a sharp distinction, the extremist AR movement (as well as the extremist environmental movement) actually does it's best to blur the lines and obfuscate, so that when the political arm of the movement is attacked by law enforcement, they can cry foul and scream about their civil liberties being violated. By mainstreaming the soft target terrorism, leaders of the AR movement create martyrs of virtually every member of the movement.

When this is all wedded to the very legitimate fight for civil liberties that we in the U.S. have seen destroyed by the patriot act and the war on terror, it often brings people like myself into the fray. And no matter how the AR movement has orchestrated it, when it comes to the issue of civil liberties, I cannot help but come down on the side of liberty and on the side of vast swathes of the AR movement.

What this does is create a critical need on the part of advocates for civil liberties and the freedom of expression to a) be well educated about the people and movements they are defending and b) to make very clear distinctions between defending and supporting. I defend a great deal of expression I strongly disagree with, that does not mean that I support it.

The Gun Study Critique that Begat the Race Card

Apparently it has become necessary to explain my critique of the gun study and Greg's post on it, because Greg seems to think the argument is still about race and class. He won't explain how exactly, apparently because I didn't ask very nicely - but my argument is apparently about race and class none the less. No matter that he still doesn't seem to have the foggiest clue what I am actually arguing - he thinks he does and he thinks that the argument is racist or classist - or both.

Here is Greg's post on the study and here is the press release on the study. Unfortunately the paper itself is behind a paywall, but for those who might have access, here is the link to that. Greg actually posted the conclusion from the abstract, which is basically the same conclusion of the paper itself.

Greg starts right off by flying way past anything that either the study or the press release had to say, titling his post Carry a gun = you get shot more often. Well no, that is not at all an implication of the study or the press release - but it makes a hell of a headline. What the press release indicates, is that carrying a gun is of dubious value in the event of an assault. It mentions that you are more likely to be shot during an assault if you are carrying one. While I think the study itself is still over generalizing (something the authors themselves admit may be the case), they are limiting their generalization to urban settings.

Before I go into my critique, I will make the same caveat that I made in my comments at Greg's blog. I tend to think that the conclusions being made are likely true. I think that the study's conclusions, the press release conclusion and even Greg's conclusion in the title of his post, are quite likely true and a well constructed study that was able to gather data to support those conclusions would likely find evidence to support those assertions. I just don't think this study reasonably supports any of those assertions because of a serious flaw that attempting to adjust for in the controls does not - cannot compensate for.

The problem with this study, is that the vast majority of the data comes from shootings in areas fo Philadelphia that are prone to extremely high rates of gang activity. The study does not take into account the legality of the firearms in question, or the victim's legal right to be carrying them concealed on their person. The only adjustment made in an attempt to compensate, is that the controls for each case in the study, were taken from the surrounding area and culled for like employment - in most of these cases, unemployment and criminal record - actual crime/s undetermined. Because of this, I do not see how whether or not a given case in the study was a career criminal (i.e. a gang member) can be accounted for.

Now as far as Greg's title assertion goes, this pretty much knocks it out of the running entirely. With a very strong likelihood that a very large percentage, if not a majority of the cases in the study being involved in criminal activities, there is a confounding factor having nothing to do with guns, that makes it more likely the person is going to be assaulted in the first place. I don't think it is at all unreasonable to assume that someone involved in ongoing criminal activities is more likely than people who are not, to be victim of an assault in the first place. To be very clear again, I suspect that Greg's claim is correct. I just don't see this study, or any study that is limited entirely to large urban centers (the gang variable aside) providing any evidence that that is the case.

The assertion made in the press release is rather trickier, but not all that much so. Bottom line, their claim seems to be that carrying a gun in general - regardless of location, increases your chance of being shot during an assault. We won't go into the gang activity variable at all and rest with the obvious - the study authors did not make that claim. Presumably because they did not believe that the evidence they studied could reasonably be extrapolated to populations outside of urban centers. From the paper's conclusion; "Although successful defensive gun uses are
possible and do occur each year, the probability of success may be low for civilian gun users in urban areas." Neither that statement, or any other in the paper's conclusion makes any implications about gun use outside of urban areas.

But what about the study itself? For that matter, why would anyone who is not a criminal, have a substantively different outcome during a gun assault? What exactly makes that such a confounding variable?

First and foremost, I want to be perfectly clear that it may not make any difference at all. But there are a lot of factors that could potentially make an assault involving career criminals, different than an assault involving people who are not. Much the same way there are a lot of factors that make an assault involving a police officer different than an assault that does not involve the police. The study did not include police officers who were shot for a reason, I think it is reasonable to say that the study should not include mostly career criminals for similar reasons. Bottom line, they are not civilians in the same sense that police officers are not.

Those factors include, but are not limited to the following. First, civilians with guns (CWGs) who are not criminals and who get involved in an assault, may not be very likely to pull their gun because of a simple assault, while a career criminal may be considerably more inclined to do so. Second, a gangster is very plausibly considerably more prepared to use their gun at any given point, than your average CWG - being so prepared may actually make it less likely the gangster will be shot. Third, gangsters in larger urban centers often operate with a certain amount of discipline and training - some gangs operate on a par with tactical (paramilitary) police units. This could well provide even more of an advantage in an assault, over CWGs. And gangsters are also very likely to attack from some sort of cover and with a certain amount of stealth or surprise - such as drive by shootings.

I consider this a confounding factor that at the least raises doubts about extrapolating this study to the general population. And it would not matter if the study included a large percentage of white gangsters, or any other organized criminals. Indeed, including a large percentage of career or even petty criminals, would create confounding factors. As would including a large percentage of terrorists. It doesn't matter if the gangsters are wealthy or poor, living in the ghetto, or living in extremely wealthy neighborhoods. Being a gangster is the confounding variable, not what sort of gangster one might be or where they live.

I am more than happy to debate this - I am happy to do so here. I could well be wrong and someone might have a stellar argument that convinces me that I am. But my argument has absolutely nothing to do with race or class. Accusations that I am racist or classist, or that my argument itself is those things, is a total non-starter.

Worse, as I explained in my other post about this, such accusations are extremely counterproductive - whether they come from a privileged white person, or from someone who has suffered actual racism. All they accomplish is to desensitize people to such accusations and make them incredibly unlikely to have the slightest interest or willingness to engage in a serious discussion about racism, classism and/or other forms of bigotry.

It also has the added detriment of seriously detracting from, if not outright destroying that person's credibility when it comes to discussions about racism and other forms of bigotry. It is kind of hard to take someone seriously about racism, when they quite unjustifiably accused you of racism.

Note To Self: Never Spend Money In Florida Or Buy Florida Products

Florida sucks - Florida sucks bigtime. If their neck and neck race with TX to execute the most persons found guilty of capital crimes weren't enough, their lack of any protections whatever, for queers who have the misfortune of being trapped in their healthcare system is. Or for that matter their attitude about gays and adoption...Hmm - pretty much anything they have to do with gay rights, I should say - because there are few states that treat GLBTs worse than fucking Florida.

But seriously, if you happen to be gay and there is even a slim chance you might fall deathly ill, do not vacation in or wander through Florida.

Thanks Greg...

On Strip-searches in Schools: What About Boys? And other questions...

I think a great many of us are aware that SCOTUS ruled the other day, on a case involving the strip search of an eighth grade girl, by school faculty.  As Ed put it, it is indeed a partial victory for sanity, given that the majority opinion explicitly stated that such a search might have been reasonable had the faculty suspected that she had illicit drugs on her person, rather than the Advil they were looking for.  Several people have weighed in on the ruling, including Greg Laden, who's blog is so very often a starting point for very interesting conversations.  So I don't feel all that compelled to throw much into the legal discussion, except to say that I strongly feel faculty should not be performing strip searches - ever.  If there is a reasonable assumption that a child has contraband secreted in their underwear, the school should call the police in to deal with it - period.  If the police don't believe there is adequate reason to search, then the search should not happen.

