Unqualified Offerings

Via Justin “After all these years I finally have an RSS feed” Slotman, Yves Smith’s “Indefensible Men” offers a lengthy psychopathology of the investor class.

By Thoreau

TSA thug: we are doing a random check of your laptop.

Me: Oh for f*ck’s sake.

Thug: Is there a problem?

Me: do whatever you do.

Me: this is why I joined the ACLU.

Thug: what’s that?

Me: an organization devoted to privacy rights.

Thug: You do have privacy rights except when you choose to travel.

Let’s see: No brain, scared of a 4 oz vial of holy water, and created as part of a conspiracy by evil theocrats in 2002. In D&D terms they are definitely some form of undead.

All Dogs Go to Choate.

By Thoreau

Michael Lind argues that libertarianism is becoming the ascendant faction in the Republican Party.  I have three levels of response.  On the most basic level, I never really know what to make of a Lind column.  I am not nearly as conversant with American history as he is, so I can never refute any of his takes on a factual level, but they always strike me as just a bit too neat.  A decade ago he was explaining that all of American history and politics made perfect sense if you just understood the cultural roots of a few different waves of immigration, most of them from different parts of Great Britain.  Here he’s saying that all of American politics for the last 70 years, or at least the GOP portion of it, makes perfect sense if you just understand 3 basic movements.  It’s all too…neat.

Going to the substance of it, the obvious response would be that libertarianism is the opiate of the minority party, and that Republicans have never shown much interest in it once they actually have power.  Of course a movement that is out of power will explain that they oppose the ruling party out of a principled skepticism of power.  And of course they will forget all of that once in power.  Then again, libertarianism is hardly unique among intellectual or ideological movements in being betrayed by politicians in power.  Go talk to a progressive, or liberal, or whatever some time, and ask them whether a politician has ever broken a promise made to them.  Though politicians will always betray a movement once in power, a movement can still provide energy and intellectual firepower for campaigns and policy dialogues, even if they don’t actually get what they want.

So, the question is, to what extent does libertarianism play into the energy and animation of the Republican Party?  Two very different answers come to mind:

1)  The Tea Party Movement

2)  Intellectual firepower for the plutocrats

On the Teabagger (hee!) front, I confess to not having much in-depth or personal knowledge of that movement.  I am told that some of the figures in that movement really do believe in libertarian ideas.  My immediate reply is “You just figured out now that government is big and intrusive?  Were you in a coma between 2001 and 2008?  Did the intertubes get clogged?  Or, in true libertarian fashion, were you simply stoned?” The charitable response is that many of them were opposed to everything happening then, but it was hard to get traction for “limited government” talk in 2001-2008 because the natural constituency for the rhetoric (not to be confused with the ideas) leans right.  Now, I know that UO commenters have many, many snorts to give there, but even if we adopt the most charitable response for the sake of argument, you’re still left with a movement in which the rank and file is not terribly interested in any of the ideas in libertarianism beyond “Team Blue politicians should be subject to opposition.”  I don’t see much libertarian depth there.  Libertarianism seems more like a veneer to be tossed aside at the next Red victory rather than a driving force.

Intellectual firepower for the plutocracy is a more complicated matter.  On one level, if a party adopts just one facet of an ideology, do we really get to blame that ideology for whatever the party does?  To me, libertarianism is multi-faceted with many insights.  Yes, skepticism of regulation and taxes is one facet.  Social tolerance is another.  If you just want somebody who will cut taxes, you don’t need a libertarian; any Republican will do.  The difference is that a libertarian supposedly also wants the government out of your bedroom as well as the boardroom, and is as skeptical of the no-knock raid as he is of the IRS auditor.  And libertarians claim to be as concerned about small business as big business.  Say what you will about libertarian stances on regulation of big corporations, but groups like Reason and the Institute for Justice are spot-0n when they find blatantly absurd regulations that mostly hurt people starting new small businesses while protecting existing businesses from competition.  And some libertarians (e.g. these guys) even observe that military spending is, in fact, government spending, and that drug prohibition is an act of social engineering with negative effects that dwarf any social service program.

