AnalPhilosopher

This man wants the Left to embrace socialism. In other words, he wants the Left to be even more powerless than it is. Don't you love it?

Some leftists are not happy with Hillary Clinton. Or is it a trick? See here for Mike Rosen's column.

Michael Kinsley confuses objectivity (which contrasts with subjectivity) and impartiality (which contrasts with partiality). Umpires in baseball aren't supposed to be objective. They're supposed to be impartial. They're supposed to prevent their personal preferences (if any) from influencing their calls. Judges are supposed to be impartial. They must not take sides in the cases they hear. Why is this such a hard concept to grasp? The idea is not that umpires and judges lack preferences, opinions, or values. It's that they're to keep their preferences, opinions, and values from influencing their judgments. Journalists are supposed to be impartial in this sense. Nobody expects journalists not to have opinions. We expect them to keep their opinions out of their news stories. It may be difficult to do this, but it's not impossible. The stronger your opinion on the matter at hand, the harder you have to work to keep it from coloring your description or analysis.

Sad, adj. 1. Unhappy; feeling sorrow or regret. 2. Unable to torment others.

The essential difference between Nazism and Communism is not one of political philosophy or of political institutions. It does not lie in the range of political authority or in the way in which it is exercised, but in the purposes for which political power and political machinery are used. Nazism was the application of a totalitarian, single-party, police-State machine to the service of a racial Herrenvolk doctrine and an unlimited campaign of territorial aggression ready and willing to use war as an instrument of these aims. The only ideological element in it—the racial theory—is the concern not of philosophers but of ethnologists. In the USSR a very similar machine was applied for the institution and maintenance of new economic arrangements for ownership and control of factories and land, in the interests of the workers. The ideological element here concerns the economist, not the philosopher. The questions whether the arrangements are efficient, whether they really result in maximum benefits to the workers, what amount of control the individual worker in fact exercises—these are empirical questions in the field of economics or political organisation. Thus I hold that the political philosopher, as such, is no more required to hold a view either on the ideology of communism or on its practical application than he is required, as a philosopher, to hold a particular view on Free Trade or the merits of Co-operatives. Communism, like capitalism, is not a political philosophy.

(J. D. Mabbott, The State and the Citizen: An Introduction to Political Philosophy, 2d ed. [London: Hutchinson University Library, 1967 (1st ed. 1948)], 166-7 [italics in original])

One of my readers sent this.

Here is Matthew Scully's essay about Hugh Hefner.

Addendum: Here is the definition of "pornography" from the Oxford English Dictionary, 2d ed.:

pornography

1. (See quot.)

1857 Dunglison Med. Dict., Pornography, a description of prostitutes or of prostitution, as a matter of public hygiene. 1858 in Mayne Expos. Lex. 1895 in Syd. Soc. Lex.

2. a. Description of the life, manners, etc., of prostitutes and their patrons; hence, the expression or suggestion of obscene or unchaste subjects in literature or art; pornographic literature or art. Also qualified by hard or soft, with reference to hard core (b) s.v. hard a. 23b, soft core s.v. soft a. 29, to denote pornography of a more, or less, obscene kind. Also transf.

1864 Webster, Pornography, licentious painting employed to decorate the walls of rooms sacred to bacchanalian orgies, examples of which exist in Pompeii. 1882 Daily Tel. No. 8313. 5/4 Pictorial and glyptic ‘pornography’..grew, flourished, declined, and fell with the Second Empire. 1896 Mackail Lat. Lit. 18 The Casina and the Truculentus [of Plautus] are studies in pornography which only the unflagging animal spirits of the poet can redeem from being disgusting. 1930 W. S. Maugham Gent. in Parlour xii. 64 Pornography rather than brevity is the soul of wit. 1968 Sat. Rev. (U.S.) 19 Oct. 23 In recent years the movies and television have developed a pornography of violence far more demoralizing than the pornography of sex, which still seizes the primary attention of the guardians of civic virtue. 1972 Times Lit. Suppl. 7 Jan. 12/2 Of course pornography should never be treated as if only its sexual aspects mattered—that is, as if no other kind of stimulus offered by the written word could be as socially or ethically significant. 1976 Time (Canada ed.) 5 Apr. 36/1 What pornography is can endlessly be debated. One rough definition: explicit books, films and other materials (including, by extension, performances) designed chiefly for sexual arousal. 1977 Broadcast 30 May 3/3 [Italian] ‘pirate’ TV stations which flourish on..‘soft pornography’. 1977 Lancet 11 June 1241/2 A distinction could be drawn between erotic art (or soft pornography)..and hard pornography, which by connecting sex with violence, hatred, pain, and humiliation, stimulated gratification of sexual desire in deviant ways.

b. In transf. and extended uses.

1968 [see above]. 1977 Listener 17 Nov. 655/4 Turgid moralising..is the real English vice, the pornography of our day.

So por'nographist, a writer on pornography.

1893 Nation (N.Y.) 3 Aug. 79/2 The ‘grossness of the naturalists and the subtleties of the pornographists’, to use the words of M. Lavisse, cannot have any other result.

You should not conflate pornography and obscenity. Something can be pornographic but not obscene, just as something can be obscene but not pornographic.

Here.

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has upheld a statute that prohibits nonresidents from marrying in the commonwealth unless they're capable of marrying in their own state. See here. This decision does nothing more than save Massachusetts money. Logically, there are three cases:

1. Homosexual couples who live in Massachusetts. They could marry before the ruling and can marry after the ruling.

2. Homosexual couples who live in states that allow homosexual "marriage." They could marry before the ruling and can marry after the ruling.

3. Homosexual couples who live in states that prohibit homosexual "marriage." They could not marry before the ruling and cannot marry after the ruling.

If the decision had gone the other way, couples from out of state could have gone to Massachusetts, married, and returned to their homes, where they would be . . . unmarried. The commonwealth of Massachusetts will simply save money, since it won't have to produce pointless paperwork.

Addendum: Here is the opinion.

I pray that nobody prays for me if I become ill. See here.

To the Editor:

Re "On Campus, a Good Man Is Hard to Find" (column, March 25):

Affirmative action for male college-bound students is not appropriate, but not for the reasons John Tierney states.

Affirmative action is most suited to remedy the effects of past discrimination and current burdens experienced by a disadvantaged group. Boys and men have consistently benefited from the structure of society.

Affirmative action is not warranted for the privileged.

Furthermore, as Mr. Tierney aptly points out, diversity can be accomplished in many various ways and does not justify affirmative action for men alone.

Contrary to his assertions, schools already favor boys. Boys dominate the attention of teachers, who are more likely to call on boys and encourage them to participate.

But this longstanding scheme is changing, and programs similar to those Mr. Tierney mentions have allowed girls to excel in the academic arena.

Perhaps the real reason boys are no longer outperforming girls is that boys must finally compete on the merits instead of using tools of favoritism to dominate girls.

Lauren Rackow
New York, March 27, 2006

Potable, n. [sic; should be "adj."] Suitable for drinking. Water is said to be potable; indeed, some declare it our natural beverage, although even they find it palatable only when suffering from the recurrent disorder known as thirst, for which it is a medicine. Upon nothing has so great and diligent ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in all countries, except the most uncivilized, as upon the invention of substitutes for water. To hold that this general aversion to that liquid has no basis in the preservative instinct of the race is to be unscientific—and without science we are as the snakes and toads.

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

Here.

Kevin Stroup sent a link to this blog, which I had never seen. It looks good. I'll add it to the blogroll.

To the Editor:

My grandparents migrated here from Lithuania at the turn of the last century, fleeing persecution.

They came here legally. They passed health tests. My grandfather immediately and totally embraced his country. Everyone had to speak English and learned it. My grandfather was always walking around saying, "God bless America—where else can you hold two jobs?"

Today, there are still immigrants like my grandfather who come here legally and who totally accept the United States, but there are millions with questionable backgrounds who are here to exploit. They are also closing off jobs that Americans need; the construction industry is a prime example.

I am typical of the way many Americans feel about illegal immigrants. God bless the legal immigrants; deport the illegals.

Barbara Gordon
New York, March 28, 2006

Here.

Plebiscite, n. A popular vote to ascertain the will of the sovereign.

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

This is hilarious. You'll like it even if you're not a fan of Led Zeppelin. If you're a fan, you'll love it. (Thanks to Mark Spahn for the link.)

Here.

As if to prove that he is a thug (should anyone have doubted it), Brian Leiter has threatened PowerBlogs with a lawsuit if it doesn't change the URL of my blog devoted to exposing his abusiveness. I don't care what the URL is, and I don't want PowerBlogs to risk liability, so I changed it. Here is the new address. Please reset your shortcut, bookmark, or favorite, and spread the word. This thug—Leiter—needs to be shown that he can't control others.