But I do want to weigh in on a discussion that got started over on Greg's thread - namely the question of how outraged we might be if it were a boy who was strip searched instead.  I am not at all fond of the commenter who got that ball rolling - he and I have butted heads way to harshly for that.  But he raises a very important question and one that is indicative of far more than just the implications of strip searches. 

I am going to go into a great deal more detail on this, when I don't have three tests between now and Tuesday that I really need to study for.  However, I would like to refer you to my paper on masculine social gender constructs and help-seeking in men.  And I would also pose the question to you:

How would you feel about this situation if it had been a boy who was strip searched, instead of a girl?  Would you feel any different about it?  If so, why?  And please try to be objective in your thinking and honest with yourself.  Moreover, if you are comfortable doing so, drop your answers in comments or an email.  And on this post only, I am willing to accept completely anonymous comments, because I want to know what you really think.  I figure that some people might not want to be associated with their real feelings on this and I will respect that.

And while I am asking questions, I would also be interested to hear from some skeptics who were raised without religion. Stemming from an earlier discussion about cannabis, I am inclined to think that there is some tendency amongst those who never went in for particularly pervasive forms of magical thinking, to discount their skeptical nature when it comes to certain topics they hold dear - or dare I say, sacred. The lovely Juniper and I were discussing this the other night and it occurred to me that it might be a very good topic to write about. So if you were raised a free-thinker, or at least without Faith, these are for you.

Do you believe that you are pretty much immune to magical thinking - that you have some innate ability to think rationally about anything and everything? (discounting inherently arational notions, like love) Do you feel that you don't really have to be careful about how you approach topics that you may have strong personal feelings about? Do you ever find yourself questioning the evidence for something, not because you have seen more compelling evidence to the contrary, but because you don't like the conclusions implied by the evidence you discount?

Again, please be as objective and honest as possible. And again, feel free to email me answers or leave them anon. Any emails I receive about this will remain confidential.

More on the Conversation that Never Ends

The last post garnered rather a lot of response, so I wanted to clarify a few things. Also, quite a few responses came via email. Please, comment publicly. There were several good points made, that I think could add a lot of value to the discussion. For those who are uncomfortable talking about this openly, I do allow anonymous comments - i.e. I don't get any information about you. I only ask that you sign off with some identifier, besides simply anonymous. I don't care what you choose to use as a screen name, just give me something to refer to. Unidentified comments will be deleted.

I would also take this opportunity to point out that another sciblogger has weighed in on this. Dr Free-Ride, at Adventures in Ethics and Science, makes some very similar points to my own.

First, Abel actually was referring to legal wrangling, when he talked about going over the line. And this is a very important factor in discussion of issues such as sex and drugs with our children.

This is a very real concern, for a lot of parents. The only real answer for it, is to be active and try to affect change in our communities. In many places it is possible to have one's children taken away or be otherwise oppressed for making very reasonable and sound parenting choices. And it's a catch twenty two. On the one hand, the only way to effect change is to talk about why these are perfectly reasonable choices. On the other hand, if one talks about it, it could be cause for serious legal problems. This is a tough enough issue that even living someplace as reasonable about these things as Portland is, it still makes me a bit nervous, talking about it.

I do know that this is a pretty big problem, one that is all the more difficult, having been raised to believe that the freedom of expression is akin to being a sacred ideal. Especially true when it comes to raising one's children and doing what we believe is right, to raise as functional, ethical and safe children as we can. There are no easy answers. Many contributors to the problem are rather obvious, but actually changing them, is as complex a problem as trying to break the deathgrip the republicrats have on American electoral politics. One advantage, is that this is very much a localized issue and we can all get very directly involved with local politics. It is still an uphill fight, but I think it is one worth fighting.

Drugmonkey also weighed in, with a very important point about risk assessment. This being that even a seemingly small chance, such as one percent, is not as small as it seems. To illustrate, take a group of five hundred kids, not far off the mark for a lot of graduating classes at high schools all over the country. If anything, it's probably a little small. But it works for illustrating the numbers easily.

Something that affects one percent of a teen population, is going to affect five kids in that group. But that leaves four hundred, ninety five kids who it doesn't affect, right? Of course it does, but I want you to consider exactly what this means. I want you to consider the odds of one of those five kids being someone you and your child knows. At the least, it is exceedingly likely that at least one of the five will be known to someone you/your child knows. Less likely, but still plausible, one of those five will be your child. So lets look at some numbers, kindly provided by Drugmonkey;

In this we are supported by the data in the sense that 50% of 12th graders have tried an illicit drug, 73% have tried alcohol and 56% report having "been drunk".

So lets look at how this translates into our group of five hundred kids. We have a full two hundred, fifty kids who will try an illicit drug. Two hundred, eighty of them will get drunk. And three hundred, sixty five will try alcohol. To be clear, it is virtually impossible that you/your child will not know several kids who will fall into one or more of those categories.

I would also like to take a look at the numbers for inhalant use among teens, from this context. Mainly, because this is the one that frightens me the most. According to a 2006 report by the American Academy of Pediatrics (Warning, PDF link), 11.1% of twelfth graders have used inhalants, holding steady since 2002. Finding statistics on the percentage of kids who use inhalants, who die of it is proving rather difficult, but according to this same report, of those who die, 22% are first time users. So of our group of five hundred kids, fifty-five or fifty-six of them will use inhalants. Here is a listing of likely side effects of inhalant abuse, from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Note the stats are a little different for the frequency of use. Keep in mind that until this page, we have been looking at statistics for use before high school graduation. NIDA's figures are for lifetime use, not just use among youth.

So while it is easy to point at figures like one percent, and assume that this means something is safe, the reality is that one percent isn't that far away from us, at any given point.

Finally, I wanted to clarify what I am trying to encourage parents to do. I am not suggesting that parents tell their children that if they really need to use drugs, do such and such, because it's safer than other options. While for some kids, that might well become a reasonable method of harm reduction, most kids really don't need that. What I am advocating, is nothing more than providing our kids with enough information, to make an informed decision, should they choose not to abstain. Make sure that you aren't going to find them cold and dead in their bedroom, with an aerosol can in their mouth. Make sure they aren't going to drive intoxicated, or ride with an intoxicated driver.

Putting it All Together

Thanks to Kurt for finishing his series on rights. I would like ot apologize to those stopping by for my post on the vice war. It will be up when I get the time. I just picked up a last minute, pre-holiday bathroom remodel. Between this and no internet at home for the moment, I just didn't have time.

So far, we have looked at a Theory of Culture, and then various tests to its validity, including the Right to Life. We have concluded as a result of this study that Inalienable Rights do not exist in any positive sense. At least in the real world, rights exist only to the degree that a culture grants said rights.

From this point, what follows is pure speculation and wishcasting. Admittedly, I am doing so based upon a solid model, but all this means in reality is that the speculation is theoretically provable (or falsifiable, depending on which side of that particular philosophical nit you pick).

The Founding Fathers had no idea of the Leviathan they were creating. The intention was merely to bring the quarreling states together for purposes of defense and foreign affairs, and to coordinate efforts which required a national scale, such as providing for a postal service amd a national currency.

