If you are part of the shrinking minority who still believe that the United Nations has any relevance (or sanity) in the modern world, perhaps today's headlines will finally disabuse you of this notion. U.N. General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto announced today that he had chosen Canadian activist Maude Barlow to be his advisor on global water-use policies, a position the media has dubbed "Water Czar". Even if we stipulate that the UN has the authority to even bother with such policies - a position that is far from universally stipulated - this appointment makes about as much sense as naming Osama bin Laden to head a committee on comparative religion.
Where to begin? Well, the first thing you might be wondering is just who in the world is Maude Barlow? I know that was my first question. I'm a political junkie and I had never heard of the woman. So I did a quick Google search and it turns out there is a good reason I had never heard of her. Apparently the only person who has spent any significant amount of time talking about Maude Barlow in the past is Maude Barlow. I'm not kidding. Go look for yourself. There's not much out there except what she has said, herself.
And it turns out there is good reason for that too. Maude Barlow is a hardcore activist, the kind that, ordinarily, no one listens to. We're talking far fringe activism here. Barlow believes that all fresh water sources on the planet should be nationalized, that private enterprise should not be a part of the equation, and that access to fresh water is a basic human right. This begs an obvious question: Of what use is an advisor who is obviously biased toward only one side of an issue? I'm not exaggerating here. One of Barlow's supporters, Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch (of which, Barlow is a board member), describes her as "probably the most outspoken and well-known advocate in making water a human right and making sure that water is in public control ..." Talk about a ringing endorsement for open-minded policy advice.
Barlow has no scientific background and, aside from an assortment of activist committees, no political background. Yet she is somehow qualified to offer advice on global water policy. Barlow maintains that sources of fresh water are shrinking yet would remove from the field the very people who have the greatest ability to improve access and distribution. Barlow claims that access to fresh water is a basic human right and yet ignores the fact that this "right" would require someone else to provide it. Does this make sense to anyone else?
I have said for years that the United Nations is a bloated bureaucracy, incapable of fulfilling its basic function and yet greedy for power beyond its charter, and I couldn't ask for a better example of this fact than has been provided today. This should be a laughing stock moment, but just wait. No one will be laughing, at least not for long.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Monday, December 8, 2008
Fact Vs. Fiction
Like most people, I receive quite a few email forwards from family and friends, with politically flavored forwards being far from uncommon. In fact, since most of my friends and family are quite aware of my interests and activities, forwards of a political type may actually be more common for me than is average. Such is the life of a politically oriented blogger.
I was discussing the nature of some of those forwards earlier today and decided that I should expand on a concept here. That concept is simple: Dishonesty has no place in a political discussion no matter whose side you take nor whose side is made to look bad by the false claims. While the concept is simple, the practice is, apparently, something else entirely.
Setting aside the moral aspects (Most of us have been told repeatedly that telling a lie is bad but how many people actually listen to this lesson on a consistant basis?) there are really very practical reasons for taking this concept to heart. Perhaps more important, there is a very practical loss for all of us when this concept is forgotten.
We who wish to live in a free society must make decisions on a regular basis in order to keep our society free. Those decisions must be grounded in reality if they are to have any practical value and, in order to ground decisions in reality, we must have information untainted by falsehood. Faulty information, whether the fault arises from honest mistakes or intentional deception, results in faulty decisions. Faulty decisions, in a society such as ours, can be fatal.
Of course, those who have an axe to grind won't always have the same idea of what "free society" means as I have. In fact, it is safe to assume that they will often have different ideas. They may honestly believe that, so long as the faulty information shifts things toward their desired outcome, things will work out well in the end regardless of the bumpy road used to reach the goal. To those people I offer a small reminder: The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
In this age of easy information, the possibility of keeping a lie unchecked gets smaller and smaller. Sooner or later, the odds are definitely in favor of people discovering the truth and, once that happens, the credibility of the liar takes a nosedive. For those with political goals, this can result in even greater consequences than one discredited person. For right or wrong, people often associate a movement with those who speak for that movement. When a person is discovered to be falsifying information to push a political agenda, the entire agenda can be painted with the same brush of dishonesty. That thought, alone, should be enough to keep true believers in check. If only this were so.
