Last week I issued a three-parter that proposed several dozen fresh tactics for the Enlightenment side of our current culture war. And as a unifying umbrella, I made them part of a "Democratic Newer Deal"... both satirizing and learning-from the most agile polemical maneuver of the last 40 years - the so-called 'GOP Contract With America.'
Others are wholly my own.
Some of the proposals take the form of internal reforms that Congress could enact on their very first day - of a session whose majority consists of sane and decent people.
For example, pause and envision this reform and procedural rule. One which no future GOP-led Congress would be able to retract!
Distributed subpoena power: We shall establish a permanent rule and tradition that each member of Congress will get one peremptory subpoena per year, plus adequate funding to compel a witness to appear and testify for up to five hours before a subcommittee in which she or he is a member. In this way, each member will be encouraged to investigate as a sovereign representative and not just as a party member, ensuring that Congress will never again betray its Constitutional duty of investigation and oversight, even when the same party holds both Congress and the Executive.
Think about that for a sec. very soon each Representative or Senator would view that personal, peremptory subpoena -- whether one per year or per session -- as a treasured and jealously-guarded prerogative of office. Possibly useful to their party or to confront major issues, or else to grandstand for the folks back home. Either way, they will balk at any attempt by future party leaders to terminate the privilege. And thus it could become permanent. And the minority will never again be barred from calling witnesses to interrogate the majority.
Or look at another internal reform that I'll talk about next time... to reconstitute the advisory bodies for science and fact that used to serve Congress, but were banished by Gingrich and Hastert and company, because... well... this Republican Party despises facts.
Other proposals would be legislated LAWS that seem desperately -- even existentially -- needed for the U.S. republic! Like this one I have offered annually for the last fifteen years:
We shall create the office of Inspector General of the United States, or IGUS, who will head the U.S. Inspectorate, a uniformed agency akin to the Public Health Service, charged with protecting the ethical and law-abiding health of government. Henceforth, the inspectors-general in all government agencies, including military judge-advocates general (JAGs) will be appointed by and report to IGUS, instead of serving beholden to the whim of the whim of the cabinet or other officers that they are supposed to inspect. IGUS will advise the President and Congress concerning potential breaches of the law. IGUS will provide protection for whistle-blowers and safety for officials or officers refusing to obey unlawful orders.
Wouldn't everything be better if we had IGUS right now? Go back and read the full text.
And then there's this one - a way to bypass the corrupt Citizens United ruling by the suborned Supreme Court - using a clever and totally legal means, that is supported factually by Robert Reich. Though I think my approach is more likely to get passed... and to work.
THE POLITICAL REFORM ACT will ensure that the nation’s elections take place in a manner that citizens can trust and verify. Political interference in elections will be a federal crime. Strong auditing procedures and transparency will be augmented by whistleblower protections. All voting machines will be paper auditable. New measures will distance government officials from lobbyists.
Campaign finance reform will reduce the influence of Big Money over politicians. The definition of a ‘corporation’ shall be clarified: so that corporations are neither ‘persons’ nor entitled to use money or other means to meddle in politics, nor to coerce their employees to act politically.
There are others, like how to affordably get every child in America insured under Medicare, while we argue over going the rest of the way. We'll get to that amazingly simple method next time.
But here's another one that is super timely because - as reported by the Strategic News Service - "Huge new botnets with 40M+ nodes are available to criminals on the dark web..." That's Forty MILLION computers around the world - including possibly the one you are now using to view this - have been suborned and turned into cryptic nodes for major cyber crime.
Indeed, we are far more open to cyber attacks than ever, now that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has been downsized by a third! And the Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) dissolved, and the Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council (CIPAC) terminated. And many counter-terror agents have been (suspiciously) re-assigned. Hence, here's a reform that might address that... and it might - if pushed urgently - even pass this good-for nothing Congress.
THE CYBER HYGIENE ACT: Adjusting liability laws for a new and perilous era, citizens and small companies whose computers are infested and used by ‘botnets’ to commit crimes shall be deemed immune from liability for resulting damages, providing that they download and operate a security program from one of a dozen companies that have been vetted and approved for effectiveness by the US Department of Commerce. Likewise, companies that release artificial intelligence programs shall face lessened liability if those programs persistently declare their provenance and artificiality and potential dangers.
Again... these and maybe 30 more are to be found in my big series on a proposed "Newer Deal." I'll try to repost and appraise each of them over the next few weeks.
Almost any of them would be winning issues for the Democrats, especially if they were parsed right! Say, in a truly workable 'deal' for the American people...
...and for our children's future.
== Political notes ==
Kimmel’s latest has been to satirically take on Trump's crowing about his 'aced' cognitive test. That test (which is not for IQ, but to eval senility or dementia) was accompanied by yowling that two female Democrat Reps were 'low-IQ.' Kimmel's offer of a televised IQ vs dementia test is brilliant. It'll never happen. But brilliant. In fact, Kimmel's offer of a televised mental test is a version of my Wager Challenge.
The key feature is REPETITION! The KGB-supported foxite jibberers have a tactic to evade accountability to facts. point at something else and change the subject. Yet, no dem - not even brilliant ones like Pete B and AOC - ever understands the power of tenacious repetition. Ensuring that a single lie - or at most a dozen - gets hammered over and over again.
All right, they ARE doing that with "Release the Epstein files!" Will they learn from that example to focus? To actually focus? And yes, demanding $$$ escrowed wager stakes can make it a matter of macho honor... honor that they always, always lose, as the weenie liars that they are.
