In my last post, I mentioned my belief libertarians and liberals are natural allies. One commentator presented a rebuttal which I feel is accurate when trying to decide if a given Democrat and a given Libertarian might see common ground. But the question is not about Democrats and the Libertarian Party, it's about "liberals" and "libertarians" which are intersecting but not identical sets.
The voting record of partisans on specific issues do not define the philosophies of these two political schools, they are more an inherited set of positions. And the position a given elected official takes is as much influenced by politics, personality, personal conviction, and self-interest as it is by party platform. And party platform itself is as much influenced by political opportunism as it is by any ideology. Trying to infer an alliance between political ideologies based on teh voting habits of individual members of political parties is therefore flawed.
Fundamentally, though, libertarians believe that an individual is sovereign and that they are best empowered to make decisions for their own personal lives. Liberals believe that people are valuable, and that empowerment of the indivoidual benefits society as a whole. These are closely related and compatible concepts. The assault on personal freedoms by social conservatives and the unregulated-capitalist removal of opportunity from the masses, consolidating it into the hands of teh elite, is an anathema to both libertarians and liberals as a result.
Fundamentally, liberals and libertarians have much in common because their vision is centered on the individual, and liberty (defined as the freedom to pursue happiness). Of course there are profound disagreements in how to achieve these end goals. But these are disagreements of method alone.
A truly fanatic libertarian might well advocate total demolishment of the social services net, just as a truly fanatic liberal might advocate a 30-hour workweek or retirement at age 50. But these positions are taking the respective core beliefs to an extreme interpretation.
Both libertarians and liberals could theoretically find a middle ground that finds a balance between social services and deregulation, without ceding any liberty authority to moneyed elites and corporations.
This is why I believe a liberal like Howard Dean, who does not fit the classic Democrat mold (for example, see his budget-balancing record and his stance on gun control), is well-positioned as an ally to libertarian causes (and why I advocate a possible vote-swap between liberals trapped in GOP states and libertarians in swing states).
Monday, June 23, 2003
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
Looking Ahead: vote swapping
This will be the summer of short-term goals. The Dean campaign is like a powerful train, chugging determinedly up what is still a very gradual slope. We have a long way to go before we even start thinking about strategizing for the nomination, let alone the primary. But I think that some examination of long-term strategy is important, and so this will be the first in a semi-regular series called Looking Ahead[1] that will analyze the General Election[2].
I have argued before that the 2000 Election was a triumph for American democracy. Not the end result, but rather the process:
Many will point to the Electoral College as the root cause of Gore's loss - but as the link explains in detail, the purpose that the EC serves is critical to ensuring that the Office of the Presidency remains committed to the interests of the entire nation, rather than that of a specific (and highly populous) region. Disagree as you might, the Electoral College will nevertheless remain for the 2004 election - and this is the reality which we need to strategize for.
This poses a dilemma for Dean supporters in states such as Texas which are certain to have a plurality of votes for Bush. Even if 49% of the states' voters could be persuaded to vote Democratic, the entire slate of electoral votes would still go to Bush (keep in mind that each state is free to determine whether their electoral votes are winner-take-all or not). my vote for Dean in Texas 2004 (just like my vote for Gore in Texas 2000) is a wasted vote.
I solved this dilemma in the 2000 Election by vote swapping. The idea was to use the Internet for "vote-swapping" between Nader supporters in swing states like Michigan, Oregon, etc. and Gore supporters in Republican-dominated states like Texas, Virgina, etc. Gore supporters would vote for Nader and Nader supporters would vote for Gore. That way Gore would not lose Electoral College votes to Bush (and Nader supporters would be assured their support for third-party politics will not give them a President opposed to their agenda, ie Bush). And Nader would get the 5% of the popular vote he needed to fund Greens 2004. Everyone would have won[3].
