AnalPhilosopher

As social conditions become more equal, the number of persons increases who, although they are neither rich nor powerful enough to exercise any great influence over their fellows, have nevertheless acquired or retained sufficient education and fortune to satisfy their own wants. They owe nothing to any man, they expect nothing from any man; they acquire the habit of always considering themselves as standing alone, and they are apt to imagine that their whole destiny is in their own hands.

(Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Henry Reeve [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945 (1840)], pt. 2, bk. 2, chap. 2, p. 99)

10-31-84 . . . I had a "riot" today on the Student Union arcade. Each afternoon, several student groups situate themselves on the walkway leading into the Student Union Building, distributing pamphlets and discussing issues with anyone who happens along. I enjoy stopping to talk to these groups between classes. Today, for instance, I discussed foreign policy and Zionism with a group of Iranians, domestic policy with the student Democrats, and assorted other political issues with the Young Republicans. Terry Mallory and a couple of my students came along with me, and seemed delighted at the way I got into and out of arguments. I feel like a young Socrates with my disciples as I fend off verbal thrust after verbal thrust, always keeping my composure and letting the other person make his or her points as fully as possible. These give-and-take situations are good practice for a budding philosopher (or attorney, for that matter), for they require quick thinking and a knack for using the language. I will miss the political dialogue after the election on Tuesday.

Power Line posted a link to this moving photographic essay. I want to thank the soldiers and sailors who are fighting in my behalf. They are making the world a safer and a better place—for everyone.

To the Editor:

Re "Cue the Woman in Pink" (editorial, Oct. 28):

The woman in pink (an image from an ad attacking a congresswoman) is a great metaphor for political strategists' efforts to stigmatize opponents.

This, along with poisonous radio and TV talk, leaders who question the patriotism of their opponents, the failure of mainstream journalists to challenge lies and distortions with facts, a passive electorate that naïvely expects to learn about candidates from TV sound bites and staged "debates" and a culture that values simplification of complex problems and prizes candidates' personalities over their abilities, has created a crisis in American democracy, which, as you note, we want to export.

Democracy does not mean that any tactic that produces a vote is justified.

I care a lot who wins the election, but I think it is more important that there be a clear winner and that we begin the process of restoring our fundamental values of fairness, openness and respect for the opinions of others.

Tom Stewart
Altamont, N.Y., Oct. 28, 2004

I've been following the presidential polls for several weeks, as most people have. They suggest that we are in for a close election. It would probably be a mistake to expect to know the identity of the winner before going to bed Tuesday night. There could be five to eight states that are too close to call. It could be two, three, even four days before things sort themselves out. When you add legal challenges to the picture, it gets even murkier.

Although I have a stake in the outcome of the election, I'm trying to enjoy it as a political spectacle. Isn't it amazing how evenly divided we Americans are? No other presidential elections in my lifetime (I'm 47) have been as close as those in 2000 and 2004. Nor do I think it's a bad thing that we're divided. There really are two visions—liberal and conservative—of how things should be. Each political morality tries to secure the power that would allow it to implement its vision. The American people ultimately determine how successful each political morality has been, once it is empowered. If you promise more than you can deliver, you destroy your credibility with the voters. If you don't promise enough, you don't get elected in the first place. American politics is not for the faint-hearted.

I love democracy, messy though it is. I love the electoral college, even if, this year, it costs my candidate the White House. I love it that we resolve our differences peacefully, either in the voting booth or in the courts. Yes, you read that right. I do not consider resort to the courts to be either a failure of democracy or a form of violence. The purpose of courts, at every level, is to resolve disputes in accordance with law. Electoral disputes are disputes. There is a body of electoral law that must be faithfully and fairly applied. I fully expect that we will settle upon a president and come together as a people. There will be no takeover of government by the military. There will be no violence in the streets beyond the usual hooliganism that attends high-profile sporting events. There will be whining and complaining, to be sure, but that's to be expected, even desired. It shows that we're doing—or have done—something important.

All of that said, get plenty of nutritious snacks for the week. You may be glued to the television set as late as Friday, wondering whether it will be President Bush (again) or President Kerry come January.

Physician, n. One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Here is some good reading material.

Rose Nunez has posted some provocative thoughts on religion and art. See here.

A very thoughtful and interesting post. Here's another dismissal of blogging—this written by a Hollywood writer (a relative) who lashed out at me when I tried directing him to a blog (on a subject he had a habit of making much noise about).

Come on! You are arguing the observances of a blogger, another crazy person with too much time on his hands and whose views really don't matter to anyone. Yeah, I'm sure the guy is really insightful and brilliant when he isn't bagging groceries in Dubuque. Please do not feel free to send me the angry, paranoid ramblings of marginalized, unaccredited people, who live in their parents' basement, whenever you come across them from now on.

10-30-84 Tuesday. The invasion of Grenada, far from being a political strike against Ronald Reagan, appears to have counted in his favor. It was quick, incisive, and successful. All of the American medical students were rescued and a huge cache of Cuban weapons was confiscated—at least if we can believe the government. To some people, the Grenadan invasion reemphasized American military might and fortitude, while to others, like me, is signified American imperialism and intolerance. Unfortunately, I am probably in a minority on this issue. One week from today, people will pass judgment on Ronald Reagan. I fear, and expect, that the verdict will be "acquit."

I see that the Left is angry at the MSM for saying (or implying) that the videotape showing Osama bin Laden helps President Bush's electoral prospects. See here. But why wouldn't it? Bin Laden reminds people whose memories may have faded that we're at war. Every poll I've seen shows that President Bush has a significant lead over John Kerry as a commander in chief. Put two and two together and you get President Bush benefiting from the videotape. The Left doesn't like to hear bad news. They live in an echo chamber in which all they hear are each other's rants and whines.

But this analysis creates a puzzle. Osama bin Laden is, by all accounts, a smart man. (Intelligence is compatible with evil, just as lack of intelligence is compatible with good.) Why would he do something that is likely to help President Bush? Doesn't he want John Kerry to be elected president? Doesn't he think his war on Western civilization will be more likely to succeed with President Kerry in the White House than with President Bush there? Bush has gone after him. President Kerry might not have, or might not have done so with such gusto.

Brace yourself. I think Bin Laden wants President Bush to be reelected. It's simple, really. He wants a clash of civilizations (or, what comes to the same thing, religions). He wants confrontation. He wants apocalypse now. He doesn't want negotiation or compromise. To his way of thinking, there is no compromise. You don't make deals with the Great Satan. You destroy the Great Satan. Osama bin Laden is doing what he can to bring about the long-sought clash between Christendom and Islam. He knows he won't be around to see the end of it, but he wants to be the one who initiated it.

If Democrats had any brains, they'd use this analysis to their advantage. They should argue that, by reelecting President Bush, Americans will be giving Bin Laden and his fellow Islamic radicals what they want: engagement. This will result in many casualties. A Kerry administration, they could plausibly claim, would avoid conflict and thereby promote security.

Philosophers take positions very strange to ordinary people. They have, that is, an inner need to choose between alternatives that to ordinary people are not worth distinguishing, or a need to pursue ideas well beyond the bounds of common sense. From this perspective, then: The philosopher is the person who tries to persuade people to accept abstract, unscientific ideas that seem, at least at first, absurdly scrupulous, outrageously exaggerated, or, simply, fantastic.

(Ben-Ami Scharfstein, The Philosophers: Their Lives and the Nature of Their Thought [New York: Oxford University Press, 1980], 87 [italics omitted])

One of the things I love about the Internet is the information it makes accessible. Here, for example, is a site devoted to healthy foods. This particular page lists essential nutrients. I have a shortcut to it on my computer desktop and visit it regularly. There is also a page devoted to foods. See here. If you click on "Spinach," for example, you can see which nutrients (and how much of each) spinach supplies. These sites could save your life!

To the Editor:

Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele (Op-Ed, Oct. 24) say problems in our health care system started with the embrace of for-profit medicine two decades ago. But doctors have sought profits for centuries, as they had to, to make a living. There is no good reason that drug companies and other health professionals should not do the same.

It is only when various socialist schemes tried to divorce the costs of services from the prices users pay that those services deteriorated and prices escalated.

Tara Smith
Austin, Tex., Oct. 24, 2004

Consult, v.t. To seek another's approval of a course already decided on.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

1. Most people view writing as a means of communication, no different in principle from speaking. But it's more than that. Writing gives shape, structure, and texture to thought. When I write, I see my thoughts. Sometimes they look terrible! To write is to think, and to think is to be fully human. One of the great things about the blogosphere is that it's a written medium. There are thousands of people out there who would not otherwise be writing but who write on a regular basis in their blogs. This cannot but improve the overall quality of thought. Long live the blogosphere! It is one of the greatest inventions in my lifetime.

2. The mainstream media ("MSM" appears to have emerged as the acronym) don't know what to do with bloggers. They seem threatened by them, and the first reaction to a threat is to attack it. (Belittling is a form of attack.) CBS executive Jonathan Klein said a while back on television that bloggers are "guys in their living rooms wearing pajamas." I'm not sure what point he was making. Is he implying that truth can be ascertained or asserted only while wearing certain types of clothing? Must one be in an office in order to contribute meaningfully to public discourse? Bloggers have had a field day with his comment. It shows two things: that bloggers have a sense of humor and that the MSM doesn't understand this new medium.

3. The blogosphere is a bustling marketplace of ideas. Like any marketplace, it contains hustlers, snake-oil salespeople, crooks, and goons. One must look for telltale signs of trustworthiness. Why am I partial to Sony products? Because I've used many of them over the years and had good success with them. If a particular blogger gets things right more often than not, he or she will attract readers. If a particular blogger makes penetrating analyses of political or other events, he or she will attract readers. If a particular blogger brings wit, verve, or aesthetic sensibility to a subject, he or she will attract readers. As in the commercial marketplace, quality tends to out. I read only a handful of blogs each day. I visit new blogs when they are brought to my attention and sometimes incorporate them into my daily schedule. The blogosphere doesn't rule me. I rule it.

4. I hate to be negative this fine morning, but some bloggers are stingy. They link only to bloggers who are at least as large as they are, in terms of readership. For example, I rarely see Power Line link to anyone small. I don't understand this. It would be an act of grace and magnanimity to link to smaller but deserving bloggers every now and then. If the small blogger has a quality site, the larger blogger's readers will be indebted to him or her for bringing it to their attention. I can't for the life of me see how this harms the larger blogger. Suppose I learn of a high-quality but small blog by reading Power Line. Am I likely to abandon Power Line? Sure, time is finite, but if Power Line continues its fine blogging, I'll keep coming back. Bloggers should be confident enough of their abilities to link freely to others, even small bloggers. Ultimately, the best blogs will have the most readers. Isn't that how it should be?

5. Fortunately, not everyone in the blogosphere is guilty of stinginess. I'm delighted to have been linked to by several big bloggers. Dr John J. Ray gave me a significant boost at the outset—nearly a year ago!—and continues to help me in various ways. Thank you, John. I will always be indebted. Kim du Toit links to me. Hugh Hewitt and Donald Luskin have sent many readers my way. Probably my biggest benefactor, in terms of daily visits, is Michelle Malkin, who added me to her blogroll a few weeks ago. Yes, I hinted around for it by sending her selected links to my blog, but not everyone takes hints. I want to thank everyone who has linked to me, helped me, or added me to his or her blogroll. You are blogging in the right spirit, as far as I'm concerned. Link to many; let the chips fall where they may.

Hilail Gildin, "Deja Jew All Over Again: Dannhauser on Leo Strauss and Atheism," Interpretation 25 (fall 1997): 125.

Kent Bach, "Do Belief Reports Report Beliefs?" Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 78 (September 1997): 215.

Douglas S. Miller, "Off Duty, Off the Wall, but Not Off the Hook: Section 1983 Liability for the Private Misconduct of Public Officials," Akron Law Review 30 (summer 1997): 325.

Amy K. Phillips, "Thou Shalt Not Kill Any Nice People: The Problem of Victim Impact Statements in Capital Sentencing," American Criminal Law Review 35 (fall 1997): 93.

Evan Caplan, "'Milking the Dow': Compensating the Victims of Silicone Gel Breast Implants at the Expense of the Parent Corporation," Rutgers Law Journal 29 (fall 1997): 121.

Bill Keezer is rapidly approaching the 8,000-visitor mark on his blog. That's 8,000 edified, satisfied, transmogrified readers.

Ally Eskin asks her readers what men and women want. See here. Men and women want different things. Men want women who will nurture them and their children. Women want providers. There are biological reasons for these preferences, which feminism has been unable to alter. Please read the following book: John Marshall Townsend, What Women Want—What Men Want: Why the Sexes Still See Love and Commitment So Differently (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). Two other books that I recommend are Robert Wright, The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life (New York: Vintage Books, 1995 [1994]), and David M. Buss, The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating (New York: Basic Books, 1994).

Here is some more humor for a Friday evening, courtesy of Peg Kaplan. Be sure to read her other posts.

This is funny.

Dr Bill Vallicella advises a college student who wants to be a philosopher. See here.

Donald Luskin posted a link to an essay by a 15-year old California girl. See here. I still think young people should be liberal. As they mature, they will become conservative.

Steve Rugg is nervous about the election. See here.

Jeff did us a service by compiling endorsements of John Kerry from various pundits and celebrities. It reminded me of the writer of a letter of recommendation who says of the person recommended, "He (or she) has good handwriting." It would be both truthful and praiseworthy, but nonetheless devastating. All of these "endorsers" are damning Kerry with faint praise.

Bradley Sallows sent a link to this symposium on the war in Iraq, from FrontPage Magazine. Thanks, Brad.

Here is how the Democratic Underground is responding to the Osama bin Laden videotape.

Chris Matthews has been doing his damnedest for months to get John Kerry elected. He wanted the presidential election to come down to one issue: the war in Iraq. Day after day, week after week, month after month, Matthews tried to separate the war in Iraq from the larger war on radical Islam. If I had a nickel for every time he insisted that there was no "connection" between Saddam Hussein and 9-11, I'd be rich. The release today of the Osama bin Laden videotape reminds Americans that we were attacked and that President Bush has taken the war to the terrorists. Matthews knows that this helps President Bush. He is crestfallen.

When you go to the poll Tuesday, ask yourself which candidate for president is more likely to protect you and your loved ones from this man.

After all this, you would think that I would have no doubt about my vote in November, but I have one remaining concern that might keep me from voting for Kerry. Somehow there has grown up a correlation between liberalism and anti-Zionism in both Europe and America: a tendency for the same politicians, academics, performers, and journalists who take a liberal stand on domestic issues reflexively to take the Arab side in disputes between Arabs and Israelis. Kerry's statements and voting record show no signs of anti-Zionism, with just one exception known to me, his speech at the Council on Foreign Relations naming James Baker of all people as someone he might send to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians—a possibility he subsequently rejected.

Nevertheless, I can't help worrying about the foreign policy of a liberal administration if Kerry is elected. This concern is deepened by the fear that, as radical Islamic terrorism continues to plague us, there will be a growing temptation to appease Muslims either by withdrawing support for Israel, or by making complete withdrawal from the West Bank a condition for this support, leaving Israel vulnerable to the sort of attack launched by Arab states in 1948, 1967, and 1973. Yielding to this temptation would weaken the cause of secular democracy, and permanently stain our country's honor. But I probably will vote for Kerry anyway, for on this issue I don't trust Bush either.

(Steven Weinberg, "The Election and America's Future," The New York Review of Books 51 [4 November 2004]: 16-7, at 16-7)

Palo Duro Canyon, in Texas's panhandle (near Amarillo), is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. I camped there in 1992 on my way to northern New Mexico. Naturally, I had to ride my bike out of and then back into the canyon. The scenery was breathtaking.

To the Editor:

Re "Mixed Results for Bush in Battles Over Judges" ("The Bush Record" series, front page, Oct. 22):

The president's nominees to federal circuit courts have been judged conservative for their stands on hot-button issues like abortion. But a review of their financial disclosure forms and Senate questionnaires reveals that the nominees are more notable for their close ties to corporate and economic interests, especially the energy and mining industries.

Some of them were paid lobbyists for those same interests. Further, the nominees with industry ties were overwhelmingly appointed to circuit courts regarded as traditional battlegrounds over litigation affecting these industries. Independent observers we've talked to who follow the federal bench believe that the extensive corporate involvement among so many of the nominees is unprecedented.

Burton Glass
Executive Director
Center for Investigative Reporting
San Francisco, Oct. 22, 2004

I laughed when I read this New York Times editorial. It contains no semblance of argument. It is a mishmash of bald assertion, confusion, and fallacy. The biggest howler is the claim of unfairness to homosexuals. Is it unfair to dogs that they cannot vote, or to men that they cannot have an abortion?

[L]ife is granted to none for freehold, to all on lease. Look back again to see how the past ages of everlasting time, before we are born, have been as naught to us. These then nature holds up to us as a mirror of the time that is to come, when we are dead and gone. Is there aught that looks terrible in this, aught that seems gloomy? Is it not a calmer rest than any sleep?

(Lucretius on the Nature of Things, trans. Cyril Bailey [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910], bk. III, ll. 955-80, p. 138 [endnote omitted])

Dick Morris explains (here) why President Bush will be reelected.

I'm happy for Red Sox fans. I really am. I'm also happy that we no longer have to hear from them about their suffering. Or will we? See here. If suffering is part of one's identity, as it seems to be for many Red Sox fans, then its elimination constitutes a new, second-order form of suffering: loss of identity. I fear that Red Sox fans will never cease their infernal moaning.

I have to admit; this is pretty cool. (Thanks to Donald Luskin for the link.)

Mugwump, n. In politics one afflicted with self-respect and addicted to the vice of independence. A term of contempt.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

In Paul Krugman's twisted mind (see here), the Right refuses to acknowledge that President Bush did anything wrong. Actually, many conservatives are quite critical of various decisions made by the president. The reality is that the Left refuses to acknowledge that President Bush did anything right.

In order to make lasting changes in society, a president must serve for eight years. In order to serve for eight years, a president must be reelected. In order to be reelected, a president must not change too many things too radically during the first four years.

If President Bush is reelected, we can expect to see true conservative government. This will be a government that respects tradition, minimizes the extent of coercion in the marketplace, and defends the American people from their enemies. It will be a government that treats criminals harshly (in accordance with desert), nourishes self-sufficiency and responsibility, and encourages investment. It will be a government by, of, and for the people, not for special-interest groups of the sort pandered to by the Democrat party.

Until now, President Bush had to have one eye on reelection. He couldn't do too much by way of implementing conservative values because it would alienate and antagonize people, thus reducing his chance of being reelected. Liberals will say that this is deceptive—that President Bush has been pretending to be something (a moderate) that he is not. Let them say what they want. Leaders lead. They do what's best for their followers even if those followers don't appreciate it. If conservative government turns out to be a disaster, the American people will make adjustments in their thinking and prevent other conservatives from coming to power.

If President Bush is reelected, and I fully expect that he will be, I hope he vigorously implements and protects conservative values. We conservatives should hear liberal whining as background music to the revolution.

With four days to go until the election, President Bush is looking good. See here. Liberals, whose lives lack meaning without political power, must be grinding their teeth at night.

How can John Kerry wage an effective war against radical Muslims when he can't wage an effective presidential campaign? The man is incompetent. See here for Dick Morris's latest column.

To the Editor:

Re "Rehnquist Treated for Thyroid Cancer, Supreme Court Says" (front page, Oct. 26):

The composition of the Supreme Court has become a high-stakes political game, given that the justices' ability to influence the law can profoundly alter the legal landscape.

The founding fathers wisely tried to make this as apolitical a body as possible by granting lifetime tenure to the judges, but in light of increased life expectancy, a justice can sit on the high court for decades.

This is one reason judicial confirmation hearings are so rancorous, and perhaps why the most extreme ideologues fight so hard to place a like-minded candidate on the bench.

The long tenure that justices enjoy is inherently undemocratic in these times, given that the mandate of the people (through elections) can be thwarted by a nonelected body (with no real recourse) decades after their appointment.

It is high time to think about limiting the terms to minimize the partisanship in judicial selection and the subversion of the will of the people.

Henri-Robert Delbeau
Jackson Heights, Queens
Oct. 26, 2004

Robert Wright is the author of one of the best books I've ever read: The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life. He's also the author of one of the worst books I've ever read: Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny. Here, in today's New York Times, he perfectly illustrates what I wrote about a few minutes ago: failure to give President Bush the benefit of the doubt. It's simply not clear what use President Bush makes of his religious faith. Wright assumes the worst. I'm not asking him to assume the best. I'm asking him not to assume the worst. Why is that so hard?

Newt Gingrich made a good point on this evening's O'Reilly Factor. He said that President Bush should get the benefit of the doubt in cases where the facts are unclear, as they are with the missing weapons in Iraq. Think about the concept. In criminal law, reasonable doubts are supposed to be resolved in favor of (i.e., to the benefit of) the defendant. Liberals insist on this and would howl with rage if it weren't complied with. But if criminal defendants deserve the benefit of the doubt, why doesn't the president of the United States? It's worse than a double standard. It's an absurdity and an injustice.

Not only has President Bush not been given the benefit of the doubt by his critics. They have turned doubt into certitude. If it's not clear whether President Bush acted rightly, he acted wrongly. Critics impute the worst motives to the president. They say that he lied instead of that he misrepresented the facts, when lying is merely a particular type or species of misrepresentation accompanied by, among other things, the intention to deceive. President Bush is expected to be omnipotent and omniscient. If something goes wrong, it's his fault. No inquiry is made into his actual mental state or into whether he controlled the situation. You wouldn't want to be held to such a strict standard. Why would you hold someone else, including the president, to such a standard? In criminal cases, there is a presumption of innocence. President Bush is presumed by his critics to be guilty.

By assuming the worst about President Bush, liberals ensure that their own president, should they ever get another one, receives similar treatment by conservatives. They won't like it, of course, but they will have nobody to blame but themselves. They have told us repeatedly and vociferously, through their actions, what standards to impose on our presidents. Conservatives will be more than happy to impose those standards on the next liberal president. Sometimes I wonder why anyone would want to be president. Maybe wanting to be is conclusive evidence of unfitness for office.

[S]o too, it seems, should one make a return to those with whom one has studied philosophy; for their worth cannot be measured against money, and they can get no honour which will balance their services, but still it is perhaps enough, as it is with the gods and with one's parents, to give them what one can.

(Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. David Ross, rev. J. L. Ackrill and J. O. Urmson [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980 (1925)], bk. IX, pp. 221-2)

Somebody explain to me why this band (see here as well) is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Roll on down the highway!

I received a nice letter this afternoon from Robert Hayes of Colorado Springs. Here is his blog. Nice to make your acquaintance, Bob! I hope you realize how lucky you are to live in Colorado.

1. I'm always depressed when the World Series ends. It feels as though someone died. All I see ahead of me are four dreary, baseball-less months. Perhaps I should hibernate. When spring training begins in late February, as it (almost) always does, I feel reborn. I've had the good fortune to live in a spring-training town (Tucson) and to watch spring-training games. It was wonderful. Life, with its cycles of birth, growth, maturity, decay, and death, is a microcosm of baseball. If there weren't such a thing as baseball, we would have to invent it. Oops! We did.

2. I didn't do very well with my postseason predictions. I thought the Yankees would beat Minnesota, which they did, and I thought St Louis would beat Los Angeles, which it did. But I didn't foresee Boston's defeat of Anaheim or Houston's defeat of Atlanta. I did think St Louis would reach the World Series, however, but I saw Anaheim rather than Boston beating the Cardinals. I shouldn't feel too bad. All of the sportswriters for The Dallas Morning News who made a World Series prediction thought St Louis would beat Boston. Did anyone out there think Boston would win?