My university—The University of Texas at Arlington—has excellent athletic facilities. This evening, my softball team (The Waybacks) began its season. The team is made up of faculty members from the College of Liberal Arts, plus a few ringers from other departments. We demolished a team of students, 29-0. I had a great time. I played third base for most of the game and pitched one perfect inning. My pitching strategy is to let the other team hit the ball, counting on my teammates to make the outs. If you can believe it, I struck out two of the three batters I faced. The third player I faced grounded out to me. The weather was gorgeous. I feel blessed to live in a place with such good weather.

We lighten the sentence of the remorseful criminal for the same reason that we accord less praise to the vain (conceited, self-congratulatory) inventor or discoverer than to the modest one. The vain discoverer has bestowed upon himself some fraction of the praise he deserves, thus drawing down the amount owed him by others; the remorseful criminal has bestowed upon himself some fraction of the punishment he owes, thus reducing the amount of public punishment necessary to give him his full measure of deserved punishment.

(Richard A. Posner, The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1999], 123)

Here.

To the Editor:

Re "Firefighters Gone Vegan? Even Austin Is Impressed" (news article, March 26):

Cancer made me a widow at age 33 and robbed my 4-year-old and 1-year-old of their daddy.

While there are many factors that cause cancer and other serious, often terminal, health problems, diet is a big factor and one that we can control.

Study after study links the consumption of animal products (dairy products, eggs and meat) with heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, high blood pressure, obesity and other serious health problems.

The Agriculture Department has acknowledged an 80 percent increase in the number of chickens contaminated with salmonella.

Government warnings advise that eating certain fish can cause mercury poisoning.

Then there are mad cow disease, growth hormones, antibiotics, pesticides and now bird flu to worry about.

Bravo to the Austin, Tex., vegan firefighters for choosing to improve and protect their health with every delicious meal.

May we all choose to stop killing ourselves slowly with our food before it's too late, not to mention causing unimaginable suffering to billions of animals on factory farms and at slaughterhouses.

Monica Ball
Peoria, Ill., March 27, 2006

Here.

Lore, n. Learning—particularly that sort which is not derived from a regular course of instruction but comes of the reading of occult books, or by nature. This latter is commonly designated as folk-lore and embraces popularly [sic] myths and superstitions. In Baring-Gould's Curious Myths of the Middle Ages the reader will find many of these traced backward, through various peoples on converging lines, toward a common origin in remote antiquity. Among these are the fables of "Teddy the Giant Killer," "The Sleeping John Sharp Williams," "Little Red Riding Hood and the Sugar Trust," "Beauty and the Brisbane," "The Seven Aldermen of Ephesus," "Rip Van Fairbanks," and so forth. The fable which Goethe so affectingly relates under the title of "The Erl-King" was known two thousand years ago in Greece as "The Demos and the Infant Industry." One of the most general and ancient of these myths is that Arabian tale of "Ali Baba and the Forty Rockefellers."

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

To this.

I was telling one of my students about Grant Gillett, who holds a D.Phil. degree in philosophy from Oxford University. Gillett is not just a philosopher; he's a neurosurgeon. See here and here. Who says philosophers can't be practical?

What fails of accord with common sense must have, in morals at least, a presumption against it.

(Clarence Irving Lewis, Values and Imperatives: Studies in Ethics, ed. John Lange [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969], 26)

My heart is black and my lips are cold
Cities on flame with rock and roll
Three thousand guitars
They seem to cry
My ears will melt and then my eyes

Let the girl, let that girl rock and roll
Cities on flame, now, with rock and roll

Gardens of Nocturne, forbidden delight
Reins of steel and it’s all right
Cities on flame with rock and roll
Marshall will buoy but Fender control

So let the girl, let that girl rock and roll
Cities on flame, now, with rock and roll

My heart is black and my lips are cold
Cities on flame with rock and roll
Three thousand guitars
They seem to cry
My ears will melt and then my eyes

So let the girl, let that girl rock and roll
Cities on flame, now, with rock and roll

Gargoyle, n. A rain-spout projecting from the eaves of mediæval buildings, commonly fashioned into a grotesque caricature of some personal enemy of the architect or owner of the building. This was especially the case in churches and ecclesiastical structures generally, in which the gargoyles presented a perfect rogues' gallery of local heretics and controversialists. Sometimes when a new dean and chapter were installed the old gargoyles were removed and others substituted having a closer relation to the private animosities of the new incumbents.

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

Here.

To the Editor:

Reading about the trend toward full beards among the male stylish set ("Paul Bunyan, Modern-Day Sex Symbol," Thursday Styles, March 23), I couldn't help but sigh with envy.

While with-it guys can now just say no to the plastic Boy Scout look, I'm afraid that there will be no analogous move away from the plucked and straightened aesthetic that remains de rigueur among fashionistas and female celebrities, and thus for women everywhere.

The reigning look for women is as punitive and perverse as the Victorian corset, and encourages conformity in place of the raucous individuality that marks true style.

The day I see a woman with grown-up curves and a head of wild, curly hair marching down the catwalk, I'll hail the real fashion revolution.

Emily Alice Katz
Princeton, N.J., March 23, 2006

If you like maps, as I do, you'll love this. (Thanks to Mark Spahn for the link.)

Here.

See here for Charles Krauthammer's column about the most pressing issue in the world.

Here is a section of the Texas Penal Code:

§ 49.02. PUBLIC INTOXICATION. (a) A person commits an offense if the person appears in a public place while intoxicated to the degree that the person may endanger the person or [of?] another. (b) It is a defense to prosecution under this section that the alcohol or other substance was administered for therapeutic purposes and as a part of the person's professional medical treatment by a licensed physician. (c) Except as provided by Subsection (e), an offense under this section is a Class C misdemeanor. (d) An offense under this section is not a lesser included offense under Section 49.04. (e) An offense under this section committed by a person younger than 21 years of age is punishable in the same manner as if the minor committed an offense to which Section 106.071, Alcoholic Beverage Code, applies.

Added by Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 900, § 1.01, eff. Sept. 1, 1994. Amended by Acts 1997, 75th Leg., ch. 1013, § 12, eff. Sept. 1, 1997.

Recently, the Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission has been applying this provision to bar patrons. Read this editorial opinion from The Dallas Morning News (italics in original):

What Are Bars For? State should back off arrests of tame drunks

11:17 AM CST on Sunday, March 26, 2006

Is Texas a great place to live, or what? Seems the state can afford to send undercover agents into bars to arrest people they believe are guilty of drinking too much . . . while sitting.

That's right, sitting. Not driving, sitting. Or standing. And drinking—which is what people go to bars to do.

Yes, these tipplers might get into a car. So the Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission has been going into saloons snooping on patrons in "Operation Last Call," an effort to crack down on drunken driving. So far they've made more than 2,000 pre-emptive strikes on drunken drivers.

Except for the ones who weren't. For instance, several drinkers in a recent Irving sweep were reportedly out-of-towners drinking in the bar of the hotel where they were staying. What a brilliant plan to boost convention business: Make tourists afraid that if they have one cocktail too many, they might be sent to the pokey.

Yes, state law forbids public drunkenness. And to the extent an agent judges a drinker to be dangerous to himself or to others, the drinker may be in violation of the law. For all we know, TABC agents were correct in these recent cases.

After all, the law grants a great deal of discretion to individual agents, who do not have to prove that the accused was legally intoxicated.

Instead, they are on the lookout for loud or slurred speech, exaggerated movements or unsteady balance. And given the rowdy, communal atmosphere of some bars, such judgment calls would seem particularly tricky.

Operation Last Call strikes us as the wrong call. Everybody wants to get drunken drivers off the road, but there is something creepy about secret police officers monitoring the number of beers some poor sap is drinking—a key clue in making a case, according to a TABC spokesman—as a prelude to making a public intoxication arrest.

For now, our best advice is don't get messed up in Texas. That feller sitting on the barstool next to you nursing a Dr Pepper and a bad attitude just might be Big Brother.

Two questions. First, is this law defensible? (If so, on what ground?) Second, if it is defensible, is it properly applied to people sitting (or standing) in a bar?

A symbol is ambiguous when it has more than one meaning. There are different kinds of ambiguity. The word “bank,” for example, means financial institution as well as side of a river. There is no relation between these meanings, as far as I can tell. Sometimes, however, the different meanings of a symbol are related. The word “martyr,” for example, has generic-specific ambiguity. That is to say, it has both a general meaning and a special meaning.

A martyr, in the specific (narrow) sense, is “a person who is put to death for refusing to renounce a faith or belief” (The Oxford American Dictionary and Language Guide, 1999). The person in question is given a choice, to wit:

1. Renounce your belief and stay alive; or

2. Retain your belief and die.

The alternative of both retaining your belief and staying alive is excluded. This is a case of coercion. Structurally, it’s the same as when a robber says, “Your money or your life.” The robber is saying that you can’t both keep your money and stay alive. You can have your money or you can have your life, but you can’t have both. The robber expects you to value your life more than your money, in which case you will turn over your money without a struggle. (In order to be effective, the threat must be credible.) The same is true in the case of martyrdom. The authority expects you to value your life more than your faith, in which case you will renounce your faith. If you don’t, you become a martyr.