True believers tend to leap first and think about the consequences later, if at all. If only they knew how much harm they were doing to their own movements, maybe this would be different. If you are a true believer - of any cause - if this applies to you, you would do well to slow down and look at that forward before sending it along.
At the beginning of this post we set aside the moral aspects of the argument, but there is one more point that should be addressed and it does hinge on the moral aspect. If you are using dishonesty to support your agenda - or if you are supporting those who do so - you completely lose any possibility of moral high ground in condemning your opponents for doing the same. If you do not stand opposed to dishonesty in political discussion, even when that dishonesty favors your cause, there is no reason for anyone to believe anything else you say. I would even take that a step further. If you really want credibility, be the first to step foward condemning a lie that favors your cause. Let your opponents try to discredit you then.
Sometimes the simplest lessons, the ones we were supposed to learn in our childhood playgrounds, are the most important. A lie makes you look bad. Honesty makes you look good. Lies will be found out more often than not. Personally, I would like to see honesty in political discussion because we all truly want the best outcome we can achieve and we all know we need honest information to achieve that. However, I'm a realist. If I cannot appeal to the best in people, at least I can point out that honesty really is in your own best interest.
I was discussing the nature of some of those forwards earlier today and decided that I should expand on a concept here. That concept is simple: Dishonesty has no place in a political discussion no matter whose side you take nor whose side is made to look bad by the false claims. While the concept is simple, the practice is, apparently, something else entirely.
Setting aside the moral aspects (Most of us have been told repeatedly that telling a lie is bad but how many people actually listen to this lesson on a consistant basis?) there are really very practical reasons for taking this concept to heart. Perhaps more important, there is a very practical loss for all of us when this concept is forgotten.
We who wish to live in a free society must make decisions on a regular basis in order to keep our society free. Those decisions must be grounded in reality if they are to have any practical value and, in order to ground decisions in reality, we must have information untainted by falsehood. Faulty information, whether the fault arises from honest mistakes or intentional deception, results in faulty decisions. Faulty decisions, in a society such as ours, can be fatal.
Of course, those who have an axe to grind won't always have the same idea of what "free society" means as I have. In fact, it is safe to assume that they will often have different ideas. They may honestly believe that, so long as the faulty information shifts things toward their desired outcome, things will work out well in the end regardless of the bumpy road used to reach the goal. To those people I offer a small reminder: The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
In this age of easy information, the possibility of keeping a lie unchecked gets smaller and smaller. Sooner or later, the odds are definitely in favor of people discovering the truth and, once that happens, the credibility of the liar takes a nosedive. For those with political goals, this can result in even greater consequences than one discredited person. For right or wrong, people often associate a movement with those who speak for that movement. When a person is discovered to be falsifying information to push a political agenda, the entire agenda can be painted with the same brush of dishonesty. That thought, alone, should be enough to keep true believers in check. If only this were so.
True believers tend to leap first and think about the consequences later, if at all. If only they knew how much harm they were doing to their own movements, maybe this would be different. If you are a true believer - of any cause - if this applies to you, you would do well to slow down and look at that forward before sending it along.
At the beginning of this post we set aside the moral aspects of the argument, but there is one more point that should be addressed and it does hinge on the moral aspect. If you are using dishonesty to support your agenda - or if you are supporting those who do so - you completely lose any possibility of moral high ground in condemning your opponents for doing the same. If you do not stand opposed to dishonesty in political discussion, even when that dishonesty favors your cause, there is no reason for anyone to believe anything else you say. I would even take that a step further. If you really want credibility, be the first to step foward condemning a lie that favors your cause. Let your opponents try to discredit you then.
Sometimes the simplest lessons, the ones we were supposed to learn in our childhood playgrounds, are the most important. A lie makes you look bad. Honesty makes you look good. Lies will be found out more often than not. Personally, I would like to see honesty in political discussion because we all truly want the best outcome we can achieve and we all know we need honest information to achieve that. However, I'm a realist. If I cannot appeal to the best in people, at least I can point out that honesty really is in your own best interest.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Already Getting Nervous
It seems that President-Elect Barack Obama has not even been sworn in yet and is already generating controversy. In fact, we still have more than a month before he takes over the top job and some people are already getting nervous. I'm not talking about those who were nervous the moment his election was announced. I'm talking about people who actually wait to see results before making judgments.