3. It's hard to predict postseason success. How many times has the best regular-season team gone down to defeat at the hands of a lesser team? Look at Atlanta. The Braves have reached the postseason 13 consecutive years, which is mind-boggling, but won only one World Series (in 1995). I think it's because of passion. The regular season puts a premium on calm, steady play. Do your job each day and your team will rack up victories. But calm, steady play doesn't guarantee success in a short series. Indeed, it can thwart it. The Red Sox played with ferocious passion. The Cardinals, by contrast, played as if it were a mid-season series. I don't mean to imply that passion is the only thing that matters. If it were, then my slow-pitch softball team—the Waybacks—would win the World Series every year. It takes passion and pitching. This year, the Red Sox had both. St Louis had neither.

4. I haven't felt this good about my Detroit Tigers in many years. A year ago, the team came close to setting a futility record. This year, the team played much better. The Tigers have a new and accomplished general manager (Dave Dombrowski) and a promising manager (Alan Trammell). Alan was one of my heroes in the 1980s. That he was my age didn't matter. He was doing what I always thought I'd be doing, namely, playing Major League Baseball. He played the game right. He sacrificed for his team. He rose to the occasion. If he can instill any of his fire in his players, the Tigers will return to the World Series soon. After 119 losses in 2003, there's no place to go but up.

5. I should say a special mea culpa to Manny Ramirez, whom I mocked the other day. I predicted that he would be the Bill Buckner for a new generation. Instead, he won the Most Valuable Player award for the World Series. Good work, Manny. Now spit out that disgusting tobacco and get a haircut.

6. Look how quickly the Wikipedia entry on the Boston Red Sox has changed. Don't you love it?

Repose, v.i. To cease from troubling.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) has empaneled a group of "experts" to allocate influenza vaccine. See here. But allocative decisions are normative (i.e., they presuppose norms, or values), so, unless these "experts" have normative expertise, their values should have no more weight than anyone else's. I teach and write in biomedical ethics. This does not equip me to moralize. It gives my values no special weight. What it equips me to do is to understand the complexity of moral decisions. If all these "experts" were doing is helping policymakers think things through, I would have no objection. Indeed, I would celebrate their inclusion on the panel. But according to the story, they are going to be determining which allocations are fair. That's a moral judgment. They have no expertise in that realm. What's going on here, folks, is buck-passing. Policymakers are passing the moral buck to those who can be held up as "experts." This absolves the policymakers of responsibility for decisions they make. It would be absurd if it weren't so reprehensible.

My many years of taunting, teasing, and tormenting Boston Red Sox fans (see here and here) are over. I just fired up the computer for the day and found several e-mail messages from exuberant Red Sox fans, one of whom asked me to eat my words, one of whom began her letter with "Dear Anal Philistine or Philosopher or Sophist or whatever you think you are," and one of whom told me, bluntly, to eat Red Sox dirt. Yikes! Was my taunting that bad?

Perhaps it was. I want to convey my sincere congratulations to all citizens of Red Sox Nation. Your team performed admirably well. If Boston were my team, I would be proud. The Red Sox began the postseason by sweeping the Anaheim Angels, whom I predicted would win the World Series. I might have chalked this up as a fluke, but then the Red Sox came back from a three-games-to-none deficit to defeat the hated New York Yankees. I should have known then that this was a special team. To make things even more impressive, the Red Sox swept the best regular-season team in the National League, the St Louis Cardinals. Eight consecutive postseason victories! Amazing.

I feel sorry for Cardinals fans. It's been twenty-two years since they celebrated a World Series victory, and the most recent three appearances (1985, 1987, and 2004) resulted in defeat. I've waited twenty years for another Detroit Tiger victory, but at least my Tigers haven't gotten to the Series and lost. As I've told many people over the years, I'd rather my Tigers not even make it to the Series than make it and lose. That shows how much victory means to me.

Once again, congratulations to Red Sox fans everywhere. May you not have to wait another 86 years for a title—and may my Tigers have four additional titles before you get another one.

I'm mildly hypertensive, so I'm both decreasing my sodium intake and increasing my potassium intake. Yesterday I found a perfect concoction: Campbell's Low Sodium Tomato Juice. Each 16-ounce glass provides 58% of the daily value of potassium but only 12% of the daily value of sodium. It's also an excellent source (200%) of vitamin C. Try it! Your heart will thank you.

I'm glad Ally Eskin is taking on Teresa Heinz Kerry, because no man could. See here. I'm also glad that black men such as Bill Cosby, Walter Williams, and Thomas Sowell take on the civil-rights industry, which has done so much harm to the black community. Nobody can plausibly accuse Ally of being sexist or these men of being racist.

Here is the course schedule for the spring 2005 semester at The University of Texas at Arlington. I'll be teaching two sections of Ethics and one section of Philosophy of Religion.

Norm Weatherby has some thoughts about atheism here.

If you want to stay on top of things in the world of politics, make a daily visit to law professor Hugh Hewitt's site. By the way, I don't recommend people lightly. I think highly of Hugh both as a person (to the extent that I know him) and as an intellect. The conservative intellectuals I've met or come to know during the past couple of years have impressed me profoundly with their knowledge, wit, fairness, courage, decency, and good judgment. I can't say that about the liberal intellectuals I know, most of whom are so desperate for political power to implement their egalitarian, pacifist fantasies that they violate basic norms of civility and honesty.

Jeff has a short but moving tribute to Margaret Thatcher. Well done, Jeff. I love the quotation about Monroe and Caligula under Maggie's image.

I live in one of the largest metropolitan areas of the United States (Dallas-Fort Worth), but I'll always be a country boy from Michigan. My parents owned twenty acres of wooded land in Michigan's thumb area. It made my childhood wonderful. I learned how to explore, build treehouses, track and observe animals, and identify various plants. The woods were my haven, the place to which I repaired to be alone with my thoughts, dreams, and memories. Michigan, unlike my adopted state of Texas, has four distinct seasons. Choosing a favorite is like choosing a favorite child, but I was always partial to autumn. It brought colorful leaves, cool evenings, clear skies, pumpkins, football, romance, and flannel shirts. Here in Texas, we have only the semblance of autumn; but I enjoy it nonetheless.

Former Delaware governor Pete du Pont explains (here) why President Bush will be reelected.

Not to brag or anything, but I saw this coming almost nine months ago, long before John Kerry was nominated by the Democrat party. See here. I'm pretty good at sizing people up. It didn't take me long to learn that Andrew Sullivan is first and foremost a homosexual. He puts his sexual identity ahead of everything else, including the war on radical Islam. How's that for self-indulgence?

By the way, I got the Sullivan link not from his site, which I haven't visited in months and never will again, but from RealClearPolitics.

Here is the story of Bijou and Seymour.

To the Editor:

Re "For Bush, Bad News Is Bad News," by Bob Herbert (column, Oct. 25):

In his series of trenchant, moving columns, Mr. Herbert has captured, better than anyone, the real lives lost and maimed in the Iraq war. Convincingly, he's made the case that President Bush has sent thousands of American men and women (not to mention the many thousands of innocent Iraqis) to death and disability needlessly.

I appreciate his exposing the human cost of Mr. Bush's dangerous blend of denial and myopia.

Steve Becker
Westfield, N.J., Oct. 26, 2004

Exaggeration of every kind is as essential to journalism as it is to dramatic art; for as much as possible must be made of every event; and so by virtue of their profession all journalists are alarmists; this is their way of making themselves interesting, whereby they resemble small dogs who at once start barking loudly at everything that stirs.

(Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays, trans. E. F. J. Payne [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974], 2:447-8 [first published in 1851])

There are many things to admire about Bill O'Reilly. He is far more honest than other opinion-makers. I would have no hesitation in trusting him over the likes of Paul Krugman, Dan Rather, and Seymour Hersh. There are things O'Reilly would not do or say in order to advance a cause or get someone elected. That's integrity, which is in short supply these days.

But O'Reilly does something that bothers me. He tells guests that they are justifying "bad behavior" by pointing to bad behavior by others. Suppose O'Reilly criticizes a guest for calling President Bush a liar. The guest may reply that many people called President Clinton a liar. At that point, O'Reilly will say, "You're justifying bad behavior by pointing to bad behavior by others." He might have said, but rarely does, that two wrongs don't make a right.

I think O'Reilly misunderstands what's going on. The guest isn't saying that it's permissible to call President Bush a liar because President Clinton was called a liar. He or she is saying that there should be a single standard for all. If it's all right to call a Democrat president a liar, then it's all right to call a Republican president a liar.

Consistency is a virtue. It's not a moral virtue, like courage or temperance, but then, not all virtues are moral virtues. There are intellectual virtues, executive virtues, and other sorts of virtues. Consistency, as an intellectual virtue, means not contradicting oneself. It means not both asserting and denying a given proposition. Unless there is a relevant difference between Democrats and Republicans, therefore, or between Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, it is inconsistent to say (or believe) that one of them may be called a liar but the other not.

Read this New York Times op-ed column by University of Notre Dame dean Mark W. Roche. Then read this essay by lawyer-philosopher Robert P. George and law professor Gerard V. Bradley. For my money, George and Bradley prevail.

Entertainment, n. Any kind of amusement whose inroads stop short of death by dejection.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

One of my blogospheric friends is thinking of starting an anti-Leiter blog. It will allow for anonymous posting so that Leiter can't retaliate (which he has been known to do). I'll say no more. If you don't know who Leiter is, move on. If you do and want to participate, write to me and I'll send you to the friend.

I don't understand why people appear on television. It is not conducive to thinking. Indeed, it discourages thinking. As Neil Postman pointed out many years ago in Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, television turns everything it touches into entertainment. Law. Politics. Religion. Medicine. War. I've been invited to appear on Hannity & Colmes, John Kasich's Heartland, and other television programs. Some people would jump at the chance. I don't even write back.

Here is Christopher Hitchens's latest column. (Thanks to Dan Gifford for the link.)

A consequentialist acknowledges no limits—no agent-centered restrictions—on pursuit of the good. In their pursuit of political power, which they deem a great good, liberals are consequentialists. They will lie, defame, distort, cheat, steal, and engage in dirty tricks to win the presidency. It isn't just conservatives saying this. Ralph Nader says it. See here.

The Red Sox are winning, which depresses me, so I'm blog-hopping this evening to keep my spirits up. I hope you're visiting Rose Nunez's blog on a regular basis. She will give your brain a daily workout.

Dr Bill Vallicella explains why he's an independent philosopher.

Steve Rugg would love to tell you about the Fair Tax. See here. While you're there, read Steve's other posts. I'm proud to have helped him find his blogospheric niche.

As many of you know, this is the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804-1806. I'm reading the journals in real time for the third time, this time 200 years after the fact. The Corps of Discovery is now—on 26 October 1804—in the vicinity of present-day Bismarck, North Dakota. Winter is fast approaching, so the Corps will construct Fort Mandan on the northeast bank of the Missouri River. The permanent party will head west in the spring. Others will return with the keelboat to St Louis. I'm teaching an upper-level course on The Virtues and Vices of Lewis and Clark this semester. I'm enjoying it very much. Today, one of my students, Jimmy Stone, gave me the address to this interesting site. Thanks, Jimmy!

It is not merely that political lies sometimes fail to violate autonomy. Sometimes they are required by it. Political decisions are often such that all the options incur heavy costs, such as decisions about when, and how, to wage war. Suppose there is a best option. The costs incurred by it are such that no government advocating the policy, and truthful about its costs, would win popular support; knowing this, citizens could have authorized disinformation in order to make, in such circumstances, the policy politically acceptable. Thus (e.g., by referendum or other balloted means) they might explicitly condone the government's use of dissimulation from time to time where this secured, or was thought likely to secure, public benefits such as national security or economic stability. This need not be because knowing the truth would incur additional costs. It might be a necessary condition of the policy's being politically feasible at all. What the citizens autonomously authorize, they do so without violation of their equality as citizens, since their capacity for autonomous action is the basis of their equal status. But if their equality as citizens is not violated, by the previous argument there is no reason to think that lying is wrong in this case. There are of course nonpolitical cases countenanced by the account in Section 3 where lying is not wrong. What is political, however, about the argument developed below is that the non-wrongness of lying, in the situation considered, derives from the legitimating mechanisms of democratic decision-procedures.

(Glen Newey, "Political Lying: A Defense," Public Affairs Quarterly: Philosophical Studies of Public Policy Issues 11 [April 1997]: 93-116, at 108-9 [italics in original])

I've been suggesting for over a year (see here) that Paul Krugman needs psychiatric help. His intellectual dishonesty transcends all bounds, which suggests that he is disturbed. He is obsessed with President Bush, for example. Finally, a psychiatrist examines him. See here. (Thanks to Donald Luskin for the link.)

Henceforth, presidential elections will have two phases: the democratic phase, in which people express their preferences, and the legal phase, in which lawyers wrangle over them. The first phase will be over a week from now. How long the second phase lasts remains to be seen.

To the Editor:

Re "Defeat Hurts, but Only So Much" (Week in Review, Oct. 24):

Comparing the Yankees to college students and the Red Sox to townies only underscores how partisan we are and how much our partisanship is defined by baseball.

It's true that baseball isn't like life, but all fans are equal, no matter which side of the tracks we come from. Baseball keeps us grounded: our reach for superiority pulls us back to earth.

If there's any cosmic conclusion to be drawn from the results of the American League Championship Series, that's it.

Dewey S. Wigod
New York, Oct. 24, 2004

This week's link is to Austro-Athenian Empire.

If you're a compassionate person, see here. Shouldn't the choices you make in life, including your dietary choices, reflect your values and express your character? If animals don't matter to you, why don't they? Do they suffer any less? Are their lives of less value? Do they have less of a desire to live? Don't just live out the life you were given by your parents. Reflect on your life and the choices you make. Become the person you want to be.

By the way, the Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary has a beautiful and useful newsletter to which you can subscribe. It is sent by e-mail. Please write to the site administrator to be put on the mailing list. Tell them AnalPhilosopher sent you.

There's no kind way to put it. Liberals are vicious people. I didn't notice the viciousness when I was liberal. Now I do. The other night, while watching MSNBC's Scarborough Country, I saw a most immoderate and hateful rant by so-called analyst Lawrence O'Donnell. See here for the video. It's a microcosm of the liberal smear campaign against President Bush. Vote wisely a week from today. If you vote for John Kerry, you reward O'Donnell-like behavior; and if you reward something, you get more of it. (Thanks to James Taranto for the link.)

This is a terrific company. Today I bought some Krinkle Cut chips that are low in sodium and high in potassium. No, I don't own stock in the company, but I should.

Plan, v.t. To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Prof. Burgess-Jackson,

I recently came across something called "Two Things." The theory is, in any given field, there are two major principles, and everything else is an application of those two.

For example, a computer programmer might say the two most important principles are (1) complex problems should be broken down into smaller, simpler problems, and (2) don't solve a problem more than once.

I tried to apply that idea to come up with a philosophy to live by. What two major principles govern most of my life, and are what I derive rules for myself from? My answer is here.

Since you are a professional philosopher, I'm curious to hear what Two Things you would come up with.

Regards,
Gopi Sundaram

If everything you knew about the Bush administration came from Paul Krugman's semiweekly New York Times columns, you would swear that it's the most conniving, dastardly gang of thugs in the history of humanity. If you choose not to believe that, you must believe that Krugman and his ilk are paranoid. I don't know about you, but I believe the latter. See here for the latest paranoia. Somebody get this man a therapist.

Peg Kaplan posted a link to this wonderfully uplifting and refreshing column by a conservative professor at Harvard University. Thanks, Peg! It's good to know that not all academics are soft-headed liberals.

Ally Eskin (from the swing state of Pennsylvania) recently passed the 11,000 mark with her blog. She is always interesting. Check it out.

Dear AnalPhilosopher,

Is it right for me to dumb myself down for my relationships with people who are not as educated as me? Sometimes I feel sad that what gives me great joy, learning, this thing that seems natural to me, I must hide. For example, my boyfriend has a female platonic friend (she's married) who is sort of a "clothes and makeup" girl. I made a comment after looking at her handwriting on a card she sent him (Big Loopy Letters). I said, "Gee, she must think Camus is a soap." Now he's all mad. Will I ever mind a man who will love me for my mind and body? Or at least like some of my mind but not too much, the one that got me the 138 points on my IQ test?

Yours truly,
AnalPhilosopher wanna-be.

I'm tempted to say that my Australian friend Dr John J. Ray is in fine form today, but dammit, he's always in fine form. He makes the rest of us in the blogosphere look like pikers. By the way, I told John once that he knows more about American history, politics, and culture than most Americans. Sad but true.

Here is Carol Platt Liebau's latest column for CaliforniaRepublic.org.

You may recall Jeff's tribute to Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners. Now he celebrates Johnny "Caveman" Damon of the Boston Red Sox. See here.

The Boston Red Sox, appropriately nicknamed The Idiots, have won the first two games of the inappropriately named World Series. Before Red Sox fans get too excited about this, they should remember three salient facts: (1) both games were at home, where Boston has an advantage, (2) St Louis won more games than anyone in baseball this past season, and (3) they're the Red Sox. Those of us who love watching Boston fans suffer wouldn't want St Louis to win in four, five, or even six games. It must be a seven-game Red Sox defeat, and it must come after Red Sox hopes and expectations have been raised to their highest level. Things are going just perfectly from this perspective. If St Louis wins all three games at home this week, the Cardinals will have to win only one of two games in Fenway Park. The question is not whether Boston will lose in seven games, but which player becomes the Bill Buckner for a new generation. I say Manny Ramirez.

Destiny, n. A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

See here. Click on the image to make it bigger.

To the Editor:

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput issues a moving call for honest public debate. He also perpetuates a divisive view about law in a free country.

Laws supporting the right to abortion acknowledge each woman's right to decide whether an abortion is moral or immoral. Laws restricting abortion make one decision for everyone.

Life is unpredictable. I would never force another woman to have an abortion against her will. Why should I be forced to have a baby against mine?

Jennifer Lymneos
Natick, Mass., Oct. 22, 2004

Nothing President Bush does pleases The New York Times. One senses that nothing he could do would please the Times. Read this editorial opinion from today's newspaper. The Times evidently agrees with President Bush's decision not to drill for natural gas on the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. But it can't bring itself to say so or to commend President Bush. Instead, it speculates that it's a political ploy. His evildoing is simply being deferred. This is precisely why our political discourse is so poisoned. Nobody, even in the editorial rooms of the largest newspapers, has any sense of fairness. Those who hate President Bush—and I believe the Times editors do—can't find anything good in him, or, if they can, they won't admit to it. Their aim is to get him out of office. Nothing else, not even basic fairness, matters.

I take the proposition 'God exists' (and the equivalent proposition 'There is a God') to be logically equivalent to 'there exists a person without a body (i.e. a spirit) who is eternal, is perfectly free, omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, and the creator of all things'. I use 'God' as the name of the person picked out by this description. I understand by God's being eternal that he always has existed and always will exist. There is an alternative understanding of 'eternal' in the Christian tradition as 'timeless' or 'outside time'. This understanding did not however arrive in the Christian tradition under the fourth century AD; it is very difficult to make any sense of it, and, for reasons which I have given elsewhere [in The Coherence of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977)], it seems quite unnecessary for the theist to burden himself with this understanding of eternity. By God's being perfectly free I understand that no object or event or state (including past states of himself) in any way causally influences him to do the actions which he does—his own choice at the moment of action alone determines what he does. By God's being omnipotent I understand that he is able to do whatever it is logically possible (i.e. coherent to suppose) that he can do. By God's being omniscient I understand that he knows whatever it is logically possible that he know. By God's being perfectly good I understand that he does no morally bad action. By his being the creator of all things I understand that everything which exists at each moment of time (apart from himself) exists because, at that moment of time, he makes it exist, or permits it to exist. This will suffice for present purposes as an account of what the claim that there is a God means. . . . The claim that there is a God is called theism. Theism is of course the core belief of the creeds of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

(Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God, rev. ed. [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991] [first edition published in 1979], 8-9 [footnotes omitted])

I have a terrible track record at predicting winners in presidential races, so I won't take a crack at this year's contest. Everyone says it'll be close, as it was in 2000. I hope President Bush is reelected. I believe he understands the world better than John Kerry. It's often said that the world changed on 9-11. It didn't change. It's the same dangerous world it was on 9-10. What changed is our appreciation of the danger we face. If we revert to the pre-9-11 mindset of viewing terrorism as a nuisance (John Kerry's word), we increase rather than decrease the probability of attack. To me, the war on radical Islam is the most important issue by far in this election. I want President Bush, not John Kerry, waging that war.

I'm also concerned about federal judges. There are bound to be Supreme Court vacancies during the next four years. I want justices who will interpret the law, not make it. I want justices who will rule on principle, not try to devise policy. I want judges who have a clear separation in their minds between what the Constitution permits and requires and what their political morality deems right, good, fair, or just. Judges may not be machines, but they're not philosopher-kings either. Sandra Day O'Connor has been a disaster on the Court for the past twenty years. She thinks her role is to compromise. It's not. It's to vindicate constitutional rights, whatever the consequences. How she could vote to uphold one affirmative-action program and strike down another, on the same day, at the same university, is beyond me. She's the John Kerry of the Court, always attending to nuances, always trying to please everyone.

I want justices like William Rehnquist, Clarence Thomas, and Robert Bork, justices who do not impose their will on states and who do not manufacture constitutional rights out of whole cloth. There is no constitutional right to privacy. It was invented, not discovered, in 1965. The consequences of this invention have been disastrous for our constitutional jurisprudence, as Judge Bork so brilliantly explained in his book The Tempting of America: The Political Seduction of the Law (New York: The Free Press, 1990). I'm not advocating conservative activism of the sort Antonin Scalia sometimes engages in. That's as bad as liberal activism. I'm advocating judicial restraint. Judges are not legislators or executives. Unless a right is clearly stated or implied by the Constitution, it does not exist. (In case you're wondering, I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation on constitutional interpretation.)

Having candidly expressed my preference for President Bush over John Kerry, I want to add that I can live with a Kerry presidency. I will be disappointed but not distraught if he wins. The nation will survive. It may even flourish, as it did under Bill Clinton. What worries me is that not many others feel this way. The citizenry is so polarized and so angry that the winner will have no mandate to govern. I intend to be civil and respectful to John Kerry, should he prevail. Will you join me in taking this vow? Unless many of us do, the next four years will be even uglier than the previous four. Let's show the world that we Americans not only do democracy right, but are good sportsmen.

To the Editor:

America has always been a magnet for freedom-seeking people, with millions of immigrants coming to a country that promised freedom and opportunity.

Now the word "freedom" has become a newly invoked justification for the occupation of a country that did not attack us, whose people have not greeted our soldiers as liberators.

What does President Bush mean by "freedom," when he claims that "freedom is on the march" in the Middle East (front page, Oct. 21)? To call a military occupation a path to freedom is Orwellian doublespeak.

The world knows that all manner of traditional rights associated with freedom are threatened in our own country. The essential element of a democratic society—trust—has been weakened, as secrecy, mendacity and intimidation have become the hallmarks of this administration.

Rhetoric matters. We have already lost one word that characterized the style of American thought and life as defined at the founding of the Republic: liberal. It has become the object of vilification, as our society drifts toward intolerant radicalism and fundamentalism.