The idea was first promoted in an article in Slate, and was quickly implemented by netroot activists, establishing the vote-swap sites Vote Exchange and Nader Trader[4]. This was, I believe, the first time that The Internet played such a direct role in manipulating a national election, and should be considered a historical event. Vote-swapping is the ancestor of Meetup and blogs and Howard Dean TV.
In the end, as many as 10,000 people swapped their votes (including me). Given that the election was lost in Florida by a margin of just a few hundred, this was a painfully close-but-no-cigar outcome. The Internet could literally have delivered the election to Gore - if only there had been Meetup back then!
Looking ahead then - what about 2004? How do we harness the millions of votes that Dean supporters in states like Texas, Virginia, etc want to cast but will ultimately be negated? If Nader runs again in 2004 - the Green party holds their convention in June in Milwaukee - then vote-swapping with Nader supporters will definitely be an option. But even if Nader doesn't run, or the Greens don't field a candidate, there still is a lot of good that GOP-captive Dean supporters can do with their otherwise nullified votes. Specifically, we could support the Libertarian Party candidate (usually Harry Browne), with an eye towards building an alliance and luring libetarians away from a GOP that pays mere lip service to their ideology anyway (traditionally, American liberals and libertarians have actually always had more in common).
Vote-swapping is a way to reclaim the power of a single vote - and to spend the "vote capital" in more diverse ways than mere direct election of your candidate. We have a lot of thinking to do as to how to invest that capital - to change its value from zero to something net positive.
I support Howard Dean. But I can't help him by voting for him.
[1]The series will also be cross-posted to DEAN 2004 blog.
[2]That Howard Dean will win the Democratic nomination is an axiom, of course :)
[3]Note that vote-swapping was immune, from the perspective of the Gore supporter, to cheating by either a Nader supporter or a Bush supporter masquerading as a Nader supporter. Even if the other person in the swing state lies and did not cast their vote for Gore as promised, the net effect is the same as if there was never any trade.
[4]All these sites are now offline. A third site, Vote Swap 2000, was closed down by the FEC. And a fourth site, Vote Auction, was also set up for people to directly sell their votes. Despite FEC regs and federal law prohibiting the outright selling of votes, keep in mind that this is what happens on a practical level every time a PAC makes a donation to a candidate.
I have argued before that the 2000 Election was a triumph for American democracy. Not the end result, but rather the process:
In the end, Bush was uniquely positioned to win, and Gore uniquely positioned to concede (in possibility the greatest concession speech in history). I cannot even conceive how they would have acted had the roles been reversed. I imagine Bush would not have been nearly as gracious, and that the Republican grassroots would have erupted in low-intensity PR warfare. It would have been the Clinton era of GOP activism but ten times worse. And I simply don't see Gore as having been able to make the tactical decisions necessary to win (count the overvotes, demand a statewide recount not just in Miami Dade). Gore tried to keep the federal courts out of the fray, at first, and thus lost significant traction to Bush (who brilliantly went straight to the Circuit courts even as GOP PR minions were accusing Gore of trying to make a federal issue out of something clealrly a states-rights issue. Hypocrisy can often be a brilliant tactical weapon).
But again, the essential point was that the system worked. The Constitution held up, there was a clear line to be drawn and the Supreme Court in the end drew that line. You can argue that the SCOTUS was partisan, but the fact remains that it was the SCOTUS that was partisan and not some military tribunal. Scalia is better than Musharraf, and if you disagree, you are hopelessly ignorant of the basis of American freedom.
Many will point to the Electoral College as the root cause of Gore's loss - but as the link explains in detail, the purpose that the EC serves is critical to ensuring that the Office of the Presidency remains committed to the interests of the entire nation, rather than that of a specific (and highly populous) region. Disagree as you might, the Electoral College will nevertheless remain for the 2004 election - and this is the reality which we need to strategize for.
This poses a dilemma for Dean supporters in states such as Texas which are certain to have a plurality of votes for Bush. Even if 49% of the states' voters could be persuaded to vote Democratic, the entire slate of electoral votes would still go to Bush (keep in mind that each state is free to determine whether their electoral votes are winner-take-all or not). my vote for Dean in Texas 2004 (just like my vote for Gore in Texas 2000) is a wasted vote.