A martyr in the generic (broad) sense is “a person who suffers for adhering to a principle, cause, etc.” (ibid.). All martyrs in the first sense are martyrs in the second sense, but not all martyrs in the second sense are martyrs in the first sense. To disambiguate these meanings, we might use subscripts. [Note from AnalPhilosopher: The PowerBlogs software will not allow subscripts, so I had to make do with dashes and capital letters.] “Martyr-G” means martyr in the generic or loose sense. “Martyr-S” means martyr in the specific or strict sense.

In which sense, if any, is Abdul Rahman a martyr? I believe he’s a martyr-S, and therefore also a martyr-G. He is being threatened with death if he doesn’t renounce his Christian faith. He has, to date, refused to do so. Here, to me, is the philosophically interesting question: Is Rahman a martyr-S yet, or only when he is put to death? I believe he’s a martyr-S already, in spite of the dictionary definition, and will remain a martyr-S even if he is never put to death. As far as I know, Rahman has been told that he will be killed if he doesn’t renounce his faith. In the face of this threat, he retained his faith. That act of defiance made him a martyr-S, then and there. If the authorities subsequently decided not to carry through on their threat, this doesn’t alter the nature or significance of his act. As far as he knew, defying the authorities would result in his death. He wasn’t metaphorically a martyr-S. He was literally, at that moment, a martyr-S. For consider: It wasn’t up to him whether the threat was carried out. Of course, if he thought the threat was insincere, then, in his mind, he wasn’t subjecting himself to death; but I haven’t seen any evidence that this was the case. He appears to have been willing to die rather than to renounce his Christianity.

Here is the latest from John Fund about the Taliban student at Yale. I don't think Yale is going to be influenced by adverse media coverage, but it will be influenced by withheld donations. The greatest power any of us has is via our expenditures. If you don't like the way Nike treats its employees, don't buy Nike products. If you don't like Yale's decision to admit a former member of the Taliban, don't donate money to Yale or send your children there. I shouldn't talk, since I continue to use Working Assets as my long-distance telephone company in spite of its leftist views, but that's an anomaly in my life. I'm pretty careful about how I spend my money.

To the Editor:

Re "Mrs. Clinton Says G.O.P.'s Immigration Plan Is at Odds With the Bible" (news article, March 23):

There appears to be no end to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's pandering for votes. I do not agree with Senator Bill Frist's harsh immigration bill, but by injecting Jesus into the debate, Mrs. Clinton is evidencing a lack of respect for the doctrine of separation of church and state.

And if we are talking about Jesus, one need not speculate how Jesus would feel about Mrs. Clinton's support for an illegal war against Iraq. As a Democrat I am increasingly disturbed by her shift to the right.

Benjamin M. Haber
Flushing, Queens, March 23, 2006

Here.

One might think that academic public intellectuals would at least be accurate, meticulous, and responsible, with a clear sense (not always honored in Orwell's journalism, by the way) of the difference between fact and fiction, proof and speculation. Not so, for the reasons suggested in the preceding chapter. Consider Noam Chomsky, the most influential figure in modern linguistics, and probably in cognitive science as well. In book, pamphlet, lecture, and interview, he repeatedly denounces the United States for violent, lawless, repressive, and imperialistic behavior as black as that of Hitler's Germany and worse than that of Imperial Japan or that of any communist regime past or present, including Stalin's Soviet Union. Chomsky is not a communist and doesn't admire any of the communist regimes. He just thinks that the United States is more violent, more aggressive, more imperialistic, and more dangerous than any of them ever was. He thinks that "Stalin and his successors would have been willing to accept the role of junior managers in the US-dominated world system," though he doesn't explain why we were unwilling to give them that role. Chomsky describes North Korea as a helpless victim of American imperialism during the Korean War and blames the United States not only for the Cold War but also for Japanese aggression before our embargo on the export of oil to Japan precipitated Japan's decision to attack us. And the embargo, as he neglects to point out, was not an act of unprovoked aggression but a response to Japanese aggression in China and French Indochina. Chomsky intimates that the sole effect of World War II was to create an American empire every bit as evil as the fascist powers that the United States and its allies had conquered. He questions whether, had Japan not surrendered, we would have been justified in invading it: "The fact that Japan had attacked two military bases in two U.S. colonies hardly gives us a justification for occupying it."

(Richard A. Posner, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2001], 85-6 [italics in original; footnotes omitted])

Last, n. A shoemaker's implement, named by a frowning Providence as opportunity to the maker of puns.

Ah, punster, would my lot were cast,
Where the cobbler is unknown,
So that I might forget his last
And hear your own.
Gargo Repsky.

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

Many of you are probably familiar with this site. Those of you who aren't may want to explore it.

Here.

Here.

With some important exceptions, stereotypes are in fact not inaccurate when assessed against objective benchmarks such as census figures or the reports of the stereotyped people themselves. People who believe that African Americans are more likely to be on welfare than whites, that Jews have higher average incomes than WASPs, that business students are more conservative than students in the arts, that women are more likely than men to want to lose weight, and that men are more likely than women to swat a fly with their bare hands, are not being irrational or bigoted. Those beliefs are correct. People's stereotypes are generally consistent with the statistics, and in many cases their bias is to underestimate the real differences between sexes or ethnic groups. This does not mean that the stereotyped traits are unchangeable, of course, or that people think they are unchangeable, only that people perceive the traits fairly accurately at the time.

(Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature [New York: Viking, 2002], 204 [italics in original; endnote omitted])

Jeff Percifield has written an open letter to Christian Peacemaker Teams. Why aren't real Christians standing up to these idiots?

Should cellphones be allowed on airplanes? See here for Ben Stein's answer.

To the Editor:

The doctor-patient relationship is indeed frayed. We now have a provider-customer relationship that is a far cry from a compassionate, understanding doctor and a patient seeking advice and comfort.

I agree that patients need to become proactive in their selection of doctors, but it is also incumbent on doctors, through their varied organizations, to work toward being doctors, not "providers."

Ralph Lucariello, M.D.
Bronxville, N.Y., March 22, 2006

Science is the disinterested pursuit of knowledge. The very word "science" means knowledge. And yet, many social scientists refrain from pursuing knowledge when it threatens to upset leftist dogmas, such as that there are no races, that there are no innate differences between men and women, that humans are causing global warming, and that many of the problems individuals confront are of their own making. Leftists love to say that conservatives are anti-science. Ha! It's just the opposite. Leftists, despite their rhetoric, don't value knowledge for its own sake. They value it only if, and only to the extent that, it supports what they already believe on ideological grounds. They're cherry pickers. See here for an instructive op-ed column by Orlando Patterson.

Here.

Here is Richard Posner's post about the latest French riots.

Resign, v.t. To renounce an honor for an advantage. To renounce an advantage for a greater advantage.

'Twas rumored Leonard Wood had signed
A true renunciation
Of title, rank and every kind
Of military station—
Each honorable station.

By his example fired—inclined
To noble emulation,
The country humbly was resigned
To Leonard's resignation—
His Christian resignation.
Politian Greame.

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

Here.

See here for a fascinating essay by James S. Fishkin, who has two doctoral degrees—one in political science and one in philosophy.

Did you catch the recent Saturday Night Live episode hosted by Steve Martin? It's being replayed tonight, according to my newspaper. The musical guest is Prince. In one of the skits, Fred Armisen plays Prince. It's hilarious. Steve Martin affects a French accent, calling Prince "Pre-aunce." Prince's female sidekick, played by Maya Rudolph, pronounces the name "Prance." Check it out. By the way, Prince is the consummate showman. I don't know that I've ever seen a better performer. He's composed, controlled, and smooth. He can also play a mean guitar. I can't wait to hear him play again.

Here are some of my favorite bloggers (in no particular order):

Dr John J. Ray (Dissecting Leftism)
Steve Rugg (JusTalkin)
Peg Kaplan (what if?)
Jeff Percifield (Beautiful Atrocities)
Ally Eskin (Who Moved My Truth?)
Dr Bill Keezer (Bill's Comments)
Dr Bill Vallicella (Maverick Philosopher)
Michelle Malkin (Michelle Malkin)
Donald L. Luskin (The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid)
Norm Weatherby (Quantum Thought)
Kim du Toit (The Other Side)
Glenn Reynolds (InstaPundit)

If you think I'm missing a good blogger, let me know.

I hate redundancies. I hate redundancies. Jim Nantz, the basketball announcer, loves to say that the victorious team "advances on." No. It advances. A couple of days ago, I heard an announcer say, "He dunks it down!" No. He dunked it. Could he dunk it up?