Now "freedom" is being emptied of meaning and reduced to a slogan. But one doesn't demean the concept without injuring the substance.

Fritz Stern
New York, Oct. 21, 2004
The writer is a university professor emeritus at Columbia University.

See here for an essay about housework.

Eminem says he wants to see President Bush out of office. See here. Aren't you glad he shared his political views with us? The good news is that he has only one vote. The bad news is that he has a vote. (Thanks to Dan Gifford for the link.)

There appears to have been some misunderstanding of my recent post on theism. I was not attacking theism. Indeed, everything I said about theism I also said about atheism. What I said is that, while religious belief and disbelief have sources (i.e., causal explanations), they're ungrounded. The grounds are added later, as rationalizations or reconstructions of what is already believed or disbelieved. I suppose that if someone thinks all beliefs must be justified, and that religious beliefs are (in fact) justified, he or she will take offense at my post. But I don't think all beliefs must be justified. Justification must stop somewhere; why not at belief or disbelief in God?

By the way, note the analogy between political philosophy and epistemology. In political philosophy, conservatives believe that tradition needs no justification. Liberals believe that unless a tradition can be justified, it should be abolished. Epistemological conservatives believe that belief needs no justification. Epistemological liberals believe that unless a belief can be justified, it should be rejected. I'm a conservative both politically and epistemologically.

Hostility, n. A peculiarly sharp and specially applied sense of the earth's overpopulation. Hostility is classed as active and passive; as (respectively) the feeling of a woman for her female friends, and that which she entertains for all the rest of her sex.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

10-24-84 . . . The presidential election is less than two weeks away. All of the polls show Ronald Reagan leading Walter Mondale by a considerable margin, but there are grounds for hope for the Democrats. Some analysts say that women refuse to disclose their real voting choices to pollsters, for fear of upsetting their husbands. Whereas they say that they'll vote Republican, they will in fact vote for the ticket with a female on it—the Democratic ticket. Now, this is a shaky scenario, but one never knows. Stranger things have happened in American elections. Personally, I maintain my prediction that Reagan will win, although I hope that Mondale does.

Putting on airs is unseemly. When John Kerry puts on airs, geese die. See here.

Dear Keith,

Officials at the University of Illinois claim that there is a deer overpopulation at U of I's Allerton Park. They have proposed to remedy the situation with a bow hunt. [See here and here.] Rest assured that the people participating in this bow hunt will not be Olympic archers. They will be recreational hunters of varying abilities where archery is concerned. That means many animals will be shot in non-vital parts of their bodies. Some of the wounded animals will no doubt escape into the woods where they will die slow lingering deaths. Some of the other wounded animals, those too severely wounded to flee, will be shot again and perhaps several times before being brought down. Such a way of dealing with deer population problems is cruel and inhumane, especially when there are much more humane alternatives available. Some of the animals could be relocated, a more costly, but much more humane alternative. If the overpopulation problem is so severe that some of the animals must be murdered (there is no other term for it), then it should be done by professional marksmen who work for the forest service. These marksmen are able to kill the animals instantaneously—a fatal end for an innocent animal but at least it minimizes the animal's suffering.

Remember, the University of Illinois is a PUBLIC institution. It is funded with tax dollars, and not just tax dollars from people in the state of Illinois. Much of the research conducted at the University of Illinois is funded by federal research dollars which come from all taxpayers in America. If you don't think that a publicly funded institution of higher learning should be sponsoring a seven-week long deer bow hunt, please take a moment to write/email and call the people listed below. Also, please consider posting this information on your blog. Your readers' tax dollars fund research at U of I, and many of your readers might be opposed to such an inhumane way of dealing with an alleged deer-overpopulation problem. If U of I gets enough bad press on this matter and if enough people write David Schejbal, Associate Vice Chancellor at U of I, and the U of I Office of Public Affairs at the addresses below [schejbal@ad.uiuc.edu and r-kaler@ad.uiuc.edu, respectively], the officials at the U of I might cancel the hunt. Together, we might be able to prevent the senseless killing of these innocent animals. Thanks for you help.

Best,
Mylan Engel

Resolute, adj. Obstinate in a course that we approve.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Christian A. Johnson, "Derivatives and Rehypothecation Failure: It's 3:00 P.M., Do You Know Where Your Collateral Is?" Arizona Law Review 39 (1997): 949.

Jed Rubenfeld, "Antidisestablishmentarianism: Why RFRA Really Was Unconstitutional," Michigan Law Review 95 (August 1997): 2347.

Kim Apperson and Sharon Kiefer, "It's 1997: Do You Know Where Your Salmon Are?" Idaho Wildlife 17 (1997): 10.

B. Rollin, "Send in the Clones . . . Don't Bother, They're Here," Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 10 (1997): 25.

H. Porter Abbott, "Extratextual Intelligence," New Literary History 28 (fall 1997): 811.

I just watched Bill O'Reilly's interview with Richard Holbrooke, who's been mentioned as a cabinet official in a Kerry administration. Other sycophants angling for secretaryships are Madeleine Albright, Paul Krugman, and Robert Reich. Four more reasons to vote for President Bush.

Dear Keith:

It seems that you need a good education; certainly not the one you now live on today. With the overwhelming evidence presently available, just from Archeologists for the past one hundred years, there are incredible facts that the Bible is the verifiable truth.

The odds of the DNA chain forming is in the trillions to one.

The Tells in Israel offer much to provide true history.

Your statements [see here] are so ridiculous yet they cause little trouble. I feel sorry for you and really my only wish is that your blind mind is the same as the Israelis who will die because of unbelief, with no future life. During the Tribulation however, they will have one last chance to gain God's favor. Perhaps you will have that opportunity too. You are simply one of those atheists who become so endeavored in books that the real truth seems like a lie. You can educate yourself right into Hell.

Everyone knows that Jesus Christ was on this earth two thousand years ago and was crucified. But historians here on earth at that time herald that He healed and cured all, because He loved His children. And He raised many from the dead which may cause your hair to rise. Yet you must remember that God made Adam and Eve with His hands. God and Jesus are one and the same by the way.

The Ark of Noah is in the Ararat mountains because I have walked upon that four thousand year old remnant, that is about seven miles from Mt. Ararat itself. Take a trip there and see for yourself and the new convention center also. Might change your mind; I pray it does.

Bill Craig

Genius shows itself not so much in the discovery of new answers as in the discovery of new questions. It influences its age not by solving its problems but by opening its eyes to previously unconsidered problems. So the new ideas released by genius are those which give a new direction to inquiry, often amounting to a new method of thinking.

(Gilbert Ryle, Philosophical Arguments, Inaugural Lecture Delivered Before the University of Oxford, 30 October 1945 [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1945], 20)

To the Editor:

Re "A War Without Reason," by Bob Herbert (column, Oct. 18):

How is it possible that there is at least one-half of the country that still supports a president who misled us into war, botched the handling of the occupation and seriously increased the level of hatred and potential terrorism in the world directed at the United States?

How many more lives and mistakes can we put into this man's hands?

Mr. Herbert's voice is a clear statement of the unfortunate reality in which we Americans live. That is, we have a weak-minded president who betrayed the trust of us all in so many basic ways.

Michael Roth
West Orange, N.J., Oct. 18, 2004

I've always been put off by people who put on airs. John Kerry loves pretending to be something he's not. See here. What does that say about the man's character? Whatever you think of George W. Bush as a president, you have to admit that he's his own man, not someone else's. I think the American people want someone authentic in the White House, even if they disagree with him or her. John Kerry is a shameless fake.

I've been teaching philosophy of religion for over 20 years, either as part of an Introduction to Philosophy course or as a stand-alone course, so I've given a great deal of thought to the nature and grounds (if any) of religious belief. But I'm also an ordinary citizen and an amateur scientist, so I wonder about the sources as well as the grounds of religious belief. Where does it come from? What sustains it? Why are there conversions? Why do so many people come back to the religion of their youth? What psychological and social functions does religion subserve?

I'm convinced that most religious belief is ungrounded. It has sources (i.e., a causal history), but no rational basis. I've never known anyone who came to believe in God on the basis of the classical arguments, which I will summarize for those who aren't familiar with them:

The Ontological Argument: God's nonexistence is inconceivable (or logically impossible); therefore, God exists.

The Cosmological Argument: Our experience of contingency presupposes something necessary, viz., God.

The Teleological Argument: The universe appears to be designed, so it probably was—by God.

The Moral Argument: Our experience of morality as objectively binding presupposes a supernatural lawgiver, viz., God.

Nor, quite frankly, have I known anyone who became an atheist as a result of the argument from evil, which says that the amount or kinds of evil in the world either preclude God's existence or make it unlikely.

So why do we discuss these arguments? If they make little difference to people's beliefs, why waste time on them? The answer, I think, is twofold. First, they're inherently interesting. Just try not being taken in by Anselm's 11th-century version of the ontological argument, or Aquinas's 13th-century version of the cosmological argument, or David Hume's 18th-century discussions of the teleological argument and the argument from evil, or Immanuel Kant's 18th-century version of the moral argument. Second, they make religious belief respectable. My belief or disbelief may not rest on rational considerations, but if a rational case can be made for it, ex post facto, then I need not be embarrassed.

Philosophers love to say that theory is underdetermined by data. That is to say, more than one theory is compatible with (explains) what is known. I believe religious belief falls in this category. The world as we experience it neither requires religious belief nor precludes it. The world is compatible both with God and without God. From the fact that God either exists or doesn't (which is an instance of the law of excluded middle), it doesn't follow that only one of these propositions is rationally supportable. In fact, both are supportable. There is reason to believe in God and there is reason to disbelieve in God.

Some people, for whatever personal reason, incline toward the former; others incline toward the latter. Those who incline toward the former tend to dress up their belief with arguments for the existence of God. Those who incline toward the latter tend to dress up their belief with arguments against the existence of God. The belief or disbelief comes first; the rationale comes later. If there's anything wrong with this, I don't know what it is.

Dissemble, v.i. To put a clean shirt upon the character.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Keith,

I've finally removed Andrew Sullivan from my bookmarks and have vowed, to myself at least, not to go there again. What prompted me to do this? This post from today:

IRAQ'S ELECTION: Let's review where we are. There aren't even faintly enough U.N. troops to prepare for a legitimate election in January. The reason is the security situation. Will it improve enough by December to goad the U.N. into sending the hundreds of experts to make it work? The odds must be massively against it. The one major obstacle is Falluja, and a successful incursion there seems to be prompting some in the Sunni leadership to threaten to boycott the elections entirely. Could we simply police the elections ourselves? First question: with whom? We don't even have enough troops to retake Falluja and keep Baghdad from blowing up. And if we did, our troops are now so unpopular they would themselves undermine popular legitimacy for the elections. What is Bush's answer to this? He simply asserts that elections will take place. That's it. Say after me: if Bush says it, it must be true. If Bush says it, it must be true. Feel better yet? This is what Republicans have to do every day. Faith, not facts. Faith, not facts. Believe . . . and you will be healed. All will be healed.

Paul Krugman is a piece of work. He's already delegitimizing the expected Bush victory. See here.

Me? Offend? Come on, Ally. I aim to please!

Peg Kaplan is put off by our puerile, polarized politics. See here.

Here is what I wrote about Teresa Heinz Kerry on 4 August, a little over 11 weeks ago.

Steve Headley predicts that President Bush will be reelected with 55.0% of the electoral votes. See here. I hope you're right, Steve.

The St Louis Cardinals just defeated the Houston Astros in the seventh game of their National League Championship Series, so they're off to Fenway Park for the first game of the World Series against the Boston Red Sox. The teams have met twice: in 1946 and in 1967. I discovered baseball in 1967 and very much enjoyed that year's World Series, so this year's Series will bring back fond memories. In case you're wondering, St Louis won both series in seven games. I know that my former colleague Ken Buckman, who is a longtime Cardinals fan, is delighted with tonight's result. The Cardinals haven't been to the World Series since 1987, almost as long as my Detroit Tigers (1984). They haven't won it since 1982. Prediction: St Louis in seven games.

Norm Weatherby likes mathematical puzzles. See here for his latest.

Dr Bill Vallicella has a stimulating post about conservatism and the Left. See here.

Steve Rugg has a post about a letter he received from a Marine in Najaf, Iraq. See here. Thanks for supporting our troops, Steve. You're a good man.

Dr John J. Ray of Brisbane, Australia, is one of the best-informed bloggers in the blogosphere. Read his blog for a few days and you'll see what I mean. John puts ordinary intellectuals to shame.

Carol Platt Liebau continues her fine blogging here.

Jeff outdoes himself with this post. Hilarious!

Dear Dr. Keith,

You wrote the following on your website [here]:

Someone wrote to me to say that, since I've been all over the map politically, I'm ready for Christianity. What? I've been an atheist since I was ten. I've never been close to being a theist. The thought that there is a disembodied person, much less a disembodied person who's omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipresent, is omnipreposterous. Even if I wanted to believe in such a being, which I most emphatically do not, I couldn't bring myself to. I can't make myself believe in Santa Claus or the Easter bunny. How could I make myself believe in God, which is a million times more fanciful? Somehow my atheism infuriates people. Let it go. I'm content to let you believe what you want. Let me disbelieve what I want.

Here is an essay about the mental health of hunters. (Thanks to Dan Gifford for the link.)

10-21-84 . . . Tonight's debate between President Reagan and Walter Mondale was interesting and informative, but not as exciting as the debate of two weeks ago. Tonight's debate centered on foreign policy, while that of two weeks ago centered on domestic issues. Frankly, I am not much interested in foreign policy, except to the extent that it imperils my life or livelihood. I assume that things will remain basically the way that they are in the international arena, and so I concentrate my attention on domestic issues like abortion, women's rights, and government employment policy. I am simply not concerned with the Iran-Iraq conflict, the revolution in El Salvador, MX missiles and B1 bombers, or whether we should give military assistance to the Israelis. One must set priorities, and mine lie elsewhere. I can do only so much in a short lifetime. And so my advice is as follows: Let those who would kill and maim each other continue to do so, but please, leave the rest of us alone to pursue our own interests. One hundred years from now, the Arabs will still be fighting the Israelis. I just know it. Why waste time and energy trying to stop the unstoppable? There are better ways to spend my time.

Kilt, n. A costume sometimes worn by Scotchmen in America and Americans in Scotland.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

To the Editor:

In "Improving Education" (letter, Oct. 16), the writer says we not only need money but also "new ideas" to improve public education. But public education has been flooded with new ideas in recent decades, and far too many children continue to leave school without a decent education.

Just as improvements to horses and buggies do not produce an automobile, so all the many improvements to public schools over recent years do not add up to the new kind of education system needed to educate children in today's world.

Learning can be brought to the levels now needed only by basically changed relationships among students, teachers and families, in which each participant first holds himself accountable for quality performance and then the others for collaborating and support in nonbureaucratic ways.

Educational experience and research confirm that these relationships make some schools successful, even with students from difficult backgrounds. What subverts the system is the bureaucratic culture in public schools.

The current drive for more money and accountability is unlikely to reform our schools, only further entrench the existing dysfunctional public school system. Policy makers need to face this fundamental system change.

David S. Seeley
Staten Island, Oct. 18, 2004
The writer is a professor of education at the CUNY Graduate Center.

John Kerry will raise your taxes. If you vote for him, you are voting for higher taxes. Read this. These are John Kerry's friends. They want big government—government that dictates and coerces, government that subsidizes bad choices and immunizes people from the consequences of their own folly. Note the disingenuous rhetoric. The Times doesn't call for a tax increase. It calls for a rollback of the tax cuts. Nifty, eh? By making the pre-tax-cut situation the baseline, the Times is able to avoid saying that it wants higher taxes on middle-class and working-class Americans. Don't fall for it. Perhaps if liberals such as George Soros would distribute their wealth directly to the needy, there would be no need for big-government programs. It's really very simple. If you want to eliminate or alleviate poverty, work harder and share your wealth. Stop trying to coerce others into promoting your values.

My philosophical colleagues around the world will hate me for saying this, but there's nothing wrong with using "beg the question" to mean either "pose (or raise) the question" or "evade a difficulty." Philosophers don't own the expression—and even if they invented it, it has long since passed into the public domain. Philosophers use the expression in a technical way, but they have no right to dictate how it is used outside philosophical contexts. To a philosopher, begging the question consists in assuming the point in issue—or something from which the point in issue follows. If I'm trying to establish that God exists, for example, I may not use a premise that either asserts or implies that God exists. That would be circular. I will have pulled myself up by my bootstraps.

Many terms of ordinary life are given technical meanings in technical contexts. Take the word "burglary," which ordinary people use to mean illegal entry into a building for purposes of stealing. At common law, "burglary" was defined as the breaking and entering of a dwelling place in the nighttime with the specific intent to commit a felony or petty larceny therein. Thus, if I break into a house at night to commit rape, arson, robbery, murder, or kidnapping, I commit common-law burglary. It has to be a house, not a barn or an office. It has to be in the nighttime. There has to be a breaking (as opposed to a walking-in through an open door or a crawling-in through an open window). There has to be specific intent at the time of entering. If I form my intent to rape, murder, or steal after entering, I do not commit burglary.

It may seem silly to have such a narrowly defined crime, but there was a reason for it. Each common-law felony protected a distinct interest or cluster of interests. Burglary arose to protect the security of the home, which is most vulnerable at night. It's not about property, life, or bodily integrity. It's about domestic security. Many states have defined "burglary" differently from the common law, but that was the original understanding. A prosecutor had to prove each element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt to secure a conviction.

There are many other examples of ordinary terms used in technical ways: "energy" to a physicist, "bureaucracy" to a political scientist, "schizophrenia" to a psychiatrist. Psychiatrists howl when people use "schizophrenia" (literally, split mind) to mean multiple personality, but they don't own the term. They have no right to bully those outside the profession into using terms in technical ways. So, to my philosophical colleagues, chill out. When we talk to each other, we know what "beg the question" means. Other people can use the term to mean "pose (or raise) the question" or "evade a difficulty." Usually, the context is such that the intended meaning is clear.

Charles Fried has had as distinguished a legal career as any lawyer in America. He has been a law professor at Harvard University for several decades, but has also served as Solicitor General of the United States and as an associate justice on the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. He argues here that the Supreme Court of the United States is adrift in doctrinal seas. Instead of ruling on principle, it tries to compromise. The Supreme Court, as Ronald Dworkin so crisply put it in 1981, is the forum of principle, not of policy. Its job is to vindicate constitutional rights, not craft doctrines that please everyone.

10-20-84 . . . There was an animal-rights march this morning near the university, but I decided to remain at home instead of participating. Don't get me wrong. I oppose vivisection (experimentation on live animals) as much as anyone, but as a rational person, I recognize that demonstrations tend to be ineffectual. Sometimes, they alienate more people than they persuade. I feel that I can contribute more to the cause of animal rights by writing and lecturing on the subject than by carrying a sign and getting my picture on the evening news. I respect the demonstrators, but I decide to protest in other ways. Incidentally, I saw pictures of Lori Gruen, a fellow graduate student, on the news this evening. She was sitting by a small casket with the name "Lucky" on it in one scene, and was walking down the street with other protesters in another. Finally, I saw her being carried away by police after having been arrested for trespassing on university property. Go get 'em, Lori! You have demonstrated your commitment to the cause by paying a very personal price: arrest. Peter Singer, whose book (Animal Liberation) you carried, would have been proud.

Plagiarism . . . is the most serious sin of a peculiarly academic kind that one can commit. It involves quite essentially elements of misrepresentation, fraud, brazen lying, and cheating. It is a clear example of a dishonorable act, one that offends against the highest ideals of intellectual honesty, those to which the great scholars and scientists have dedicated their careers in centuries past.

(Joel Feinberg, Doing Philosophy: A Guide to the Writing of Philosophy Papers, 2d ed. [Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002], 10)

One of my readers took my advice and read Mylan Engel's essay "The Immorality of Eating Meat," a link to which appears on the left. The reader said that kosher killing is morally superior to other sorts of killing. I forwarded the reader's letter to Mylan, who responded this morning as follows:

Dear Keith:

One of your readers, J. Wetstein PE, insists that my claims about "kosher slaughter" are inaccurate. S/he goes on to claim that you won't find a more humane treatment of animals for meat production than with kosher standards, but s/he offers no evidence in support of this claim. It sounds like a religious conviction rather than a well-founded, evidence-based empirical claim. So, let's look at the facts. According to "Kashrut" (Jewish dietary laws), the animal must be fully conscious when slaughtered. The method of slaughter is a quick, deep stroke across the throat with a perfectly sharp blade with no nicks or unevenness. This method is supposedly painless and is supposed to cause unconsciousness within two seconds and is therefore thought to be the most humane method of slaughter.

In theory, that may be correct, but in practice, kosher slaughter, at least in the U.S., makes for a horrific death for the animals so slaughtered. Moreover, even if kosher slaughter were more humane than other forms of slaughter, that would have no impact on the handling and transportation of the animals on their way to the slaughterhouse. These animals are prodded with electric cattle prods and beaten with metal poles to drive them onto the trucks. They are then shipped long distances without food or water and without adequate protection from the elements. In winter, some animals literally freeze to the sides of these trucks. When they arrive at the slaughterhouse, they are again prodded with electric prods and metal pipes to force them up the shoot to the slaughterer who awaits them. None of this constitutes what I would call "humane treatment." But now let's turn to kosher slaughter as it is actually practiced in the U.S. John Robbins has aptly described how the implementation of kosher slaughter laws in the U.S. is actually a perversion of the original intent of those laws. I have linked to an excerpt from his book below. Once you read Robbins's accurate description (I have seen detailed video footage documenting everything Robbins claims), you'll see that there is no plausible way of viewing kosher slaughter, at least in the U.S., as a humane way of killing animals. Even Orthodox rabbis in Sweden are starting to acknowledge this fact and have come to allow animals to be stunned before killing. Not so here in the U.S. Read Robbins's account, and you'll see why kosher slaughter is not humane in practice.

Best, Mylan

p.s. I obtained this Robbins excerpt from meat.org's web site [www.meat.org] which contains a great deal of information about animal slaughter, including some streaming video of pig and chicken slaughter. After viewing this footage, your readers can decide for themselves whether the slaughtering techniques used in the U.S. today are humane.

Jean Robart sent a link to this essay by Nelson Ascher, "Why I Won't Vote for Bush." (Thanks, Jean.)

Incumbent, n. A person of the liveliest interest to the outcumbents.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

It's politically incorrect to say this, but Western civilization depends on masculinity. There are evil people in the world, folks. They can't be reasoned with; they must be incapacitated so that their malevolence doesn't become maleficence. Men know what it means to stand up to evil. This is not a slight on women, for Western civilization depends on femininity as well. Each has its place. Together they suffice to produce the stable, orderly democracies that we see throughout the Western world.

Unfortunately, masculinity has become a vice. Feminists have emasculated men to such an extent that concepts such as honor, loyalty, fortitude, courage, and self-sufficiency are viewed with suspicion. Feminist women raise effeminate boys, who grow up to be inadequate, incompetent, insecure men. Some boys have no man around the house from whom to learn masculine virtue. Please read this post by Michelle Malkin. Then read this superb essay by Terrence O. Moore. Men must stop apologizing for their masculinity. They have saved the world. They will do so again. If women don't appreciate it, that's their problem.

As longtime readers of this blog know, I stopped reading Andrew Sullivan's blog many months ago. At first, I was taken by his hawkishness on the war in Iraq. That he was both homosexual and conservative (or so he claimed) made him interesting. But then he started talking trash about President Bush because of the president's support for the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA). Sullivan never argued that the president was wrong. He never engaged the president on the merits of the FMA. I would respect that. Instead, he attacked the character of those (including the president) who support the amendment.