I solved this dilemma in the 2000 Election by vote swapping. The idea was to use the Internet for "vote-swapping" between Nader supporters in swing states like Michigan, Oregon, etc. and Gore supporters in Republican-dominated states like Texas, Virgina, etc. Gore supporters would vote for Nader and Nader supporters would vote for Gore. That way Gore would not lose Electoral College votes to Bush (and Nader supporters would be assured their support for third-party politics will not give them a President opposed to their agenda, ie Bush). And Nader would get the 5% of the popular vote he needed to fund Greens 2004. Everyone would have won[3].
The idea was first promoted in an article in Slate, and was quickly implemented by netroot activists, establishing the vote-swap sites Vote Exchange and Nader Trader[4]. This was, I believe, the first time that The Internet played such a direct role in manipulating a national election, and should be considered a historical event. Vote-swapping is the ancestor of Meetup and blogs and Howard Dean TV.
In the end, as many as 10,000 people swapped their votes (including me). Given that the election was lost in Florida by a margin of just a few hundred, this was a painfully close-but-no-cigar outcome. The Internet could literally have delivered the election to Gore - if only there had been Meetup back then!
Looking ahead then - what about 2004? How do we harness the millions of votes that Dean supporters in states like Texas, Virginia, etc want to cast but will ultimately be negated? If Nader runs again in 2004 - the Green party holds their convention in June in Milwaukee - then vote-swapping with Nader supporters will definitely be an option. But even if Nader doesn't run, or the Greens don't field a candidate, there still is a lot of good that GOP-captive Dean supporters can do with their otherwise nullified votes. Specifically, we could support the Libertarian Party candidate (usually Harry Browne), with an eye towards building an alliance and luring libetarians away from a GOP that pays mere lip service to their ideology anyway (traditionally, American liberals and libertarians have actually always had more in common).
Vote-swapping is a way to reclaim the power of a single vote - and to spend the "vote capital" in more diverse ways than mere direct election of your candidate. We have a lot of thinking to do as to how to invest that capital - to change its value from zero to something net positive.
I support Howard Dean. But I can't help him by voting for him.
[1]The series will also be cross-posted to DEAN 2004 blog.
[2]That Howard Dean will win the Democratic nomination is an axiom, of course :)
[3]Note that vote-swapping was immune, from the perspective of the Gore supporter, to cheating by either a Nader supporter or a Bush supporter masquerading as a Nader supporter. Even if the other person in the swing state lies and did not cast their vote for Gore as promised, the net effect is the same as if there was never any trade.
[4]All these sites are now offline. A third site, Vote Swap 2000, was closed down by the FEC. And a fourth site, Vote Auction, was also set up for people to directly sell their votes. Despite FEC regs and federal law prohibiting the outright selling of votes, keep in mind that this is what happens on a practical level every time a PAC makes a donation to a candidate.
Saturday, June 14, 2003
whither Qutbdates?
I've been remiss in keeping my index to Ideofact's Qutb series updated, but I still access Bill's site every day, anxiously awaiting the eventual analysis of Chapter 10...
Friday, June 13, 2003
I'm asking for it
I don't suffer from delusions that my readership approaches anything like DailyKos or Howard Dean or Tacitus levels, so declaring this post to be an open thread is probably just hubris. Still, I'm curious as to what response I'll get, so here is an open thread anyway.
here's a suggested topic - which Flame Warrior am I?[1] (yes, yes, I know, I know...)
[1] Given that UNMEDIA tends to attract a majority of critics in the comment threads, I trust all of you will be brutally honest :)
here's a suggested topic - which Flame Warrior am I?[1] (yes, yes, I know, I know...)