Michelle Malkin is all over the immigration issue. See here. Leftists are cynical: They say that anyone who wants the immigration laws enforced is racist or xenophobic. Can't I just be in favor of law enforcement? Leftists are incapable of addressing arguments. Instead, they question the motives of the arguer. And they don't just question motives. They impute the worst motives to their opponents. If you oppose affirmative-action programs for blacks, you're a racist. If you support markets, you're greedy. If you support war in Iraq, you're a warmonger. If you oppose homosexual "marriage," you're a homophobe. If you think there are innate sex differences, you're a sexist. If you believe that religion has a legitimate place in public life, you're a theocrat. If you support law enforcement, you're a fascist. Read Brian Leiter's blog. You'll see this tactic used ad nauseam. But then, he's a thug—the academic thug.

Philosophy was once a name for all human knowledge. This usage has left traces in the titles of professorships (Natural Philosophy, Experimental Philosophy). There is a shop in Edinburgh which sells ‘philosophical instruments’; and in a magazine for 1814 there is an account of ‘a more philosophical method of making coffee’.

With the growth of specialisation and the perfection of scientific methods, various branches of knowledge developed their own technique and, one after the other, split off from philosophy. Mathematics went first, followed in the seventeenth century by the physical sciences. A hundred years ago economics began its separate development, and within living memory psychology has followed suit. Many political theorists and some philosophers would maintain that political science (or a group of political sciences) is now master of its own field, and that there is no place left in philosophy for the study of the State.

It is to be noted, however, that the separation of philosophy from other sciences was never absolute and that in some cases a reverse tendency has been visible. Russell has brought philosophy and mathematics together again. Whitehead and Eddington have linked physics with philosophy. Philosophers have continued to study problems (e.g. the nature of perception) which fall also in the field of psychology.

How, then, do matters stand with regard to political theory? Firstly, political theory is only a part of social theory, since the State is only one form of association among others. Secondly, there is in social theory a wide field for empirical enquiry by scientific methods. Group psychology—the study of behaviour of men in relation to groups of their fellows—is a part of psychology. Anthropology—the study of social organisation and institutions—is a well-established science. Political Institutions and Economic Organisation have their place as fields of empirical enquiry. Jurisprudence—the examination of the principles common to all legal systems or to the several particular legal systems—has a place of its own. Thus the problem now is not whether there are or should be political or social sciences independent of political philosophy, but whether there is any place left for political philosophy when these sciences have occupied their own fields.

(J. D. Mabbott, The State and the Citizen: An Introduction to Political Philosophy, 2d ed. [London: Hutchinson University Library, 1967 (1st ed. 1948)], 165-6)

To the Editor:

Re "The Price of a Safe Landing," by Bob Buck (Op-Ed, March 18):

As a captain for United Airlines, I have to chuckle when I relate this story:

A flight attendant was telling me how easy my job is and how I am overpaid. I suggested that she get into the game and learn to fly. She shared that she had started lessons, but discovered that it was too difficult and expensive for her.

Becoming an airline pilot requires passion, perseverance and resilience.

Dennis Holliday
Denver, March 20, 2006

I have always respected Pat Buchanan, even when I was a leftist. He is nobody's toady. He is a conservative first, a Republican second, and a Bush supporter third. See here.

Here is Mark Steyn's essay about the Christian martyr.

Envelope, n. The coffin of a document; the scabbard of a bill; the husk of a remittance; the bed-gown of a love-letter.

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

Here.

My long-distance telephone company, Working Assets, continues to bash President Bush in its billing statements. Here's what it says in the bill I received today:

Investigate Bush's Impeachable Offenses

President Bush has run up the longest list of serious offenses in presidential history. Just for starters: he lied repeatedly to the American people; he started a war based on faked evidence; he approved the torture of detainees; and he admitted on national TV that he OK'd the warrantless surveillance of citizens—a likely federal crime. In a more honorable Washington, Bush would have been forced out years ago. It's time for members of Congress to do their constitutional duty and launch an investigation of Bush's many impeachable offenses.

This is mind-boggling. If President Bush were even one-tenth as bad as these people say he is, they'd be incarcerated by now.

Many leftists do not like the term “leftist.” They prefer “progressive.” Rightists should resist this substitution, since it’s an attempt to give leftists an unearned rhetorical advantage. Let me explain.

What is progress? What is regress? Both involve change, but the direction of change differs. Progress is change for the better; it involves going forward. Regress is change for the worse; it involves going backward. I wouldn’t call a change progress unless I believed that it was for the better. I wouldn’t call a change regress unless I believed that it was for the worse. Obviously, leftists believe that what they advocate is change for the better, but rightists don’t see it that way. They believe that it is change for the worse. What leftists view as progress (homosexual “marriage,” for example), rightists view as regress. By calling themselves “progressives,” therefore, leftists are assuming, without argument, that the changes they propose are for the better. If I, a rightist, refer to them as progressives, I concede that the changes they propose are for the better!

The same problem does not arise for the term “conservative,” which makes no assumption about the value of what is conserved. (It’s logically possible to conserve something bad. It’s not logically possible for progress to be for the worse.) Conservatives want to conserve traditions, practices, institutions, and ways of life. They are not opposed to change; they are opposed to exogenous or abrupt change. Change, they say, should come from within and be gradual (so that errors can be corrected without too much damage). Conservatives are skeptical about the power of reason to make things better—and can point to many instances in which benevolent designs had bad outcomes. They view traditions as repositories of wisdom. They see government as a caretaker, not as an engineer.

The proper contrast to “conservative” is not “progressive” but “radical.” Radicals want abrupt, exogenous change. They want to engineer society so as to bring it in line with their ideals. They are not content with gradual change. They are not content to work within the system. They have confidence in the ability of reason to make things better. (Rightists would describe this “confidence” as hubris.) They are impatient. They cannot tolerate the gap between what is and what—in their view—ought to be. Radicals are utopians, dreamers, true believers.

The term “radical” means “root.” Radicals want to dig up the plant at the root, not just trim it. Another appropriate term for a radical is “revolutionary.” When a thing revolves, it goes around. Leftists want society to go around (as it were). What was up (the bourgeoisie) will be down. What was down (the proletariat) will be up. Inequalities are to be tolerated only if, and only to the extent that, they work to the advantage of the worst off.

So far, I’ve discussed only conservatism and radicalism. In fact, there is a third attitude to social change that lies between these extremes. Conservatism imposes a strong presumption against change and insists that change, when it comes, be endogenous and gradual. Radicalism imposes no presumption against change. It allows for, indeed encourages, exogenous and abrupt change. The third attitude, reformism, imposes a weak presumption against change. (Weak presumptions are more easily rebutted than strong presumptions.) Conservatives and reformists impose a presumption against change and believe that change should be endogenous, but they differ in the strength of the presumption. Reformists are comparatively open to change, whereas conservatives are comparatively resistant to it. Radicals are not resistant to change. Indeed, they welcome it.

Can we agree that nobody in this important debate should have an unearned rhetorical advantage? Can we agree that no label should beg the question against others by being defined in terms of goodness or badness? Since the label “progressive” gives leftists an unearned rhetorical advantage, it should not be used. The labels we should use are “conservative,” “reformist,” and “radical”—and we should remember that these labels reflect different attitudes toward change. If you believe that the change you advocate is for the better, argue for it. Don’t assume it.

Here is an essay about lawyers who blog.

Here is an essay about democracy by Amartya Sen.

The University of Texas Longhorns are the reigning College World Series champions (baseball) and the champions of the Bowl Championship Series (football). The basketball team won yesterday and moved into the Elite Eight. If the Longhorns win the NCAA tournament, Austin's tea-sippers will be insufferable.

Here.

To the Editor:

What a sad irony it is that a Christian convert in Afghanistan managed to survive the rule of the Taliban but is in danger of not surviving the rule of a democratically elected, American-supported government.

What this case proves is just how hollow the rhetoric about 50 million people "liberated" in the Middle East really is.

Perhaps those who are eager to spread American-style democracy around the world will now realize that freedom is as much about the culture and customs of a society as it is about the spectacle of heavily guarded elections and purple-stained fingers.

Alan Rusk
Trenton, March 23, 2006

Although the word ["]justice["] occurs in the title and well over a thousand times in the text, his [John Rawls's] celebrated book A Theory of Justice is not about justice.

(Wallace Matson, "What Rawls Calls Justice," The Occasional Review 89 [1978]: 45-57, at 45 [endnote omitted])

Oleaginous, adj. Oily, smooth, sleek.

Disraeli once described the manner of Bishop Wilberforce as "unctuous, oleaginous, saponaceous." And the good prelate was ever afterward known as Soapy Sam. For every man there is something in the vocabulary that would stick to him like a second skin. His enemies have only to find it.

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

Here.

Otherwise, adv. No better.