Over and over, Sullivan referred to the FMA as "the religious-right amendment." In the course of doing so, he strongly implied that President Bush supported the FMA only to solidify his religious base, and not because he believed in it or thought it a matter of principle. But one doesn't have to be religious in order to support the FMA. There are secular reasons to want to amend the Constitution if that's what it takes to keep unaccountable judges from writing their values into law. And what's wrong with having religious motivation? Many abolitionists were opposed to slavery for religious reasons. Does that mean there is no case against slavery, or that the case against slavery is suspect?

By dismissing supporters of the FMA as religious wackos, Sullivan relieved himself of the obligation to argue. How convenient! How would he feel if I referred to homosexual "marriage" as "the fag proposal"? He would be outraged, and rightly so, for I would be dismissing his arguments on the basis of the defectiveness of the person who makes them. Doesn't he see that supporters of the FMA are equally outraged by having their arguments dismissed? Neither side should be attacking the person of the other. Both should be engaging the arguments of the other.

Another disreputable tactic Sullivan employs, and that every philosopher should condemn, is claiming that opponents of homosexual "marriage" want to deny people rights. But this begs the question. The question at issue is whether there is a right—legal, moral, or constitutional—to marry someone of the same sex. Sullivan uses language that makes it seem as though there is such a right (uncontroversially) and that certain nasty people are trying to "deny" it or take it away. This is dishonest. Instead of doing the hard work of rational persuasion, Sullivan uses manipulative, disrespectful rhetoric. Once this started, I stopped reading him. Perhaps you should, too.

Joel Feinberg was born on this date in 1926. He died this past March. I will always treasure the time I spent with him. He taught me, inspired me, mentored me. I owe my happiness to him.

I'm a conservative. I'm also a proponent of animal rights. There is no entailment relation between the two, so far as I can discern. But there is no incompatibility, either, as some unthinking conservatives appear to believe (or want to believe). See here. (Thanks to John Andrews for the link.)

John Kerry just lost the men's vote. See here.

My own observations, for what they are worth, do not suggest that those who accept the 'positivist' analysis of moral judgements conduct themselves very differently as a class from those who reject it; and, indeed, I doubt if the study of moral philosophy does, in general, have any very marked effect upon people's conduct.

(A. J. Ayer, "On the Analysis of Moral Judgements," chap. 10 in his Philosophical Essays [London: Macmillan and Company, 1954], 231-49, at 249 [essay first published in 1949])

This week's link is to This Is Not the Name of This Blog.

Most people think with their brains. These people think with their hearts. For the sake of world peace, which they profess to value, let us hope they never gain political power. (Thanks to James Taranto of Best of the Web Today for the link.)

To the Editor:

That so much damage in four short years could be inflicted on America and on the thousands of victims—Iraqi and American—of the Bush administration's nightmare of a war in Iraq is more than sufficient reason for regime change.

To your Oct. 17 editorial's litany of the administration's blunders and abuses, I would add its reckless disregard for international law, its dismissal of a strong technical consensus on global warming and its refusal to pursue vigorously the road map for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The hallmarks of the Bush administration are a ruthless ideology of domination abroad and fiscal and constitutional irresponsibility at home.

John Kerry is willing to take on the daunting task of undoing the damage. We cannot know how his policies will unfold, but his record of experience, integrity and bravery in public service is the best guarantee that the huge problems we now face will be effectively addressed.

Susan Wright
Ann Arbor, Mich., Oct. 17, 2004

To the Editor:

Your Oct. 17 editorial tells us why not to vote for President Bush, but provides comparatively few reasons to vote for John Kerry. The best you can do in his support is to muster up a catalog of the failures of Mr. Bush.

Many who support the president, including me, acknowledge some of these failures. But you give scant emphasis to a fundamental issue: we are at war, and voters will cast their ballots for the man they feel will be the best leader and defender of our nation.

Under President Bush, there has been a muscular, unapologetic projection of American power both in response to the attacks of Sept. 11 and in anticipation of further acts of terrorism.

While there is a time for nuance, diplomacy and the steady, slow work of alliance building, many voters sense that for Mr. Kerry, these words mask a basic reluctance, born in the Vietnam era, to use military power under any circumstances.

This is not the time for such sentiments.

Alexander Goldstein
Brooklyn, Oct. 17, 2004

Apologize, v.i. To lay the foundation for a future offence.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Stereotype
Monotype
Blood type
Are you my type?
Minimalism
Abstract expressionism
Postmodernism
Is it?

We are the children of concrete and steel
This is the place where the truth is concealed
This is the time when the lie is revealed
Everything is possible, but nothing is real

Corporate religion
Televangahypnotism
Suffer till you die
For the sweet-bye-and-bye
Science and technology, the new mythology
Look deep inside
Empty

We are the children of concrete and steel
This is the place where the truth is concealed
This is the time when the lie is revealed
Everything is possible, but nothing is real

Everything that goes around
Comes around

Hypothetical
Theoretical
Circumstantial evidence
Irrelevance
Don't think twice
Just roll the dice
Pay the price
Snake eyes

We are the children of concrete and steel
This is the place where the truth is concealed
This is the time when the lie is revealed
Everything is possible, but nothing is real

We are the children of concrete and steel
This is the place where your fate has been sealed
This is the time when your life is revealed
Everything is possible, but nothing is real

Everything that goes around
Comes around . . .

This is the most underestimated and unappreciated rock band in the world. Listen to "Open Letter (To a Landlord)," from Vivid (1988), and "Type," from Time's Up (1990). You will not be disappointed.

I shouldn't think or feel this, much less say it, but I enjoy watching fans of the Boston Red Sox squirm, sweat, and suffer. The team's record of ineptitude is unrivaled. Nobody alive today remembers the team's last World Series victory, in 1918. Okay, there may be someone in his or her nineties who remembers it, but the number of such souls can't be large. Did you see the games the past two evenings? Red Sox fans were tense and tortured. They prayed, covered their eyes, and crossed their fingers. They were on the edges of their seats, both literally and figuratively. They hope beyond hope that their team defeats the hated Yankees, but deep down they know that it cannot. The fates are arrayed against them. I wonder sometimes what will happen if Boston wins the World Series. Will the character of Bostonians change? Will there be a collective sigh heard 'round the world? Will the heavens fall? If there is any justice in this world, we will never find out.

Hello, Keith

You wrote [here]: "Maybe they think Kerry doesn't mean it, whereas Bush does." As the Brits say, "Spot on."

GWB mentions God and freedom in one breath and you'd think that the Constitution is ten minutes away from being replaced by Leviticus. But you can watch the quadrennial migration of Democrats to Black churches, arm-in-arm with the Revs Sharpton and Jackson, and not a hint of unease from the media about this.

As you imply, everyone knows that religious leftists and leftists who like to appear religious are basically leftists first and everything else comes after. It's just a little holy water on their pre-existing conditions. So aside from the media rule that, in contest with Republicans, Democrats are always nicer and righter, you have the truth that no one believes that religion, by itself, means anything to these people. GWB, no matter what else you think of him, strikes everyone as sincerely religious. And thus frightening to the Left.

(As I am sure I do not need to tell an atheist like you, his sincere faith does not guarantee that he be wise, good, correct, or prudent. It's just that he is sincere and would likely hold himself to a religiously derived standard even when it might not be politically expedient).

And the second reason why the particular kind of church-going mentioned above is never criticized is that these are Black churches and so, of course, any critique of anything that goes on there is, gasp, racist.

I do pity God sometimes.

Stephen Manning
San Francisco

A cynic is someone who questions other people's motives. If I say that my motive in doing X was Y, the cynic will say that Z rather than Y was my real or operative motive. Some degree of cynicism is healthy, but, like any other quality, one can have too little or too much of it. When it comes to President Bush, Paul Krugman has too much of it. His hatred for the president causes him to doubt the president's veracity, challenge the president's sincerity, impugn the president's character and integrity, and question the president's motives. Today (here) he questions President Bush's motive for saying that there will be no draft in his second term of office. Krugman strongly implies that the president intends to reinstitute a draft but won't say so for political reasons. No matter how often or emphatically President Bush says he will not reinstitute a draft, Krugman won't believe him. This is the sign of a zealot.

Hello,

I'm a new visitor to your blog, and I've enjoyed reading it so far. I'm a Christian Republican, and I found your site via Hugh Hewitt.

I was surprised to see that Andrew Sullivan was on your list of ne'er-do-wells. He hasn't endorsed Kerry, and just today he posted two intelligent essays by people who explain why they are voting for Bush ("The Case for Bush" and "Another Case for Bush"). He was pro-Iraq invasion and rejoiced in the recent voting in Afghanistan, which he said only fools would deny as part of Bush's legacy. He also dismisses Michael Moore and the celebrity Left. He is also unabashed in his misgivings about John Kerry, especially where Kerry's foreign policy clashes with Sullivan's hawkishness.

Are all of these things the qualities of a ne'er-do-well? I would agree that the other names on your list that I recognize are often intellectually dishonest with their viewers/readers/fans, as well as with themselves. Yet Andrew Sullivan is honest about his misgivings with both candidates, and is willing to air all views on his site. I go to his site because his standards of argument are higher than, say, Sean Penn.

Of course, he is a vocal critic of various Bush policies/decisions, but I doubt that this alone could be why he is on the list. Again, Andrew Sullivan is undecided about whom to vote for. This indecision may make him misguided or just plain wrong, but I think he deserves more regard than the other names on your list.

Last of all, I was curious as to why you didn't link to his site. With all due respect, it appeared as if you didn't want anyone to visit his site.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope to hear from you!

Sincerely,

Dan Beltran
Burbank, CA

Because of its spontaneity, speed, privacy, and leisure value, e-mail offers the option of greater levels of informality than are found elsewhere in traditional writing. But as the medium matures, it is becoming apparent that it is not exclusively an informal medium, and received opinion is going to have to change.

(David Crystal, Language and the Internet [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001], 127-8)

To the Editor:

Qualified voters are (by definition) entitled to vote. But the Democrats are as bad as the Republicans.

Ralph Nader is not on my California ballot. The Democratic Party has actively suppressed his candidacy. ("Write-in" is an obvious joke.)

You may split hairs (largely irrelevant and obvious) about methods, but the basic truth is that both Democrats and Republicans are acting in raw self-interest. Both parties are undemocratic and work to suppress the vote in ways that will help them, not society.

Rex Hausladen
Mountain View, Calif., Oct. 15, 2004

Brandy, n. A cordial composed of one part thunder-and-light[n]ing, one part remorse, two parts bloody murder, one part death-hell-and-the-grave and four parts clarified Satan. Dose, a headful all the time. Brandy is said by Dr. Johnson to be the drink of heroes. Only a hero will venture to drink it.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Prof. Burgess-Jackson,

I was reading an article which offered some decent criticism of the elections in Afghanistan. The point of the article can be had from its title: "It Takes More Than Crosses on Paper to Create a Legitimate Regime."

The following representative paragraph from this article is true in all its particulars . . . but it was offered as background in an article which does nothing but criticize in a cynical fashion without offering alternatives. As soon as I read it, I felt a strange compulsion to pick it apart piece by piece.

Here is the paragraph that ruffled my feathers:

US forces took out the Taliban regime without having any idea of what to replace it with. The war was never anything to do with Afghans or the future of Afghanistan—plans for a new administration and elections have been cobbled together as an afterthought. But international forces won't leave and allow Afghans to govern themselves. They have built phantom state institutions, with all the correct titles—president, defense minister, cabinet—but none of the political weight.

1) US forces took out the Taliban regime without having any idea of what to replace it with.

2) The war was never anything to do with Afghans or the future of Afghanistan.

3) Plans for a new administration and elections have been cobbled together as an afterthought.

4) But international forces won't leave and allow Afghans to govern themselves.

5) They have built phantom state institutions, with all the correct titles—president, defense minister, cabinet—but none of the political weight.

If you vote for John Kerry two weeks from tomorrow, you are voting for (and thereby empowering) all of the following:

Terry McAuliffe
Michael Moore
Janeane Garofalo
George Soros
Susan Estrich
Paul Krugman
Andrew Sullivan
Dan Rather
Teresa Heinz Kerry
Ted Kennedy
Al Gore
Jimmy Carter
Maureen Dowd
Bob Herbert
The Dixie Chicks
Sean Penn
Al Franken
Madeleine Albright
Richard Clarke
Joseph Wilson
Howard Dean
Peter Singer
The editors of The New York Times
Ted Rall
Garry Trudeau
Lawrence O'Donnell
Katrina Vanden Heuvel
MoveOn.org
Robert Reich
Trial lawyers

Someone wrote to me to say that, since I've been all over the map politically, I'm ready for Christianity. What? I've been an atheist since I was ten. I've never been close to being a theist. The thought that there is a disembodied person, much less a disembodied person who's omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipresent, is omnipreposterous. Even if I wanted to believe in such a being, which I most emphatically do not, I couldn't bring myself to. I can't make myself believe in Santa Claus or the Easter bunny. How could I make myself believe in God, which is a million times more fanciful? Somehow my atheism infuriates people. Let it go. I'm content to let you believe what you want. Let me disbelieve what I want.

I've put Dave Barry to the test. I've read his columns when I was in various moods. Invariably, I have tears streaming down my face by the time I finish. Here is his latest column. See for yourself.

To the Editor:

I am a supporter of Ralph Nader and plan to vote for him; his beliefs and values best represent mine.

If Mr. Nader had been prevented from appearing on the Florida ballot, I would not automatically support John Kerry. I would simply not vote.

How can the Democratic Party claim to be better than the Republicans when it is working feverishly to prevent Mr. Nader from appearing on state ballots, essentially fighting for the legal power to disenfranchise people like me?

Denise Thompson
Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Oct. 15, 2004

The editors of The New York Times have endorsed John Kerry for president. See here. I wonder how many people will be swayed by this—or by today's endorsement of President Bush by The Dallas Morning News. Newspaper editors must feel awfully self-important if they think these pronouncements make any difference. If anything, the Times's endorsement of Kerry proves that he is the liberal candidate.

I began a post this morning with "My friend Mylan Engel Jr recently lectured. . . ." Had I inserted commas after "friend" and "Jr," I would have implied that I have only one friend, which is false. (Really, it is!) Suppose I were talking about my mother. Since I have only one mother, I would write, "My mother, Laura, recently lectured. . . ." See the difference? If I wrote, "My mother Laura recently lectured. . . ," I would have implied that I have more than one mother, which is false.

Commas are important for many reasons. Several years ago, there was a squabble over the Republican party's platform. Someone wrote, "We are opposed to taxes which slow economic growth." Someone objected, claiming that this implies that some taxes do and some do not slow economic growth, and that the party opposes only those that do slow economic growth. The party ended up putting a comma after "taxes," which made the sentence "We are opposed to taxes, which slow economic growth." See the difference? The second formulation implies that all taxes slow economic growth and that the party opposes all of them—for that reason.

Careful writers are careful in their use of commas.

Un-American, adj. Wicked, intolerable, heathenish.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

21 March 2002, 11:13 A.M. Karl: You should know better than to ask a political junkie/political philosopher about the relation between conservatism and libertarianism. Please do not be offended by the pedagogical tone of the following. (What can I say? I'm a teacher.) Before I begin, let me tell you how I conceive the issue. It's about the proper relation between the individual and the state. This is the perennial problem of political philosophy. It is the problem Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, and Rawls grappled with. Note that the word "proper" makes it a normative or evaluative inquiry. Once one has a view about the proper relation between the individual and the state, one can use it as a basis for criticism. Libertarians, for example, are critical of the status quo. Indeed, everyone is critical of it, since it is impure. Our system is neither libertarian, totalitarian, conservative, nor liberal, but a godawful mixture of the four.

I begin with libertarianism. The other ideologies can be understood in light of it. As the name implies, libertarians are committed to individual liberty, understood as the absence of constraint. Libertarians are not anarchists; they believe that some degree of government (law) is justified. How much government? Only enough to protect us from each other and from external threats. Libertarians say that the only legitimate liberty-limiting principle is the harm principle. My liberty stops at the tip of your nose. Note what this rules out. It is never a good reason to prohibit and punish conduct that it (1) is immoral or (2) risks harm to the person engaging in the conduct. Libertarians, in other words, are opposed to legal moralism ("legislating morality") and paternalism (treating competent adults like children). Libertarians support laws against murder, battery, rape, theft, arson, and fraud. Each of these actions involves harm by one person to another. To a libertarian, consent is morally magic. It transforms an unacceptable act into an acceptable one. Thus, libertarians support voluntary euthanasia, suicide, and physician-assisted suicide. Libertarians think that each competent adult lives in a moral bubble. Unless I consent to your coming into my bubble, you may not. I have no affirmative obligation to help anyone, although I may if I choose. Libertarians view taxation for purposes other than those mentioned (courts, a defensive military) as theft. Taxation for purposes of redistribution violates individual rights to be left alone. Libertarians are methodological individualists. That is to say, they take the individual as the basic unit of social analysis. All associations are voluntary. All wholes are reducible to their parts. No whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Libertarianism is sometimes known as classical liberalism.

Still with me? Once you understand libertarianism, you understand all the other ideologies. (By the way, I use "ideology" in a nonpejorative sense. It means "normative framework." Since everyone has such a framework, everyone is an ideologue, and if everyone is an ideologue, then it can't be disreputable to be one.) Let's turn to liberalism. The liberal agrees with the libertarian that there should be no victimless crimes. It should not be a crime, for example, to use drugs, even dangerous ones. Of course, if my use of drugs creates a risk of harm to others, then the state has a legitimate interest in regulating or prohibiting my conduct. But notice that it's the risk, not the use of drugs, that supports the prohibition. We should treat all drugs the way we treat alcohol. It's permissible to use alcohol, but you may not drive while under its influence. People on "hard" drugs who commit robberies or burglaries to support their habit are convictable, but not because they're on drugs. They're convictable because they're harming others. So in the personal realm, liberals agree with libertarians.

They part ways, however, in the economic realm. Liberals believe that government should restrict economic liberty in order to promote equality (i.e., reduce the extent of inequality). If equality could be achieved without taxation, liberals would support it, for they don't like to coerce people. Coercion is a necessary evil. But if a choice has to be made between coercing people and allowing people to suffer (through no fault of their own), liberals would coerce. They tax some to provide for others. Liberals love the progressive income tax; libertarians think it's unfair (since it redistributes wealth). Liberals are committed to a free-market economy, since that's the engine of wealth, but they believe that those who succeed in the economy should be expected to give something back to help the less fortunate. So whereas libertarians value individual liberty in both the personal and the economic realm, liberals value it primarily in the personal realm and somewhat less so in the economic realm.

Conservatives, in contrast, value individual liberty primarily in the economic realm. Like liberals, they're committed to a free-market economy (to the "sanctity" of property rights), but, unlike liberals, they don't want to coerce the economic "winners" into supporting the "losers." Conservatives and libertarians are alike in economic matters. But when it comes to personal matters, conservatives disagree with both liberals and libertarians. As the name implies, conservatives want to conserve something. What? Well, such things as traditions, institutions (such as monogamous marriage), order, and values. The conservative is a methodological holist rather than an individualist. The whole is sometimes greater than the sum of its parts. The traditional view of marriage, for example, is that it creates a new "marital" entity, an entity that can and should be protected (subsidized, nourished) by law. The individuals disappear, as it were. The state should preserve and protect marriage, since it is a tried-and-true institution. This doesn't mean it's perfect; it means that there is no institution that performs its tasks (mainly childrearing) as well. Conservatives believe in the immanent rationality of law and custom. Over time, through trial and error, we humans work out the best ways of doing things. This is why conservatives are resistant to change. It's risky to fuck with what works! Conservatives are chary of allowing homosexuals to marry or adopt. It's not necessarily rooted in prejudice, as Clark idiotically suggests. (Clark thinks that any defense of tradition or custom is prejudice. This simply reflects his liberal ideology, which means it's question-begging.)

Not many people are totalitarians (authoritarians, holists, fascists), but we can make sense of it within the framework I'm proposing. Totalitarians (think Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao Zedung, Saddam Hussein) disvalue individual liberty in both the personal and the economic realms. Totalitarians are holists; they submerge individuals in the whole. What's good for the whole is more important than what's good for the individuals who make up the whole. Totalitarians say such things as "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." This is anathema to liberals and libertarians, but resonates with conservatives.

So where are we? Libertarians value both economic and personal liberty; totalitarians value neither; liberals value only personal liberty; and conservatives value only economic liberty. These are caricatures, of course. Liberals value economic liberty to some extent, just as conservatives value personal liberty to some extent. But each is willing to trade (some of) it in order to realize certain other goods. Liberals are willing to give up some economic liberty in order to realize equality (or greater equality), while conservatives are willing to give up some personal liberty in order to protect tradition and morality. Libertarians refuse to make tradeoffs. Libertarians are monists; the others are pluralists. What attracted me to libertarianism in 1981 was its simplicity and purity. It struck me as the only consistent political ideology. Libertarians value liberty across the board, not just in one realm. Of course, from the liberal or conservative perspective, libertarians are one-dimensional; they value only one thing, rather than multiple things. Libertarians are accused of callousness by liberals (for not coercing the "haves" into helping the "have nots") and of nihilism by conservatives (for not protecting valuable traditions or institutions). Libertarians have to fight off both liberals and conservatives. This is why both liberals and conservatives attack the American Civil Liberties Union (although on different issues). It is a libertarian outfit.

Let me close by suggesting a diagram. Draw a square on a piece of paper. Let the left vertical line be personal liberty (or personal choice), from zero to 100. Let the bottom line be economic liberty (or economic choice), also from zero to 100. A pure totalitarian is in the bottom left corner, since he or she allows no choice of any kind. (All is regulated in the interest of the whole.) A pure libertarian is in the upper right corner, since he or she allows maximal choice of both kinds (keeping the harm principle in mind). A pure liberal is in the upper left corner. A pure conservative is in the lower right corner. These are pure types. I'm not suggesting that there are tokens of each type, much less how many. Each person can locate himself or herself in this normative space. I value personal liberty maximally. We should be able to do as we please unless and until we harm others (or impose serious risks of harm on others). I also value economic liberty, but not as much as libertarians. I'm willing to restrict individual liberty to protect the environment, for example. So I'm about midway along the left-right axis. I'm at the top of the square, but halfway between the left and the right sides. If we divide the square into four quadrants, we can think of them as ideological regions. Libertarians are in the northeast quadrant; liberals are in the northwest quadrant; conservatives are in the southeast quadrant; and totalitarians are in the southwest quadrant. It's a factual question how many people are in each quadrant. That's something for political scientists to study.

In case you're wondering how the Left-Right dichotomy maps onto this, do the following. Rotate the square so that the libertarian quadrant is at the top. The left is now the Left and the right the Right (in conventional terms). Note that libertarianism is neither Left nor Right. It's often scurrilously charged with being Right. By the way, the idea for these diagrams comes from J. C. Lester, author of "The Political Compass (and Why Libertarianism Is Not Right-Wing)," Journal of Social Philosophy 27 (fall 1996): 176-86. It's a terrible essay, but the diagrams are neat. I hope this helps! I'm going to send carbon copies to a few people who may be interested. kbj P.S.: I've been discussing ideologies, not political parties. The Republican party may consist mostly of conservatives, but it has a libertarian contingent and a smattering of liberals (maybe even a few totalitarians). The Democratic party consists mostly, but not exclusively, of liberals. There's at best a correlation between ideology and party. Gotta run (literally)!