[1] Given that UNMEDIA tends to attract a majority of critics in the comment threads, I trust all of you will be brutally honest :)
halal and kosher in the UK
Muslims and Jews are cousins - in fact the greatest threat to our respective religions is not each other, but the concerns of te material world against which we must be united. Case in point: an attempt to ban the halal and kosher slaughter of animals in the UK:
It remains to be seen whether this issue is addressed jointly by muslim and jewish groups or whether they choose to fight the battles separately out of mistrust. Guess which strategy will succeeed and which will fail?
America is the greatest Islamic country in the world precisely because the ideals of religious freedom and liberty allow muslims (and jews alike) to practice their religion freely.
The method of animal slaughter used by Jews and Muslims should be banned immediately, according to an independent advisory group.
The Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC), which advises the government on how to avoid cruelty to livestock, says the way Kosher and Halal meat is produced causes severe suffering to animals.
Both the Jewish and Muslim religions demand that slaughter is carried out with a single cut to the throat, rather than the more widespread method of stunning with a bolt into the head before slaughter.
Kosher and Halal butchers deny their method of killing animals is cruel and have expressed anger over the recommendation.
It remains to be seen whether this issue is addressed jointly by muslim and jewish groups or whether they choose to fight the battles separately out of mistrust. Guess which strategy will succeeed and which will fail?
America is the greatest Islamic country in the world precisely because the ideals of religious freedom and liberty allow muslims (and jews alike) to practice their religion freely.
YHBT. HAND.
Apparently, there are (gasp) trolls on the Internet!
I went to GNXP looking for good discussion on genetics and instead found this long post about a tempest in a teapot , a blogger called Mac Diva. I also saw a brief mention of this blogger at Tacitus, but never took the linkbait. I just assumed she was an unreasonable and militant computing ally of Brian Tiemann (who I think is one of the coolest dudes in the Metaverse).
Now, Dwight Meredith has a moving post that chronicles how this troll has done what trolls do - poison the well of online communities. Sadly, the blogsphere is not the first part of the Internet to have experienced this phenomenon, nor will it be the last. Dwight berates himself for having not spoken up earlier, but I think the lesson of the past is more applicable when dealing with trolls.
Feed them at your peril.
Of course, mocking them (and still refusing to feed them) is fair game, because as entertainment you just can't beat a troll for PSR (Pity to Sympathy Ratio). For example, note how in Dwight's coments section, a commentator named Atrios Jr. decides to disagree and critique Mac Diva:
*snicker* "I can see the situation with a particular clarity" indeed! Making up alternate identities, and then engaging in debates with yourself, is old hat on the Net with people who just don't have the imagination to talk with people other than themselves. Mac Diva, as trolls go, isn't even that good at it, her alternate personas are amateurishly disguised.
If I set up a guest blog for Atrios Jr. and Mac Diva to debate Netiquette, I'd probably be able to charge admission. To psychiatrists.
It's pointless to go on a condemnation spree and meticulously document the spree of a given troll (though I'm indebted to GNXP for my amusement at Diva's little schizophrenic exchange). The more you try to play the rational-evidence game with a troll, the more you fall into their trap. And that's exactly what they want. It's easy to declare jihad on a troll, it's much harder to simply walk away.
You have been trolled. Have a nice day.
UPDATE: I am indeed wrong on occassion. Well, I haven't conclusively proved that Mac Diva and Atrios Jr. aren't the same person, but having looked at their IP addresses, I found that one uses US West and the other Comcast. I find it unlikely that the same person would have two separate cable modem accounts. It is possible that one person is borrowing someone else's account or at a friend's house, but when the level of assumption exceeds two layers, I prefer to employ Occam. So now unless presented with evidence otherwise, the burden of proof has shifted and I think the probability that they are different people is low.
Mac Diva, Atrios Jr., my apologies to both of you for accusing you of being each other. Actually, my special apologies to Atrios Jr. for accusing him/her of being Mac Diva (whose behavior under her Mac Diva pseudonym has been troll enough that the entirety of Dwight's accusations stand). I've stricken the portions of the above post accordingly.
But note that YHBT. HAND> still stands as a reminder to all - do not feed the trolls. You'll regret it...