But one of the things about markets (and politics is a market, albeit a very inefficient one) is that over time they do tend to favor greater efficiencies, especially of scale. And one of the rules of economy of scale is that regularity and predictability must be present to take advantage of the efficiency. Thus we see two trend lines beginning in Medieval Europe and then rapidly growing through the Rennaissance and into the Enlightenment. First, the size of states grew larger, incorporating growing and often diverse populations. At the same time, the complexity of the legal system grew. Things which were once regulated (if at all) by custom became covered by Guilds. These later gave way to Statutes of the King, which were in turn supplanted by legislative management. Finally, a permanent beaurocracy was created.

One aspect of regularity and predictability that the states did not intend to create was "rights" for individuals. I think it is safe to say that until the Declaration of Independence no state or would-be state had ever recognized such rights willingly. Power for the individual meant less power for the King, or so the thinking went. One of the great leaps forward of the Enlightenment was to recognize this as a logical fallacy: Power is not a zero sum game, and by ceding power to the people (or some component of the people) the government could vastly increase its own authority over time.

Increased freedom brought about increases in the things people care more directly about: More food, sex, leisure, etc, at least as measured by the sum total of people enjoying these things. And hence the paradox I have mentioned earlier but not discussed: The more personal freedoms grow, the more they are constrained by government regulations. The more regulations, the more power government has also, and hence the more power to interfere with those freedoms. It's an interesting circle.

There are two ways to take this state of affairs. First, it will always be in the interests of some "Faction" (in the Federalist 10 sense) to use the regulatory power of the society to increase its own position at the expense of others. This happens all the time through the political process. Just look at how Federal spending changes in the US according to whether a Democrat or Republican is President.

The second approach is to take the view that maximum freedom for all individuals will bring the maximum return in terms of meeting the culture's wants and needs. Loosely speaking, this is the Libertarian philosphy. In a sense, this was Bentham's position, and it underlays Marx's arguments as well, as has been pointed out in the comments to prior posts. Marx' logic, of course, was that to lead to a state of true freedom, an intermediate period would be required. He didn't use the term "Philosopher Kings" to describe his Dictatorship of the Proletariat, but it is clear he had Plato in mind.

I see no particular reason to distinguish between a Dictatorship "of the Proletariat" from one "Not of the Proletariat." The extremes of either approach are unattractive, in the sense that for the majority they suppress the very freedom which is helping to generate the abundance.

Before I continue, I need to knock down a major fallacy that often bogs things down at this stage of the argument: Cultural evolution is not a continuum, nor does it have any intelligence of its own. There is the idea in most racist writings (for instance) that some cultures are superior to others. This is no more true than the scientific theory that a human is a higher order of being than a sea anemone: All we can say is that both are exquisitely adapted for their current ecological niches. Just as biological evolution is best viewed as a bush, rather than a tree, social evolution likewise is best viewed as cultures adapting in different ways to different circumstances and environments. There is no plan or order to any of it, and certainly not an over-riding intelligence directing developments.

Culture is not a moral agent. Our society is not superior to hunter-gatherers because we have perfected the cheese-flavored microwavable snack. In many measures, the hunter-gatherers have the best of it. In most studies by anthropologists, hunter-gathers work less, eat a healthier diet, and get more sex than the average American. Most of them have never even heard of Britney Spears or Ann Coulter. There are downsides, too, such as a lack of dental care and the inability to mitigate natural disasters or the aggressiveness of neighbors. Still, the pursuit of happiness is available equally in both.

That being dealt with, I also need to address another problem that my whole argument seems to raise, which is this: If I define rights functionally, ie, as the package of behaviors which a given culture permits, how do I avoid the trap of legal positivism? The topic has not been raised so far in this series, but I am hugely critical of legal positivism elsewhere on the blogosphere, particularly on DuWayne's brother Ed Brayton's Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

About.com gives a pretty good definition:

Legal positivism is the legal philosophy which argues that any and all laws are nothing more and nothing less than simply the expression of the will of whatever authority created them. Thus, no laws can be regarded as expressions of higher morality or higher pinciples to which people can appeal when they disagree with the laws. The creation of laws is simply an exercise in brute force and an expression of power, not an attempt to realize any loftier moral or social goals.

My argument against this is not that the statement is incorrect: I agree wholeheartedly that this is how law has operated for most of human history. Rather, my complaint is that it is incomplete, failing to take into account ideas of political philosophy and government -- and also religion -- that have been around since at least since the Sixth Century BCE, the time of Gautama, Confucius, and Pythagoras.

Yes, cultures are mostly shaped by economic forces. But ideas matter, too, and have consequences. At the margins they may be powerful forces themselves. For instance, I have no doubt that the Arab population was under great stress and perhaps greatly wanted to sweep away Byzantine control of Egypt and the Near East. Yet it took Mohammed and the idea of Islam to set the flood in motion (Note: There are historians who dispute this and argue that Islam only became a factor after many of the conquests were complete; I'm not convinced). Likewise, it is pretty clear that Buddhism was initially a reaction to overpopulation in the Indus valley and the resulting deforestation and ecological crisis. But the ideology clearly played a part, too, shaping the responses that the culture adopted.

My second objection is that the definition of legal positivism has another flaw: It assumes that because cultures are not moral agents, that we cannot make values-laden statements about them. This is preposterous. No, we cannot make statements such as, "That law is unjust because it violates the right to free speech." No such right exists. But we can make the statement, "That law is counterproductive because it infringes on free speech and free speech brings the following benefits to the culture:" with a list to follow. In other words, there would be no particular reason to favor free speech in the abstract if free speech did not bring tangible benefits to society. And many cultures have put restrictions on speech for precisely this reason: They see no benefit to it.

This approach also allows us to apply a framework to ideas which challenge liberty. I am a free speech absolutist, for the most part, and strongly oppose efforts to ban "hate speech," for instance. In general, it is best to oppose bad speech with better speech. However, if it could be shown that "hate speech" (however defined) has absolutely no utility to the overall culture, that would be a strong argument as to why it should be banned. A very similar argument, for instance, lies at the restriction on speech known as copyright: We guarrantee a writer exclusive rights to her work for a period of years in order to encourage new works to be produced.

This, then, is the solution to our paradox of power: As cultures become more complex. it is always in the best interest of the overall society to allow greater freedom, if not to all, at least to a certain class. Cultures evolve freedoms because greater freedoms allows for more good things, both materially, and increasingly, idealistic. I need to add that Marx was correct, religion is, indeed, a commodity, as much a part of a culture's happiness as many material components. And one very hopeful sign in the "New Atheism" of recent years is the understanding that a wholistic worldview that focuses on more than the self is compatable with atheism. Sam Harris seems ahead of the pack here.

I haven't read Mill's On Liberty in over 20 years. If I am recreating a lot of his arguments, I fully acknowledge the debt here. I am sure I also owe a great deal of my argument to Milton Friedman, Christopher Lasch, and my favorite professor at UNC Asheville, Bill Sabo. I've thoroughly enjoyed working on this series, and haven't had this kind of intellectual thrill in a long time. I imagine I'll be back to visit Inalienable Rights soon. Thanks to all for your patience, your comments, and just caring about the topic to begin with. Blessings.

Kurt A. Ehrsam

A Perfect WInter Storm Developing

I would like to thank Tara Smith, of Aetiology, for kindly giving me permission to disseminate this information to my readers, by posting it here. I think the information posted is very important and hope you will also take the time to click over to Orac's post on the topic as well. I do have some other crossposts to put up as well, I apologize but they will get up asap. This is rather important and took precedent.

My own short take on this, is simple. People who do not wish to vaccinate their children, should be allowed to make that decision, for whatever reason. But if they decide not to do so, they should not be allowed to send their children to public schools, nor should private schools be required to accept them. There are those kids who do not develop anti-bodies after being vaccinated. They depend on herd immunity to keep them healthy. They should not be put at risk, due to someone else's bad choices, religiously motivated or not.