79 comments:
Dr Brin in the previous comments:
And Galt refusing to share his inventions, even via existing imprefect markets where 'looters' would steal some value , was tantamount to murdering a billion people..
Ayn Rand's heroes had some notions about economics which seem wise when you're wrapped up in the moment of the book, but don't make a lot of sense in reality. They smugly treat fiat money and Taggart Transcontinental stock as having zero value because they can be arbitrarily manipulated. I could see valuing such things below their ostensible face value for that reason, but treating them as if they are Monopoly money is just another fallacy. As long as they can be traded for goods and services, they self-evidently do have a non-zero value.
I think what those characters were trying to say is that you can't bury fiat money or TT stock in your back yard and expect it to maintain its value indefinitely over time. If so, I say "So what?" You can't do that with pizza or petroleum either, thanks to entropy. You can't even really do it with gold. Gold may be tradable for more goods and services in 50 years, or it might be tradable for less, but contrary to Rand, it does not maintain a constant intrinsic value for all eternity.
I think what those characters were trying to say is that you can't bury fiat money or TT stock in your back yard and expect it to maintain its value indefinitely over time. What a weird position for an author to take. Used books are also worth far less than the price printed on the back cover. You can buy a hardcover Ayn Rand book (printed price $28) for about $5 at online used booksellers.
Rand's novel was written in a time when train travel and radio were the preeminent forms of transportation and communication. Though both air travel and television existed, they were treated in the book more as novelties.
Point being, I don't think online bookstores were on her BINGO card.
No Randian has ever even tried to answer my 2 dozen 'j'accuse!' denunciations at https://www.davidbrin.com/nonfiction/aynrand.html
- like her 'life-oriented philosophy' following characters never having children or even discussing it! (For reasons I speculate.)
- like the fact that she denounced the Interstate Commerce Commission's regulation of railroad charges... and DEMOCRATS DISSOLVED THE ICC and ended the practice. And no Randian ever gave them credit or ceased to the looter-anticompetitive GOP as their preferred "hold my nose and vote" alternative.
...and many others.
I will admit that THE FOUNTAINHEAD was a bearably readable and even diverting novel, if sadomasochistically kinky, unlike ALL of her other, turgidly awful writings. Irt worked because it focused on art and architecture which truly ARE often rife with deceit and villainy.
So? The US patent system, while hugely imperfect, is NOT. And Galt could have patented his inventions and saved a billion lives while becoming richer than Croesus.
- like the fact that she denounced the Interstate Commerce Commission's regulation of railroad charges... and DEMOCRATS DISSOLVED THE ICC and ended the practice.
Much of the plot of Atlas Shrugged depended on the fact that, at the time of writing, private ownership of gold was forbidden in the United States. The fact that that practice was ended in the 1970s doesn't at all affect her followers' dissatisfaction with the status quo.
I will admit that THE FOUNTAINHEAD was a bearably readable and even diverting novel, if sadomasochistically kinky,
The Fountainhead is a different kind of polemic, and even makes a good case for some of her philosophy without making a tract out of it. It's a story about individual people, even if they mostly act like cartoon characters whose fates are preordained. I've read it twice and may do so again some day.
The problem with Atlas Shrugged is similar to the problem with The Bible. It's supposed to be a story and a how-to-live-your-life manual, and there's a Heisenberg uncertainty principle that says it can't be both at the same time. At least "Atlas" isn't also trying to be a history book as well, which the Bible is.
And Galt could have patented his inventions and saved a billion lives while becoming richer than Croesus.
He'd have only accepted payment if it was in gold.
Galt Patenting his inventions
Patents are like a thin veneer on all of the underlying structure and knowledge that is required to make them worth anything!
What good would the knowledge of how to make Galt's miracle metal have done to a caveman?
Without all of the underlying technology to make the stuff, measure it and use it .......
Underlying techs that ingrate Galt never acknowledges or pays for.
Heck, what "intrinsic value" would GOLD have had for a caveman?
Again I ask, what makes you think that the people who actually run this country will ever allow you to pass any of these laws?
I've had that reaction to many of our hosts recommendations. His common sense approach to districting, for example. But the reason state and federal districts are so gerrymandered is not because no one has thought of a way to make them fairer. It's because lawmakers don't want to make them fairer.
What good would it do to explain to Judge Doom how to make the Red Car more efficient and profitable? He bought the Red Car to dismantle it.
Rand's novel was written in a time when train travel and radio were the preeminent forms of transportation and communication. Though both air travel and television existed, they were treated in the book more as novelties.
Point being, I don't think online bookstores were on her BINGO card.
Before there were online bookstores, there were ACTUAL bookstores, some for new books, and some for used books. (There's still a few of them around, and many of those that survived are very special places)
OGH would know more about the economics than I would (if he still remembers ;-) e.g. I don't know what prices were at used bookstores in the 50s. But in the 90s, used to be about a buck for paperbacks in the bins, and I think you got a quarter or 50 cents back for books you sold them. The printed price on my copy of a Tom Clancy novel from that era was $9 CAN.
Even new bookstores had tables set up near the front for books that had sat on the shelves past their sell-by date (there would be one display at 20% or 30% off, others that were $5 or less for hardcovers for dogs that just weren't moving).
So the market value of Ayn Rand's book as soon as you walk out of the store with out would have been about 1/8th of what you paid.
So the market value of Ayn Rand's book as soon as you walk out of the store with out would have been about 1/8th of what you paid.