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

To the Editor:

Re "Bush Concedes Iraq War Erodes Political Status" (front page, March 22):

Two things are clear from the president's news conference on Tuesday: Because of his inherent inflexibility, he will not shuffle his cabinet or change course in the Iraq war.

Many Americans believe that the Iraq quagmire calls for adaptability and thinking outside the box. Yet the administration remains intransigent.

It seems as if the only possible rationale for this behavior is the president's pride. He believes that he is right and everyone else is wrong. This does not bode well for the public, because history teaches that no leader should put his vanity before the needs of the people.

The president seems ignorant of this maxim, and so because of one man's pride, more lives will be lost and billions of dollars will continue to flow down a black hole with no end in sight.

Michael Boyajian
Fishkill, N.Y., March 22, 2006

Here.

Each of us is many things. Take me, for example. I’m a lawyer, a philosopher, a male, a bicyclist, a conservative, an atheist, and a citizen of the United States of America. My philosophical training equips me to analyze concepts, spot fallacies, and perform other intellectual tasks. My legal training equips me to identify and solve legal problems. My status as a citizen of the United States confers certain rights and responsibilities on me.

Suppose I want to emphasize one of these statuses, roles, or capacities. I might say, for example, “As a citizen, I’m entitled to vote,” or “As a philosopher, I’m expert in spotting fallacies.” My training as a lawyer doesn’t entitle me to vote, but my status as a citizen does. My training as a lawyer doesn’t equip me to spot fallacies, but my training as a philosopher does. It’s important to keep these matters distinct, both in our minds and in our speech or writing. Usually, the status in question is understood, but it never hurts to articulate it.

One way to emphasize a particular status, role, or capacity is by using the expression “as such.” It’s a shorthand way of saying, “as a lawyer,” or “as a philosopher,” or “as a citizen,” or “as a parent.” Here is a correct use of the expression: “I’m a philosopher; as such, I’m equipped to spot fallacies.” This draws attention to that aspect of my identity that equips me to do the fallacy spotting. Another way of saying the same thing is with the Latin word “qua,” which means “as.” So I might have said, “Qua philosopher, I’m equipped to spot fallacies.” The word is pronounced QWAH, as in “spa,” not QWAY, as in “play.” Philosophical writing can be pretentious. You might say that, qua philosopher, I’m inclined to use “qua” rather than “as.” But good writers adapt to the context and to their audience. Unless you’re trying to show off, use “as” rather than “qua.”

To summarize: “As such” has a special job to do. It should not be used indiscriminately or carelessly.

Here.

You probably think all I do is blog, right? Ha! I'm working on four scholarly essays. Each is at a different stage. I'm almost done with "Taking Egoism Seriously." That was the topic of my lecture a month or so ago to the Dallas Philosophers Forum. I recently got started on "The Horrors of Consequentialism," which will be fun to write. I'm about to get started on "How to Criticize Peter Singer," and I'm in the brainstorming stage of "Rachels on Ethical Egoism." Blogging is my escape from serious writing. Running, bicycling, reading, playing softball, and spending time with my girls are my escapes from writing. There's nothing worse than writing about something you're not interested in. There's nothing better than writing about something you're interested in. I write; therefore I am. To be prevented from writing would be to die a slow, agonizing death.

Clock, n. 1. An instrument for measuring time, driven mechanically or electrically and indicating hours, minutes, etc., by hands on a dial or by displayed figures. 2. The apparatus whose chief function is to remind us, incessantly, mockingly, of our mortality.

Here are some funny pictures from Donald Luskin's site.

Most preaching is to the converted. It serves the important function of convincing people who think like you that they are not alone in their beliefs; that they have the backing of someone who is confident, competent, articulate, and thoughtful; and that there is a language in which to express and, by expressing, solidify and vivify these beliefs. It forges a community of believers, and by doing so brings people out of their intellectual isolation and stiffens their backbone, because few people have the courage of their convictions unless they think that many other people share those convictions. Academic moralism is not really about making us better. It is about manning the ramparts, and rallying the troops, that defend the groups into which we are divided.

(Richard A. Posner, The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1999], 90 [italics in original])

The interests of individuals—even within a family—partly diverge and partly converge. Their divergence makes conflict inevitable. Their convergence makes cooperation possible.

Here.

To the Editor:

As a married, hard-working black man who is a devoted father of two, I feel obligated to comment on the problems of black men described in your article.

Why should we continue to study the self-inflicted decline in the socioeconomic status of black men?

Opportunities for black men have never been greater. It is incumbent upon all of us, regardless of racial background, to take advantage of them.

Unfortunately, thousands of our black men have failed at this and subsequently descend into being absent fathers, poorly educated, poorly trained and unproductive workers.

Contrary to what many would have us believe, the people responsible for this are not whites, President Bush or the Republican Party.

Actually, it is those black men who value conception over fatherhood, Ebonics over proper English language and pocket money over building wealth who are to blame for their own downfall.

Black men in the "plight": Wake up to this reality. Get over yourselves and most important, go to work.

Darwin L. Brown
Atlanta, March 20, 2006

Note from AnalPhilosopher: Leftists will read this and say that Mr Brown is blaming the victim. No. He's trying to get black men to stop victimizing themselves. He's trying to get black men to stop thinking of themselves as victims (as they are encouraged to do by the likes of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Louis Farrakhan). He's trying to get black men to see themselves as moral agents rather than as moral patients.

Here.

Laocoon, n. A famous piece of antique sculpture representing a priest of that name and his two sons in the folds of two enormous serpents. The skill and diligence with which the old man and lads support the serpents and keep them up to their work have been justly regarded as one of the noblest artistic illustrations of the mastery of human intelligence over brute inertia.

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

To this.

Peter Singer will lecture tomorrow at The University of Minnesota. To promote the lecture, he wrote a short essay for the school newspaper. (Thanks to Khursh Mian Acevedo for the link.)

R. M. Hare was born 87 years ago today. Here is the bibliography I prepared. I'm in the process of annotating it.

Cemetery, n. An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies, poets write at a target and stone-cutters spell for a wager. The inscriptions following will serve to illustrate the success attained in these Olympian games:

His virtues were so conspicuous that his enemies, unable to overlook them, denied them, and his friends, to whose loose lives they were a rebuke, represented them as vices. They are here commemorated by his family, who shared them.

In the earth we here prepare a
Place to lay our little Clara.
—Thomas M. and Mary Frazer.
P.S.—Gabriel will raise her.

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

To the Editor:

In "The Stuff That Happened" (editorial, March 19), you say "there is no time to imagine what the world might be like if George Bush had chosen to see things as they were instead of how he wanted them to be three years ago." I strongly disagree.

Presidents make choices. Then voters make their own choices based on the courses presidents have chosen.

As Congressional midterm elections approach, voters will have to choose between supporters and opponents of the president's decision. They have a responsibility to imagine what the world might be like without the Iraq war, and doing so requires very little time.

Some 2,300 Americans would be alive. Many more thousands of young Americans would be physically and mentally unharmed. Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians would be alive. The United States would not be viewed as a cruel aggressor nation by millions around the world.

Terrorist organizations would lack a prime recruiting tool. The deficit would be less staggering. Greater attention would be paid to urgent domestic needs. We cannot wait for history to confirm what has become painfully obvious.

David S. Wachsman
New York, March 19, 2006

Here.

Here.

Ma would never say what happened
And we knew better than push too hard
We knew we had all the chores to tend to
Like fixing fences and helping her
Washing dishes and making coffee
Me and Virgil'd chop some wood
But we'd stop our swinging
Just to listen to her crying
It didn't sound too good
I can remember, too well

But we never thought to pay much heed
We learned to live life the best we could
But then one day pa upped and left us
High and dry without a word
Seemed a pity
My ma was pretty
But I soon learned life ain't that way
And I can remember hearing her weeping
While we were sleeping next to her

I can remember
I'll never forgive and I'll never forget
Cos pa you broke her heart
Ooh pa you broke her heart
You broke her heart
Ooh pa you broke her heart

Well the years rolled by
And 'fore we knew it
Our sister got married and moved out west
I stayed with ma, cos I couldn't desert her
I knew it would hurt her to be alone
So we pulled tighter
We said we'd try to make things easy
And raise a smile
But as the night came
We'd hear her crying
Praying for pa to come back again

I can remember
I'll never forgive him and I'll never forget
Cos pa you broke her heart
Oh pa you broke her heart

And then the winter came
I'd never known it colder
Ooh it seemed the worst for years
And the night she died I swear I saw her smiling
Saying I was a big boy now, no tears

So I packed up all we had, and Virgil got the horses
And we paid our last respects and gave the whip a crack
Ooh, seemed a big bad world, we were riding into
Me and Virgil both agreed, we best head off
And don't look back

Nothing but desert all around
Oh it made me wonder
Lord it's hard to carry on
When you're sick with hunger

Weeks and months of sleeping rough
Keeping clear of danger
Seems we were miles from anywhere
And too far gone to change it
We'd best keep going, don't look back

Well me and Virgil we beat the desert
Riding fast and riding hard
We hit the city, the past behind us
So we raised some hell, we had some fun
But real soon I met a lady oh so pretty, and oh so fine
'fore too long I found myself married
With a home of my own and a blue eyed son
And 'til this day I can hear ma saying to me—
"You're a big boy now"

Christopher Hitchens, the iconoclast, has gone from writing for The Nation to writing for The Wall Street Journal. Give the man credit. He grows. Many of his contemporaries haven't noticed (to their discredit) that the world has changed. Here is Hitch's latest column.