From Aetiology;
Tara C. Smith is an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology. Her research involves a number of pathogens at the animal-human nexus. Additionally, she is the founder of Iowa Citizens for Science and also writes for The Panda's Thumb. Please note the views expressed on this site are Dr. Smith's alone and may not be representative of the groups mentioned above.

A few news stories hit my inbox all at once yesterday--and the combination of them doesn't bode well for childrens' health; more after the jump.

First, despite several years now of banging the drum for having kids vaccinated against influenza, they're still being overlooked when it comes to pandemic planning:

Children would likely be both prime spreaders and targets of a flu pandemic, but they're being overlooked in the nation's preparations for the next super-flu, pediatricians and public health advocates reported Wednesday.

The report urges the government to improve planned child protections, including how to care for youngsters if a pandemic closes schools.

"Right now, we are behind the curve in finding ways to limit the spread of a pandemic in children even though they are among the most at risk," said Dr. John Bradley of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which co-authored the report with the Trust for America's Health.

The story brings up 3 issues that haven't been addressed: no masks available in childrens' sizes (and even if they were, would kids leave them on? Certainly it's tough enough to get even adults to use them effectively). What about vaccine doses for--and efficacy in--children? There has been some investigation already into H5N1 vaccine for adults (with not-so-great results thus far), but to my knowledge, nothing has been done yet in kids. (And of course, that's assuming H5N1 would be the pandemic strain, which is far from certain). Also, they mention something I'd not even considered regarding potential school closings: what happens to kids who rely on the school lunch program, if the schools are shut down in the event of a pandemic?

In a second story which comes as little surprise, parents are increasingly lying about their religious beliefs to avoid vaccinating their kids, due to autism fears:

Sabrina Rahim doesn't practice any particular faith, but she had no problem signing a letter declaring that because of her deeply held religious beliefs, her 4-year-old son should be exempt from the vaccinations required to enter preschool.

She is among a small but growing number of parents around the country who are claiming religious exemptions to avoid vaccinating their children when the real reason may be skepticism of the shots or concern they can cause other illnesses. Some of these parents say they are being forced to lie because of the way the vaccination laws are written in their states.

"Forced to lie." Right. Meanwhile, because she's worried about discredited research suggesting a link between vaccines and autism, she's putting everyone's kids at risk:

"When you choose not to get a vaccine, you're not just making a choice for yourself, you're making a choice for the person sitting next to you," said Dr. Lance Rodewald, director of the CDC's Immunization Services Division.

(Orac also offers his take on this topic).

These two stories also feed back into what I wrote on Monday about regarding methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) increasing in the community, and specifically, recent outbreaks in schools. Following reports of a recent MRSA outbreak in a Virginia school comes news of another one in Texas.

So, more explicitly, how do all these stories tie into each other?

You may remember a few years back that there were reports of a spike in influenza deaths in children in the U.S.. These weren't due to influenza alone, but like many influenza fatalities, were caused by influenza complicated by secondary bacterial infections, including MRSA--which proved to be a highly fatal combination. Last year's flu season wasn't too bad, but still the combination of influenza and MRSA proved to be deadly for a number of children.

Kids still aren't getting influenza shots at the rate recommended, despite being in a high-risk group for influenza deaths (and being efficient little spreaders of the virus). Add in the resistance to vaccination that many parents are expressing (including to voluntary shots such as influenza), and the winter cold-and-flu season has the potential to be even worse than usual for kids in the coming years. Many schools are already increasing awareness regarding Staph infections, but as the article notes, they're incredibly difficult to control:

Rappahannock Superintendent Bob Chappell said school employees also followed a local hospital's advice to mop hallways and classrooms with a bleach solution. The cost of the cleanup: more than $10,000.

***

"What's clear to us is that this bacteria is coming into our schools from the community because the cases are so widespread, and there appears to be no pattern," said Montgomery schools spokesman Brian Edwards.

As always, washing hands and doing everything possible to keep one's germs to oneself are critical, but even our best efforts can be unsuccessful (as I can currently attest, suffering from a bad cold that unfortunately my son also caught). Once mainly a hospital pathogen, MRSA has become far more common in the community: as they note, it's widespread, and the isolates they've examined so far don't appear to be from a common source (which would likely be easier to get rid of). And of course, missed vaccinations don't only put children at a risk of serious complications from influenza, but a host of other diseases as well. I hope we don't need this kind of resurgence to make people remember how serious these diseases can be

Reconstructionists In Michigan

To put a quick break to the free speech posts (don't worry, there's another one coming shortly, again via Orac @ Respectful Insolence), I thought I would cross-post from my brother's blog. First time and on his birthday no less. While I am linking to Ed, I would like to attract your attention to this great article he wrote in the Michigan Messenger, about the Seven Straight Nights for Equal Rights project. (yes, I will eventually get to posting about marriage equality, for now, please read that article and while your at it, catch this great commentary, much better than my own in that thread)

I have spent little time reading about reconstructionists, except to understand that they're a bit on the loony side. Just how nuts, I was not aware. Of especial interest is the commentary on North's affinity for stoning as punishment for crimes. Talk about fostering a sense of community, I guess that could be an advantage of stoning. So without further ado, thanks to Ed, for making clear he wouldn't sue me for copyright infringment, for the repost.

From Dispatches;
Ed Brayton is a freelance writer and speaker. He is the co-founder of Michigan Citizens for Science and The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. (static)

I was having a discussion with the pastor of a relatively liberal (in both the theological and political sense) Christian church in Lansing recently and I asked him if he was familiar with the Okemos Christian Center. He replied that he was not. I was a bit surprised that he was unaware of this fast growing congregation, also known as the Living Water Church of God, that had made the local newspapers as a result of its lawsuit against Meridian Township for denying a permit to build a new 35,000 square foot facility that would house a Christian school for nearly 300 students. I was not surprised, however, at his reaction when I mentioned that I had brought them up because they are a reconstructionist church; his eyes got big and he was clearly a bit taken aback by this news as he simply muttered, "Wow...."

In order to understand the pastor's reaction, we must first ask the obvious question: what is reconstructionism? This term is often used interchangeably with other terms like dominionism, theonomy and theocracy. Let me offer two definitions at two different levels of analysis.

Longer, more detailed definition: Reconstructionism is a particular type of reformed, or Calvinistic, theology that is based primarily on the work or RJ Rushdoony, who drew on the work of Cornelius Van Til. Theologically, it is defined as presuppositionalist (meaning they argue from the position that no argument can be coherent without being based in Christian epistemology), post-millenialist (meaning they believe that Christ will only return after the establishment of genuinely Christian societies on Earth through massive conversion of the population, and theonomist, meaning that they believe in establishing God's rule as a matter of law.

Shorter, simpler definition: Reconstructionism is the belief that the Bible should determine the civil and criminal law of the nation.

It's also important, I think, to spell out what reconstructionsts are not, or perhaps more accurately, to distinguish between what we might call the mainstream religious right and the Christian reconstructionists. Your average religious right follower of, say, Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, are likely not reconstructionists. They may refer to the Bible in order to support their political views on gay rights, for example, but that alone does not make them reconstructionists for two reasons.

First, because most of the religious right is premillenialist, not postmillenialist; that is, they believe that Christians will be raptured (taken up to heaven) before the terrible end time events happen; reconstructionists, as mentioned above, are postmillenialist and believe that they must work to establish Christian rule on Earth before the end times can begin. Second, because even most of the rank and file followers of religious right ministers like Falwell and Robertson would not accept the establishment of the entire Mosaic law in this country. They may look to the Bible to support their views on some legal issues, but they won't go as far as to institute the death penalty for the vast array of things the Old Testament commands.