I would guess she considered that you realized the value of buying her book when you read it. Just as I realize the value of a slice of pizza when I eat it. Trade-in value has little to do with consumables. No one, not even the Romans, claims that it's a bad idea to eat food because it's only worth what you can trade it for.
Now if we were talking about poly-bagged, mint condition copies of "The Death of Superman", then sure, the only reason for buying them would be as a store of value. Most paperback books don't roll that way.
The amazing thing to me is how conservatives see all taxation as slavery, but will fall over backwards to yield enthusiastically to much worse exploitation by big business.
John Galt works as an inventor at a motor plant in a company town in rural Wisconsin. Just as he "invents a way" to make an innovative new motor that runs on atmospheric electricity, the owner dies and his heirs decide to run the plant as a communist collective. John Galt’s reaction is the calmest but hugest temper tantrum in literature; he decides not only to quit his job in rural Wisconsin, but to destroy the entire nation’s economy to teach them something something garbanzo.
And yet, if the original owner had lived, the motor Galt had invented would have been appropriated as the property of the company, because that’s where it was built, according to the adhesion contracts that all engineers and product developers signed as a condition of employment under 20th century capitalism. It would have been called the Starnes Motor, CEO Starnes would have been credited as its inventor, and it would have depended on the kindness of Starnes’ heart whether Galt even got a bonus for the use of his mind. And THAT would have been just fine by him, but taxes and labor cooperatives are a bridge too far? Blank out.
Celt asks the wrong questions about rules.
The Rule Obedient (aka 'those who are inclined to follow the rule-of-law') are often subject to a peculiar psychosis, insomuch as they assume that any rule (once written) has the magical power to compel obedience in those who are most disinclined to follow external direction, leading to the near exponential proliferation of civilization-smothering regulation.
I therefore argue that Celt & our fine host would be better served by examining the actual basis for the the rule-of-law among men, instead of producing more meaningless legal boilerplate due to their acceptance of the biblical Divine Logos myth.
Best
_____
The compendium of US Federal Laws, Regulations & Statutes has increased by more than 7000% since 1938, while rule obedience (as a population percentage) has gone into steep decline, as the rule obedient continue to insist that MOAR rules will usher in a golden age of law & order when the opposite is provably true.
Celt: (1) You make a very good point, since I have been raving several of these notions for nigh on TWENTY years. It's not corruption that prevents Dems from acting on them. In 2021-22 the Pelosi miracle bills did many fine things, including reversing the decay of US infrastructure... and sure, ALL construction bills contain some kickbacks. This one maybe 0.01% as much as is routine under Trump. But it was still great stuff...
...and none of it prepared us for Trump v 2, as my IGUS bill or the war powers act or others would have done. Because they simply could not imagine... or consult anyone with imagination.
And - since almost none of my proposals would have undermined the interests of dem lawmakers, there's just one explanation... insipid lack of imagination and derision of anything Not Invented Here. Kamala's people illustrated that sickness to an especially spectacular degree.
2. But that's how it might actually happen! Very little in my list of 35+ reforms would not garner 60%+ support from sane Americans, if offered well and very little of it would gore any Dem sacred cows. What is needed is a major election result... plus another miracle... the still residually sane wing of conservatism finally getting fed up.
3. In any event, I aim to GET THE IDEAS OUT THERE. And you guys can help.
---
Locum must be cribbing this stuff. It's too smarmy-smoothly written and it is stark, jibbering insanity. Hey goombah, YOURS is the most disciplined-obedient political movement in US history, lockstep Nuremberg-style rallies. ANY cant or jibber issued at midnight by the Kremlin basement is repeated by Fox in the morning and must be repeated, verbatim, by all GOP officials by evening or they are in trouble.
feh.
I think Loc is too moral. Won’t go into his rule-compliance screed; but to go on a tangent will write that there is that which is thoroughly immoral yet entirely necessary.
Such as torture.
We can all agree that torture is extremely wicked albeit torturing spies has to be done. Unless someone believes that nationalism is passe’, and we should be more Kumbayah.
People know what they’re trained to know: Loc was trained as a physician. What does he know about the nuances discussed here?
Nope we do NOT all agree! - torture is counterproductive - it produces convenient lies and is NOT useful
The combination of "extremely wicked" and "counterproductive" means that it should never be used
Counterproductive? yours is an Opinion, not fact.
Much info has been obtained by torturing spies.
... sure, morally you’re correct; but this is a practical matter. It concerns national defense—-not ethics in a Philosophy class.
@Alan Brooks,
You invoke national security as if torture is always a net gain in that realm, and that the only reason to refrain is for bleeding heart reasons. We most certainly don't "all agree" on that point.
Torture often produces any fantasy that the victim believes will make the pain stop. During the Iraq occupation, there were all sorts of news items about plots bomb plots using model airplanes and something about cows that I don't quite recall. No doubt, the "intelligence" gained from torturing prisoners.
That aside, torture provokes vengefulness from the other side. George Washington famously forbid torture of captured Redcoats, which made them more willing to surrender rather than fight to the death.
Torture also disgusts potential allies.
There may be very limited situations where torture is appropriate. A captured member of a terrorist cell who knows when a terror plot is planned for, perhaps. Even so, I find your categorization of "spies" as the necessary victims to be questionable. What can they be coerced to tell us other than what they already reported back to our adversary on? Not quite the ticking time bomb excuse.