Full Disclosure: I did not vote for Obama. I didn't care for McCain either, but anyone who is as popular just because as Obama is, makes me nervous. History has far too many examples of people riding this kind of popularity straight into disaster.
Speaking of which, today's subject: Obama's "America Serves" initiative.
It would appear that there has been some hanky-panky over at Obama's Change.gov website, changing up some wording to make things sound less offensive, but I have doubts that changes in words actually means changes in intentions or goals. At issue is the plan, under the America Serves tab, to require all middle school and high school students to perform 50 hours of community service and all college students to perform 100 hours of community service. For those of you running over to look this up, the word "require" is no longer present - it was stricken from the page a couple days ago - but it was and the fact that it was says more about Obama's intentions and goals than anything that page currently says.
Think about that for a moment. Your child goes to school in order to learn to read and write, learn some math and science and (hopefully) acquire some knowledge of history and government. Exactly what does community service have to do with school? "Yes, I know you have straight A's in all educational courses but you cannot graduate because you have not completed your required community service." Is that really something we want to see?
Under such a program, who gets to define what is a community service? You should already know the answer to that question. He who controls the purse strings controls the definitions. I can easily assume that it will not be you, the parent, controling that definition.
Let me make sure this is clear. I have nothing against community service. I don't even have anything against students performing community service. It would probably be good for them and there is absolutely no reason it cannot be organized through the schools. There are many extracurricular activities organized through the schools that encourage student participation but are in no way required. The moment you transform it into a requirement, however, it becomes something else entirely. And, for the record, it makes no difference whether the government makes a law requiring it or they sneak into it by withholding funds from schools that don't require it. Either way amounts to a requirement and either way amounts to a government mandated requirement. Requiring a person to work where you want them to work is, by definition, slavery and slavery is, by the Constitution, outlawed. Whether the requirement is direct and straight forward or sneaky and underhanded, it is still a requirement and still slavery.
You cannot force volunteerism. The very idea is ludicrous and the fact that someone would even consider it says a lot about that person. I would highly recommend that everyone pay close attention to this subject as we move forward and be prepared to scream bloody murder if the scoundrels at the top actually look like they are preparing for implementation.
Full Disclosure: I did not vote for Obama. I didn't care for McCain either, but anyone who is as popular just because as Obama is, makes me nervous. History has far too many examples of people riding this kind of popularity straight into disaster.
Speaking of which, today's subject: Obama's "America Serves" initiative.
It would appear that there has been some hanky-panky over at Obama's Change.gov website, changing up some wording to make things sound less offensive, but I have doubts that changes in words actually means changes in intentions or goals. At issue is the plan, under the America Serves tab, to require all middle school and high school students to perform 50 hours of community service and all college students to perform 100 hours of community service. For those of you running over to look this up, the word "require" is no longer present - it was stricken from the page a couple days ago - but it was and the fact that it was says more about Obama's intentions and goals than anything that page currently says.
Think about that for a moment. Your child goes to school in order to learn to read and write, learn some math and science and (hopefully) acquire some knowledge of history and government. Exactly what does community service have to do with school? "Yes, I know you have straight A's in all educational courses but you cannot graduate because you have not completed your required community service." Is that really something we want to see?
Under such a program, who gets to define what is a community service? You should already know the answer to that question. He who controls the purse strings controls the definitions. I can easily assume that it will not be you, the parent, controling that definition.
Let me make sure this is clear. I have nothing against community service. I don't even have anything against students performing community service. It would probably be good for them and there is absolutely no reason it cannot be organized through the schools. There are many extracurricular activities organized through the schools that encourage student participation but are in no way required. The moment you transform it into a requirement, however, it becomes something else entirely. And, for the record, it makes no difference whether the government makes a law requiring it or they sneak into it by withholding funds from schools that don't require it. Either way amounts to a requirement and either way amounts to a government mandated requirement. Requiring a person to work where you want them to work is, by definition, slavery and slavery is, by the Constitution, outlawed. Whether the requirement is direct and straight forward or sneaky and underhanded, it is still a requirement and still slavery.