It should also be noted that reconstructionists do not advocate any sort of coup or violent overthrow of society. They take a very long term view of how society is to be reconstructed and they view evangelization as the primary means of achieving their goals. Their goal is to convince enough people to believe as they do that they will eventually be in the majority and in a position to pass laws that will create a Biblical theocracy in the United States. As the Okemos Christian Center website says:

The Christian believes the earth and all its fullness is the Lord's-that every area dominated by sin must be "reconstructed" in terms of the Bible. This includes, first, the individual; second, the family; third, the church; and fourth, the wider society, including the state. We therefore believe fervently in Christian civilization. We firmly believe in the separation of church and state, but not the separation of the state-or anything else-from God. We are not revolutionary; We do not believe in the militant, forced overthrow of human government. We have infinitely more powerful weapons than guns and bombs-We have the invincible spirit of God, the infallible word of God, and the incomparable gospel of God, none of which can fail.

Let us not, however, make too much of this. That is simply a matter of means, not ends; and it is the ends they seek that should be feared by anyone who values freedom. Theocracy is the polar opposite of a liberal democratic society that values individual rights and the reconstructionists don't hide their intention to use the means of democracy to acheive their goal of destroying the very idea of a pluralistic and free society. Gary North, one of the most influential Christian reconstructionist leaders, minced no words in a 1982 article:

So let us be blunt about it: we must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God.

The notion that there is no neutrality, no pluralism, is a key idea in reconstructionism. From their perspective, a society is either Godly or anti-God, period. If a nation does not follow the Biblical law, they are condemned by God. Imagine for a moment the sort of society we would become should they succeed. Homosexuals would be stoned to death (Leviticus 18:22). So would women who are not virgins on their wedding day, blasphemers, heretics, witches and a whole host of others.

Indeed, stoning is advocated with disturbing glee by North, who wrote an article listing enough reasons why we should start stoning criminals again to make the Taliban beam with pride. First, he noted, "the implements of execution are available to everyone at virtually no cost." Well that's fiscally conservative, I suppose, but more importantly he liked how it brought communities together, noting that "executions are community projects--not with spectators who watch a professional executioner do `his' duty, but rather with actual participants." But he's just warming up. Finally, he says, "by far the most important reason is that stoning is literally a means of crushing the murderer's head by means of a rock, which is symbolic of God. This is analogous to the crushing of the head of the serpent in Genesis 3:15. This symbolism testifies to the final victory of God over all the hosts of Satan."

The Okemos Christian Center has close ties to North and to Rushdoony, the founder of the reconstructionist movement. Pastor Craig Dumont has written articles for the Chalcedon Foundation, the most influential reconstructionist organization in the country. He was a senior fellow with the Center for Cultural Leadership, run by reconstructionist pastor Andrew Sandlin. The Center frequently brings in reconstructionists, including Gary DeMar, Sandlin and many others, to speak.

Perhaps most disturbing is that Rep. Mike Rogers sent a letter last year (see it reproduced here) praising the Okemos Christian Center on its 15th anniversary. In that letter he praised them as a "bright light of hope and faith" and a "shining example of caring for others." He further praised them for their "fiften years of ministry and promoting God's word and for being "an example to people everywhere that that a commitment to God and ministry can overcome the perils of the world."

Pastor Craig DuMont of the Okemos Christian Center was invited several times to respond to questions and to state his beliefs in his own words. He agreed to an email interview and was sent a list of questions. Three times over the course of several weeks he promised to answer them, but apparently decided not to do so. Calls to Rep. Rogers' office went unreturned as well.

Of further interest, was this article in Reason linked by a commenter on the original posting. I also recommend clicking over to the comments there.

While We're Discussing the Chill on Expression in the West. . .

Check out this piece, at the Advice Goddess Blog.

This should send a shudder of fear, to anyone who values free expression throughout the west. The Dutch made a promise of security to Ms. Hirsi Ali, in exchange for her willingness to run for office. They have a responsibility to follow through on that promise, rather than leaving her in the cold. We all should be encouraging the advocacy of women's rights in the Muslim world. We should all be encouraging the brevity it takes, for people like Ms. Hirsi Ali, to speak out against the vile repression that radical Islam perpetuates.

We should all tremble, when these brave people are left to the murderous wolves. In effect telling the wolves, "go ahead and kill her, we won't stop you, not now, probably not ever."

We have come so far, only to fall so far back. Freedom of expression is important, it's time we acted like it. Fight the chill, advocate for freedom of expression.

Homeopathic Thuggery Redux

Many have chosen to repost The Gentle Art of Homeopathic Killing in full, but more should. I have already emailed the SoH about this and the furor their threats have caused. I would love to see more people post it, so that I can send them a long list of articles about their moronic actions. I think it is very important that people realize that when they threaten lawsuits, to silence their critics, it will backlash on them. That the very act of trying to silence their critics thusly, will send that very message to far more people. I want to see this article posted on every blog that has an interest in freedom of speech and expression. There were no lies told in this article. Everything written is verifiable. Indeed, this is exactly why the SoH wanted to quash this. The truth makes them look bad.

Please help me send a strong message to the SoH and our community in macrocosm, that these kind of tactics will only backfire. That attempts to stifle criticism, will only draw more attention to that criticism. This tactic was attempted against sciblogger, PZ Meyers and the same attorney in that case, even threatened my brother and legal scholar, Peter Irons, who had this to say about the suit. While Seed magazine provides strong support for it's scibloggers, many indy bloggers are not so fortunate and even knowing they can win, can be intimidated into silence.

It is important, not just in this case, but every time this sort of thing happens. It is not ok to try to shut down speech we may not like in this manner. It is one thing if someone is committing acts of liable, that are intended to dishonestly damage the reputation of another. But the circumstances in which this is actionable are rightly, very narrowly tailored in the U.S.

So please, help me in a small way with this issue. Post Le Canard Noir's article in full, or at least write about it and link others who have. Write to the SoH a short note, explaining your feelings about the tactics they used to shut down their critics. Make it clear to them that it was their tactics that spread this story much further, to many more people, than it would have gone, had they just left it alone. This is important to all of us and it behooves all of us to get involved.

Homeopathic Thuggery, via Orac

I know, I know, I have other things to post. But after discovering this gent's ISP made him pull this post, because of a threat of a lawsuit, I felt the need to post it here. Found it via Orac's Respectful Insolence. Orac has plenty to say about it, so I recommend clicking over, but here's the post in full; (I also recommend checking out the quackometer, where it was originally posted, interesting site - sort of a brit Denialism Blog)

The Gentle Art Of Homeopathic Killing

Originally Posted by, Le Canard Noir

The Society of Homeopaths (SoH) are a shambles and a bad joke. It is now over a year since Sense about Science, Simon Singh and the BBC Newsnight programme exposed how it is common practice for high street homeopaths to tell customers that their magic pills can prevent malaria. The Society of Homeopaths have done diddly-squat to stamp out this dangerous practice apart from issue a few ambiguously weasel-worded press statements.

The SoH has a code of practice, but my feeling is that this is just a smokescreen and is widely flouted and that the Society do not care about this. If this is true, then the code of practice is nothing more than a thin veneer used to give authority and credibility to its deluded members. It does nothing more than fool the public into thinking they are dealing with a regulated professional.


As a quick test, I picked a random homeopath with a web site from the SoH register to see if they flouted a couple of important rules:

48 • Advertising shall not contain claims of superiority.
• No advertising may be used which expressly or implicitly claims to cure named diseases.

72 To avoid making claims (whether explicit or implied; orally or in writing) implying cure of any named disease.

The homeopath I picked on is called Julia Wilson and runs a practice from the Leicestershire town of Market Harborough. What I found rather shocked and angered me.