What's counterproductive was to over-use a method of interrogation that formerly had been reserved for the very most urgent and heinous moments and men... and so overuse it that we were forced to outright ban it and send people to prison. And cripple the very few specially chosen utilizers NOT to use it under those special circumstances. It's less about 'morals' than about jibbering stoopid dunce-headed idiots. And THAT was just the Bushites! Who were absolute geniuses compared to these microcephalic, pervs and Kremlin sig Heilers.
Much info has been obtained by torturing spies
True!!
But 90+% of that "info" has been total bollocks!
The experience during WW2 was that the British method of giving a nice cup of tea, talking to them nicely (and bugging their quarters) worked MASSIVELY better than torture or ill treatment
Pragmatically "Torture" has zero actual advantages and massive disadvantages
So even if it was not "evil" then it should NOT be used
LH,
there MAY be very limited situations where torture is appropriate?
There ARE— not may be—such situations.
Duncan,
If the number is 90+ percent useless intelligence, it still leaves 10- percent useful info.
This is one time you are not convincing and won’t be—
unless you provide more evidence re torture being out of the question.
@Alan Brooks,
You're scaring me, dude.
Do you also advocate torturing and killing their family members to make them talk? Because that would be more effective, right?
If the number is 90+ percent useless intelligence, it still leaves 10- percent useful info.
If you can immediately discern the wheat from the chaff. Otherwise, no, a method that gives you misleading info most of the time is not useful, let alone worth becoming evil for.
You're masking your thirst to identify an "other" that it is ok to torture with concern for national security. I'm not buying.
Banned outright?
How do you know torture isn’t being conducted anyway, in absolute secrecy?
So presumably Alan Brooks would have been OK with the Ukrainians, provided they could reach him, applying whatever level of torture required to get the Starlink re-enabling codes out of Elon Musk after he crippled one of their offensive actions by switching coverage off.
It strikes me that would have fitted any definition of 'urgent and heinous moment'.
I do not know that it isn't done in extreme secrecy. But the task of doing that is far harder now that very explicit laws would reward your colleague next to you for handing you over. Not under the current admin, of course. Which encourages the same insane attitudes as the Bushes, tho on steroids.
If Ukrainians would want to torture me to get the Starlink re-enabling codes out of Elon Musk, they can do so—as long as they do it with love in their hearts.
Not family members, no.
If it pleases you, will write that all torture is wrong and should be banned. It won’t make any difference, as what goes on in secret will go on despite what we write here at this blog.
We are not privy to what is going on.
Torture is almost always counterproductive - and letting "torturers" decide when it isn't is a really really BAD idea
In WW2 - which is long enough ago that most of the secrecy has lapsed - it became very clear that torture was almost never useful -
People go to torture as "punishment" - which like using the prison system as punishment - does not actually change people's behaviour very much
•almost always counterproductive
•almost never useful
A bit too qualified.
...ozajh,
your comment is a
preposterous scenario!
There MAY be very rare occassions when Torture provides useful information
But those rare occasions are swamped by all of the other occassions when "wrong" information is generated
AND even that adverse effect is swamped by the adverse effects on your own people who do the torturing
AND even that huge negative is completely swamped by the negative effects of your doing torture on the other nations and forces that you interact with
So we have a rare "positive" and inevitable and MASSIVE negatives
I would compare this to the act of using a landmine as a stepping stone
The first problem with torture of any kind is: it is a crime, even in the US. By using, instigating, ordering and even supporting it, you chisel away from the Rule of Law. It becomes a slippery slope, and sooner or later, you arrive at Rule of the Jungle.
Oopsi, you are almost there.
Second: it is a sign of institutional lazyness and lack of training, talent, diligrence and respect for constitutional rights so common in law enforcement and intelligence services. If you "need" to torture to achieve your goals, you have done something wrong before, and will do so in the future with impunity.
That in turn will attract a certain kind of people and repel others.Skilled investigators and interrogators soon are replaced with armed goons.
Like ICE.
Duncan’s opening above says it: there’re
very rare occasions when torture provides useful informations. And yes, those occasions are swamped by the “wrong” information generated by torture.
No one here would write that torture ought to be routine. Yet once in a blue moon torture can be lifesaving.
If there are exceptions to every rule, torture is one of them.
This thread started when I wrote how Loc isn’t hostile, he sets the bar too high. Such is the problem attempting to communicate with religionists also; not that they’re “wrong” but, rather, how their standards are excessive—except for the most self-sacrificing.
No, I think Loco has shown dark triangle traits multiple times in the past. Plus, the height of the bar shifts with the situation.
your comment is a
preposterous scenario!
I have said it in the past, since Musk and Thiel are a danger to our souvereignity and welfare, I would not be surprised if GRU, MI6, DGSE did not at least contemplate to kill them.
Aha, so sealioning the sealion.
Still you picked a strange case to present as the "everyone believes" control situation. Really burying the lede.
Watching Ken Burns' "American Revolution", certainly interesting, although I so concur with a lot of the criticisms of bias, and the depiction of 'Canadians' (and others) is contrived at times. He seems to struggle to simply state the simple truth: America's path is Imperial Enlightenment. Almost Roman at times.
Alan Brooks:
I side with cairncross here. You propose a wager with known limitless cost for unknown limited gains. I would much rather risk dying from a terrorist attack than guaranteeing that my tax dollars go to torturers. I do so for reasons both moral and pragmatic: for if the State gets a taste for the whip, then it would only be a matter of time before it whips you and I.