Here.

I never cease to be amazed by the cognitive, conative, and affective differences between men and women. Women seem to be obsessed with their appearance. They love clothes, makeup, shoes, perfume, jewelry, and other accouterments. They fight aging as if it were death itself. Watch television for one evening and you’ll see what I mean. This product removes or reduces wrinkles; this one changes hair color; this one whitens teeth; this one softens skin; this one lifts, flattens, or obscures some hideously unattractive body part.

Please don’t say that men are just as obsessed with their appearance. Men—heterosexuals, at any rate—care a little about their appearance. It ranks very low in their scale of values. They wouldn’t care at all if it weren’t for women.

Just as I’m about to write women off as a separate species, I realize that men are equally bizarre, albeit in a different way. We love competition. It’s in our bones. Put two men together and they will find a way to compete, even if there is no tangible prize. The prize is knowing who’s best at some task. The task may have no social value, but men will practice and try to become proficient at it, if only to be the best at something. Some men are good at shooting baskets. Some are good at writing. Some are good at keeping a yard. Some are good at producing wealth. Some are good at driving a motor vehicle. Some are good at hitting a little white ball into a hole in the ground. You get the idea.

Men and women are wired differently. It’s not as though women get up in the morning and say, “How can I adorn myself today?” I can tell you for a fact that men don’t get up in the morning and say, “What competition can I engage in today?” It’s unconscious. Women simply enjoy adorning themselves. It’s why they love shopping. Men simply enjoy competing. It’s why they play softball, ride bicycles, coach Little League, and try to get their scholarly essays published in the best periodicals. To a woman, a life without adornment would be unhappy, although perhaps not meaningless. To a man, a life without competition would be unhappy—and utterly meaningless. If you’re a woman, keep this in mind the next time your father, husband, boyfriend, or son yells at the television set during a sporting contest. He’s doing what comes naturally—and, in all likelihood, enjoying the hell out of it.

The "public intellectual" hopes to communicate directly with, and so to influence, an audience not limited to other academics. It is a forlorn hope, at least for a moral or political philosopher in a society, such as that of the United States, in which the public has no interest in philosophy. The American public wants pragmatic solutions to practical problems rather than philosophical debate.

(Richard A. Posner, The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1999], 82)

To the Editor:

Re "Write Grandma a What?" (Thursday Styles, March 16):

How sad that those of my children's generation—perhaps my own children—may never have the cache of old, personal letters and cards I have in my keepsake box.

I have only to sift through these stacks of letters, still neatly folded in their envelopes (some with obscenely low postage), and I am immediately transported back—to high school, camp, college, my first apartment and other significant times in my life.

There's a letter from Mom, in her neat penmanship, with triple exclamation points and underlines, congratulating me on making the dean's list. There's a card from a long-gone aunt, in her flourishing script, wishing me well on the birth of my first child.

Letters, notes and cards from friends and relatives all tell a tale and evoke the sender, even decades later, across continents, time, even death. What will the e-mail generation have instead? Who prints out e-mail or text messages?

I still insist that my kids (ages 8 and 12) write thank-you notes, in their own hand, mentioning the gift and something good about it. But then, I guess I'm a dinosaur.

Lisa Chipolone Romeo
Cedar Grove, N.J., March 16, 2006

Note from AnalPhilosopher: I have every letter I've ever received and a copy of every letter I've ever sent. I corresponded with my mother, grandmother, and aunt (Dorothy) from the time I entered graduate school in August 1983. (I was in Tucson; they were in Michigan.) My grandmother died in 1992 and my aunt Dorothy in 2001. My mother is alive and well. We now keep in touch by telephone and e-mail. Each of the many handwritten letters I received from these relatives—many of them several pages long—is a treasure.

It appears that Yale University is unaware that it is experiencing a public-relations disaster. Here is John Fund's latest column about the Yale Taliban.

I'd like to wish everyone in the Northern Hemisphere a happy vernal equinox and everyone in the Southern Hemisphere a happy autumnal equinox. Texas, where I live, has three pleasant seasons and one unpleasant season (summer). I've enjoyed the fall and winter. I'm looking forward to a nice spring—before it gets oppressively hot and humid. Spring brings college basketball, professional baseball, cycling classics (such as Paris-Roubaix), bike rallies, and softball. My team, the Waybacks, is going to kick butt this year. We're older than the players on the other teams, but experience and guile trump youthful vigor every time.

Here.

Quorum, n. A sufficient number of members of a deliberative body to have their own way and their own way of having it. In the United States Senate a quorum consists of the chairman of the Committee on Finance and a messenger from the White House; in the House of Representatives, of the Speaker and the devil.

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

Here.

Mesmerism, n. Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage and asked Incredulity to dinner.

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

To the Editor:

Re "Defenders of the Faith," by Slavoj Zizek (Op-Ed, March 12):

Mr. Zizek is surely right that atheists can be highly moral people, and that religion can bear evil as well as good fruit. But his notion that atheism is "perhaps our only chance for peace" is as naïve as the outmoded idea that the religious are necessarily better people than atheists.

As the 20th century's slaughtered millions demonstrate, Communism (explicitly atheistic) and fascism (hardly Christian!) were just as lethal as anything bad religion has ever cooked up.

The tragic reality is that some people will kill others over different belief systems, whether the beliefs are about economics, theology or ethnic and cultural customs. The path to peace lies in the cooperation of all who are willing to resist such fanaticism—believers and atheists alike.

(Rev.) Robert Corin Morris
Summit, N.J., March 12, 2006

Here is Walter Kirn's review of Harvey Mansfield's new book. (Just for kicks, read the reviews at Amazon.com. Some people, it appears, are threatened by masculinity.)

Here.

The war in Iraq started three years ago today. On 17 March 2003, I wrote “Hussein has 48 hrs” on my calendar. On 18 March, I wrote “Hussein won’t go.” On 19 March, I wrote “bombing started.” On 20 March, I wrote “war under way.” On 21 March, I wrote “Baghdad bombed.” I remember being riveted to the television set during the first few days of the invasion. I stayed up until 3:15 A.M. on the evening of Saturday, 22 March. David Bloom of NBC was my eyes and ears on the ground. Nobody knew what to expect when the tanks rolled into Baghdad. Would the Republican Guard use chemical or biological weapons? Would there be urban combat? Perhaps the Iraqi forces would run. And who can forget Baghdad Bob? I dozed off late one night as he gave a press conference. He was talking crazy. I kept waking up, wondering whether I was dreaming.

I’ve always been ambivalent about the war—as you well know if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time. Saddam Hussein and his sons had to be removed from power and punished for their crimes. That much was clear. Moreover, the country had to be cleansed of weapons of mass destruction. Had the United States not acted, these things would not have gotten done. But I’ve never been happy with the idea of reconstructing the country. It has cost a great many American lives, not to mention American treasure. It’s not that I underestimate the importance of a stable Middle East. It’s that it’s not our responsibility, as Americans, to stabilize it. Let the Iraqi people sort things out. By removing Saddam Hussein from power, we gave them a chance to start over. What more could they want? If and when another Saddam Hussein comes to power, he will have to be dealt with.

See here for Bill Vallicella's post on freedom of expression.

Here.

To the Editor:

Re "Time for Facts, Not Resolutions" (editorial, March 17):

The president broke the law, and Congress must hold the president accountable.

You are right that the nation deserves to know more details about the National Security Agency's spying program, but there's nothing we could learn that would change the fact that by authorizing the program, the president broke the law.

Member of both parties who have concerns about the legality of the N.S.A.'s program, and there are quite a few, should not try to avoid that central issue while offering proposals to legalize the president's conduct.

I strongly support wiretapping terrorists to protect our national security, which current law allows.

The president needs to follow that law, or inform Congress of any reasons he thinks that law should be changed. He has a responsibility to obey the laws that Congress passes.

There must be no equivocation on that central tenet of our system of government.

I applauded Senator Harry Reid's effort to take the Senate into closed session to get answers on the intelligence and policy failures leading up to the Iraq war. But to suggest that such a maneuver is our only recourse now ignores the role the founders expected Congress to play when a president commits such a flagrant abuse of power.