Straight away, we find that Julia M Wilson LCHE, RSHom specialises in asthma and works at a clinic that says,

Many illnesses and disease can be successfully treated using homeopathy, including arthritis, asthma, digestive disorders, emotional and behavioural difficulties, headaches, infertility, skin and sleep problems.

Well, there are a number of named diseases there to start off. She also gives a leaflet that advertises her asthma clinic. The advertising leaflet says,

Conventional medicine is at a loss when it comes to understanding the origin of allergies. ... The best that medical research can do is try to keep the symptoms under control. Homeopathy is different, it seeks to address the triggers for asthma and eczema. It is a safe, drug free approach that helps alleviate the flaring of skin and tightening of lungs...

Now, despite the usual homeopathic contradiction of claiming to treat causes not symptoms and then in the next breath saying it can alleviate symptoms, the advert is clearly in breach of the above rule 47 on advertising as it implicitly claims superiority over real medicine and names a disease.

Asthma is estimated to be responsible for 1,500 deaths and 74,000 emergency hospital admissions in the UK each year. It is not a trivial illness that sugar pills ought to be anywhere near. The Cochrane Review says the following about the evidence for asthma and homeopathy,

The review of trials found that the type of homeopathy varied between the studies, that the study designs used in the trials were varied and that no strong evidence existed that usual forms of homeopathy for asthma are effective.

This is not a surprise given that homeopathy is just a ritualised placebo. Hopefully, most parents attending this clinic will have the good sense to go to a real accident and emergency unit in the event of a severe attack and consult their GP about real management of the illness. I would hope that Julia does little harm here.

However, a little more research on her site reveals much more serious concerns. She says on her site that 'she worked in Kenya teaching homeopathy at a college in Nairobi and supporting graduates to set up their own clinics'. Now, we have seen what homeopaths do in Kenya before. It is not treating a little stress and the odd headache. Free from strong UK legislation, these missionary homeopaths make the boldest claims about the deadliest diseases.

A bit of web research shows where Julia was working (picture above). The Abha Light Foundation is a registered NGO in Kenya. It takes mobile homeopathy clinics through the slums of Nairobi and surrounding villages. Its stated aim is to,

introduce Homeopathy and natural medicines as a method of managing HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria in Kenya.

I must admit, I had to pause for breath after reading that. The clinic sells its own homeopathic remedies for 'treating' various lethal diseases. Its MalariaX potion,

is a homeopathic preparation for prevention of malaria and treatment of malaria. Suitable for children. For prevention. Only 1 pill each week before entering, during and after leaving malaria risk areas. For treatment. Take 1 pill every 1-3 hours during a malaria attack.

This is nothing short of being totally outrageous. It is a murderous delusion. David Colquhoun has been writing about this wicked scam recently and it is well worth following his blog on the issue.

Let's remind ourselves what one of the most senior and respected homeopaths in the UK, Dr Peter Fisher of the London Homeopathic Hospital, has to say on this matter.

there is absolutely no reason to think that homeopathy works to prevent malaria and you won't find that in any textbook or journal of homeopathy so people will get malaria, people may even die of malaria if they follow this advice.

Malaria is a huge killer in Kenya. It is the biggest killer of children under five. The problem is so huge that the reintroduction of DDT is considered as a proven way of reducing deaths. Magic sugar pills and water drops will do nothing. Many of the poorest in Kenya cannot afford real anti-malaria medicine, but offering them insane nonsense as a substitute will not help anyone.

Ironically, the WHO has issued a press release today on cheap ways of reducing child and adult mortality due to malaria. Their trials, conducted in Kenya, of using cheap mosquito nets soaked in insecticide have reduced child deaths by 44% over two years. It says that issuing these nets be the 'immediate priority' to governments with a malaria problem. No mention of homeopathy. These results were arrived at by careful trials and observation. Science. We now know that nets work. A lifesaving net costs $5. A bottle of useless homeopathic crap costs $4.50. Both are large amounts for a poor Kenyan, but is their life really worth the 50c saving?

I am sure we are going to hear the usual homeopath bleat that this is just a campaign by Big Pharma to discredit unpatentable homeopathic remedies. Are we to add to the conspiracy Big Net manufacturers too?

It amazes me that to add to all the list of ills and injustices that our rich nations impose on the poor of the world, we have to add the widespread export of our bourgeois and lethal healing fantasies. To make a strong point: if we can introduce laws that allow the arrest of sex tourists on their return to the UK, can we not charge people who travel to Africa to indulge their dangerous healing delusions?

At the very least, we could expect the Society of Homeopaths to try to stamp out this wicked practice? Could we?

So the lesson is, if someone says things that might make you look bad, sue. At least in Britain. Because apparently, the truth is rather hard to deny, so it should be silenced. What I would like to know, is why don't they just, I don't know, actually stop their members from breaking there rules.

This also touches on the issue of denialism. Please go to the original posting site, where the comments are still up. You will see yet another fine example of denialism in action. Rather than actually respond to the article, commentors felt the need to attack evidence based medicine. Because EBM isn't perfect, it somehow makes the quackery ok. The reality is, in this case, quackery kills.

Note from the post. Mosquito net, impregnated with an insecticide; works. But to the average Kenyan, the fifty cent difference in cost, is a big deal. This is akin to HIV/AIDS denial, err, oh yeah they got the HIV woo too. So this boils down to some serious death woo. Go Society of Homeopaths, good on you for being complicit in murder, you bloody moronic cowards. Feel free to write them a letter about their tactics for dealing with members who don't follow their guidelines.

STOP!! Vote for Shelley Batts

The amazing, remarkable Shelley Batts (ok, a little thick, but Ed's threatening painful death, so it could be worse) who wrote the great piece on the neuroscience of ADHD, that I loved so much, is in the running for a scholarship to help with her PHD. So click here, even if you don't actually take the time to go to her blog, click the dot next to the name Shelley Batts and click on vote. Seriously, she's a poor grad student with a hungry parrot to feed. If you're even questioning whether or not to even care, please, click over to her blog. Look at that sweet, hungry parrot (probably not actually hungry, I imagine if given the choice between her and the bird, the bird would eat, but still, Shelley rocks)

Sorry for the creative tags. The more searches the better. If you got here through a search, Vote For Shelley, it's worth it. Then come back and read some of the pieces, they're worth it too, some of them anyways.

Rights 2.5 A digression; Abortion

I have created a monster! Kurt has seen to give me the second part of part two, inspired by comments from Beth apparently. As I am too busy (lazy?) to write much lately, I am pleased to add this to the ongoing series on rights, by Kurt. Thanks.

This is an expansion on a section I had in Part 2, but deleted because the article was getting too long, and I wanted to avoid a bit of controversy. As the discussion is moving in that direction, here it is.

It is difficult to discuss the right to life without touching upon the abortion question. Like any other aspect of culture, we can analyze this based upon human wants and needs, as constrained by environment and technology.

In a purely agrarian society, the average child has paid for his upkeep by the time he is twelve or younger if male, or around fourteen if female. From that point until emancipation, it's pure profit. In other words, all things being equal, a child is a blessing in such a situation.

Once again, it is a matter of satisfying wants and needs. To know how many kids an individual family is going to have, we really only need to know these things: 1. How valuable is each child at each stage of life; and 2. What is the death rate among children in the culture. A third variable which only affects highly affluent societies is the cost of a child vs disposable income. I don't spell this out later, but I think it is pretty clear how it works.

Lets take a village family in rural India as our example. Lets say they are in the north of the country, where wheat is the principal crop, and even today much of the labor is performed by men and beasts. A boy child is a great prize in this culture. As previously mentioned, a boy will pay for himself in terms of work by the time he hits puberty, and the family may get a dozen years of labor beyond that before he marries and moves away. Where land is plentiful, there is every incentive to have as many boys as possible.