I see in your contrarianism a case of false realism. You think that you are pragmatic in opening the door to tyranny. You are wrong. I also see in your false pragmatism the subversion of reason by emotion. Torture to gain false information and national disgrace is undisciplined. Hotheaded passion starts wars: cold calculation ends them.
There is a name for doing dishonorable deeds in the name of fear. It is called "cowardice".
TBH, Newsom's social media trolls are not expert, and come off as inauthentic. Progressives have always had a problem memeing effectively. For all of his many many many flaws, Donald Trump is a natural at it, and his cranial foam can be funny even to those of us who hate him, as opposed to Newsom who comes off looking like that "how do you fellow kids" meme
scidata that is utter bull. For all of its many crimes and imperial behaviors, America differs in several ways.
1. The military plays no role in civilizn life. Even now, Trumpist co-options into cities are pathetically small. A civilian can spend her entire life and only meet a soldier once or twice. That is among the half dozen NEVER MENTIONED reasons why the Union had to win the Civil War, beyond slavery and such. Had the South won, we'd have become another silly, millitarized Europe, obsessed with forts and hostile borders and standing armies.
2. Albeit WAY too slowly, each US generation expanded the circle of rights, First banishing nobility and redistributing the HALF of all land in the colonies that was owned by absentee lords to lower-middle white males... then a generation later the Jacksonians liberating poor white males... then ending slavery... then welcoming immigrants... then suffrage for women... then civil rights... To ignore that clear trend and how it is a fundamental character trait is a mistake that's almost as bad as our having ROMANTICIZED the process as perfect and completed "liberty and justice for all." Both extrema miss the point.
The process was despicably too slow!...Merely vastly faster than any other human society in history.
Ken Burns is part of that tradition of questioning our parents. Whuich is fine. But the left often takes it way too far, spitting on the nation and cultures that MADE them and made them critical.
----
As for the T-word... history shows it to be evil, of course. And only rarely pragmatic to get NEW information. Using it to answer "Did you..." or "do you confess to..." ids not just evil, it is utter proof of total stupidity.
Of course I'm no historian. I was more commenting on Burns' revisionism and romanticism. Also, he's talks mostly about the 18th century, not the 19th, 20th, or 21st. He makes these points explicitly:
- they didn't talk much about democracy in Philadelphia
(in fact the native peoples are depicted as the real democrats)
- they were bigger on listing George III's evils rather than erecting a gov't
- they hugged and flattered the French monarchy
- the Revolution had a strong whiff of Empire and Manifest Destiny
- propaganda, cruelty, and even savagery were rampant everywhere
(this was just post Seven Years' War)
As for the term 'Imperial Enlightenment', those were my words, Burns never uttered them (but I'm not finished all six episodes yet). Your own stages of the Civil War seems to lay out such a pattern n'est-ce pas?
It is soaring in its aspirational themes and anecdotes. The battle scenes are necessary, but hard to watch, just as they should be. And it makes one love America even more, which was his intention if you watch his recent interviews.
Thank you for the 'utter bull' assessment. I long to be included as a participant in debate, not to be 'poor scidata' as Locum once put it :)
Tension or contrast would have been a better word than 'pattern'.
I recall that when Rudolph Hess made his, let's say 'idiosyncratic*' decision to fly to England mid-war to propose peace to Churchill, the Nazi high command assumed the Brits would torture everything they could get out of Hess, such as the Barbarossa plans. They were startled and contemptuous when Hess remained untortured.
Of course, MI5 was already aware of these plans and Churchill was desperately trying to convince Stalin of them. And Stalin had his own Red Choir delivering the sheet music. He just didn't believe it, because it's not what Stalin would have done. Hitler had a good deal going with Stalin - freedom to dominate Europe and massive economic assistance - and was an idiot to break it. NO amount of torture will help overcome preconceived notion.
The Gestapo and the GRU implicitly believed that torture worked. I'm unconvinced that there was any instance where the torture that went on actually helped either state's war effort, except for the obvious one - fear of torture reduced internal resistance.
(If I sound like I'm canonizing the Brits, I'm pretty sure that I can find instances of torture used on suspected IRA members, and for the same reason - to instill fear.)
During the Warren Terra the US shipped suspects to places like Syria to be tortured because we apparently didn't have the in-house expertise**. And, I suspect, to avoid any oversight. Of course, waterboarding is dead easy.
*I'm not sure if Hess was rich enough to be considered 'eccentric'.
** yay us, if true.
Pappenheimer
P.S. "I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence. I know that victims of torture will offer intentionally misleading information if they think their captors will believe it. I know they will say whatever they think their torturers want them to say if they believe it will stop their suffering. Most of all, I know the use of torture compromises that which most distinguishes us from our enemies, our belief that all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human rights, which are protected by international conventions the U.S. not only joined, but for the most part authored."
John S. McCain
For fiction discussing the role of torture (and a bit of very dated SF) I recommend 'Shadow of a Broken Man' by George Chesbro, set in the Cold War.
Pappenheimer
P.S. compare John Galt to that Shipstone guy of the Heinlein novel 'Friday', who invented a magic limitless-storage battery that revolutionized civilization, never patented it, and somehow his corporation is producing enough 'Shipstones' to allow the half the world to own one, without revealing enough information for the gizmo to be copied or reinvented. That blew my suspension of disbelief even harder that anything in Ayn Rand's works, but at least Heinlein didn't have Shipstone say "F them all if they're just going to profit off of me without giving me a cut'. Of course Heinlein was into the Dean Drive, too.