We don't need a closed session to highlight the president's lawbreaking; we need an open debate and an expression of the Senate's judgment.

Members of Congress do need to "fulfill their sworn duty," as you suggest, and that means censuring a president who so plainly broke the law and violated the trust of the American people.

Russell Feingold
U.S. Senator from Wisconsin
Washington, March 17, 2006

The Corps of Discovery (of the Lewis and Clark Expedition) is about to depart Fort Clatsop (near present-day Astoria, Oregon) for its long journey home. The Corps made it to St Louis on 23 September 1806, which is just over six months from now. But much work remained to be done. A vast continent lay between Fort Clatsop and St Louis. Captain Meriwether Lewis would explore the Marias River on the return journey, while Captain William Clark would explore the Yellowstone. Here are the journal entries of this date. Let me comment on three things.

First, George Drouillard ("Drewyer") was ill. In my opinion, Drouillard was third in importance among expedition members. His hunting and tracking skills alone made him valuable, but when you add his ability to communicate (by sign language) with any Indian tribe, he was indispensable. Lewis and Clark must have been worried sick about his illness. Fortunately, he recovered. Indeed, that very evening he was out checking his beaver traps.

Second, Lewis and Clark left lists of expedition members' names with the local tribes. When they built Fort Clatsop, they thought they might meet a European ship trader during the winter, but they didn't. This was their way of informing traders that an expedition had come overland from the United States. It's interesting that Lewis and Clark didn't leave someone at Fort Clatsop for the purpose of informing traders and sailing back to the United States. Lewis writes that there were two reasons for this. The first is that the Corps needed every man for the return trip. The second is that any such ship would arrive back in the United States after the Corps arrived by land. But this is odd. Who cares when the man returned? There was no guarantee that anyone from the main party would make it back by land. By leaving someone, there would be a survivor of the expedition who could inform Thomas Jefferson of what had happened on the journey across the continent. It's puzzling to me why Lewis didn't consider this—or, if he did, why he didn't think it trumped the other consideration.

Third, Sergeant John Ordway wrote that expedition members stole an Indian canoe for the return journey. This was ordered by Lewis and Clark. The Corps was desperate for another canoe and had been unable to purchase one from any local tribe. Lewis rationalized the theft by saying that the tribe from which it was stolen had stolen some of the Corps's elk meat during the winter. It bothers me that Lewis and Clark would steal a canoe. Somehow it sullies their accomplishment.

Abstainer, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.

Said a man to a crapulent youth: "I thought
You a total abstainer, my son."
"So I am, so I am," said the scapegrace caught—
"But not, sir, a bigoted one."
G.J.

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

Here.

It is a curious and dreadful fact that just at the time when science has put into the hands of men the most powerful instruments for control of their environment—ambivalently capable of use for human betterment or for the suicide of civilization—we should be told, by some of those who celebrate science as the outstanding triumph of the human mind, that appraisals of the good and bad and assessments of the right and wrong have nothing more fundamental as their basis and their sanction than our emotive drives and our subjective persuasions of attitude.

(Clarence Irving Lewis, Values and Imperatives: Studies in Ethics, ed. John Lange [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969], 20)

Here.

If you've come here from James Taranto's Best of the Web Today, enjoy your stay. Y'all come back now, y'hear? (That's Texan for "I hope to see you again some time.") Here, for your consideration, are some of my favorite bloggers (in no particular order):

Dr John J. Ray (Dissecting Leftism)
Steve Rugg (JusTalkin)
Peg Kaplan (what if?)
Jeff Percifield (Beautiful Atrocities)
Ally Eskin (Who Moved My Truth?)
Dr Bill Keezer (Bill's Comments)
Dr Bill Vallicella (Maverick Philosopher)
Michelle Malkin (Michelle Malkin)
Donald L. Luskin (The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid)
Norm Weatherby (Quantum Thought)
Kim du Toit (The Other Side)
Glenn Reynolds (InstaPundit)

If you think I'm missing a good blogger, let me know.

Sahib:

I was innocently watching the news last week (go figure . . .) when I heard "a prominent scientist" proclaim that it was very likely the bird flu would eventually mutate so that humans could spread it and cause half the world's population to die. And then on to the next story. "Hmm," says I. Imagine if the MSM wasn't immersed in Bush's evisceration and could settle in to real news about impending doom! I mean, losing half our citizens is a real deal-breaker, no? Perhaps, just perhaps, our infernal debates about abortion or global warming or WMD or Barry Bonds (not to mention social security or old age or net worths or cholesterol or . . .) might just melt away. Ruining Bush et. al. shoves "The End of The World" to page 16. Or does the prospect of losing half of us leave them undaunted? And should this prediction prove a bit exaggerated, since when has that stopped the MSM from a juicy (gory) story? Thank you Mr. Bush? But then it will BE Mr. Bush's fault should the flu do us in! I forgot. The goal of the MSM is to have us all cursing Mr. Bush as we breathe our last breaths. Enjoy your remaining days, Professor, as you build up your 3 month (recommended) stash of tuna fish and bottled water, hoping you will be amongst the lucky 50% and get back to your normal life after all the funerals (or should that be pyres?). 2-3 weeks??? 6 months? Damn him.

Best,
Will

To the Editor:

Perhaps Senator Russell D. Feingold's principled stand does stir up President Bush's base, but your article did not reflect the excitement generated in the Democratic base.

I, for one, have been deeply frustrated by the Democratic Party's lack of courage or integrity with regard to its principles and our country's principles.

We have an administration that started a war under false pretenses; detained and tortured prisoners of war, ignoring the Geneva Conventions; insulted our allies and energized our enemies; and illegally spied on its own citizens.

The majority party has fallen over itself to legitimize all of this while the minority party has been barely able to muster a sigh for fear of looking weak on national security.

To think that no one has the courage to produce what amounts to a formal finger-wagging at Mr. Bush does not speak well for the state of our democracy.

Dustin Ogdin
Chicago, March 16, 2006

Here. Aw, shucks.

My Arizona Wildcats are through to the second round, having defeated the Wisconsin Badgers. I keep the television on with the sound muted. Every now and then, I walk out to the living room to check the scores. A minute ago, while watching the Villanova-Monmouth game, I saw the Monmouth coach do a strange thing. One of his players threw the ball away with only a few minutes left in the game, as his team was rallying. The coach clapped his hands furiously, as if to say, "Don't worry about it; we'll get the ball back." But the look on his face gave the opposite message. It said, "What the hell are you doing, you moron?!" I think half the job of a coach is encouraging your players, and they need encouragement most when they mess up. Players do the same thing. When someone misses a free throw, his teammates stride over to slap his hand. Maybe they want him to miss the second shot as well!

Die, n. The singular of "dice." We seldom hear the word, because there is a prohibitory proverb, "Never say die." At long intervals, however, some one says: "The die is cast," which is not true, for it is cut. The word is found in an immortal couplet by that eminent poet and domestic economist, Senator Depew:

A cube of cheese no larger than a die
May bait the trap to catch a nibbling mie.

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

Here.

Here is Jim Slagle's blog.

Just minutes ago, Mexico defeated the United States in the inaugural World Baseball Classic, 2-1. This eliminates the United States. There are four teams left (from the original 16): Cuba and the Dominican Republic from the Caribbean, Japan and Korea from the Far East. Two days from now, Cuba plays the Dominican Republic and Japan plays Korea. The winners play each other on Monday evening. Major League Baseball must be in a state of shock. With the United States eliminated, many fans who would otherwise have tuned in will stay away. Me? I'll watch. Baseball is the sport of the gods. Watching it on my Dell 42-inch high-definition plasma television is heavenly.

Mark Spahn sent a link to this essay about Saddam Hussein's delusions.

The academic who plays the public-intellectual role finds himself in a market that is barren of the ordinary constraints and incentives of the university world, or for that matter of the academically despised, but highly competitive, worlds of popular culture and journalistic reportage. Having slipped his moorings, the cautious academic specialist throws caution to the winds. He is on holiday from the academic grind and all too often displays the irresponsibility of the holiday goer.

(Richard A. Posner, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2001], 389)

I have two girls. Sophie turned 13 in November. Shelbie will be three in a couple of weeks. Here they are as of a couple of hours ago (click to enlarge):

The setting sun made for a bright image, but it caused the girls to keep their eyes closed. By the way, if Sophie's hair looks funny, it's because I shaved about 90% of her the other day. I meant to shave the rest the next day, but haven't gotten back to it. Shelbie doesn't need to be shaved. She sheds.

Language, n. 1. The method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in an agreed way. 2. The means by which human beings complain, betray, defame, deceive, insult, and abuse, thus establishing their superiority over other animals.