Girls, on the other hand, are not so valuable in this environment and level of technology. Just as there are vastly more oxen than cows in north India, there are many more men than we would predict. Girl babies simply haven't been surviving, in the same way that female calfs have a habit of dying. On the other hand, families have many more sons than are needed, because the family has to overshoot in case a male child dies young. Overpopulation results, of a peculiar shape, with too many people and too little land, and too many men, and not enough women. The predictable result is endemic warfare, and, indeed, the region has been awash in blood since the time of Gautama.

Technology has had two thoroughly surprising results in the region. First, the reduction in infant mortality has made the necessity to "overshoot" disappear. Second, the option of raising a second son (or daughter) and getting them education allowing for a profitable career has changed all the math. Every family still wants a son to carry on the family farm. But they also now want an extra son or two to go to college and enter into civil service, or move to America and open a Subway, or Seven-Eleven.

Back in the USA, abortion has been legal nationwide since Roe v Wade in 1972. In the peak years of the late 1980s, about 1.6 million abortions were being performed annually, or about 40 percent of total pregnancies. [Figures are from memory; I might be off a little. This really doesn't affect my argument.] Abortion and infanticide are no different, from a philosophical perspective; it is just a matter of choosing when to end the life. Given this what can we conclude of a culture which is killing almost half of its babies? One of two things must be true: Either the society is too poor to feed further mouths, or else the costs of child-rearing have risen to astronomical levels.

As the richest society in history, we obviously are not straining to feed the extra odd baby. But if you follow readers' Digest, at least once a year they run an article under the banner, "Cost of raising a child through college now over $250,000 (or some other large figure; the number isn't the point). The cost of raising a child today are not just economic, although there is that as well. There are also soccer games (and practices) to attend, giggling overnight parties without sleep, and a wedding with a crushing amount of responsibility and bills. Who would possibly want to subject themselves to that? Not Americans, is the answer.

Simultaneous with our loss of millions of potential productive citizens, we are outsourcing jobs to that Indian viallage and importing millions of undocumented immigrants. Both of these trends point in the same direction: In a very real sense, we are arbitraging expensive US babies for cheap foreign babies. Keep in mind my central theory of culture: This is a choice we have made on a cultural level, based upon the expectation that millions of mothers have made at the individual level.

Here in Asheville, we have had an explosion in the last decade of both the Hispanic population and Ukranians from the former Soviet Union. Like immigrants of the past (my grandfather Ehrsam swam ashore in New York harbor in 1905) they are thrifty, hard-working, and ask for nothing more than a chance at happiness. But there is a very real question, how would our present nation look if more than 40 million babies had been born, rather than aborted? What different policies might have been followed; what different results might have occurred?

I am certainly not a dogmatist on this issue. In general, I think abortion is a mistake. But I cannot divine the thoughts of the women who chose the procedure, nor can I refute the basic economic logic of the situation. When you look at our culture through the lens of my analysis, the question is not why so many abortions, but why so few? After all, most babies will not grow up to be Hedge Fund managers, or physicians, or NBA stars. Yet if that is not the case, there is no way that the average child can pay her own way. Until we see a dimpled cheek and a smile.

Peace to you all.

Rights, Part 2: A Brief History of the Right to Life

I am happy to finally post the second part of Kurt's series (I whined about it last night, here it is) on rights. I will try to post again myself, as soon as possible. I have been and continue to be very busy right now. I will also have to consider a good response to Kurt's series, something that provides an increasing challenge, as he continues the discussion.

In any case, I really appreciate his getting this to me, so soon after I (jokingly) whined about my sadness and increasingly rapt anticipation for this piece. . .Thank you Kurt.

In Part 1, we covered my general theory of culture and how rights have never been framed as absolutes until modern times. Today, we will look at how different cultures have interpreted the right to life.

If there is any inalienable right, it is the right to life. If you don't have that right, there is no good way to exercise any of the others. So if life is not an inalienable right, then no such thing as inalienable rights exist. I am going to tautologies here because this is an absolutely vital point for my argument: And there is no such thing as a blanket, overarching right to life.

Every known culture has rules for dealing with intra-group conflict and killing. But there is a catch: It only applies to those within the group, and not everyone in the culture is even defined as being in the group. Arctic peoples used to leave behind the elderly and disabled when they moved camps; in a similar vein, Herodotus lists several Mediterranean cultures which killed people who reached retirement age. Most cultures have practiced some form of abortion or infanticide, usually infanticide since abortions had the unpleasant side-effect of frequently killing the mother. Jews and Roma (Gypsy) in Europe have been defined by the fact that they possess little or no rights.

The Sixth Commandment famously says, "Thou shalt not kill," but the word in Hebrew means murder, not kill. If you kill the servant or slave of someone else, that is dealt with separately, and is only a monetary fine. Most Greek states allowed the abandonment of infants. The story of Oedipus is not atypical: His feet were pierced through with a bronze spike and then he was abandoned in the countryside.

Things changed a bit with the advent of Christian rule. Infanticide could now be punished by death. However, it almost never was. The general practice was termed "overlaying," in which the mother would "accidentally" roll over during the night and crush or suffocate the child. This accident occurred with alarming frequency throughout Europe and then Colonial America for a thousand years. Strangely, it occurred most often within families that could not support an extra mouth.

Approaching modern times, cultures increasingly adopted Death by Institution. In early 19th Century France, for instance, mothers could drop their babies off at foundling hospitals, workhouses or orphanages. The mothers surely knew that the infant stood a less than ten percent change of surviving their first year. As one contemporary put it, "These mothers know their [ie, the child's] fate as surely as if they dropped them in the river." These proved so popular that institutions in French cities invented the revolving "deposit box" to ease late-night dropoffs. Think about that the next time you go to a drive-through.

In the 20th Century, the Third Reich adopted a special diet devoid of fat for inmates of mental hospitals; they could thus provide useful work almost up to the moment of death. In Ireland, the last Magdalene House closed in 1996. Placement in both Nazi insane asylums and the Magdalene Houses were almost entirely voluntary, with the approval of the families.

All of these are examples of what cultures did to their own people. Imagine how they felt about outsiders. Even here in the US, we have groups that define various other groups as racially inferior, believe in race purity, and teach that not just cultures but cultural groups should be kept strictly segregated. A video appeared on Youtube recently which purported to show a white vigilante shooting an illegal immigrant near the Mexican border. The video was a hoax, but the message was clear. And not unusual.

Let's move on to the death penalty. The US is a world leader in judicial executions. The state of Texas recently petitioned a judge to not allow DNA testing that might exonerate a man who has already been executed. Might bring bad publicity, donchaknow. For most of Western History, the only curb on capital punishment was that Ecclesial Courts did not have capital authority (hence the Benefit of Clergy; the first murder was free). However, the Church could and did turn "heretics" over to the civil authorities, who were under no such restrictions.

There is one constant in all of this: Life has been incredibly cheap throughout human history. Infant mortality was high. Peasants are fungible. Even noble families sufferred their losses in silence. In Tudor England, a man was supposed to "Make a good death," part of a cult of death that has lingered since neolithic times, if not before. Thus, Charles I wore two shirts to his beheading, because he did not want people to see him shiver and think he was afraid.

Where in all of this is the Right to Life? Obviously, it is not. We recognize such a right today, but not for everybody, and purely for our own purposes. It still doesn't mean that we always provide needed medical care for those who cannot afford it, or shelter to the homeless woman in danger of freezing. And life is still cheap: How much per life for Bhopal, for instance? How much should the cigarette makers be forced to pay? How long should a hospital be required to run a ventilator for a man with no insurance?