We can argue over one must embrace an entire list to deserve a label, but I’d say that one should embrace more than just one item on the list to merit a label.  Otherwise, everyone would be a libertarian, from the CEO who only agrees with us on regulation of big business (but not small business) to the leftist who only agrees with us on warrantless wiretaps, to the hippie too stoned to remember our stances on any issue other than….dude, what was I talking about, and on to the cranky old man next door who is isolationist because he doesn’t trust them furriners, but is fine with, well, just about anything else the gov’t does.

Now, don’t confuse this with a defense of libertarianism.  If the elites of the GOP mostly just like us because we have in our ranks many who will write apologia in exchange for 30 pieces of silver, then lambast us for that.  But saying that libertarianism is dominated by the Reds is not the same as saying that libertarians dominate the Reds. If they are using us, it reflects poorly on us, but it does not follow that we are ascendant in their ranks.  If anything, it makes us look even worse, because we sold ourselves to them and all we got in return was this lousy t-shirt that they charged us 29 pieces of silver for.

In invite you to re-read the previous paragraph as many times as you deem necessary.

Ahem.  I said, read the paragraph in bold.  Yes, you.  Read it before you comment.

I’m not writing this to defend libertarianism from the charge of being infiltrated by the GOP.  I’m writing this to argue that the GOP has not been overcome by libertarianism.  Those are two entirely different things.  From where I sit, I see some useful idiots for the GOP in the libertarian ranks, but I see precious little libertarianism animating the Republicans.  If you’re going to blame us for anything, blame us for shilling, not for animating.

By Mona

“I’m sorry, it appears that I went fucking insane the other day and said something that was so mind numbingly idiotic that in a sane society it would mean that everywhere I went from that point on, people would point and laugh at me. And I’m now going to commit ritual disembowlment [sic] to spare my family the shame of me saying something equally stupid tomorrow.”

That’s Ed Brayton’s suggested form of Gaffney apology. For a deranged post that, among other unhinged declarations and speculations, included this Gaffney bit:

Watch this space [Breitbart's BigGovernment blog] as we identify and consider various, ominous and far more clear-cut acts of submission to Shariah by President Obama and his team.

You see, dear Frank had warned that “Obama’s” Missile Defense Agency logo constituted Islamic-friendly subversion most foul. Until he learned the logo was put in place on Bush 43’s watch. Frank, Frank, anti-American plots go forth on the QT, sub rosa, dude! The DoD (in which the MDA is subsumed) generally — just usually, mind you — refrains from pro-Sharia public telegraphing.
(via various tweets)

By Thoreau

In keeping with Jim’s DST blogging, it is the first Monday after we set the clocks forward, and somebody other than me decided that the final exam should start at 9:10am.  This 9:10 mindset fails to take into account the way that things have changed.  In keeping with our new reality, next quarter we will move past this “9:10 mindset” and use enhanced evaluation techniques, like more projects and fewer tests.

If you’re not with me, you’re with the Registrar’s Office.  I expect that the students will welcome the projects with open arms, and there will be dancing in the streets when I tell them that there will not be a 9:10am final.  The savings from not photocopying exams will pay for the reconstruction.

Via friend and gaming buddy Nick, I discover a 2007 BBC special by Jonathan Ross, “In Search of Steve Ditko” on YouTube, in seven parts. It’s damned good.

I just saw the most amazing thing.

Living Ruff, another reason downtown Silver Spring is criminally underrated as a DC-Metro neighborhood, sponsored an indoor playdate in a vacant storefront near their own shop this afternoon.