All moral theories, intuitionist, naturalistic, objectivist, emotive, and the rest, in so far as they are philosophical theories, are neutral as regards actual conduct. To speak technically, they belong to the field of meta-ethics, not ethics proper. That is why it is silly, as well as presumptuous, for any one type of philosopher to pose as the champion of virtue. And it is also one reason why many people find moral philosophy an unsatisfying subject. For they mistakenly look to the moral philosopher for guidance.

(A. J. Ayer, "On the Analysis of Moral Judgements," chap. 10 in his Philosophical Essays [London: Macmillan and Company, 1954], 231-49, at 246 [essay first published in 1949])

My friend Mylan Engel Jr recently lectured on animal ethics at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Here is the story about his lecture. If you haven't read Mylan's essay "The Immorality of Eating Meat," please do. There's a link on the left side of this blog. I've read much of the literature on animal ethics over a period of 25 years, and this is the best essay I've read. Caveat: If you read it, you will either abstain from animal flesh or suffer from cognitive dissonance!

Addendum: Here is another story about Mylan's lecture.

10-16-84 Tuesday. I am still savoring the Tiger victory. Somehow, it seems different than the 1968 victory—perhaps because my experience is fuller now than it was then. In 1968, when Al Kaline, Denny McLain, and Mickey Lolich led the team to victory over the St. Louis Cardinals, I was a baseball novice. I had discovered the game only a year or so earlier and was still developing a framework into which to place the event. I remember sitting on the hardwood floor in front of our television set in Vassar, yelling for the Tigers to beat the Cardinals. They did, and I went on to become a dedicated baseball fan and participant. In fact, baseball, more than anything else, was the driving force in my life from 1967 to about 1974, when I began to expand my interests into music and alcohol. I later fell in love with philosophy, and today I count my three greatest influences in life as baseball, music, and philosophy. It is not a bad triad, is it? I expect to be just as much a baseball fan in the year 2037, when I'm eighty years old, as I am now. It is a delightful and historic game—a game, you might say, for the ages.

As usual, I got up this morning, perked coffee, and read the required chapters for the evening's Philosophy of Law seminar. Later in the afternoon, I sat down at the computer terminal and drafted a short essay on extreme legal paternalism. In the seminar, I argued for a version of paternalism ("soft" paternalism) which permits interferences with liberty in order to determine the voluntariness of an agent's action. I would permit the state to intervene in such actions as suicide, cigarette smoking, drug usage, and helmetless motorcycle riding, but only temporarily and only to ascertain whether or not the prospective action is sufficiently voluntary. If it is, then I would permit the action to take place. Nonetheless, several other students (including Mike Jimmerson and Jan Sanders) attacked me as being "paternalistic" and as violating individual autonomy. To this I responded that I was nothing of the sort; all I want to do is to make sure that the prospective action is really that of the agent, for if it is not sufficiently voluntary, then it is not what the agent desires to do. If anything, I am paying great heed to individual autonomy. For what it is worth, Joel Feinberg agrees with me on this issue, as did Joe Campbell. I enjoyed the discussion, which, as usual, was provocative and stimulating.

The presidential election will be held exactly three weeks from today. It will be my third as a registered voter. In 1976, I voted for Gerald Ford—mainly, as I recall, because I despised Jimmy Carter's blatant religiosity. In 1980, I voted for Ed Clark, the Libertarian candidate, even though I had supported the candidacy of John Anderson, a liberal Republican-turned-independent. This year, I plan to vote for Walter Mondale—not so much because he is a good candidate, but because I despise Ronald Reagan. I cannot bear the thought of Reagan appointing several Supreme Court justices, which is likely, given the advanced ages of several of them. Of course, my single vote is worthless, but I consider it to be merely symbolic. I will go to the poll on election day and symbolically throw Reagan and his capitalistic henchmen out of office. In three presidential elections, I will have voted for candidates from three different political parties. Isn't that odd?

To the Editor:

Thomas L. Friedman decries President Bush's focus on 9/11 and the fight against terrorism. He wants to "put terrorism back into perspective," and not allow Sept. 11 to "become a day that defines us." It's about "the bad guys," he says, but "we're about the Fourth of July."

Has Mr. Friedman forgotten what the Fourth of July is about? It commemorates the fight for the same principles as those President Bush is leading the fight for today: freedom from oppression; an end to the powers of tyranny; the rights of self-government, life and liberty for all people.

The people of Afghanistan and Iraq, long crushed under murderous tyrannies, are now being set free and are beginning to taste those same cherished values that we fought for in 1776 and that we fight to bring to them today.

No doubt there have been and will be failures and setbacks. But it is a noble fight.

Steven Sittser
Ballwin, Mo., Oct. 15, 2004

To the Editor:

President Bush is not addicted to 9/11. He is addicted to defending this country against any future attacks from an enemy who has vowed to strike again.

Sticking our heads in the sand and wishing for the old days when terrorism was something that happened somewhere else will not help us today.

Perry A. Ciment
Miami Beach, Oct. 14, 2004

Genealogy, n. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Has anyone noticed the hypocrisy liberals display when it comes to religion? They condemn President Bush for invoking God, but say nothing when John Kerry invokes God. Maybe they think Kerry doesn't mean it, whereas Bush does. But while this absolves Kerry of the sin of earnestness (or simple-mindedness), it indicts him for insincerity. Bill Clinton invoked God at every turn, but I didn't hear liberals complain about him. All I ask is that liberals be consistent. If it's unacceptable to make one's faith explicit, then it's unacceptable for all, not just for Republicans or conservatives. If it's unacceptable for a Republican president to pray for strength and wisdom, then it's unacceptable for a Democrat to pray for strength and wisdom.

Dominic Hyde, "From Heaps and Gaps to Heaps of Gluts," Mind 106 (October 1997): 641.

Steve Sheppard, "Casebooks, Commentaries, and Curmudgeons: An Introductory History of Law in the Lecture Hall," Iowa Law Review 82 (January 1997): 547.

Thomas E. Baker, "Tyrannous Lex," Iowa Law Review 82 (January 1997): 689.

Susan Daicoff, "(Oxymoron?) Ethical Decisionmaking by Attorneys: An Empirical Study," Florida Law Review 48 (April 1996): 197.

Jason Lazarus, "Vision Impossible? Imaging Devices—The New Police Technology and the Fourth Amendment," Florida Law Review 48 (April 1996): 299.

One of my former students, Mindy Hutchison, sent a link to this funny story from The Onion. Mindy maintains this site.

Peg Kaplan is mad at Ted Koppel. See here. I haven't watched his program in many years.

If you like math puzzles, see here.

As you may have surmised, I'm blog-hopping (the analogue of bar-hopping) this fine evening, the Yankees-Red Sox game having been rained out. I had a good time visiting Dr Bill Vallicella's blog.

Congratulations to Steve Rugg for reaching the 5,000-visitor mark on his blog!

I love reading Carol Platt Liebau's blog. She's smart (a Harvard Law School graduate) and politically savvy. Check it out.

A day wouldn't be complete without Jeff's wit.

I've never been to San Antonio, but if I ever go there, I'll be sure to visit The Alamo. Here is a website devoted to it.

Maybe I'm dense, but I don't see anything sinister in John Kerry's mentioning Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter the other night during the debate. What political traction could he possibly get from this? The only way it could help him is by dissuading people from voting for President Bush. But how, exactly, does that work? Someone would have to reason as follows:

Gee, I didn't know Vice President Cheney had a lesbian daughter. That reflects badly on him as a person. I can't vote for such a person to be my vice president, and if I vote for President Bush, I'll be doing just that. I'm staying home on election day.

Most of my readers are probably also readers of Dr John J. Ray's excellent blog Dissecting Leftism. Those who are not may wish to visit it. You will not be disappointed. Among John's many virtues is benevolence: a disposition to help others. He has helped many a new blogger, including me, get started. Thanks, John.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, one of my philosophical heroes, was born on this date in 1844.

To the Editor:

After three debates, I find that John Kerry's plan for the future is to have plans. Unfortunately, his proposals are contradicted by his 20-year performance in the United States Senate.

George W. Bush means what he says and has three and a half years of positive performance to prove it.

John Kerry gets debate points. George Bush gets my vote.

John L. Davis
Thorofare, N.J., Oct. 14, 2004

Philosophers' problems do not in general, if ever, arise out of troubles about single concepts, like that say of pleasure or that of number. They arise, rather, as the traffic-policeman's problems arise, when crowds of conceptual vehicles, of different sorts and moving in different directions meet at some conceptual cross-roads. All or a lot of them have to be got under control conjointly. This is why, in its early stages, a philosophical dispute strikes scientists and mathematicians as so messy an affair. It is messy, for it is a traffic-block—a traffic-block which cannot be tidied up by the individual drivers driving their individual cars efficiently.

(Gilbert Ryle, "Proofs in Philosophy," Revue Internationale de Philosophie 8 [1954]: 150-7, at 156-7 [italics in original])

This essay by Victor Davis Hanson (brought to my attention by Christopher Pugh) deserves a wide audience.

15 October 2004, 1:07 P.M. Joe: I was bad this week. After riding 13 miles a week ago today and 66 hilly miles the day after (Saturday), I did nothing until today. I still can't run, since my hip aches, but I planned to ride Wednesday and didn't. Too much school-related stuff to do. Plus laziness. Today I rode my neighborhood course again, this time three three-mile loops (9.09 miles) instead of four. My average speed rose from 16.94 to 17.15 mph (that's gross time; I don't shut the computer off). The course is excellent. There are several hills, including one steep one. In between, I recover. So it's like doing intervals. I don't want to make it too onerous, because then it becomes dreadful, so I'm giving myself permission to do just three laps. It took 31:47, and my heart rate was up for all of it. I've heard you say that thirty minutes of vigorous exercise is a good workout. On some days, I'll do four or five laps. My highest pulse today was 164, which I reached two or three times. I'm either hammering up a hill or getting ready for the next hill. The weather is gorgeous: 74.7 degrees, sunny, and dry (i.e., not humid), with a southerly breeze. I didn't sweat until the third lap! Have a great weekend. I wish I could run with you, but I don't dare. If my hip hurts with no running, it would probably collapse if I ran. I'm afraid that my running days are over. Eventually, if the pain persists, I'll have to see a doctor. Maybe something can be done to allow me to run again. If not, I have no regrets. I gave it everything I had for eight years. That's how life should be lived: all-out, so that there are no regrets. kbj

What Paul Krugman doesn't realize is that his relentless partisanship (his spinning) undermines his credibility. How, given his demonstrated hatred for all things Bush, can he be trusted to (1) state things accurately, (2) be consistent, and (3) be fair? The only people who trust him are those who are as rabidly anti-Bush as he is. Everyone else considers him a joke. Here is a perfect example of what Krugman's partisanship has wrought. He has a column today about voting irregularities. If what he is saying is true, then the Republican party ought to be roundly condemned. There is no excuse for suppression of votes—at any time or any place. Every party and every individual ought to be doing everything they can to encourage people to vote. Given Krugman's track record, I have reason to doubt that what he says in this column is true. Good work, Paul. You have made yourself irrelevant.

If Democrats had any integrity, they would celebrate Ralph Nader's presence in the presidential race. He gives people a voice. He enlivens and enriches the debate. Instead of trying to persuade Naderites to vote for John Kerry by reasoning with them, they are engaging in dirty tricks to keep Nader off the ballot. See here. If there is any justice in this world, these tricks, which include impugning a great man's integrity, will backfire. Go Ralph!

Poverty, n. A file provided for the teeth of the rats of reform. The number of plans for its abolition equals that of the reformers who suffer from it, plus that of the philosophers who know nothing about it. Its victims are distinguished by possession of all the virtues and by their faith in leaders seeking to conduct them into a prosperity where they believe these to be unknown.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

One of my readers sent a link to this site—about the so-called gap between rich and poor. Liberals continue to engage in class warfare. Most Americans understand that it's empty, manipulative rhetoric. A person has to work real hard to be poor in this land of opportunity.

10-14-84 . . . Five years ago, expounding on the subject of property rights in this journal, I came off sounding like a Marxist. Of course, I was yet to go through my "libertarian stage," but I now agree with what I said way back then. Those who think that there is enough property to go around, that free enterprise is workable in a world of scarcity, are wrong. This is not the world of abundance that John Locke had in mind when he set out his labor theory of property rights. I cannot simply find a vacant plot of land, build a cabin, and proceed to grow crops and start a family. The days of the frontier are over. In today's world, claims on property derive from need, not first occupation. Those who acquired vast tracts of land and resources at an early stage of our country's history have a moral duty to share their wealth with others in society, and if they will not do so voluntarily, then we shall take the property from them by invoking the power of the state. That is why I now think of myself as a Marxist. I am committed to using the state to do justice. Free enterprise is to be opposed, not defended, for it is the source of injustice.

10-14-84 Sunday. It's over! The Detroit Tigers have won the 1984 World Series! I am ecstatic! Let me recount the highlights of the game. In the first inning, Kirk Gibson belted a two-run homer to put the Tigers ahead, but the Padres got to Dan Petry in the middle innings to tie the score. At that point, I grew tense at the thought of the Tigers going back to San Diego. But then Rusty Kuntz hit a sacrifice fly to give the Tigers the lead again, and Lance Parrish lined a home run to left off Goose Gossage to give the Tigers a 5-3 lead. By this time I was breathing easier. But then Kurt Bevacqua of the Padres hit a solo home run in the next inning to narrow the lead to one run, and thoughts of a late rally were running through my mind. Still, I felt safe with Aurelio Lopez and Willie Hernandez on the mound. In the bottom of the eighth inning, with two runners on base, Kirk Gibson hit a towering shot into the rightfield bleachers off Gossage to seal the Padre fate. The Tigers won the game, 8-4, and the Series, four games to one. All at once, it hit me: The Tigers were World Champions for the first time since 1968, when I was an eleven-year-old kid. But the feeling was the same: joy, happiness, and satisfaction with a job well done. Alan Trammell was named the Most Valuable Player of the World Series for his fine hitting and fielding; Sparky Anderson and Jim Campbell were grinning from ear to ear as they received the trophy from baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth; and fans were tearing up the field and running all over the place as security guards looked on helplessly. It has been a magical year. I fully expect the Tigers to repeat as World Champions in 1985.

Note from AnalPhilosopher: This was one of the happiest days of my life, and I have had a very happy life. Alas, the Tigers haven't been back to the World Series in twenty years, much less won it. Maybe next year! Alan Trammell is now the Tiger manager.

Prejudice, n. A vagrant opinion without visible means of support.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Keith,

As the gap between rich and poor gets wider, it is proof that our system is working. There will always be those at the bottom who are poor and earn nothing due to various reasons. This keeps the average low ((0 + 0 + 0 + . . . 0)/N = 0, no matter how big N gets). The rich meanwhile get richer through hard work or shrewd investments or dumb luck. What we should be concerned with is the number of poor people (N)—and that number has shrunk dramatically over the last 20 years.

I wouldn't, then, argue only that they [the 170 economists; see here] lack the authority, but that they also lack the proper metric.

Cordially,
Mark Westerman
McKinney, TX

I can't take it anymore. Read the letter I just posted from today's New York Times. The writer calls Saddam Hussein a "bad egg." I've also seen or heard him described as "a bad guy," "an unsavory character," and so forth. Would these writers call Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, or Pol Pot a bad egg? Doesn't that egregiously understate the case? The irony, of course, is that the very people who characterize Saddam Hussein as a bad egg characterize President Bush as evil.

What's going on? Have we lost all sense of proportion? Have we lost our moral bearings? Are we unable to make comparative judgments of badness? By any reasonable standard, quantitative or qualitative, Saddam Hussein is one of the most evil, reprehensible, and abhorrent individuals in human history. The atrocities he ordered—and for which he is personally responsible—are unspeakable.

Here's what I think is going on. Those who understate Saddam Hussein's viciousness are trying to hide their complicity in his crimes. For if he was evil, then those who failed to agitate for or support his removal are responsible for the crimes he committed. There's also a partisan element. Anything that makes Saddam Hussein look evil makes President Bush's war to remove him look morally obligatory, and that redounds to President Bush's benefit. The person who prevents and punishes great malefaction is a great benefactor. Liberals will never admit that President Bush is a benefactor, much less a great one. Expect them to continue to downplay Saddam Hussein's malevolence and maleficence.

To the Editor:

William Safire joins the chorus of Bush apologists intent on putting up a smokescreen to obscure the findings of Charles A. Duelfer, the chief American weapons inspector in Iraq ("Duelfer to France: J'accuse!," column, Oct. 13).

We already knew that Saddam Hussein was a bad egg who was abusing the oil-for-food program and that the French and the Russians were complicit in his schemes, but that was not and could not constitute the justification for the invasion of Iraq.

Nor did we need to go to war with Iraq to find out that American companies were also on Saddam Hussein's payroll.

The plain fact confirmed by the Duelfer report is that despite Bush administration efforts to deny it, United Nations sanctions were working, and Saddam Hussein had ended his weapons of mass destruction programs.

Whatever Saddam Hussein's plans were if the sanctions were lifted, he did not represent an imminent threat to the United States in March 2003.

Jay N. Feldman
Port Washington, N.Y.
Oct. 13, 2004

There are whole bodies of problems best submitted to experts—from TV repair to astro-physics. It is perhaps the most difficult question of all to determine, in the practical situation, which problems fall into the group to be sent to the experts, and which do not. No expert can tell a man how to vote or judge for him basic political issues. At the other extreme lies technical information: here the layman is entirely at the mercy of the expert. The problem, as often, is one of the marginal cases.

The value of expertise varies with the state of human knowledge. Where the field is exact, knowledge is the property of the expert. Where the problem is a matter of taste, of moral judgment, of the application of life experience, there may be wisdom, but knowledge in the technical sense is lacking. Knowledge, then, is the field of expertise, and it is for knowledge that the layman appeals to authority.

In summary, an appeal to authority is proper where the problem is technical and the expert cited is qualified and personally reliable. Otherwise, the appeal is suspect: at best the speaker may not realize what is required for a proper appeal to authority; at worst he may be trying to give some opinion of his own a weight it would not have without the aid of great names or unidentified "expert opinion."

(W. Ward Fearnside and William B. Holther, Fallacy: The Counterfeit of Argument [Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1959], 86-7)

A friend from my graduate-school days (who's now a full professor) just forwarded a letter written by 170 economists to President Bush. Among other things, they take him to task for widening the gap between rich and poor.

Where do economists get moral expertise? And if they don't have moral expertise, why should anyone care about the moral judgments they make? Economists, like philosophers, are technicians. They can tell you that if you want X, you must give up Y, just as a philosopher can tell you that if you believe p, you cannot believe q. But economists can't tell you to pursue X any more than a philosopher can tell you to believe p!

The economists are committing a brazen fallacy, known in English as the appeal to authority. They are appealing to their technical expertise in order to persuade people to accept their evaluative claims. This is like a medical doctor arguing that abortion is wrong. This is not within the scope of a medical doctor's expertise. Judgments about right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust, fair and unfair are not within the scope of an economist's (or philosopher's) expertise. Economics, sadly, has become politics (or morality) in disguise. Don't be taken in by the fallacy.

In 19 days, we'll know the identity of the next president. Right? Wrong. We may not know for several weeks afterward, just as in 2000. I envision close votes in several states, in all of which lawsuits will be filed in state and federal court. If you thought Florida was a mess in 2000, wait until early November. There will be lawsuits about every conceivable voting irregularity, from disenfranchisement of minorities to unintelligible ballots to the legitimacy of absentee ballots to the constitutionality of Colorado's measure that would allocate electoral votes in proportion to popular votes. Both parties learned from the 2000 experience. Both have legions of attorneys at the ready. I say all this not because I'm eager for another contested election, which I am not, but because I see it coming. Steel yourself. If we're lucky, we'll have a president by inauguration day.

This is the baseball lover's time of year. Eight teams emerge from the long regular season to do battle in the playoffs. Eight teams become four; four become two; two become one. I love the tension of postseason play. I love the man-to-man match-ups. I like to see which players rise to the occasion and which wilt under the pressure. If you think European soccer is tense, look at the faces of the fans in Yankee Stadium tonight and in Fenway Park in Boston Friday night. These fans know that life stops during October. There will be time enough later to attend to politics, work, and family life. Right now it's time for business. Play ball! May the best team win.

President Bush has a resounding lead in the electoral college, according to the latest polls. See here. By the way, if you read the text provided by the person who runs this site, you'll see that he wants John Kerry to win. I don't think this desire (bias) affects his map, so I continue to visit each day.

Dr. Burgess-Jackson,

re: libertarianism v. conservatism—this is the perennial battle of the isms for yours truly. i would most heartily enjoy reading a piece by you at TCS re: this subject. [See here.] in fact, i'd probably forward the link to quite a few people (as i did with your earlier pieces re: your road to conservatism).

i grew up (perhaps) in a largely apolitical household. my father had a Christmas card from the Nixon White House near his desk and my mother campaigned for Carter (i still have a Carter/Mondale poster with a green background—a harbinger of things to come?); this was the extent of my exposure to politics as a child. once at college, i succumbed to the prevailing dogma re: unlearning my bourgeois western ways and quickly fell in-lust with acceptable studies such as eastern philosophies and liberalism. at an off-campus party, i was once offered a position working for a Democrat congressman—based largely on how effectively i was communicating (regurgitating) what i was teaching myself: a combination of pride and beer, as it were.

after finding it impossible to still the noise long enough to reach any tangible inner peace through eastern philosophy or transcendental meditation, i began to move away from what seemed fanciful and impractical—irreflective of the world i began to see more clearly. liberalism equally yielded me no peace. i was worried about everything . . . and i do mean everything. in my experience, liberalism appears to yield the least peace in people of any major groupthink, perhaps precisely because it is a groupthink. that led me to begin to flirt with libertarianism, which seemed to explain a means through which the world could (and sometimes did) work effectively. Adam Smith was a subtle hero of the day.

i left college without a degree, for a well-remunerating position, traveling the globe. as i was thrust into both the physical and economic worlds simultaneously, my libertarian-leaning views were further solidified. visiting Europe several times for protracted periods, i experienced firsthand one possible (semi-socialist) future for America. in my personal life, i proved to myself (typically the best way to verify truth, IMO) the superiority of libertarianism to liberalism (to both of which i now had had reasonable exposure). i had a long-desired measure of peace as a libertarian.

then i bought a house. it is said that one should prepare for two violent jerks to the right of the political spectrum: the first when one purchases his first home and the second when he has his first child. now a homeowner, i began to be concerned with issues that affected my neighborhood. suddenly the proclivity of conservatives for legislating morality began to bear some resemblance to my own reasoning.

in essence, what drove me from libertarianism, as a practical means of governance in today's America, was the stark realization that for libertarian ways to work, it is incumbent upon the populace to have a certain threshold of responsible citizenry. we are long since beyond (below) that level. there are simply not enough clear-thinking responsible Americans left to sustain a libertarian America. this is not an indictment of my fellow man; rather, it is but a statement of fact. with such overwhelming intoxicants as liberalism provides, it is no wonder most of us (even many "conservatives") are blind to the true state of things.

i left the traveling career, returned to school, had my degree, and never again flirted with the liberalism of my earlier days. however, i have from time to time found the appeal of libertarianism difficult to assuage. i am today a conservative, though moderated by lusting for the perfect world of the libertarian. oh, were it so!