No, there is no Right to Life. Fortunately, that is not altogether bad. I'll try to get Part 3 posted soon.

Rights; Part I

I would like to thank Kurt for writing what will be a series of posts about rights. He does a fine job of introducing himself, so I will be minimal. I have enjoyed Kurt's wry humor and insightful comments, at Dispatches for quite some time. I am really looking forward to reading the rest of this series.

Many Thanks to DuWayne for asking me to write a piece for Inalienable Rights. As he did not suggest a topic, I decided to put together an argument I had been working on anyway, the question of the origin of rights. This may be broadened to include the question of morality (assuming this to be a different subject), or when you get down to it, the structure of societies in general. The question of whether morality must be based upon religious revelation has received a lot of attention in the blogosphere lately (see Balkin, or Volkh or Andrew Sullivan, for instance). My contention is that this formulation has the process backwards, as I intend to show. Unfortunately, this will also show that DuWayne's title is incorrect: There are no such things as Inalienable Rights. As it turns out, this is not as depressing as it seems at first sight.

First, a bit about me. My name is Kurt Ehrsam. I comment on a number of blogs under the name kehrsam (pretty clever alias, I know). I am 43, divorced, and live in the mountains of North Carolina with my 85 year old father. My undergraduate degree was in Political Economy and Foreign Relations, with minors in History, Philosophy, and Biology (I stayed in school a long time). I have a law degree as well, so I will be coming at our topic primarily from an economic and legal approach. I have worked as a lawyer, a car salesman, a teacher, and a Congressional aide, thus single-handedly demonstrating the dangers inherent in a Liberal Arts education.

I was raised in a militantly atheist family, but have somehow ended up a moderate Christian. I attend a Southern Baptist church, but really don't fit into their theology; my ex-wife was a Wiccan priestess, so I speak that language as well. I am moderate in politics and have worked for a number of Democratic politicians and campaigns over the years. I am not a particularly community-minded person, nor am I a joiner, so I often miss out on the local angle of issues. I can be too impersonal, standoffish, or brusque; that is part of the package, too. Hey, I was a lot worse twenty years ago, so I'm working on it.

Let's get to the argument:

Jonathan Haidt writes,

But if you try to apply this two-foundation morality to the rest of the world, you either fail or you become Procrustes. Most traditional societies care about a lot more than harm/care and fairness/justice. Why do so many societies care deeply and morally about menstruation, food taboos, sexuality, and respect for elders and the Gods? You can't just dismiss this stuff as social convention. If you want to describe human morality, rather than the morality of educated Western academics, you've got to include the Durkheimian view that morality is in large part about binding people together.

Wow, menstruation, Procrustes and Durkheim in the same paragraph! I encourage everyone to read the entire essay, by the way. Don't worry, I'll wait for you.

I'd like to start with that question, "Why do so many societies care deeply and morally about menstruation, food taboos, sexuality, and respect for elders and the Gods?" because that is where morality starts, at the level of culture. My contention is that this is an analytical problem, in the sense that we could create a taxonomy of culture showing evolution just as we can for (say) species Canis. For that we will need a few axioms, or at least solid premisses:

1. Humans have basic needs which must be met, such as the need for food, water, and oxygen. Beyond these absolute needs, humans also desire other things, such as sex, prestige, leisure and the desire to see Britney Spears humiliated. Humans may rank these desires differently, such that sex may be elevated to the level of an absolute need, or may be more or less suppressed.

2. The "purpose" of human cultures is to maximize these needs and desires for its members. Elements of culture which greatly contribute to meeting needs and desires (fire is a good example) will be universally adopted by all cultures. Elements which have little impact (clamshell hamburger packaging, for instance) come and go at random.

3. In general, the individual culture is not aware of the decisions it is making. Rather, the choices of individuals are being summed as the general culture. Market forces are thus brought to bear in deciding what elements of culture will be propagated.

4. Culture operates in the context of environment.

5. Culture seeks relative stability. In other words, market forces, over time, will tend towards sustainability of the current culture. If the current culture is unsustainable, culture will gradually recede to a sustainable level. And finally,

6. Culture is defined by the technologies a society chooses to adapt itself to its environment. Technologies are learned behaviors which may be both material (such as agriculture or metallurgies) or social (such as language or religion).

Given these assumptions, it is pretty clear how I am going to analyze most situations: I'll define what technologies are involved, and given the environment, predict whether that increases or decreases the overall levels of satisfaction of some or all of the population. For instance, take the policy of turning Midwestern corn (or cheap European wine) into ethanol. While there is one population in favor of the practice (Midwestern farmers and communities) the negative costs and externalities will eventually lead to the policy being canceled by the rest of society that is currently bearing those costs.

I chose that example because it is a case where an elite adopt a technology based upon their needs, but which conflicts with the greatest good of the overall society. This is often a problem in the short-term. Longer term, the needs of the overall society generally prevail to some extent. There is a widespread assumption in the West these days that new technology will spare us from this type of conflict in the future. This is possible, of course, but current US standards of living are so unsustainable that it will take some doing.

What about Inalienable Rights, then? First, we have to define a moral system as a technology which is adopted by cultures because it provides order and predictability. Let's start with a small society, such as a solitary tribe practicing a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Their needs for a moral system turn out to be highly complex: They need to minimize intra-tribe conflicts (especially killing), secure personal property (so that it will be created), regulate sex (to prevent inbreeding and for political purposes), and come up with a means by which group decisions can be made and enforced (politics). If other tribes are nearby, issues of trade and intra-group conflict arise.

A look at Leviticus shows us how this works in practice: The Lex Talionis, for instance, marked a great leap forward from the prior practice of inter-family feuds. The moral bounds are highly ritualized, thus ensuring two things: First, morality is taken out of an individual context, such that killing someone is an offense against God, not just the dead man's family. Second, the law becomes highly stable, thus locking the culture into a stable, sustainable form as well. It is, in fact, so stable that we still have people today seeking to invoke Leviticus, despite the fact that the environment and culture are completely different from the First Millenium BCE context in which the law arose.

As cultures get more complex, so does the social technologies necessary to hold them together. Lets take the right of private property as our example. We first come to a major question: Who actually "owns" a piece of real estate? In Western cultures since the age of Charlemagne, the answer has been "The Sovereign," which is to say the King or the state (which may be synonymous). The Sovereign is said to hold "Allodial Title" without restriction; all others hold their title from the Sovereign, subject to four "uses" or restrictions, which are taxation, the police power, escheat and eminent domain. So the individual never fully owns his property; instead, he holds a number of rights which may vary based upon the situation: The more complex the society, the more regulation of the property.

In other words, the "right" to pribate property is nothing more or less than what the society grants for its own purposes. A hunter-gatherer tribe has no use for private real property at all, unless there is some outside agency (for instance, in the 17th Century several Canadian tribes developed ideas of private hunting territories based upon interaction with French fur traders). In a highly complex society such as ours, private property is a necessity, but is hedged about with restrictions and zoning regulations, public rights of way, etc.

Inalienable Rights are thus nothing more than the boundaries beyond which the culture has decided not to go. As cultures have evolved, they have been able to gain more benefits for more people by granting greater individual freedoms, but these freedoms are constrained by a web of ever more complex regulation. The right does not exist outside of the context of the culture.

In Part 2, I intend to analyze the development of a particular right, the right to life, following its definition from earliest times to Western society. In addition, I will flesh out more fully any ideas from here in Part 1 that draw particular attention in the comments. I will probably also comment on the inter-relation between religion, government, and the overall culture, although that may require a Part 3. Cheers to all!