You cannot force volunteerism. The very idea is ludicrous and the fact that someone would even consider it says a lot about that person. I would highly recommend that everyone pay close attention to this subject as we move forward and be prepared to scream bloody murder if the scoundrels at the top actually look like they are preparing for implementation.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
A Note On Scheduling
One thing I want to warn you about before we get rolling full steam ahead. At this point in time, I am averaging 10 hours a day, Monday through Friday, at the job that pays the bills. I will be trying my level best to have things worth reading here on a regular basis, but bills and family come first. It will probably take some time for me to work out a good schedule for this, so I hope you will be patient with me.
Monday, December 1, 2008
And Another Thing
While I'm doing the housework of setting everything up and explaining everything here, I should make another introduction. If you look over at the "contributors" list, you will see the name H. Denison-Jones along with mine. That is my wife (yes, the same one that readers of the earlier blog have seen named as "Mrs. Elf"). Do not expect to see anything written by her here - I don't think we could get her to do that under threat of force - but she is an editor. What that means, in short, is that she corrects my mistakes. Since that is no small job, we decided that we would actually give her the official permisions here rather than just having her point things out over my shoulder. Make sure you tell her thank you once in a while.
The Ratings System
We interrupt this blog for a friendly service announcement. You will notice, under each post, we are instituting the Reaction rating system. Don't have time to leave a comment? I'd appreciate it if you still took the time to click one of the ratings. The legend is simple:
This is A: you liked the post.
This is not A: you did not like the post.
What is A: you were indifferent to the post.
Thank you.
This is A: you liked the post.
This is not A: you did not like the post.
What is A: you were indifferent to the post.
Thank you.
Has Human Dignity Become An Oxymoron?
By now, everyone has probably heard about the tragic death at a New York Wal-Mart Monday when a temporary employee, Jdimytai Damour, was stampeded by aproximately 2000 shoppers attempting to enter the store for the annual Black Friday sale. There have been many blogs going on about this all weekend now and no small amount of hand-wringing and finger-pointing. Personally, when I am reading these blogs, I always make it a point to read through the comments because that is where you find the most telling cross-sections of humanity.
Most of the fingers, in this case, appear to be pointing squarely at the corporate entity of Wal-Mart. While I am not surprised by this, I am a little disheartened.
Let's get the details out of the way. Early that morning, police responded to an unruly crowd and told that crowd to settle down and play nice. The police then left. Do keep that sentence in mind for later examination. By the time the store was scheduled to be opening, there were aproximately 2000 people waiting to enter. These people, apparently responding to some action inside which they interpreted as the store opening, began to push forward. The store was not, in fact opening and employees attempted to physically block the doors with their own manual strength (A for effort, but an utterly impossible task under the circumstances). The surging crowd pushed forward with such force that the outer doors were actually broken open. That tidal wave of people crashed into the store and Jdimytai Damour was killed in the process. According to multiple witnesses (both employee and customer) as well as multiple cameras, people continued to step over Mr. Damour even after it should have been plainly obvious that he was at least critically injured. This crowd even continued to plow through emergency workers who were trying to save Damour's life. Once it was announced that there had been a death and the store had to be evacuated, people complained and some even balked at having to leave.
Those are the details. Disgusting enough for you?
The police later said that the store's security was not adequate to the crowd. These are the same police who saw the crowd and left, remember. These are also the same crowd who had to approve of the store's security measures before the sale. After the tragedy is a fine time for them to say that things were not adequate.
Could Wal-Mart have done more? Of that there is no doubt. It is always possible to have done more and hindsight is 20/20. I used to work for Wal-Mart and I have worked one of these sales. I don't mind telling you it was one of the most nerve-wracking moments of my life and my store was a 24-hour store so there was no mad rush to enter in the morning. These Black Friday sales are certainly dangerous and stores do need to do more to keep that in mind.
However, it is not the stores' fault that these sales are dangerous (never mind the comment on one blog suggesting that people are being programmed to behave a certain way by predatory merchandising tactics). The stores must claim some responsibility because they set the nature of the environment and control the safety of the environment, but they are not puppet masters pulling the strings of unruly shoppers.
The average shopper today is unruly when there is not a special sale occuring. Manners have gone right out the window and that is our fault, not the fault of companies or merchants. This, though, goes way beyond manners. This goes to outright barbarity.
While I have no doubt that there were many people in that crowd who were innocent - I fully realize that one does not argue with the forward momentum of a mob - was there anyone who came to his or her senses once inside and free of the press of bodies? There is no indication that this is true. Someone had to realize that their feet were coming down upon a human body and that someone did not turn back to determine the fate of that human body. Wal-Mart is not to blame for that and neither are the police.