President Bush, though an admirable man, with whose philosophies i have far more in common than not, has sustained (and even enhanced) some policies of the past which cause me grievous concern: notably, the failure to spend on a cash basis, to pay down the national debt, and to take entitlements off the current operating budget. that the Democrats are the principal critics of the budget deficit would be stunning if it weren't for their adherence to any soundbite which enhances electability. it seems the only fiscal conservatives today, as a whole, are (big L) Libertarians. i oscillate between voting my (especially future) pocketbook and my conscience. every day they seem further removed from one another. it needn't be so! as the total national debt (by some estimates $500,000 per family) looms large in my mind, the Libertarians work their way back into my voting rubric.

i realize i am mixing parties and principles. Libertarians are not necessarily libertarians, Republicans conservatives, Democrats liberals. but once one enters the voting booth, one leaves the world of philosophy for that of reality. and reality today is that in concert with a Republican legislature, a Republican president cannot be expected to be a wise steward of the people's finances. one can make a case that 9/11/2001 changed the focus of the president, but 3 years time is well enough to have spent some of that focus on the economy, devoid of the usual blinders. perhaps it is the Republican congress which has failed the Republican president; they do after all control the purse strings. but they act on presidential initiative—and i wonder if the opportunity for such an initiative was not squandered when support was so high for the president. can we not focus on an international war on terror and a domestic war on the government's fiscal irresponsibility simultaneously?

so perhaps you will write the article which will help me decide why i should vote for a fiscally liberal, socially conservative (though sometimes liberal) Republican over a fiscally conservative, socially libertarian Libertarian.

please? :-)

best regards,

christopher suleske

". . . for it is certain that as man's insight increases so he finds both wretchedness and greatness within himself." —Blaise Pascal, from pensee 112

The only possible criticism of a philosophy, the only criticism that proves anything at all, is trying to see if one can live by it. But that criticism has never been taught in any of our universities; all we ever teach is the criticism of words by words. And now imagine that fifty of these verbal systems, along with fifty verbal critiques of those systems, are scrambled and stuffed into a youthful mind. What a wilderness, what a jungle, what a caricature of a philosophical education! And the fact is that our students are not educated for philosophy, but for an examination in philosophy.

(Friedrich Nietzsche, "Schopenhauer as Educator" [Schopenhauer als Erzieher], trans. William Arrowsmith, in Unmodern Observations [Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen], ed. William Arrowsmith [New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990 (1874)], 163-226, at 220)

Belief in an afterlife—a future state—will always be with us, for two reasons. First, it pleases. Second, it can't be refuted; nobody who has died has returned to testify.

Here is an essay by Roger Kimball about soon-to-be-decomposed Jacques Derrida. (Thanks to James Taranto's Best of the Web Today for the link.)

To the Editor:

Re "Jacques Derrida, Abstruse Theorist, Dies in Paris at 74" (front page, Oct. 10):

To characterize Jacques Derrida, one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century, as an "abstruse theorist" is to use criteria that would disqualify Einstein, Wittgenstein and Heisenberg.

You describe deconstruction as another of those "fashionable, slippery" philosophies that emerged from France and one that some Americans felt "was undermining many of the traditional standards of classical education."

In fact, Mr. Derrida wrestled with central works of the Western tradition, including Plato, Shakespeare and the Declaration of Independence, none of which he slighted.

You quote the view that "many otherwise unmalicious people have in fact been guilty of wishing for deconstruction's demise—if only to relieve themselves of the burden of trying to understand it."

We will leave to others to decide whether your obituary is unmalicious. There can be no question, however, that it relieves readers of the burden of trying to understand Jacques Derrida and deconstruction.

Samuel Weber
Kenneth Reinhard
Los Angeles, Oct. 12, 2004
The writers are, respectively, a professor of humanities at Northwestern University and associate professor of English and comparative literature at U.C.L.A. The letter was also signed by more than 300 academics, architects, artists, musicians and writers. A full list of the signers is at www.humanities.uci.edu/remembering_jd/.

Oblivion, n. The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame's eternal dumping ground. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

I'm tired of hearing about how successful the Atlanta Braves have been. I readily admit that the Braves are the best regular-season team of the past 13 years. Not counting the strike-shortened 1994 season, in which the Braves finished second to Montreal, Atlanta has won 13 consecutive division titles. Three in a row would be an accomplishment. Thirteen staggers the imagination.

But the regular season is merely a prolegomenon to what matters: winning the World Series. Here are the ugly facts. The Braves have played in 10 Division Series. (The Division Series began in 1995.) They won only six of them. That's more than half, to be sure, but one would expect a top-notch team to win seven or eight of ten. For the past three years, the Braves lost a Division Series to a team with an inferior regular-season record (which means the Braves had home-field advantage). This year, the Braves lost to the wild-card team, Houston, which had never won a postseason series.

The Braves have played in nine National League Championship Series, three as a result of winning the division and six as a result of winning the Division Series. Five times they won; four times they lost. Is that the mark of a champion? The NLCS is the final step to getting into the World Series, and the Braves take that step barely more than half the time. Worst of all, when the Braves reach the World Series, they almost always lose. Their only title came in 1995. Five attempts; one victory. Toronto (two) and New York (three) won more World Series during the 1990s than Atlanta did. How can Atlanta be the team of the 1990s?

When you add it all up, the Braves are the choke team of the past 13 years. Surely a team that trounces its divisional foes 13 times in a row should be able to win more than one World Series. If I were a Braves fan, I'd seriously consider switching to football. Year after year, the team falters, often spectacularly. People say the Braves' regular-season success is attributable to Manager Bobby Cox and his coaches. I concur. But by the same reasoning, the team's postseason ineptitude must be laid at their doorstep.

Donald Luskin, the man Paul Krugman fears most, takes the good doctor's latest New York Times column apart. See here. Wouldn't it be nice if Krugman responded to criticism of this sort? Don't count on it. Krugman isn't interested in advancing the discussion of public policy. He's interested in character assassination.

To explain my title, Donald Luskin showed up at a Krugman book-signing event some time back. All he wanted was a signature. Not long afterward, someone asked Krugman about Luskin. Krugman described him (see here) as a "stalker." I guess stalking means holding someone to standards of accuracy, consistency, and fairness. If Luskin is a stalker, then Krugman is a sniper.

I asked Carol Platt Liebau and a couple of other female bloggers to comment on my post "I Was Wrong." (Note the addendum.) Here is Carol's take. I wish she were advising President Bush!

To the Editor:

Re "Cloning a Bad Idea," by Verlyn Klinkenborg (Editorial Notebook, Oct. 9):

As a scientist, I am impressed with the cloning of cats performed by Genetic Savings & Clone, but as a recently bereaved pet owner, I fail to see the purpose.

I recently had to make the difficult decision to euthanize a cat that had been my companion for more than 17 years. Still, I would not have considered cloning her. One of the biggest joys of sharing one's life with pets is learning the variety of their personalities.

Gremalkin, my surviving cat, may look like Nyssa, my first cat, but Nyssa was more of an affectionate lap cat, while Gremalkin still has the playfulness and impatience of a kitten.

It is these differences in personality that make pet ownership the rich experience it is.

James C. Armstrong Jr.
Foster City, Calif., Oct. 9, 2004

To the Editor:

I was sad to read Verlyn Klinkenborg's article about cloning cats (Editorial Observer, Oct. 9).

We have a real pet overpopulation crisis in this country, and someone with more money than sense is striving to add to it.

Millions of beautiful, lovable cats, dogs, puppies, kittens and other animals are euthanized every year because they have nobody to care for them.

The selfishness required to create a life when millions are thrown away is astounding.

Mary Chipman
St. Ann, Mo., Oct. 9, 2004

[L]iberal morality requires of me to assume an abstract and artificial—perhaps even an impossible—stance, that of a rational being as such, responding to the requirements of morality not qua parent or farmer or quarterback, but qua rational agent who has abstracted him or herself from all social particularity, who has become not merely Adam Smith's impartial spectator, but a correspondingly impartial actor, and one who in his impartiality is doomed to rootlessness, to be a citizen of nowhere.

(Alasdair MacIntyre, "Is Patriotism a Virtue?" The Lindley Lecture, University of Kansas, 26 March 1984, 12)

For many months now, liberals have demanded that President Bush either apologize for wrongdoing or admit to making mistakes in his prosecution of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Did you see the debate the other night? One of the citizen questioners asked President Bush what his three biggest mistakes were. He said he made mistakes in some of his appointments but would not name names. This is of course honorable. President Bush is a man of honor and integrity.

But liberals aren't satisfied. They think it's a character defect that President Bush won't admit to making mistakes. But surely they don't expect him to admit to making a mistake unless he thinks he made a mistake! So the demand for an admission amounts to a claim, by the demander, that President Bush made mistakes. It's a claim he emphatically rejects.

I don't know that President Bush made any mistakes. He never rested his case for war on Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction. This is a liberal invention, designed to simplify—oversimplify—a complex issue. (There were many individually sufficient grounds for war.) And even if the case for war did rest solely on Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction, what is there to apologize for? Everyone, including Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, and John Edwards, believed that Hussein possessed such weapons. President Bush has admitted that the intelligence on which he acted was erroneous. What more do liberals want?

President Bush is right to resist calls for him to admit error. He continues to believe—rightly—that he acted rightly in waging war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Why should he admit error for something he believes to be correct? The insistence that he apologize is a rhetorical trick rooted in partisan politics. If he is told repeatedly to apologize (or admit error), people who are not paying attention may get the impression that he did something wrong. Maybe he did. But that's the issue. First persuade President Bush that his war was a mistake; then, being a man of honor, he will apologize.

Addendum: It's been two hours since I posted this. I just read Deborah Tannen's op-ed piece in today's New York Times. See here. It perfectly illustrates the point of my post, which is that, until you persuade President Bush that he made a mistake, he has nothing to apologize for. Tannen does nothing to show that President Bush made a mistake. She just takes it for granted that he did, and wonders why he won't apologize. Unbelievable!

This week's link is to The Garden of Forking Paths. (Please note that I add each link to the permanent list on the left side of the blog. Scroll down to see this one.)

12 October 2004, 4:25 P.M. Howdy! I participated in the Crazy Kicker bike rally this past Saturday. Although I mailed my check several weeks before the rally, it had not arrived by Saturday morning. The people working the registration desk believed me (and trusted me), so they gave me a packet and a ride number (177). I appreciate the vote of confidence. I'm an honorable person (despite being a lawyer) and will ensure that you receive your money. I just checked my online bank account and saw that the check did not yet clear. Either it didn't arrive, in which case the U.S. Postal Service is to blame, or it did arrive but got mislaid. Let's wait another week or so to see what happens. I'm still confident that it'll show up. If not, I'll write another check. The check (for $20) is #3288. It's dated 9 September. I just wanted to write to let you know that I'm staying on top of things. Thanks again for trusting me. kbj

Vituperation, n. Satire, as understood by dunces and all such as suffer from an impediment in their wit.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

It's not enough for Paul Krugman to disseminate the "Bush lied" meme. Now he's propagating the "Bush will lie" meme. See here. Does anybody really care what Paul Krugman thinks about President Bush? Hasn't he proved many times over that his hatred for the president distorts his judgment? It's sad, really, because Krugman could be a sane analyst of economic affairs. He has lost all credibility and trustworthiness even in those areas where he possesses expertise. I wonder how he's viewed by his fellow economists. I know that if a philosopher acted as he does, he or she would be the laughingstock of the discipline. Philosophers, to be respected, must be fair. This includes giving those with whom they disagree the benefit of the doubt. Krugman has never given President Bush the benefit of the doubt. Just the opposite: He assumes the very worst about the president's motives, beliefs, and intentions.

My blogging will be light this week as I finish up a scholarly project under deadline.

To the Editor:

"Pretty in Python, Hot in Pastels" (Fashion page, Oct. 4), about the latest spring fashions in Milan, is accompanied by a photograph of a thin, befeathered model, cheeks sucked in as she pulls on a cigarette.

This would be eschewed as a fashion accessory on a New York City runway, where, as in other workplaces, it is illegal for health reasons.

Smoking is a leading cause of death, and depictions of smoking as glamorous only feed the epidemic.

In New York City, a shocking 34 percent of white teenage girls smoke. Let's tell them the truth: smoking is not fashionable. It stains teeth, sours breath, makes you wrinkled and will kill you.

Mary T. Bassett, M.D.
Deputy Commissioner
Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene
New York, Oct. 4, 2004

10-11-84 Ever since I can remember, I have had a close male friend. When I was in my early teens, I became friends with Dave Kennard. We played sports together and listened to music, but then drew apart when we got into high school. Later, I became friends, in succession, with Jay Hebert, Larry Gross, Steve McLean, Jim Stange, Paul Martin, Tom Riness, Keith Basherian, and Dan Callahan. In law school, my best friend was Steve Munger, and now it is Terry Mallory. I am not a homosexual, mind you, but it is important to me to have one or two close male friends—friends with whom to share secrets, discuss music and politics, and participate in sports. I feel more comfortable around men than women, so it is natural that men provide my closest friends. In fact, come to think of it, this is probably a typical feeling among males in this country, married or unmarried. We all need close friends of the same sex. Looking back, I have been fortunate in the quality of friends whom I have had, although I have lost two of them. I miss you, Tom and Keith.

I usually stay home on Thursdays, but this afternoon I went to school to mail some letters and attend a graduate student meeting. At the meeting, which was chaired by Jeff Hershfield, we selected a visiting speaker: Derek Parfit of Oxford University in England. I was pleased with the choice, for Parfit has done work in ethics, among other fields. There is a chance that he will speak on that subject when he comes. Of all philosophers, I have seen Parfit's name in more prefaces than any other. He is a master of counterexamples, and apparently reads countless manuscripts. I'll be sure to meet him and shake his hand when he comes here.

Today was an important day for American women. Early in the day, Kathleen Sullivan became the first American woman to "walk" in space, while, this evening, Geraldine Ferraro became the first American woman to engage in a nationally televised debate with the incumbent vice president. I watched only a few minutes of the spacewalk, which occurred outside of the space shuttle, but remained glued to the television set for two hours during this evening's debate. Congresswoman Ferraro acquitted herself well. She remained calm and reflective throughout the debate, and, at one point, gave George Bush a tongue-lashing for "patronizing" her on foreign policy. I loved it. Here was a gritty, former female prosecutor arguing with a neo-Cold Warrior in front of millions of people. The symbolism was inescapable. I can only hope that thousands of young girls were watching, for here was proof positive that a female can stand up to a male in the intellectual arena. Male chauvinist pigs probably loathed the performance.

This editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich cracks me up.

Dictator, n. The chief of a nation that prefers the pestilence of despotism to the plague of anarchy.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

The Bank of Sweden preserved its integrity for at least another year by not awarding its Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences to renowned Bush-hater and socialist Paul Krugman. See here.

"Free gift" is a pleonasm. It may have been cute at first, but surely, now, everyone understands how silly it is. And yet, I see and hear it all the time. Business firms seem unable to offer gifts to their customers. They must be "free gifts." What's going on? How could someone not know that a gift, by definition, is free? To say that a gift is free is to imply that some gifts are not free, which is oxymoronic. Only morons use oxymorons.

Let me be as charitable as I can. In order for "free gift" not to be pleonastic, "gift" must mean something other than free item. Perhaps it has come to mean token or trinket. A free gift would then be a free token or trinket, as opposed to one for which payment is required. But dammit, "gift" doesn't mean token or trinket. It means free item. Stop the redundancy! Stop the lunacy! Perhaps there should be a boycott of companies that use the expression "free gift." That would kill it dead.

cur

Forms: (3 kur-dogge), 4-6 kurre, 4-7 curre, 7-8 curr, 5- cur. [ME. curre corresponds to MDu. corre 'canis villaticus, domesticus' (Kilian), Sw. and Norw. (widely-spread) dial. kurre, korre 'dog', etc. The latter is generally associated with the onomatopoeic verb ON. kurra to murmur, grumble, Sw. kurra to grumble, rumble, snarl, Da. kurre to coo, Ger. obs. and dial. kurren to growl, grumble, murmur, coo, cf. gurren to coo, MHG. gürren to bray as an ass. The primary sense appears thus to have been 'growling or snarling beast'. But no corresponding verb appears in Eng., so that ME. kurre was prob. introduced from some continental source. The combination kur-dogge is met with considerably earlier than the simple kurre, cur. Senses 2 and 3 are possibly independent echoic formations.]

1. A dog: now always depreciative or contemptuous; a worthless, low-bred, or snappish dog. Formerly (and still sometimes dialectally) applied without depreciation, esp. to a watch-dog or shepherd's dog.

b. fig. As a term of contempt: a surly, ill-bred, low, or cowardly fellow.

c. Comb. cur-dog in prec. senses. So cur-bitch, -fox, -tyke; cur-fish, the Dog-fish. Also cur-like adj.

2. A fish: the Elleck or Red Gurnard, Trigla cuculus.

3. A species of duck: the Golden-eye, Clangula glaucion. dial.

Whenever something goes awry in my house, I blame Sophie and Shelbie. They're my scapedogs. A few minutes ago, I realized that I ran out of instant coffee. "I blame you," I said to the girls, who were rightly indignant at this displacement of responsibility. Speaking of dogs, did I tell you that Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) wrote that he would not want to live in a world without dogs? I concur. Con-cur. (Sorry.)

Psychotics can resemble philosophers in exhibiting endless curiosity and endless desire to solve abstract problems. They can also resemble philosophers in their ability to fuse disparate kinds of knowledge and create consistent worlds of thought, and they can even, as we have seen, pay the scientist's and philosopher's tribute to the autonomy of the truth and of those who seek it. Sometimes, as I have suggested, they can even be philosophers; at least the line between them and philosophers can be very thin.

(Ben-Ami Scharfstein, The Philosophers: Their Lives and the Nature of Their Thought [New York: Oxford University Press, 1980], 379 [italics in original])

Wisconsin law professor Ann Althouse has an interesting blog. She plans to vote for President Bush this fall, not because she likes all of his policies, but because she thinks he's a better commander in chief than John Kerry would be. I'll bet she gets a lot of flak from her colleagues and students. Academia is overwhelmingly liberal, and Madison is about as liberal a college town as there is. I admire courageous people. Even if one has tenure, it takes courage to risk the wrath, enmity, scorn, and disfavor of one's colleagues and students.

Jeff's blog is an aesthetic marvel. I would probably visit it regularly even if Jeff and I had different views of the morality of war in Iraq. But Jeff is a staunch supporter of the war. See here for his post about ABC's implosion. Keep up the good work, Jeff.

To the Editor:

If the residents of Ville Platte, La. ("If Town Clears Out, It Must Be Squirrel Season," front page, Oct. 3), stopped shooting squirrels long enough to observe them, they would see that squirrels are creatures with complex lives of their own.

We have squirrels at our house and have witnessed a mother squirrel raising her young. She teaches them to climb slippery trees and steep rooftops. If she senses danger, she will carry her young to safety.

She spends lots of time hunting and gathering food and soft things with which to feather their winter nest.

It is sad to read of cruel behavior toward these small and beautiful creatures, which are merely struggling to survive, as we all are.

Joanna Lake
East Burke, Vt., Oct. 4, 2004

To the Editor:

Try as we may to respect cultural differences, it boggles the mind that anyone could gain pleasure out of taking the lives of animals "for the fun of it." Where are the values of compassion and stewardship for the world in which we live?

Cultures far wiser than ours respect the gift of life in all its forms. It is slight comfort that these miniature atrocities are isolated in remote pockets of our country where the light of human understanding has yet to dawn.

Linda Holt
Trenton, Oct. 4, 2004

Pardon, v. To remit a penalty and restore to a life of crime. To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

I did my 19th bike rally of the year yesterday in Mineral Wells, Texas, a town 50-odd miles west of Fort Worth. The forecast was for rain, but by the 8:30 start, the sky was blue, with only wispy clouds. As usual, there were many courses available: 100 miles, 62 miles, 50 miles, and so forth. I haven't prepared for 100 miles, so I decided to do the 62-mile course. I've ridden in the Mineral Wells area many times with friends, but this was my first rally there. The rally is part of the annual Crazy Water Festival. As I understand it, Mineral Wells is named for the wells of mineral water that attracted people to the area in the late 1800s and early 1900s. There's a large brown building near the center of town that looks like a hotel. I doubt that it's still being used. It's probably kept as an historical landmark.

The first eleven miles of the rally were up and down. I hadn't ridden this stretch of road (to Graford) in many years, so I had forgotten how hard it was. My lack of training showed. We also had a headwind. Once I got to Graford, it was tailwind city for many miles. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Even climbing hills seemed easier—and faster—with the wind at my back. The scenery in these parts is gorgeous. It reminds me of Colorado. There are bluffs, buttes, mesas, canyons, rivers, lakes, and many trees of various kinds. Traffic is always light on the back roads. One has the sensation of being in the middle of nowhere. I don't know about you, but I like that sensation. It's why most of my vacations, hikes, and bike rides have been of the solo variety.

After stopping in Palo Pinto for a few minutes (where I had to lure a dog out of the road with a piece of PowerBar), I continued south with a tailwind. The best song of the day was Peter Frampton's "Nowhere's Too Far (For My Baby)" (from Frampton [1975]). I was in seventh heaven. I sang at the top of my lungs, but only after checking behind to ensure that nobody would hear. I was by myself in beautiful countryside, feeling good and pedaling hard. I felt like Lance Armstrong, or maybe a combination of Lance Armstrong and Peter Frampton.

But then the proverbial shit hit the fan. I reached the southernmost point of the course. From there until the finish, twenty-some miles away, I would have a vicious headwind. It wasn't bad at first, but as I tired, my speed decreased. My legs began to feel like cooked spaghetti. Even the music wasn't inspiring me, although I kept it on. As if the wind weren't enough, I had to climb Cherry Pie Hill. Don't let the cute name fool you. The climb is wicked. On and on it goes, winding through the trees. I stayed in the saddle the entire time. As I pedaled—in my smallest gear—I watched my pulse go up. The highest pulse I've recorded on the bike in the past 16 months is 168. In some rallies, I reach only the upper 150s. But on this climb it just kept going up: 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171. According to the formula of 220 minus one's age, my maximum heart rate is 172.5. If this is right, then I almost reached my maximum on the climb. I stayed at 170 for several minutes. Needless to say, I was gasping for air and sweating profusely.

Once I crested the hill, I had only the wind to fight. But it got harder and harder, especially when I got back to Highway 180, where I wasn't shielded by trees. When my odometer showed 62 miles and the finish was nowhere in sight, I cursed the rally organizers. They should overstate, not understate, distances. There's nothing worse than planning for a certain distance and having to go farther, especially with a headwind or hills (or both, as was the case yesterday).

All bad things must come to an end, and this rally was no exception. I ended up with 66.26 miles. It was overcast for much of the ride, but no rain fell. The high temperature for the day was 70° Fahrenheit. My average speed was only 15.14 miles per hour (making this one of the slowest of my 343 rallies), but I wasn't out for speed. I hit 39.2 miles per hour on one of the descents. I'm sure I would have hit 50 on the descent of Cherry Pie Hill. Unfortunately, we had to climb it rather than go down it. Maybe it's for the best. I've seen deer on the road on this hill. I would not want to hit a deer—or anything else—while going 50 miles per hour on my bike.