Very important: off-leash dog parks present risks as well as benefits. All kinds of negative events can happen quickly, and the danger is compounded by the fact that some people don’t pay much attention to their dogs during a session and a lot of us don’t know what we’re seeing when we look at our dogs anyway. One advocate at a workshop last month put it this way: “You see these dogs practically begging their owners, ‘Get me out of here!’ and their owners have no clue.” Shy, fearful dogs can be lastingly traumatized; aggressive dogs can do a lot of damage; reactive, fearful dogs can get pushed to the point of explosion.

Kate is an okay dog-park dog, happiest over a relatively short visit. She’ll trot around and sniff butts, but isn’t much of a wrestler. Very big, very forward dogs make her anxious: she tends to play low-status with everyone but her half-brother. As I’ve written before, Kate is a lapdog in a herding-dog’s body. Said half-brother, Zach, would be a bad dog-park dog, so we don’t take him. Depending on how his adolescence shakes out, we may never.

So, today, at the indoor play event, there was a beagle-ish pup who probably shouldn’t have been there. If the little guy weighed 20 pounds, I’m John Candy. He was also very fearful and cringing, which can lead to a bad feedback loop and started to: Bigger, more forward dogs would sniff around the beagle, making it cringe, which inspired them to be even bolder with it, making it cringe even more, which led them to -

- That’s when Kate rushed in to run them off.

I swear to you. She made a low alarm bark and charged in. Some midrange growling. No bites. It happened fast enough that I didn’t notice whether she did any air-snapping or just threw a muzzle punch or two. You could tell she was serious, though, from her body language. Dogs at play tend to be curvy in both posture and movement. Their spines bend; they wiggle; move from side to side and up and down. Kate’s advance on the scrum was arrow-straight and level as an I-beam. And fast. The aggressors scattered back maybe two feet. And once the bully dogs gave the beagle some space she stopped.

I fancy that in the aftermath, I saw her anxiousness return. Her eyes got bigger and her face taller (more space between eyes and lips. Her weight shifted from front feet to back. I called her out of the confrontation to calm things down.

A minute later it happened again.

Same sequence: bigger dogs move in; beagle cringes; bigger dogs step all over the cringing beagles space and start really pushing it around; Kate alerts and then charges.

After the second time, a few owners moved in to give the beagle some peace. I took Kate off to the edge of the play area for a calm-down. The rest of the session was uneventful.

But it’s a lot to think about. What happened seemingly goes beyond emotional contagion, because it led to a responsive action. There is no chance that the beagle was one of Kate’s relations, unless her papers are a complete fraud. So much for kin-selection. Kate did not follow up her interventions by trying to further lord it over the bully-dogs; frankly, that wouldn’t have worked. Nor did she try to, for lack of a better term, claim ownership of the beagle for herself. In fact, she lost interest in the beagle once it was no longer being bullied. As for reciprocal altruism, if Kate’s idea was that down the line the beagle would back her up in a confrontation, it will be a long time before Kate conquers the world; that beagle couldn’t face down a hamster.

At the same time, I wouldn’t claim that Kate has a sophisticated theory of justice, even though she has been at my feet for many blog posts these last three years, with a chance to pick up something. Neverthless, she resembled in those moments, nothing so much as a superhero.

She’d probably really hate it if I put her in a costume, though.

UPDATE: Dave Trowbridge, in comments, suggests an article on herding-dog traits that may shed some light on the situation:

The sheep dog or collies I am seeing in classes today can contain some or all of these talents, in many different packages. Their fixed action patterns drive them to contain uncontrolled movement. Not all movement. If the movement is under their control, they can be content, but when the movement is outside their control they need to react. Not being able to control movement causes immense frustration, which is often identified as aggression, or lack of social skills.

When people find out we own border collies, they are as likely as not to ask, with a knowing chuckle, “Do they try to herd the kids?” And no, none of my three BCs have ever tried to herd the kids, but they get very anxious if, and this may happen very, very occasionally where they live, people get into an argument of some kind. Kate particularly will stick herself right under someone’s chin if people are squabbling. (Zach will bark and run around.) Do note that such arguments, the one or two times they may have happened, don’t necessarily involve a lot of “uncontrolled movement,” but they do involve uncontrolled emotions. It seems possible that fixed action patterns regarding uncontrolled movement link to emotional circuity that generalizes to other kinds of chaos.