It was not a surging mob that caused people to jostle the emergency workers. By that time, the mob surge had dissipated. Wal-Mart is not to blame for that and neither are the police.
It was not mob mentality that caused people to balk at leaving the store when it was discovered that someone had died. Even greed cannot acount for that. That was nothing more than callous disregard for human life. Wal-Mart is not to blame for that and neither are the police.
My first response upon reading about this tragedy was that everyone involved should be arrested and charged with manslaughter, at the very least. I stand by this response even though I know that actually succeeding at this effort will be an almost impossible task. Separating the guilty from those who were almost as much victims as was Mr. Damour will be no simple undertaking. Having said that, I do hope that those responsible are sitting at home right now with a full understanding of what they have done and why they did it. I hope they now feel every cent of the price they paid for those bargains.
Most of the fingers, in this case, appear to be pointing squarely at the corporate entity of Wal-Mart. While I am not surprised by this, I am a little disheartened.
Let's get the details out of the way. Early that morning, police responded to an unruly crowd and told that crowd to settle down and play nice. The police then left. Do keep that sentence in mind for later examination. By the time the store was scheduled to be opening, there were aproximately 2000 people waiting to enter. These people, apparently responding to some action inside which they interpreted as the store opening, began to push forward. The store was not, in fact opening and employees attempted to physically block the doors with their own manual strength (A for effort, but an utterly impossible task under the circumstances). The surging crowd pushed forward with such force that the outer doors were actually broken open. That tidal wave of people crashed into the store and Jdimytai Damour was killed in the process. According to multiple witnesses (both employee and customer) as well as multiple cameras, people continued to step over Mr. Damour even after it should have been plainly obvious that he was at least critically injured. This crowd even continued to plow through emergency workers who were trying to save Damour's life. Once it was announced that there had been a death and the store had to be evacuated, people complained and some even balked at having to leave.
Those are the details. Disgusting enough for you?
The police later said that the store's security was not adequate to the crowd. These are the same police who saw the crowd and left, remember. These are also the same crowd who had to approve of the store's security measures before the sale. After the tragedy is a fine time for them to say that things were not adequate.
Could Wal-Mart have done more? Of that there is no doubt. It is always possible to have done more and hindsight is 20/20. I used to work for Wal-Mart and I have worked one of these sales. I don't mind telling you it was one of the most nerve-wracking moments of my life and my store was a 24-hour store so there was no mad rush to enter in the morning. These Black Friday sales are certainly dangerous and stores do need to do more to keep that in mind.
However, it is not the stores' fault that these sales are dangerous (never mind the comment on one blog suggesting that people are being programmed to behave a certain way by predatory merchandising tactics). The stores must claim some responsibility because they set the nature of the environment and control the safety of the environment, but they are not puppet masters pulling the strings of unruly shoppers.
The average shopper today is unruly when there is not a special sale occuring. Manners have gone right out the window and that is our fault, not the fault of companies or merchants. This, though, goes way beyond manners. This goes to outright barbarity.
While I have no doubt that there were many people in that crowd who were innocent - I fully realize that one does not argue with the forward momentum of a mob - was there anyone who came to his or her senses once inside and free of the press of bodies? There is no indication that this is true. Someone had to realize that their feet were coming down upon a human body and that someone did not turn back to determine the fate of that human body. Wal-Mart is not to blame for that and neither are the police.
It was not a surging mob that caused people to jostle the emergency workers. By that time, the mob surge had dissipated. Wal-Mart is not to blame for that and neither are the police.
It was not mob mentality that caused people to balk at leaving the store when it was discovered that someone had died. Even greed cannot acount for that. That was nothing more than callous disregard for human life. Wal-Mart is not to blame for that and neither are the police.
My first response upon reading about this tragedy was that everyone involved should be arrested and charged with manslaughter, at the very least. I stand by this response even though I know that actually succeeding at this effort will be an almost impossible task. Separating the guilty from those who were almost as much victims as was Mr. Damour will be no simple undertaking. Having said that, I do hope that those responsible are sitting at home right now with a full understanding of what they have done and why they did it. I hope they now feel every cent of the price they paid for those bargains.
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