Two days from now (Monday), the Nobel Prize in Economics (it's actually The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel) will be awarded. Paul Krugman, the Princeton economist and renowned Bush-hater, is a candidate. Please keep in mind that the Nobel Prizes for Peace and Economics are highly politicized. Remember when Jimmy Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002? It was a slap in the face of President Bush. (See here.) If Jimmy Carter had any integrity, he would have declined the award instead of being used as a tool by the Nobel Prize committee. Don't be surprised if Paul Krugman wins the Economics Prize. It will be a perfect way for the Nobel Prize committee to slap President Bush in the face again, for it will give credence to all the Bush-hating columns Krugman has written for The New York Times.

Scott Altman, "Should Child Custody Rules Be Fair?" University of Louisville Journal of Family Law 35 (spring 1996): 325.

Nicholas J. J. Smith, "Bananas Enough for Time Travel?" British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 48 (September 1997): 363.

Catherine E. Vance, "Till Debt Do Us Part: Irreconcilable Differences in the Unhappy Union of Bankruptcy and Divorce," Buffalo Law Review 45 (spring 1997): 369.

Martin D. Begleiter, "Estate Planning in the Nineties: Friday the Thirteenth, Chapter 14: Jason Goes to Washington—Part II," DePaul Law Review 47 (fall 1997): 1.

Fred Adams and Ken Aizawa, "Rock Beats Scissors: Historicalism Fights Back," Analysis 57 (October 1997): 273.

Language, n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

My departmental chairman, Denny Bradshaw, informs me that French deconstructionist Jacques Derrida has died. See here and here. In 1977, Derrida had a debate (published in Glyph) with American analytic philosopher John Searle. It was a most unproductive exchange. Neither man seemed to understand the other. At one point, Searle wrote, "Derrida has a distressing penchant for saying things that are obviously false." If both Searle and Derrida are philosophers, then philosophy has an identity crisis.

To the Editor:

"The Verdict Is In" (editorial, Oct. 7) is right in saying that sanctions were successful in keeping Saddam Hussein disarmed and militarily weak. But could they ever provide a final solution to the long-term problems posed by that regime?

Sanctions could not continue indefinitely. They brought misery upon the Iraqi people, increased Muslim animosity toward the West and were a constant point of conflict among United Nations members. Yet the dangerous nature of the Hussein regime also made certain that they could never safely be lifted. Only the removal of the regime could have broken this vicious circle, and it has.

Now, amid the chaos, we see great opportunity where before there existed only a miserable status quo.

Anthony Marcavage
Arlington, Va., Oct. 7, 2004

Unless you're a baseball fan, you probably haven't heard about the incident involving Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Milton Bradley and Los Angeles Times reporter Jason Reid. Bradley was recently suspended for five games for throwing a bottle at a fan during a game. Two days ago, following the Dodgers' workout in Atlanta, Reid asked Bradley about it. Bradley exploded, calling Reid an Uncle Tom and a sellout—both are black—and implying that, because Reid was a "brother," he should go easy on Bradley. Reid didn't take kindly to Bradley's insults. Bradley asked someone for a bottle. Reid had to be restrained from going after him. See here for a column about the incident.

Think about what Bradley is saying. He's saying that Reid should be black first and a reporter second. He's saying that racial bonds are more important than professionalism. One black should not ask tough questions of another. Imagine if Reid were a white man. Would Bradley have called him a racist? I think you know the answer. If a white man asked the question, he's a racist. If a black man asked the question, he's an Uncle Tom. To Bradley, holding him responsible for his conduct is inescapably racial. This incident, sadly, is a microcosm of race relations in this country today. Blackness has become an excuse for boorish, irresponsible, even criminal behavior. The blame for this lies not just with blacks but with their white liberal enablers.

Keith,

I couldn't agree more—watching and studying this sort of behavior is really quite interesting. I am a conservative by nature—have been all my life—and I am intrigued by the pure hatred that many on the Left have for George W. Bush. I was equally interested and perplexed by the vitriol and hatred that many on the Right expressed toward William J. Clinton.

It is beyond reasonable to have a difference of opinion with someone. It is equally reasonable to differ with our president and to make the case for why you feel the way you do. Making this case usually involves citing objective and subjective information. Subjective reasons arise because not everything is simply black or white, fact or fiction; there is much gray in many of these "big" issues. But when vulgar and irrational emotions, such as hate, are injected into the argument, well, for me, the credibility and veracity of that person are immediately suspect.

By most accounts Krugman is a smart, educated man. But he seems perfectly incapable of evaluating President Bush in any rational and reasoned way.

Regards,
Steve Walsh

[A] modern academic career in philosophy is not conducive to moral innovation or insight. And even if it were, there is so much disagreement among academic moralists that their readers (who are in any event few outside the universities) can easily find a persuasive rationalization for whatever their preferred course of conduct happens to be. Indeed, moral debate entrenches, rather than bridges, disagreement. Exposure to moral philosophy may lead educated people to behave less morally than untutored persons by making them more adept at rationalization. There is . . . evidence that moral reflection does in fact undermine the capacity for moral action.

(Richard A. Posner, The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1999], 7 [italics in original])

To find out, read this essay by Harvard government professor Harvey Mansfield. I distributed it to the students in my Lewis and Clark course.

Hypocrite, n. One who, professing virtues that he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Paul Krugman, the Princeton economist, writes a semiweekly column for The New York Times. I've been reading these columns for about two years. I've never seen Krugman write about anything besides the Bush administration and I've never seen him say anything favorable about the Bush administration. Much of what he writes is personal. This, folks, suggests hatred or some other vile emotion. "So what!" you say. "Lots of people hate." But do they have a national forum for it? Who would be persuaded by anything Krugman writes, knowing of his hatred for President Bush? It destroys his credibility. Hatred is so powerful an emotion that it prevents the hater from (1) seeing clearly (i.e., getting the facts right), (2) reasoning soundly, and (3) being fair. Hatred distorts the hater's mind. So why do I read Krugman? I read Krugman the way a medical doctor studies disease: to see pathology at work. Think of it as the natural history of Bush-hating. Here is the latest symptom of Krugman's disease.

My friend Peg Kaplan up in Minnesota (can't you do something about Garrison Keillor?) recently reached the 15,000-visitor mark. Congratulations, Peg! It seems like only yesterday that you started blogging. As I said then, you make the blogosphere a better place. Thanks for the insight into bridge. It sounds like a challenging and enjoyable game.

My friend and bicycling buddy Norm Weatherby went to the Cottonwood Festival in Richardson, Texas, the other day, accompanied by his lovely wife Ruth, who must have a great many virtues to have put up with Norm for so long. Here is Norm's report. I love the captions he writes for his photographs.

I've written many times in this blog about liberal frustration. Without political power, their egalitarian fantasies cannot be realized. Frustration leads to aggression. Liberals are beginning to resort to violence and intimidation to achieve their ends. See here and here. Is anyone surprised? The hatred being spewed by the likes of Michael Moore and Paul Krugman is finally bearing fruit—poisoned fruit.

I found a terrific new blog the other day: by Carol Platt Liebau. Here is her homepage. You will find a link to her blog on the left. First read her biography. She's a graduate of Harvard Law School.

10-7-84 As of today, I am twenty-seven and a half years old, or three-quarters of the way through my twenties. When I was but a teenager, perhaps seventeen or eighteen years old, I looked upon Tom and John Rowbotham, who were then in their mid-twenties, as "old men." Now, of course, I think of myself as a young man. In all truthfulness, I look younger, feel younger, and act younger than I really am. How one's perspective changes as one grows older! Now, people who are forty years old strike me as "middle aged," but a few years from now, when I'm much closer to that age, they'll probably seem much younger and more vivacious. That's life. I expect to be a tenured professor and have a family by the time I turn forty, but I don't even want to think about the fifties and sixties yet. I want to get there, to be sure, but I don't want to think about them or plan for them at this early date. I'm still content to be in my twenties.

There was a debate tonight on national television between President Ronald Reagan and his Democratic challenger, Walter Mondale. Reagan appeared to be more hesitant and ill-informed than he usually is, while Mondale, in my opinion, acquitted himself well. I think that, if anything, Mondale picked up a few points in the polls with his performance, but it is hard to tell how the majority of people will react. Four days from now, Vice President George Bush and Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro will debate the issues on national television, and two weeks from tonight Reagan and Mondale will debate foreign policy (tonight, the debate was on domestic policy). I still expect Reagan to win the election, although for reasons of constitutional interpretation, I would prefer to see Mondale elected. I can't imagine a Supreme Court with two or three additional William Rehnquists on it, but that's likely what we'll get if Reagan is reelected.

To the Editor:

Re "A Finishing School for All, Disney Style" (Business Day, Oct. 4):

How sad that little girls pretending to be Disney princesses in $24 pink tiaras bring relief and reassurance to adults concerned with the "hypersexualized environment" their children are exposed to. This is not "reassuring and positive" to me.

Where are the images of women as physicists, writers, doctors, musicians and mathematicians? Maybe Disney could find marketing opportunities in generating girls' fantasies about real achievements, rather than rescue by men into lives of luxury.

Carolyn Moore Newberger
Brookline, Mass., Oct. 4, 2004
The writer is a clinical child psychologist.

Would somebody please explain to me why national polls are taken, discussed, and analyzed? Didn't we learn in 2000 that even if they're accurate, they don't mean anything? The president isn't the person who gets the most votes, nationwide, but the person who gets the most electoral votes. What would you say to someone who was keeping track of the number of pieces of each color on a chess board as a game is being played? The winner of a chess match isn't the person who has the most pieces on the board. That's at best an indicator of who wins the match; it's not the criterion. Can we start paying attention to what matters, namely, the electoral vote? What you should be checking on a daily basis is this.

I'm only 47 (I know, that will seem old to some of you), but high school is a distant memory. I've never been to a reunion, even my 25th. One of my favorite teachers and coaches at Vassar (Michigan) High School was Jim Tate, who coached baseball and taught government. Baseball is a complex game. I call it chess on grass. I still learn something in almost every game I watch, even though I've watched thousands. Much of what I know comes from Mr Tate (as we called him).

I discovered baseball when I was about 10 years old. When my family moved to Vassar in the fall of 1967, I signed up for Little League. I was put at shortstop—probably because I had a strong arm—and eventually pitched. I made the All-Star team. The nice thing about baseball is that it doesn't require a particular body. I was of medium height for my age, skinny, and not particularly fast, but I had a strong, accurate arm and good instincts and reflexes in the field.

After two years of Little League (ages nine through 12), I moved on to Pony League (ages 13 through 15). I made the All-Star team there as well, even though it seemed that everyone else was bigger, faster, and stronger. I think the manager viewed me as a little coach, since I knew the game better than almost anyone else.

When ninth grade rolled around (1971-1972), I signed up for baseball in school. The coach was Mr Tate. I believe he had played baseball in college, maybe even in the minor leagues. He certainly knew the game. I vividly remember the things he taught us—more than three decades later. He was a wonderful teacher. He didn't just tell us to do X. He explained why X was better than Y and Z. He taught us the rationale for the rules as well as the rules. He taught us fundamentals.

For example, when a runner is caught between bases, the technique is as follows. First, get the ball to the fielder at the forward base. If the runner is caught between first and second, get the ball immediately to the fielder at second. This fielder then runs the runner back to first. All the way. Make the runner dive for the bag. Once the runner dives, throw the ball to the fielder at first, who makes the tag.

Sounds simple, doesn't it? But Major League players butcher this play routinely. It sickens me. Either they toss the ball back and forth, which increases the likelihood of dropping it, or they run the runner to the forward base (second in my example). I cringe whenever I see such inept play. I think of Mr Tate. There should never be more than two throws in a rundown: one to the forward base and one to get the diving runner. If this technique is used, the worst-case scenario is that the runner goes back to where he was. Nine times out of ten, it results in an out.

Mr Tate taught us how to lead off (including how to crouch, how to hold one's arms, &c), how to hit the cutoff man (or be the cutoff man), how to back up various plays, how to field (if in the infield, keep your glove on the ground so that the only movement is up), how to bunt, and many other things. He was incredible. He was a treasure trove of information, insight, and inspiration. I hope he is alive and well. I wish I could tell him how much he meant to me, and how often I think of him. I think of him every time I watch a baseball game.

By the way, Mr Tate had a great sense of humor. I always had big feet, which required big shoes. This made my running awkward and slow. I can still hear Mr Tate bellowing, "Jackson, you look like you're running in quicksand!" One reason I'd love to see Mr Tate again is to show him my dozens of trophies and medals. For running!

Prophecy, n. The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future delivery.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Microsoft Windows.

Have you ever wondered why—and when—standard form matters? Admit it: You have. See here for the answer.

I was once a card-carrying member of the Libertarian Party. In 1980, I voted for Ed Clark, the Libertarian candidate for president. I'm steeped in the libertarian and anarchist literature, including that subset produced by philosophers. In short, I know libertarianism.

I'm not a libertarian. I'm a conservative. As political moralities, they are as different as liberalism and conservatism or liberalism and libertarianism. In fact, they're more different. If you're interested, I'll write a blog post or a Tech Central Station column entitled "Why I Am Not a Libertarian." Let me know.

To the Editor:

Re "The Option Nobody's Pushing. Yet" (Week in Review, Oct. 3):

You gave an insightful overview of the elements that may propel our country to reinstate the draft. But I was dumbfounded by only an oblique reference to what would undoubtedly be the defining issue for Congress and the American public: equality of the sexes.

In this post-Vietnam era, there are two inconceivables: that only men would be drafted or that both men and women would be subject to the draft.

Drafting only men would undoubtedly run aground if contested in court. Drafting both men and women is, realistically, never going to wash with even the most zealously patriotic, voting parents.

Andrew Stone
Calabasas, Calif., Oct. 4, 2004

It's human nature to want something for nothing, but, alas, nothing in nature is free. Everything has a cost. We might call this principle TANSTAAFL: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. We can delude ourselves into thinking there are no costs or make a conscious decision to ignore, postpone, or displace them, but eventually the piper must be paid.

Our political system illustrates the deleterious consequences of our grasping, self-deluding nature. Each of us derives benefits and pays costs for goods and services provided by government (at every level). The benefits include national defense, protection from criminals and natural calamities (police and fire services), roads, bridges, courts (dispute-resolution mechanisms), cheap food (think agricultural subsidies), medicine and medical care, schools, and libraries. Some people are net consumers in the sense that they consume more than they produce (i.e., take more from the pool than they contribute to it), while others are net producers. There may be some people who get as much as they give, but no more.

Despite what people say, everyone wants a bigger slice of the governmental pie. Even libertarians benefit in hundreds of ways from a large, active state. Many of them, perhaps most of them, get more from the state than they contribute to it. If they practiced what they preach, they would either decline these goods or pay for them above and beyond their taxes. Libertarians are not immune to hypocrisy. Indeed, they may be more hypocritical than others because of their high-minded limited-government principles. (If hypocrisy is the failure to abide by one's principles, then one way to avoid hypocrisy is to avoid having principles—or stringent principles. Conversely, one way to open oneself up to hypocrisy is to have demanding principles.)

Politics has become the process by which (or the setting in which) individuals compete with one another for the goods and services government provides. Individuals form groups (associations, organizations, professions, chambers, councils) to increase their chances of getting a bigger slice. There is strength in numbers. The American Association of Retired Persons (now known as AARP), for example, lobbies vigorously in behalf of its constituents, who are happy to pay dues in return for the goodies their representatives get for them from government.

Those who seek positions of public responsibility know very well what they must do to be elected and reelected. They must dole out goodies to their constituents. They must be obvious with what is given out but secretive or deceptive about its cost. The federal deficit is a measure of our individual and collective unwillingness to face up to the fact that we're unwilling to pay for what we want. Each of us tries to get others to pay for the goods and services he or she wants. It's a tragedy of the commons. Government—the massive edifice of the bureaucratic state—is the commons.

Do I have a solution? No, other than forcing individuals to internalize the costs of their choices and activities. But finding a solution requires understanding the problem. Ultimately, it comes down to what may be a natural human drive: to get something for nothing. To say that X is a natural human drive isn't to legitimate X or imply that nothing can be done about X. One role of government, even—especially!—to a conservative, is to channel natural human drives into socially beneficial (or at least nondetrimental) uses. Perhaps if we taught our children self-sufficiency, they would be less inclined upon reaching adulthood to externalize the costs of their choices. Remember self-sufficiency? We used to think of it as a virtue. It has gone the way of the Edsel.

All religions are good 'in principle'—but unfortunately this abstract Good has only rarely prevented their practitioners from behaving like bastards.

(Paul Feyerabend, Farewell to Reason [London: Verso, 1987], 299)

One of the students in my Lewis and Clark course wrote to me about his home state of North Dakota. He said he misses it. But he was eager to leave it several years ago. I know what he's talking about. I grew up in beautiful Michigan, the Water Winter Wonderland. I always thought it was a special state because of the Great Lakes. What other state jumps out at you when you look at a map of the United States? There is water in every direction except the south. There are four distinct seasons. Much of the state is forested. There are two peninsulas. It has bustling cities and innumerable small towns. It is agricultural, commercial, and industrial. It has something of everything and something for everyone.

And yet, I wanted to get away. I pined for the fjords. (Sorry.) My family vacationed in the American West when I was seven. That summer—1964—I fell in love with the West: with its topography, its climate, its open spaces, its history, its flora and fauna, and its people. The West was sublime. I vowed to go there—to live—as soon as I was able. In 1983, having completed my legal studies in Detroit, I was off to Arizona to study philosophy. I applied only to universities in the West. My decision came down to Arizona and Calgary. I'm sure I would have enjoyed my five or six years in Calgary, but, as it turns out, I got to live in the Sonoran desert for five years. These were the best years of my life. Given how happy the rest of my life has been, that should tell you something.

At first, I didn't miss Michigan, but now I do. My parents and two of my three brothers still live there. I miss the seasons (especially autumn), the slow pace of life, the trees, the water, and much else. I doubt that I'll ever return to Michigan to live, but that doesn't prevent me from wanting to. I have made my peace with Texas, even come to love it. As long as I live west of the Mississippi River, in a place named for a fort and trod by the likes of George Armstrong Custer, I am happy.

The student's letter got me to thinking about the comforts of youth. A strange thing happens when you get older. You grow nostalgic for places and things associated with your childhood—at least if your childhood was pleasant, as I assume it was (and is) for most people. How many people do you know who grew up in a religious environment, abandoned it, and returned to it in middle age? I know many people to whom this has happened. I believe it's because of the comfort religion provides. Most of us also take comfort in the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of our youth. We remember the seasons, the weather, the people, the pace of life, distinctive foods, and other details. We try to recreate them in middle age. If you grew up around animals, for example, you will surround yourself with animals in middle age. If your parents gardened, you will garden, even if you had no interest in it at the time. If your parents were athletic, you'll be an athlete, even if in the interim you were a couch potato.

They say it's impossible to go home. Perhaps it is in some cases—for example, if there are no jobs in one's hometown. But one can always go home in a figurative sense: by remembering, imagining, recreating, and reliving. Home is a state of mind, not just a place. I will always be a country boy from Michigan, wherever I live and however old I get.

Resident, adj. Unable to leave.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Veni, vidi, vici.

Fashion, n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

To the Editor:

It is hard to judge whether international sports bring nations together or are simple divisive agents of modern nationalism. On the one hand, the citizens of the United States might ferociously support American athletes exclusively, promoting competition and hostility. Certainly this alienates members of the international community from one another.

On the other hand, when Americans see a foreign player like Ichiro Suzuki outperforming most professional baseball players, they can easily come to love and admire him. Embracing Ichiro and other foreign athletes pushes Americans to consider Japan as a nation of people not starkly unlike ourselves, rather than as an abstraction or political entity.

Because of this, Japan should really be grateful that Ichiro has indirectly eradicated a bit of American ignorance and fostered respect. These things are of greater significance than any economic gain a nation could hope to make.

Louise Kathnoe
Lexington, Ky., Oct. 2, 2004

I'm looking forward to seeing Vice President Dick Cheney and John Edwards in tonight's vice-presidential debate. Nobody really cares about the vice president. Unless disaster strikes, he or she disappears into the mists of history. Quick: Who served as Jimmy Carter's vice president? Gerald Ford's? What were some of Dan Quayle's accomplishments? Al Gore's?

The bar of expectations for John Edwards is low. All he has to do to be successful is not seem incompetent. If he speaks coherently, smiles a lot, and demonstrates a decent grasp of the issues, Americans will accept him as their vice president. Dick Cheney has already done these things, so he has nothing to gain in this debate. His goal, I think, will be to speak for the president. He will make some of the points President Bush should have made, but didn't, during this past Thursday's presidential debate.

While I'm on the subject of debates, let me clarify something. We often distinguish between style and substance. Substance is what you say, while style is how you say it. But substance is complex. It comprises belief, values, and character. All of these are on display in a debate. The debaters convey to the audience what they believe (i.e., how they see the world), what their values are (i.e., what matters to them), and what sorts of person they are. Character traits—good and bad—manifest themselves in behavior, and speech is behavior (or one type of it). Think of how jurors assess the credibility of witnesses. There are telltale signs of dishonesty, insincerity, and disingenuousness. If the jurors were asked how they came to these conclusions, there might be nothing they could point to; but they picked up on subtle cues. It's not for nothing that we speak of body language.

Americans will be sizing up John Edwards this evening. They already know—and many of us love—Dick Cheney. If I were in a bind, I would want Dick Cheney by my side. The man has nerves of steel, intelligence, knowledge grounded in experience, and unimpeachable integrity. I expect fireworks to fly if John Edwards impugns Cheney's character. In fact, I predict that John Edwards will come across as a child—maybe even a petulant one—in comparison with the vice president. Enjoy the debate!

This week's link is to Certain Doubts.

The coherence theory is conservative in a way the foundations theory is not. The coherence theory supposes one's present beliefs are justified just as they are in the absence of special reasons to change them, where changes are allowed only to the extent that they yield sufficient increases in coherence. This is a striking difference from the foundations theory. The foundations theory says one is justified in continuing to believe something only if one has a special reason to continue to accept that belief, whereas the coherence theory says one is justified in continuing to believe something as long as one has no special reason to stop believing it.

According to the coherence theory, if one's beliefs are incoherent in some way, because of outright inconsistency or simple ad hocness, then one should try to make minimal changes in those beliefs in order to eliminate the incoherence. More generally, small changes in one's beliefs are justified to the extent these changes add to the coherence of one's beliefs.

(Gilbert Harman, Change in View: Principles of Reasoning [Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1986], 32 [italics in original])

Justice to the left of you
Justice to the right
Speak when you are spoken to
Don't pretend you're right
This life's not for living
It's for fighting and for wars
No matter what the truth is
Hold on to what is yours

Jigsaw puzzle traitors
Set to spill the beans
Constitution screw up
Shattering the dreams
Blood flows in the desert
Dark citadels burning too
Watch! Look over your shoulder
This one is strictly for you

Hold on - Hold on
Wait maybe the answer's
Looking for you

Hold on - Hold on
Wait! Take your time
Think it through
Yes! I can make it through

Hold on - Hold on
Sunshine shine on through
Hold on - Hold on
Sunshine shine on you

See it through

Talk the simple smile
Such platonic eye
How they drown in incomplete capacity
Strangest of them all
When the feeling calls
How we drown in stylistic audacity
Charge the common ground
Round and round and round
We living in gravity

Shake - We shake so hard
How we laugh so loud
When we reach
We believe in eternity

I believe in eternity

Hold on - Hold on
Wait - Take your time (Sunshine shine on through)
See it through
Hold on - Hold on
Wait - Maybe a chance (Sunshine shine on through)
Is looking for you (Sunshine shine on you)

Hold on - Hold on
Hold on - Hold on

Sunshine - Shine on shine on you
Sunshine - Shine on through
Sunshine - Shine on shine on through
Sunshine - Shine on you

Sunshine - Shine on - Shine on you (Hold on - Hold on)
Sunshine - Shine on through (Wait - Take your time)
(See it through)
Sunshine - Shine on - Shine on through (Hold on - Hold on)
Sunshine - Shine on you (Wait - Maybe the answer's looking for you)

Hi AP,

I always find something to challenge my thoughts in your blog. And your ideas on being a carnivore are a particular challenge for me (talk about cognitive dissonance!).