I went to GNXP looking for good discussion on genetics and instead found this long post about a tempest in a teapot , a blogger called Mac Diva. I also saw a brief mention of this blogger at Tacitus, but never took the linkbait. I just assumed she was an unreasonable and militant computing ally of Brian Tiemann (who I think is one of the coolest dudes in the Metaverse).
Now, Dwight Meredith has a moving post that chronicles how this troll has done what trolls do - poison the well of online communities. Sadly, the blogsphere is not the first part of the Internet to have experienced this phenomenon, nor will it be the last. Dwight berates himself for having not spoken up earlier, but I think the lesson of the past is more applicable when dealing with trolls.
Feed them at your peril.
I was recently caught up in this madness, and have learned much of this story just in the last few days, and I must say that this is by far the most well written, even handed account I have come across.. I can tell you first hand that it is a wacky world the Diva lives in, one I hope to never end up in again. Take this as a warning, I was once fooled by her, don't let it happen to you.
Atrios, jr. | Email | Homepage | 06.12.03 - 8:01 pm | #
Atrios, Jr., in my world there is a wrong and a right. In yours, there is just instigation of whatever trouble you can cause or add to. I prefer my world.
Mac Diva | Email | Homepage | 06.12.03 - 10:24 pm | #
I feel I see this particular situation with a clarity that few can, because I do not happen to know the others involved, and once greatly admired Mac Diva.. but I have been completely turned off by her incessant pleas for attention, and disgusted by the means in which she tries to achieve her goals, and saddened by her ability to lash out at anyone who disagrees with her. Please Mac Diva, I beg of you.. quit emabarassing yourself now before you lose the last bits of respect anyone has left for you. Can't you see this is not a conspiracy? That I have not been swayed by your "attackers", but merely have begun to see you for who you really are? It's time for all of us to stand up and say "enough is enough".. I for one can only stand so much.
Atrios, jr. | Email | Homepage | 06.12.03 - 11:16 pm | #
*snicker* "I can see the situation with a particular clarity" indeed! Making up alternate identities, and then engaging in debates with yourself, is old hat on the Net with people who just don't have the imagination to talk with people other than themselves. Mac Diva, as trolls go, isn't even that good at it, her alternate personas are amateurishly disguised.
If I set up a guest blog for Atrios Jr. and Mac Diva to debate Netiquette, I'd probably be able to charge admission. To psychiatrists.
It's pointless to go on a condemnation spree and meticulously document the spree of a given troll (though I'm indebted to GNXP for my amusement at Diva's little schizophrenic exchange). The more you try to play the rational-evidence game with a troll, the more you fall into their trap. And that's exactly what they want. It's easy to declare jihad on a troll, it's much harder to simply walk away.
You have been trolled. Have a nice day.
UPDATE: I am indeed wrong on occassion. Well, I haven't conclusively proved that Mac Diva and Atrios Jr. aren't the same person, but having looked at their IP addresses, I found that one uses US West and the other Comcast. I find it unlikely that the same person would have two separate cable modem accounts. It is possible that one person is borrowing someone else's account or at a friend's house, but when the level of assumption exceeds two layers, I prefer to employ Occam. So now unless presented with evidence otherwise, the burden of proof has shifted and I think the probability that they are different people is low.
Mac Diva, Atrios Jr., my apologies to both of you for accusing you of being each other. Actually, my special apologies to Atrios Jr. for accusing him/her of being Mac Diva (whose behavior under her Mac Diva pseudonym has been troll enough that the entirety of Dwight's accusations stand). I've stricken the portions of the above post accordingly.
But note that YHBT. HAND> still stands as a reminder to all - do not feed the trolls. You'll regret it...
collateral damage and niyat
Katherine, a commentator on this Tacitus post about Israel's jihad on Hamas, writes:
this comment resonates with an Islamic understanding of judgement. The concept of niyat (intention) is a major input to the evaluating the consequences of your actions (in both the material and spiritual regimes). Niyat is of course a major factor in the American judicial system as well - for example, its why some people are charged of manslaughter and others murder-1.