What I really wonder, of course, is what Patricia McConnell would think.

By Thoreau

I love this.  Especially the award for best third author.  I’m proud to say that other than a few things very early on, I’ve always been first, second, or last author.  First and last really matter, and there’s at least a chance that the second author did something useful.  The rest are a bit like drummers:  You know the stage for the presentation is level because drool comes out of both sides of the middle author’s mouth. 

(Just kidding, I love all my middle author homies.)

By Thoreau

My biggest fear has always been that Al Qaeda will move away from trying big, flashy, mass-casualty attacks on high-profile targets, and start doing lots of small attacks.  Bringing down skyscrapers again would take a lot of planning and a group of trained, reliable men who have been recruited through networks.  All of this can show up on the radar, or at the very least the plan can go amiss.  But telling a dozen different guys “Look, just plant an improvised bomb, any old improvised bomb.  It will scare the hell out of them” is a different matter.  Getting maximum impact out of an improvised bomb, especially in a juicy target, might take more planning than a disgruntled loner is capable of, but scaring us with an improvised bomb is easy.

Well, Al Qaeda’s propagandists are apparently starting to get this:

“Even apparently unsuccessful attacks on Western mass transportation systems can bring major cities to a halt, cost the enemy billions and send his corporations into bankruptcy,” Gadahn said in a video released and translated by U.S.-based Site Intelligence Group, which monitors Islamic militant message traffic.

Look at Maj. Hassan and the Underwear Bomber:  Maj. Hassan acted basically on his own, but he was apparently in email contact with somebody in Yemen.  And although people died in that tragedy, it was hardly on the scale of 9/11, or even a well-planned car bomb in an Iraqi marketplace.*  The Underwear Bomber was also apparently in contact with somebody in Yemen, and he failed to hurt anybody other than himself.  But the result of all this?  We now have flying killer robots and government employees and mercenaries and who the hell knows what else doing shit in Yemen.  And whatever it is that they’re doing, it isn’t cheap.

Look at the Liquids of Death plot from summer of 2006.  Although most chemists (but admittedly not all) say that concocting an improvised liquid bomb from small quantities of liquid in an airplane bathroom is unlikely at best, the Department of Homeland Security** has declared a permanent jihad against liquids that might profane the purity of our bodily fluids.  We are subjecting ourselves to a permanent hassle over an implausible attack that never moved past the planning stage.

Friend-of-the-blog Jennifer once observed in some conversation somewhere (can’t recall where, as I chat with her in a few different forums) that eventually Al Qaeda won’t have to do anything other than jump up and yell “Boo!” to get us to do something bad to ourselves.  That may be a slight exaggeration, but I suspect that if every week, for a few months, an angry Muslim were to set off an improvised bomb (even a poorly-constructed one) or go somewhere and start firing a gun, although the casualty counts would never reach anywhere even remotely close to 9/11 levels, or even the monthly death toll from car accidents, we would probably do something really awful in response.  And it sounds like Al Qaeda is starting to realize this.  And that scares me.  I’m not worried about being there when the random whackjob starts shooting; statistically I’m more likely to die driving to work.  I’m worried about what we do in response.

So, if any Al Qaeda members are reading, first, be sure to purchase the GPS beacons sold by our fine sponsors.  When you’re trying to navigate in caves beneath snow-capped mountains, you need the best in homing technology.  Second, I won’t be impressed unless you mount a drastic, mass casualty attack that requires years of planning, intensive use of electronic communications, lots of money spent on traceable items, and significant travel by people on watch lists.  Do you hear me?  Nothing else will impress me, so don’t even bother.

*Would it be tasteless to observe that he also killed fewer people than a CIA flying killer robot at an Afghan wedding party?

**I still can’t get over the fact that we have a department with a name like that.  It’s just plain wrong.