But one thing I was pondering the other day (in the light of your eating-meat discussions) was your view on the wearing of leather. Since I only have a 56k dial-up connection, searching thru the archives was a vast chore. So I thought I'd just ask you to send me links if you've blogged on this topic. If not, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

Anyway, all the best! Don't let the rude people of this world get you down. :-)

Sincerely, gg2

PS: I've now got 2 e-mail addresses for you, not sure which is current so have sent to both.

"Not all who wander are lost." —JRR Tolkein

I like Bill O'Reilly of The Fox News Channel, but he exhibits one of the worst traits of a journalist: bullying. How many times have you heard him say—or imply—that people who won't come on his program are either afraid of him or have something to hide? This is a flagrant non sequitur. Nobody has an obligation to go on his program, and there are many reasons why someone would decline an invitation from him other than fear or furtiveness.

Another example of journalistic bullying occurs when reporters say that so-and-so did not return a call (or my favorite, "repeated calls"). The implication is that so-and-so has something to hide. It's a way of assigning guilt to a person without proving it. It's a threat, really. The journalist is saying to all readers, "If I call you, you had better call me back or I will imply in my story that you are guilty; cooperate with me or else."

The worst bullies in journalism are sports writers. They need quotations from athletes and coaches to jazz up their stories. They love it when their subjects speak freely to them. They reward these players and coaches with favorable press. But athletes or coaches who don't talk to journalists, or who talk uninformatively or unsensationally, get bad press. I've seen it happen hundreds of times in my life. Albert Belle refused to talk to reporters. Reporters beat up on him every chance they got. Barry Bonds can barely conceal his contempt for sports writers. He's vilified.

Do you wonder why I don't talk to journalists?

Congratulations to Peg Kaplan and her bridge partner Bill for winning their recent tournament. See here. Keep us posted on future tournaments, Peg. By the way, tell us some time how you got interested in bridge and what, specifically, attracted you to it. Are you a competitive person? Some feminists, as you may know, think competition is a bad thing. Contrarian that I am, I believe that almost all good things emerge from competitive processes.

Well said, Rose.

Dr Bill Vallicella translates (from German) part of an interview with Bernard Lewis, the scholar of Islam. Lewis says that Europe will be Islamic (i.e., have a majority of Islamic voters) by the end of this century. Heartening, isn't it? I'm glad I'll be long gone by then.

Donald Luskin continues to fight the good fight. See here.

Joe Carpenter (my student) writes poetry for his blog. See here. I wrote many poems back in the day. I even had one published in the college literary journal. All you readers of my blog had better be nice to me, or I'll post it!

One of the reasons I like reading Jeff's blog—besides the cool illustrations—is that many of his posts go way over my head. Sometimes I think Jeff and I live in different worlds. They're not entirely different, however, because Jeff loves baseball. He just has the bad taste to like the Oakland Athletics. For a kick, go to Jeff's blog and click "ABOUT ME." Jeff has lists of likes and dislikes. What's wrong with babies, Jeff? Weren't you one?

The thing that troubles me the most about John Kerry is that he appears to attach intrinsic value to global coalitions. There are two ways to value a thing: intrinsically and extrinsically. To value a thing intrinsically is to value it for its own sake. To value a thing extrinsically (sometimes called instrumentally) is to value it for the sake of something else—of which it is a part or to which it is a means. A thing can be valued in both ways. I value my friends both for their own sake and because they help me when I am in need. I value money only extrinsically.

The job of the president of the United States is to protect Americans and American interests. These things, from the point of view of the president, have intrinsic value. If building global coalitions is the most effective means to achieving these ends, then global coalitions have extrinsic value. I believe President Bush understands this. John Kerry, as far as I can tell, does not.

Some people think it's an argument for our doing something that others (or particular others, such as Europeans) are doing it. Banning capital punishment is an example. But wait. Either there are reasons to ban capital punishment or there are not. If there are, then it's those reasons, and not the fact that other nations have banned capital punishment, that we should act on. If there are not, then the fact that others have banned capital punishment is irrelevant. Either way, we should ignore what others have done or are doing.

A parent not only may, but should, protect his or her children. It would be a dereliction of parental duty to delegate responsibility to others or to treat one's own children no differently from stranger children. Why is the presidency any different? If a coalition, alliance, or treaty serves our interests, then by all means enter into it. If it doesn't, don't. Merely being a part of a coalition has no intrinsic significance. Is John Kerry running for king of the world or for most popular world leader? No. He's running for president of the United States. He's asking to be our parent. So far, he hasn't shown that he understands the role.

To the Editor:

I read time and again of the government's and, more specifically, President Bush's responsibility for the loss of American jobs.

How many who are complaining most loudly are driving foreign-built cars, using foreign-manufactured electronic gadgets and wearing clothing mostly made abroad?

In my mind, the American people have exported gobs of jobs for the sake of more and more, cheaper and cheaper. This is not a fault of government or big business, but rather a matter of supply and demand.

A "buy American" attitude would do a lot more to save American jobs than anything the president or Congress can manage.

Arnold M. Behrer Jr.
Palmyra, Va., Sept. 29, 2004

Mary Mapes of CBS instantiates Keith's Law, which says that authoritativeness is inversely proportional to partisanship. See here. This woman's credibility as a journalist is shot, and she has nobody to blame but herself. She put her journalistic credentials and reputation in the service of a partisan cause. Perhaps other journalists will learn from her demise. How much do you want to bet that Mapes turns up as a spokesperson—maybe even as a press secretary—for a Democrat politician?

10-4-84 . . . In other news today, I met with Keith Lehrer, Chairperson of the Philosophy Department, to discuss my progress within the program and exchange notes. Professor Lehrer is meeting with each of the graduate students separately, and I found him to be a polite and cheery man. We discussed his forthcoming seminar on the Scots philosopher Thomas Reid, the faculty openings that will soon be filled (Frank Lewis, a Greek scholar, is apparently going elsewhere), epistemology, and the moral philosophy of Adam Smith, David Hume, Francis Hutcheson, and Thomas Reid. At one point I expressed interest in Reid's theory of the moral sentiments, and Professor Lehrer, who is a Reid scholar, said that he had been hoping for a Ph.D. dissertation on that subject for some time. I got the distinct impression that he would like me (or someone else in the department) to go ahead with that project. He also mentioned the possibility of merging law and epistemology on the subject of evidence—of stating the conditions under which some legal proposition is known, for instance. I told him that that subject had already occurred to me, but that I did not think it warranted a dissertation-length treatment. Maybe I was wrong. In any event, I had a pleasant forty-five-minute discussion with Professor Lehrer, after which I met with a student for an hour. It is good that the students get to meet with the Department Chairperson every now and then, if only to express grievances and air views. I, personally, told Professor Lehrer that I like everyone in the department and that I would prefer to see a colloquium speaker on an ethical topic in the near future. He made a note of it and said that he'd see what can be done.

Effect, n. The second of two phenomena which always occur together in the same order. The first, called a Cause, is said to generate the other—which is no more sensible than it would be for one who has never seen a dog except in pursuit of a rabbit to declare the rabbit the cause of the dog.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

KBJ:

Mindlessness is an apt term that consternates. [See here.] Given sufficient mindless voters mindlessness is a winning ticket . . . a correct stratagem for victory. The only question still open is have we reached critical mass yet? And what can society do (if anything) to prevent the spread of rotting, rampant mindlessness? Or will only something happening TO society return its focus and "save" us if you will? Like a depression? Or a nuclear/biological/chemical holocaust? It seems to me that human beings, doing well generation after generation, are pre-ordained to select easier paths in life (some would use the term lazy . . .). Hence given sufficient "good times," mindlessness (and laziness) is the natural human response.

But then I am chastised (once again) by a new book describing the nasty 1800 election and its eerily similar veins to today. Even then it seems mindlessness was rampant. Perhaps our doom is not so near after all and the witless/clueless/mindless shall be like the poor: with us forever.

Will

This is my month, the baseball maven's month, the month when other stuff—such as eating and sleeping—fails to matter. Here is the truth in prospect:

• The New York Yankees over the Minnesota Twins in five games.
• The Anaheim Angels over the Boston Red Sox in five games.
• The St Louis Cardinals over the Los Angeles Dodgers in four games.
• The Atlanta Braves over the Houston Astros in five games.

In the League Championship Series, it will be:

• Anaheim over New York in seven games.
• St Louis over Atlanta (the choke team of the 90s) in six games.

In the World Series, it will be:

• Anaheim over St Louis in six games.

While I'm on the subject of making predictions, I should acknowledge error in predicting that Roger Clemens of the Houston Astros would win 30 games this season. He won 18—tied for second-most in the National League—but it was not close to 30. Mea culpa.

Objectivist philosophy likes to view itself as having science on its side. In the case of biological categories, science is not on its side. Classical categories and natural kinds are remnants of pre-Darwinian philosophy. They fit the biology of the ancient Greeks very well, and even the biology of local naturalists such as Linnaeus. But they do not accord with phenomena that are central to evolution—variation within species, adaptation to the environment, gradual change, gene pools, etc. Whatever one's choices are in the styles of contemporary biology, objectivist semantics and cognition and, to a large extent, even objectivist metaphysics are in conflict with post-Darwinian biology. I'd put my money on biology.

(George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind [Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1987], 195)

I watched Thursday night's presidential debate and wrote a post about it immediately afterward, but I've been unable to watch, listen to, or read any of the post-debate commentary. What little commentary I've been exposed to—it's hard to avoid—has been mindless, and that's the best word I can use to describe it.

Does anyone really think that the debates affected anyone's vote? Those who planned to vote for President Bush will do so in spite of any weakness on his part during the debate, and those who planned to vote for John Kerry can vote only once, even if they thought he did a bang-up job and want very much for him to be elected. In our electoral system, intensity doesn't matter. Paul Krugman's frenzied vote for John Kerry (really, against President Bush) will be neutralized by the vote of some lukewarm Bush supporter in the New Jersey hinterlands.

So what's the point of analyzing the debate, other than to fill time on cable television and talk radio? I've written before about journalists' desire to have a horse race. They will spin the debates so as to make the race appear close, even if it's not. Whichever candidate is ahead in the polls will be decreed the "loser" of the debates. Journalists were spoiled by the 2000 election. They want another one that goes down to the wire, with the result unclear until the very end. They hate covering elections in which the winner is clear, as in the Reagan era.

So, as much as I love politics and political theater, I've been tuned out for the past few days. I know what I saw and I have my own standards for success in a presidential debate. President Bush did what he needed to do, which is assure the American people that he understands how the world changed after 9-11 (not everyone does) and will conduct the war against radical Islam with appropriate seriousness and resolve. Nothing less than Western civilization is at stake.

Many of you know that I have three blogs: AnalPhilosopher, Animal Ethics, and The Ethics of War. The second and third of these began as communal blogs, but I didn't get along with the other bloggers and dumped them. It was more hassle than it was worth. I also got rid of the comments function on both blogs. If you want to comment on something I post, write to me via e-mail. Keep it respectful or I won't read it. I got a long letter last night. Its tone was personal and insulting right off the bat, so I stopped reading and deleted it. I don't have time to read bullshit. If you think my posts are bullshit, stop reading them. It's a beautiful system, when you think about it. Indeed, it's a libertarian utopia: Nobody is coerced by anyone; everything is voluntary.

For many months, I tried heroically to post something on Animal Ethics and The Ethics of War each day, but it became too much work (or rather, it became work). I've decided to retool. Henceforth, all of my blogging will be done on AnalPhilosopher. If I post something about animals, I'll post it on Animal Ethics as well. If I post something about war, I'll post it on The Ethics of War as well. These other blogs will be proper subsets of AnalPhilosopher: Everything posted on them will be posted on AnalPhilosopher, but not everything posted on AnalPhilosopher will be posted on them.

If you read AnalPhilosopher, therefore, there is no reason for you to visit these other blogs. But some people may be interested only in animal ethics or only in the ethics of war, and not, for example, in politics, music, law, journalism, history, or sports (things I write about on a regular basis). These people can check in at Animal Ethics or The Ethics of War from time to time to see what's new. There are lots of blogs out there, with more being created each day. I want to help people make good use of their time. I find that I can read only a handful of blogs a day, so I have to be selective. I assume this is true for you as well.

Thank you for reading AnalPhilosopher. I think of it as my literary outlet. First there was my journal, then e-mail, and now blogging. AnalPhilosopher has never been purely philosophical (see the blurb on the left, in the green area), but it's written by a philosopher and can't but reflect his training. To me, philosophy is method, not substance. It's conceptual clarification. If you learn from me, are inspired by me, or are entertained by me, feel free to come back. If I piss you off, stay away. I'm not in this for money, fame, glory, or status. I don't need to be the biggest blogger in the world in order to be happy, and I certainly don't need abuse. But I do appreciate having readers. It keeps me on my toes.

Prude, n. A bawd hiding behind the back of her demeanor.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

10-2-84 . . . Each Tuesday, as soon as I rise and make coffee, I draft a five-page paper for the evening's seminar. The paper that I wrote this morning deals with "parked-car statutes"—statutes which make it a criminal misdemeanor for a person to leave his or her car unlocked with keys in the ignition. I argued that parked-car statutes are justified by the Harm Principle. Tonight, in the seminar, I defended my view, only to be met with considerable resistance by the other students. Many of them argued that leaving one's keys in an unlocked car does not cause harm (in the technical sense used by Professor Feinberg), while others argued that even if this action does cause harm, the loss of liberty that the statutes entail outweighs the harm that might be prevented. On the whole, I think, I did a good job of stating and defending my view. I truly enjoy writing these weekly papers, for they give me a chance to hone my argumentative skills and give concentrated thought to particular moral problems. When I give seminars of my own, a few years from now, they will be modelled after Joel Feinberg's.

Jeff, who has the misfortune to root for the Oakland Athletics, has a nice post (here) about Ichiro Suzuki, the fabulous Japanese baseball player. I had to get to bed early last night, but I wanted to see Ichiro tie and, if possible, set the Major League Baseball record for hits in a season. His Seattle Mariners were playing my adopted Texas Rangers. Ichiro must have known of my early bedtime, because he singled in his first two trips to the plate. That gave him 258 hits, breaking George Sisler's 1920 record of 257. Amazing. The game stopped for several minutes as fans applauded and Ichiro's teammates came onto the field to congratulate him. He seemed touched by the expression of affection. He is a special player—one of the best I've ever seen.

To the Editor:

Re "As a Life Ebbs, the Ultimate Family Quarrel" (front page, Sept. 27):

Families are often forced to make urgent, complex decisions for loved ones in intensive care units. In such situations, many family members experience severe anxiety or depression that precludes informed, thoughtful decisions.

Doctors in other countries often "protect" families by making life-or-death decisions independently, but perhaps with insufficient knowledge of or respect for a patient's wishes. Most families I work with welcome a doctor's counsel when facing hard choices.

Shared decision-making is becoming more common in the United States and may help families through these crises.

Mark D. Siegel, M.D.
New Haven, Sept. 27, 2004
The writer is an associate professor at Yale University School of Medicine.

My bicycling buddy, Norm Weatherby, did the 64-mile course in Waco this morning. See here. Good for you, Norm! Either you're dumber than I am or you're tougher than I am. Probably the latter. By the way, Norm posted several photographs of his visit to the State Fair of Texas just below his post about the Waco Wild West Century. I haven't been to the State Fair, even though I've lived in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex for fifteen years.

Rattlesnake, n. Our prostrate brother, Homo ventrambulans.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

I did my 18th bike rally of the year—and 342d overall—this morning in Waco. The forecast was for thunderstorms, but I was undaunted. I rose at five o'clock and set out 45 minutes later on the 94-mile drive, hoping the forecaster was wrong. It hadn't rained at my Fort Worth house since early the previous evening, so I thought I might get lucky.

Things looked good on the way to Waco. Although it was too dark for me to see the sky, there was no rain—until I got one mile from the rally location. It rained as I walked to and from registration and while I prepared the bike. My original plan was to ride 64 miles (I used to ride 100, back when I trained), but riding in the rain for four hours didn't appeal to me, so I started thinking about 26 miles. There was also a 52-mile course. I decided to decide later, when the courses separated.

Having put on my rain cape, I rolled up to the starting line at 7:51 for the 8:00 start. Just then, the announcer said the start had been delayed until 8:30. I would have waited nine minutes, but not 39. I decided to start early, the earlier to get home. Many of the police officers weren't at their intersections when I went through, so I had to stop several times at lights. When I reached the turnoff for the 26-mile course, the rain had stopped, so I decided to ride at least 52 miles. It rained again midway through, soaking me to the bone, but the temperature was high enough to keep it comfortable (or rather, not uncomfortable).

Did you know that they make Snickers bars in Waco? One of the most coveted rest stops on the course is the Mars factory south of town. That was my only stop for the day. I was the first rider to arrive, so everyone waited on me hand and foot. "Do you want some water?" "Do you want some Gatorade?" "Bananas and oranges are over here." But these items are available at every rest stop in every rally. What makes this one special are the boxes filled with Snickers bars and every other confection made by Mars. After using the clean restroom inside, I filled my jersey pockets with chocolate. The extra weight was no problem.

The road was wet the entire way. It was a dark and dreary day. I fought a headwind on the way back, which made the going slow. I kept expecting the faster 52-mile riders to catch me, even though I had a 39-minute head start, but nobody did. A photographer snapped pictures of me as I passed through the finish line. I wanted to yell out, "Stop it; I cheated!" But it wasn't a race, so I guess I can't have cheated. All things considered, I had fun. There are two more rallies to go before winter sets in.

By the way, the 100-mile course goes past President Bush's Crawford ranch. I haven't been past it, since President Bush didn't live there when I used to ride 100 miles and I haven't ridden that far since he moved in. Someone told me there are Secret Service agents near the road to keep people from entering his driveway.

Eric Oliver, "Things Aren't Always What They Are," American Journal of Family Law 11 (fall 1997): 199.

Bambi E. S. Robinson, "Birds Do It. Bees Do It. So Why Not Single Women and Lesbians?" Bioethics 11 (1997): 217.

David Benatar, "Why It Is Better Never to Come into Existence," American Philosophical Quarterly 34 (July 1997): 345.

Karl Pfeifer, "Laughter, Freshness, and Titillation," Inquiry 40 (September 1997): 307.

Marshall S. Shapo, "Freud, Cocaine, and Products Liability," Boston University Law Review 77 (April 1997): 421.

10-1-84 . . . Speaking of pollution-emitting firms, I am becoming concerned with the overdevelopment of the Tucson basin. Although I am relatively new here in town, I can see how rapidly urbanization has spread, and is spreading, to the mountains. North of town, at the foot of the Santa Catalina Mountains, are expensive homes and apartment complexes, while, in the east, toward the Rincons, are still more apartment complexes and commercial establishments. Industry can't be far behind. The problem with this overdevelopment is that it pushes animal species farther and farther out into the desert and threatens to upset the delicate ecological balance of the desert environment. One of the reasons for the vast flood damage a year ago, in fact, was that buildings were erected too close to the washes. If present trends continue, the entire basin, from the Santa Catalinas to the Rincons to the Tucson Mountains, will be full of people. It is not a pleasant thought to contemplate. The air will be full of pollution, the streets will be crowded with cars and buses, and there will be no open places in which to recreate and breathe fresh air. I once thought that people ought to be able to live where they want to live and do what they want to do with their money, but now I favor central planning. We must impose limits on how far people can go in erecting homes, businesses, and factories. If we fail to act in this matter, we will have sinned by omission. I, for one, want to see Tucson remain a pleasant city in which to live.

To the Editor:

Re "Truths Worth Telling," by Daniel Ellsberg (Op-Ed, Sept. 27):

Let's stop describing public officials who condone or conceal wrongful decisions or actions as being loyal to their superiors. They are not loyal; they are obedient. Loyalty is given freely to those who deserve it. Obedience is given to those who, in their hierarchical roles, demand it.

Compromised subordinates face a tough choice. Most remain silent in fear of the end of their professional lives. But that silence betokens obedience—submission to authority—not loyalty.

Tom Gorman
Newton, Mass., Sept. 28, 2004

I'd like to thank those of you who wrote to me with advice about reducing the amount of sodium in my diet (or about blood-pressure devices). (See here.) Assuming my blood pressure really is high, I'm determined to get it down. I've always eaten a lot of salt, figuring that, since I like it and it isn't doing any harm, I may as well indulge myself. But even if I don't have high blood pressure, it's not a good idea to eat as much salt as I have been.

A few minutes ago, I went to a grocery store to see what kinds and brands of salt substitutes are available. I was amazed by the abundance! To find the right one, I bought several. I bought Morton Salt Substitute, something called NoSalt Salt Alternative, and two types of Mrs. Dash Seasoning Blend. None of them contains any sodium. I also bought Morton Lite Salt Mixture, which contains "half the sodium of table salt." I'm sure one of them will replace the salt I've been using on my popcorn, rice, and other meals, with little or no loss in taste.

By the way, I'm teaching a course on Lewis and Clark this semester. Yesterday, my students and I discussed the saltworks Lewis and Clark constructed on the Pacific Ocean. The Corps of Discovery ran out of salt on the outbound journey, so, since they were going to be on the Pacific coast all winter, they decided to make their own salt by boiling sea water around the clock. It must have been awful to eat elk meat and other foods without seasoning. I believe the Corps cached some of its salt on the outbound journey, so you can be sure it was retrieved on the homebound trek.

There's a lot at stake in the upcoming presidential election, such as whether we will have lawless or law-abiding Supreme Court justices, but it shouldn't prevent us from enjoying—even finding humor in—the political spectacle. Have you heard of push polling? If you click here and read down, you'll see that some pollster asked the following question: "Are you going to vote for John Kerry even though he will raise your taxes?" Hilarious! My favorite example of push polling came during the Clinton presidency. Someone asked respondents, "You don't like Bill Clinton, do you?"

Pessimism, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Dr Burgess-Jackson

Re your remarks considering the ethics of Bush and Kerry.

I just read the following in a sci-fi book, Gordon R. Dickson's The Chantry Guild.

"There is almost no difference between a fanatic and someone of pure faith, though what difference there is makes all the difference once you get to know them. Basically they differ in the fact that a faith-holder puts himself below his faith and lets it guide his actions. The fanatic puts himself above it and uses it as an excuse for his actions."

As I read that, I clearly saw Bush the faithful, Kerry the fanatic. Do you see the same small difference?

I see one more difference between the two. Bush seems much more satisfied. He's happy with what he is and where he is. He has that quiet strength I see in people I know who "found the Lord."

Kerry spends his time windsurfing at his wife's place on the cape, skiing at his wife's chalet in Colorado, flying back and forth on his wife's jet, finding time to stop at the estate in Pennsylvania, and occasionally showing up in the Senate. He never seems to have enough, and never will. He's still trying to find himself.

I'm about as happy with my life as you seem to be with yours (at least from your writings). I'm glad I'm not Kerry.

Feel free to use this if you wish.

Frank