That said, the concept of "collateral damage" is absolutely immoral because it seeks to disavow all responsibility. To take the manslaughter example, consider scenario A, the teenager driving drunk who hits a tree that falls and kills a man. The teen will be charged with manslaughter, because despite the fact that killing the man (or felling the tree) was not his niyat, it was still the direct consequence of his actions. Saying the tree killed the man doesn't work because the "upstream" causal actor was the teen. The tree didn't decide to fall down because teh teen hit the tree, it fell because that was part of the immediate mechanical outcome of the teen's decision to act wrongfully - drive drunk.
Scenario B: If the teen was actually driving sober and lost control of his car because of a road hazard, then there was no wrongful action on the teen's part and the resulting death would not be directly caused by his upstream actions.
Collateral damage essentially argues that the death caused by the upstream is analgous to Scenario B. I disagree, because there is known, finite, and probable outcome that you will it a tree and kill a man when you go out driving sober. However, teh decide to fire a missile into a civilan area, there is indeed a known and probable outcome that noncombatants will be killed. By pursuing the action regardless, you are firmly in Scenario A.
Compare and contrast teh actions of the American military with the IDF - when faced with fedayeen firing from the rooftops of civilian homes, our forces withdrew (and actually lost an Apache). IDF helicopters in the same scenario would have simply leveled the neighborhood.
Collateral damage may be necessary from a tactical standpoint, but it still amounts to manslaughter. Any attempt to justify it is absolutely immoral and indefensible.
UPDATE: Jon H. in the comments points out:
Suicide bombers intentionally kill civilians--they want that result to happen. Israel knowingly kill the family members of Hamas leaders--they know that it will result from their actions; but they will be happy, not disappointed to find out they weren't in the car after all.
So there is a distinction. But most states treat crimes committed knowingly and those committed intentionally exactly the same. They certainly do so for homicide.
this comment resonates with an Islamic understanding of judgement. The concept of niyat (intention) is a major input to the evaluating the consequences of your actions (in both the material and spiritual regimes). Niyat is of course a major factor in the American judicial system as well - for example, its why some people are charged of manslaughter and others murder-1.
That said, the concept of "collateral damage" is absolutely immoral because it seeks to disavow all responsibility. To take the manslaughter example, consider scenario A, the teenager driving drunk who hits a tree that falls and kills a man. The teen will be charged with manslaughter, because despite the fact that killing the man (or felling the tree) was not his niyat, it was still the direct consequence of his actions. Saying the tree killed the man doesn't work because the "upstream" causal actor was the teen. The tree didn't decide to fall down because teh teen hit the tree, it fell because that was part of the immediate mechanical outcome of the teen's decision to act wrongfully - drive drunk.
Scenario B: If the teen was actually driving sober and lost control of his car because of a road hazard, then there was no wrongful action on the teen's part and the resulting death would not be directly caused by his upstream actions.
Collateral damage essentially argues that the death caused by the upstream is analgous to Scenario B. I disagree, because there is known, finite, and probable outcome that you will it a tree and kill a man when you go out driving sober. However, teh decide to fire a missile into a civilan area, there is indeed a known and probable outcome that noncombatants will be killed. By pursuing the action regardless, you are firmly in Scenario A.
Compare and contrast teh actions of the American military with the IDF - when faced with fedayeen firing from the rooftops of civilian homes, our forces withdrew (and actually lost an Apache). IDF helicopters in the same scenario would have simply leveled the neighborhood.
Collateral damage may be necessary from a tactical standpoint, but it still amounts to manslaughter. Any attempt to justify it is absolutely immoral and indefensible.
UPDATE: Jon H. in the comments points out:
The IDF used a missile strike into a densely populated civilian area in retribution for a Hamas attack against only military targets, which killed 4 IDF soldiers. Killing military personnel doesn't count as 'terrorism'
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