All truths have exceptions. The French underground learned the hard way to disperse and change IDs if one of them was captured.
The one British action that we might applaud today was among the colonists top grievances... the Appalachian act forbidding settlemenst beyond the mountains. Seems friendly to natives... but its real purpose was to prevent indentured servants along the coast from fleeing uphill and making their own lives. Look up the battle of King's Mountain.
After reading the replies today, I stand corrected.
Torture by the US and allies today is extremely rare, possibly nonexistent; yet having a spy ‘disappear’ forever may well occur more frequently.
Don’t know and don’t want to know.
I share Locum’s negativity (could be genetic) and pay excessive attention to what he writes.
At any rate, reading of how Khalid Sheik Mohammad, or someone similar, was waterboarded long ago didn’t bother me.
After reading all the replies here, that torture has a slippery slope, coarsening, effect is apparent.
This is a formal apology, and will endeavor not to repeat such pugnacious—and somewhat paranoid—opinions in the future.
Paradoctor,
False realism & pragmatism, yes, and also a presumption without evidence that torture is still practiced.
Plus a cynical assumption that what goes on behind closed doors is always worse than one could imagine.
This weekend CB has educated me.
Thank you AB. I, too, am a callous person in some ways and my top objection to the T word (not my ONLY objection) is the practical fact that used by sadists and idiots it accomplishes nothing and that the very rare cases where true professionals might get info of critical and urgent importance are now much HARDER on those professionals than before the idiots reigned.
But yeah. I lost (before I was born) most of my 3rd, 4th and 5th cousins to titanically execrable acts by true human monsters. Viciously banal idiots who took a great nation down paths of pure evil.
And I will die on the hill of fighting anything similar, whether my reasons are pragmatic or moral.
This discussion reminded me of a conclusion of a book (forgot title and author) about the history of modern secret services:
They are the only institutions that are rewarded if they fail.
It starts with the early days of MI5 and MI6 constantly explaining botched operations and enemy successes with lack of ressources and rights.9/11 might be the premier example for the "fail to succeed" mechanic.
It's certainly possible to "fail to succeed" if the thing you're failing at and the thing you're succeeding at are different.
As of 1994, Torture is absolutely ILLEGAL by US statute, inside & outside of US national boundaries, according to US Federal Law 18 U.S.C. § 2340A, the international UNCAT agreement & the Geneva Convention.
That said, it is a well-known fact (as leaked by Edward Snowden & Julian Assange) that the US government has been know to dabble in torture-adjacent 'enhanced interrogation techniques' at Abu Ghraib & certain black op sites across the globe, especially following 9/11.
It all goes back to what I was saying earlier:
That the LAW, no matter how explicit or well-written, is entirely without magic & cannot compel obedience in disobedient human subjects.
This confirms my earlier conclusion that any idealized rule set like Dr Brin's 'Contract for America', no matter how reasonable & well-written, is most certainly doomed to inutility & failure.
Perhaps I've been unduly influenced by my ongoing unhappy residence in California, as state & local law enforcement no longer enforces traffic laws despite the continued existence of a California Vehicular Code that is nearly 800 pages long.
I must therefore conclude that the Rule-of-Law is DEAD here (at least in California).
Best
I agree with Duncan and add that torture also harms the torturer. It's an obvious evil that a person must then commit? Think what that does to your code of ethics.
scidata,
The series is actually a wonderful example of how geopolitics works. The newly forming nation, if treated as an organism, had needs and wants that could overrule a persons code of ethics. Yes... the native peoples were more democratic, but they weren't part of the newly forming nation that hungered for land and independence.
It IS useful to see history with our sacred 'founding' myths stripped away. The men and women involved were people of their times and NOT the myths. They could yearn for liberty while keeping slaves in the kitchen and preventing their wives from owning property. Yet... the ideals they espoused caught the imaginations of much of the world (eventually) and spread like wildfire. The natives were totally screwed. Utterly. So was the French aristocracy.
One thing I thought Burns and friends didn't do justice to was the fact that the ideals of our revolution didn't start in the colonies. The wildfire started among the Dutch almost two centuries earlier, spread to the English in their civil war, and radically altered the crowns that eventually came together as Great Britain. The REASON our revolutionary ideas caught on in the colonies is we WERE British subjects. The fire came over with the immigrants.
For the record, I like the idea of a Cyber Hygiene Act... but I would argue for writing out the details for indemnification to cover standards known to NIST and other government agencies who already understand how to defend our assets. My day-to-day work involves hardening IT systems for the US Navy. IF people took steps (or our services did for us) similar who what I do at work, a LOT of crap would stop happening.
--------
I'd also make sure that financial transactions that do NOT follow these standards are to be considered null and void if any party to them objects to them later... AND NO ADDED FEES on these transactions may make up for the bank's losses. The credit card industry's standard transaction fees are as high as they are BECAUSE they fail to deal with fraud properly.
This extra would cause the financial industry to conform to the standards faster than anything else.
They DO appear to be ignoring the expired license plate registration decals. 8)
Can't say I object to that even if I keep mine current.
This perfectly distills how the present phase of the 250 year US Civil War is about adulthood and fact-informed modernity vs. those who despise and wish to destroy both. Why so fiercely right now? Because they see a mature and decent America leading a mature and decent, AI-augmented world on the looming horizon. And it terrifies them - their alliance of nescient oligarchs and lumper-prols - into waging all-out war vs ALL fact using professions...
...from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.** ... And as I show in my current blog series, against the very concept of accountable law. http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/ (Contrary Brin blog)
**(And watch as the lack of those fired counter-terror professionals will hit us hard, as it did when GW Bush fired dozens, 6 monther before 9/11.)
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/winner-of-this-weeks-joseph-welch?
Larry, (from last thread)
You asked about my position regarding corporations as people.
I don't accept them as equivalent to natural persons.
At best I refer to them as 'juridical' persons. That means they are property with some of the rights of persons. Slaves essentially.
The reason I give them any personhood at all is because NOT doing so leads to terrible situations.
1: If someone steals from a corporation, who gets to push for a criminal indictment? The owners? Most owners of publicly traded companies are barely involved. Management? They are often the ones doing the stealing.
2: When a company signs a contract to purchase something from another company (Happens every day. They are called purchase orders.) who is on the hook for a breach? Who gets sued when a company's employees violate software license rules?
Giving a corporation some limited kind of personhood eliminates a lot of the legal danger that comes with general partnerships where the actions of one parter have legal consequences for ALL partners. Various corporate structures exist BECAUSE of how liabilities flow inward to the people involved in running and owning them.
So... they are a kind of slave with limited rights. One can steal from a "slave", but it is the owner who gets to decide whether to tolerate it or not. A "slave" can decide to trade with someone, but it is the owner who can coerce adjustments.
Fortunately for us, our corporations don't have minds like ours. They'd object if they did. Look at how some of them DO object to certain community events (Hobby Lobby objects to many things) and you'll find the minds of the owners only slightly below the corporate skin.
Yes, the story began before 1775. For example, I don't know anyone (except perhaps OGH or Walter Isaacson) who is a bigger fan of Ben Franklin than I am. Although in my case it's more because of his Scottish Enlightenment ties and this quote that was on the landing page of the Citizen Science team I ran for 12 years:
Tell me and I forget
Teach me and I remember
Involve me and I learn
- Benjamin Franklin
Also, I've always agreed with your Barbarian riff, which is sort of where I got the Imperial Enlightenment label. Myths soothe, but truth disturbs.
@Alfred Differ,
I'm ok with corporations being treated as "persons" in legal proceedings (I like "judicial persons"). Going as far as the Roberts court does in treating corporations as having the inherent rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence seems off the rails. Human persons are expected to act as citizens and moral agents as well as economic agents, whereas corporations are legally forbidden from non-economic motives (except, as you note, for Hobby Lobby which gets to have sincerely-held religious beliefs). Human persons can also suffer harm in ways that corporations cannot, and can feel sympathy for others in ways that corporations cannot. They're not the same kind of thing.
There are also situations in which "corporations are people" are absurd on their face. A state doesn't get to count corporations within its borders for congressional representation--not even 3/5 of a corporation. Corporations don't go through naturalization and become citizens. Corporations are not minors before they reach 18 years of age, nor do they have a gender assigned at birth.
So far, I don't think we've disagreed.
I don't see that you've successfully argued against putting legal restrictions on corporate behavior, such as forbidding hostile takeovers. If we go with the slave model, then as far as I know, slaves didn't own other slaves.
https://www.threads.com/@stonekettle
Quick, what was the name of the guy who (allegedly) winged Trump in the ear?
You had to look it up, didn't you?
Weird how Trump holds an obsessive unending grudge against anyone who he thinks somehow wronged him, but just forgot all about the guy who allegedly tried to assassinate him and never mentioned his name again.
Yes, that is...interesting.
https://bsky.app/profile/rexhuppke.bsky.social
Reporter: If there were a second strike that killed wounded people, would that be legal?
Trump: I don’t know that happened and Pete said he did not even know what people were talking about. I wouldn’t have wanted a second strike. The first strike was very lethal. It was fine.
So Pete Hegseth acted alone?
Alfred,
Bit of a change of subject, but I was inspired by you relating a bit of your experience as a space launch start up in a comment in the previous comments section (catching up on them after a week of vacation).
You had mentioned that your teams' ideas were contrary to SpaceX's and that at that time you thought SpaceX was on the wrong track. If you don't mind, could you say a bit about what your teams' ideas to achieve a reusable space launch vehicle were?
Also, have you taken note of Stoke Aerospace's
design for a fully reusable launch system? In particular the 2nd stage, the spacecraft, seems like a cool and innovative design to me. If so, could you comment on what think of their design?
The really innovative part is that they integrate an actively cooled metallic heat shield (shaped like the bottom of a classic reentry capsule), the cooling system for the heat shield and the propulsion system. The propulsion system is LH2\LOX and is arranged with a single combustion chamber but many (24) "nozzles" arranged around the perimeter of the heat shield. The system creates what many have been referring to as an aerospike effect. Steering is achieved by metering thrust at each individual "nozzle" as well as at the combustion chamber. Propellants are used to regeneratively cool the heat shield during reentry.
Looking forward to seeing this thing fly, I wish them success.
from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.**
Sigh.
You did not win the war on terror.
I tell you who did.
The Taliban.
Erdogan.
Israels far right.
The Arabian potentates.
Looks like Islamists winning in the Sahel Zone.
And If not them, it's Kremlin-supported officer juntas. The West has finally lost Africa.
The intelligence apparatus, by becoming an unbalanced and unchecked monstrosity of surveillance for it's own sake.
The billionaire caste, especially those selling the Orwell Machines to governments world-wide.
But you, dear ordinary citizen, lost your money and sons and daughters and trust and liberty ultimately, your future.
Oh, and you know who else won the war on terror?
Trump.
And I dare to pose the question: What if the FBI had not sided with the "oppressor" faction during the height of the Cold War against civil rights activists? Or Daryl Gates had been deposed of earlier?
Where would you be now?
This is pretty amazing. Are Ozempic+ users really already 12% of the US population? Seriously. If this article is true, then a seismic event is taking place: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2025/ozempic-glp1-consumer-spending/?
Kewl. Wow.
Der Oger, while you raise important points you exaggerate hugely. The War on Terror was 'won' because there have been no further foreign-run terror attacks withing the US or much of anything across the West. THAT is a huge victory.
Africa's mess is a calamity that will only resolve when
1. Russia is kicked out
2. World $$ transparency targets African elite robbers who have stolen literal $trillions from their people and deposited it all in Helvetia - I mean Switzerland etc.
3. When further such thefts are deterred by punishing the complicit western elites.
ONE African leader could get the ball rolling by declaring the Helvetian War.
You know I share your spite toward the nescient half of billionaires who help petro princes, Czars and mafias to run the current putsch against enlightenment. But not all billionaires are nescient.
The War on Terror was 'won' because there have been no further foreign-run terror attacks withing the US or much of anything across the West.
But domestic terror attacks reminiscent of 1930s Germany are perpetrated by our own government. And depending on one's definition, those might actually be "foreign-run" as well. I definitely feel more scared of federal authorities today than I ever did of al-Qaeda 20 years ago.
I agree with Der Oger - the War on Terror was LOST!! - even from an American POV
There were a very very small number of "Terror Attacks" in the USA prior to thw "War on Terror" - and after it there were at least as many!
You have not had a repeat of 9/11 - but that should never have been allowed to happen anyway
Worldwide we have vastly MORE than before and a large percentage are directly due to the US actions in Afghanistan and Iraq
The "War on Terror" has made the problem WORSE!!
As had the "War on Drugs"
LH you make my point. 24 years after 9/11, our enemies realise that our protector Caste is too competent and they can only terrorize us by first attacking and demolishing those skilled patriot professionals.
Duncen, most of your assertions here are opposite to fact.
Has anyone here addressed Montana's attempt to limit Corporate spending by changing charters? Group releases text of proposed Montana Constitutional amendment to curb dark money? Daily Montanan https://share.google/IudvoFomneMUfaNej
There were a very very small number of "Terror Attacks" in the USA prior to the "War on Terror" - and after it there were at least as many!
Do NOT see how you can say that is wrong!!
You have not had a repeat of 9/11 - but that should never have been allowed to happen anyway
Again do NOT see how you can say that is wrong!!
Worldwide we have vastly MORE than before and a large percentage are directly due to the US actions in Afghanistan and Iraq
NOBODY could possibly argue about THAT!!! - Iraq CAUSED "ISIS"
Bin Laden told us what he wanted the USA to do - and Bush did everything he wanted!
The "War on Terror" has made the problem WORSE!!
As had the "War on Drugs"
Again the whole "War on Drugs" was due to Nixon
“You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
Which is internal to US politics -
BUT by making those drugs illegal while there is a massive US market for them the USA poured Billions of dollars into the maws of the Drug Cartels
Which empowered them causing horrible violence in their countries
I’m not callous but, rather, over-sensitive. However, this is war versus peace in a world of mega-WMDs.
Russia possesses roughly 2500 nukes to our 2000 or thereabouts. China has about 500. Plus there’re other WMDs in various locations. Also, as is discussed here today, terrorists (or ‘freedom fighters’ for the more PC) can do very serious damage.
Thus I had put aside sensitivity and considered if—again, IF— torture is EVER justified; is it counterproductive, etc.
Now it is clear that torture is to be considered verboten, and is probably apocryphal.
How is that different from claiming that Hitler had won WWII because we realized that we can only win by storming Normandy?
I mean, since they are "attacking and demolishing those skilled patriot professionals" even as we speak, how can we have already won?
* * *
And before 9/11, I don't remember terrorism on US soil being that big a concern. There were attacks on US targets abroad, such as the USS Cole, but that wasn't a danger to the US itself. "Terrorism" in those days was almost always about Israel, or (a bit earlier) about Northern Ireland. When people quoted the statistic that a woman over 40 had a better chance of being killed by a terrorist than of finding a husband, they were saying that her odds were bad. Terrorism over here was a rarity.
When I first heard about the Oklahoma City federal building bombing, my immediate thought was that it was either Arabs or white survivalist types, and the odds of either seemed about even. We even hoped it would be a domestic type, because that would mean we didn't have to go to war over it. When it turned out not to be a suicide bombing, that made "white guy" pretty certain. OTOH, with the planes flying into the World Trade Center and destroying themselves on 9/11,the terrorists were obviously going to be Arabs.
The "War on Terror" was when we began to be so cowardly about the term "terrorism" that we let it be an excuse for giving up civil rights and justifying the murder of anyone who could be tarred with the label.
terrorists ... can do very serious damage.
Thus I had put aside sensitivity and considered if—again, IF— torture is EVER justified
I'm not following the logic. Terrorism is so scary that torture is justified to...what end?
Now it is clear that torture is to be considered verboten, and is probably apocryphal.
Again, not following. Torture is used for a variety of reasons--revenge, sadism, terrorism itself. Not even counting Dick Cheney's favorite, getting false confessions. There's a gulf of difference between acknowledging that torture is unreliable for divining facts and assuming that it does not exist in the first place.
Post a Comment