Leftists are playing with fire by calling for the impeachment of President Bush. They think it helps them by energizing the base, and perhaps they're right. But they can't win an election with just the base. They need moderates. If we learned anything from the impeachment of Bill Clinton, it is that most Americans don't want their presidents impeached. It's wasteful. It diverts time, attention, resources, and energy from pressing problems. Americans are sick and tired of political infighting, grandstanding, and maneuvering. They want their government to be serious, responsible, and dedicated to making this country a better (and safer) place in which to live. What they most emphatically do not want is for impeachment to become routine. If leftists press forward with impeachment, they will be severely punished for it in the fall and beyond. One impeachment is enough. Move on.

To the Editor:

"Drop Out of the College" proposes that the nation substitute the time-proven judgment of James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and the other founding fathers for the views of your editorial board.

With all due respect, I will stick with the founding fathers.

John Enerson
Houston, March 14, 2006

Note from AnalPhilosopher: The writer obviously means "replace . . . with" rather than "substitute . . . for." Does The New York Times have editors? Sheesh.

Here is Peggy Noonan's latest column. I don't know why people make such a fuss over President Bush's big-spending ways. He's a conservative, not a libertarian. What do you think "compassionate" means in "compassionate conservative"? As I've written in this blog many times, conservatives, as such, have no principled objection to big government. They want as much government as is necessary to accomplish their conservative aims. The difference between conservatives and liberals is not that one believes in small government and the other in big government. It's that they want to use big government in different ways. If you want small government, elect a libertarian.

Here.

Erudition, n. Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.

So wide his erudition's mighty span,
He knew Creation's origin and plan
And only came by accident to grief—
He thought, poor man, 'twas right to be a thief.
Romach Pute.

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

. . . the Democrat nomination for president. Let me explain. For almost 10 years—since her husband Bill was reelected in 1996—Hillary has been the elephant in the room of American politics. Nobody in her party can move without bumping into her or risking being trampled by her. Everyone, both within and without her party, has an opinion about her electability. Some say she can win, since she has a loyal following and a master baiter (Bill); some say she can’t win, since her “negatives” are high. As a nation, we need to find out.

If Hillary is going to run for president, it has to be in 2008. Suppose she chooses not to run next time around. She’ll be 65 years old in January 2013, which would be the earliest she could take office, and 69 by the end of her first term. (Hillary was born on 26 October 1947.) If she wins in 2008, however, she’ll be “only” 69 years old by the end of her second term. Whether Americans are willing to be governed not just by a woman but by an old woman remains to be seen. Margaret Thatcher proved that a woman can govern, but she stepped down as British Prime Minister when she was 65.

The time is ripe for a Hillary candidacy, for two reasons. First, there will be no incumbent in 2008, which means she will not be at a structural disadvantage. Second, there is no obvious Democrat frontrunner. Both Al Gore and John Kerry are crippled. It’s not unheard of for someone to be elected after having lost (think Richard Nixon), but one wonders whether Democrats would risk giving someone a second chance. They are desperate for power. Howard Dean would lose the general election in a landslide, and everyone knows it. Outside the extreme Left, he is viewed as a lunatic. John Edwards lacks experience and gravitas. Russ Feingold, who is trying to make a name for himself nationally, might do even worse than Dean, once his radical views are known.

This nation needs closure on the Clintons. If Hillary can put together a winning coalition in 2008, more power to her. I, for one, will be watching with rapt attention. If she cannot—if she tries and fails—then she can spend the rest of her days in the Senate, working on legislation that is near and dear to her heart. The Clinton era, mercifully, will be behind us—at least until Chelsea comes of age. Is there any chance that she’s a conservative?

Here.

3-15-86 I neglected to mention yesterday that Myles Brand, professor of philosophy and dean of the College of Liberal Arts, has accepted a position as provost and vice president at Ohio State University. For the life of me, I can’t understand why he would give up a career as an academic—and a good one, at that—to be a bureaucrat. Perhaps he’s money hungry. Perhaps he has gotten a taste of big bucks after all these years as a struggling professor and wants to take advantage of it. Whatever. I wish him well. We can’t afford to lose good people like this to other universities. I wonder whom the Philosophy Department will hire to replace Brand, whose specialty is metaphysics. [Brand, whose Metaphysics seminar I took, went on to be a university president (at Oregon and Indiana). He is now the president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). His name is in the news quite often.]

I did very little today besides relax. How nice it feels to be only a graduate student again! For the past eight and a half months I’ve been running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Every weekend, for instance, I had to look ahead to see if [sic; should be “whether”] I had any trials coming up the next week, and on Thursdays I had to go to the Pima County Jail to visit clients. Now I can be one-dimensional again. I’m looking forward to doing some leisurely reading, writing my seminar papers, and interacting with my students after class. I feel as though handcuffs—or, better yet, a straitjacket—had been taken off me. I’m free!!!

Here.

To the Editor:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has been falsely accused of many things, but David Brooks's statement that "nobody, not even among her friends, is totally sure she actually believes in anything, or whether she just coldly calculates political advantage" upsets me the most because he casually dismisses what has driven Senator Clinton for the last 30 years: her convictions.

Most fundamentally, she believes in the power of government to help people in need and of our moral obligation to ensure that all children, not just the ones lucky enough to be born into wealthy, stable families, are given a chance to realize their full potential.

Every single elected official calculates; it's at the core of representative democracy. I'm trying to figure out why, when it comes to Hillary Rodham Clinton, it is assumed to be a zero-sum game. That is, if she considers the political consequences of her actions at all, she is devoid of conviction.

Mr. Brooks's statement sets up a false choice, presupposing a black-white dichotomy, making it exceptionally easy to doom to failure whichever unlucky elected official you choose.

Elizabeth-Merry Condon
Jersey City, March 12, 2006

Tenacity, n. A certain quality of the human hand in its relation to the coin of the realm. It attains its highest development in the hand of authority and is considered a serviceable equipment for a career in politics. The following illustrative lines were written of a Californian gentleman in high political preferment, who has passed to his accounting:

Of such tenacity his grip
That nothing from his hand can slip.
Well-buttered eels you may o'erwhelm
In tubs of liquid slippery-elm
In vain—from his detaining pinch
They cannot struggle half an inch!
'Tis lucky that he so is planned
That breath he draws not with his hand,
For if he did, so great his greed
He'd draw his last with eager speed.
Nay, that were well, you say. Not so
He'd draw but never let it go!

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

Here.

To this.

The Left is unhinged by President Bush. It's comical. I think it's half fear, half hatred, and half envy.

Here are my picks for the Final Four:

Duke (seeded 1st)
UCLA (seeded 2d)
Connecticut (seeded 1st)
Ohio State (seeded 2d)

Duke and Connecticut face off for the national title. Duke wins. As for which team I want to win, it's Arizona, of course. Luuuuuute!

Addendum: If you're a basketball fan, please make your picks in a comment. We'll see who does best.

Here.

Longtime reader Kevin Stroup sent a link to this essay.

Long day. Let me leave you with this blog post by David Corn.

3-14-86 Friday. I’m now, officially, an ex-practicing attorney. I taught my [Introduction to Philosophy] class this morning, held office hours until noon, and then worked at the law firm [Dunscomb and Shepherd, P.C.] all afternoon. As expected, the secretaries and other attorneys had a small going-away party for me. There were potato chips, salads, soft drinks, and lots of fresh vegetables. I’m grateful for the thoughtfulness of everyone and thanked them personally. Afterward, I sat around talking with Tony Murphy, Robb Holmes, Bob Bushkin, and Mike Cruikshank for over an hour. We talked about movies, books, the [Tucson] City Court judges, and some of the funny things that have happened to us in court. As we talked, Gloria Torres of the prosecutor’s office came by to deliver a gift. She bought me a book by Woody Allen [Woody Allen, Getting Even (New York: Vintage Books, 1978 [1971]); I finished reading this book on 23 March 1986]. Isn’t that nice! I know her only from the courthouse, but now I realize that she genuinely liked me. Earlier today, I got a call from a former client, Patricia B., who heard that I was leaving. She wished me well in my Ph.D. studies and thanked me for handling her case a few months ago. It was sad to walk out of that office for the “last” time. I’ll miss the people and the pressure.

One of the things that I’ve wanted to do all semester, but couldn’t, is go to the Student Union Building with my students following each class period. Four or five of them have made this a practice, calling it “The Breakfast Club” after the recent popular movie of that name. Now, with law practice a part of the past, I can join them. The Breakfast Club gets started Monday. . . . I’ve had a busy, emotional day, a day that I won’t easily forget. Who knows? It could be the last day of my life in which I practice law in a firm setting. [It was. I doubt that I’ll ever practice law again.]

Dutchman Thomas Dekker has won this year's Tirreno-Adriatico stage race in Italy. Here is the podium. The famed one-day classic Milan-San Remo is Saturday.

To the Editor:

The problem with Dr. Wafa Sultan's views on Islam is that they come from a post-Muslim secularist viewpoint rather than one of an engaged, thoughtful and practicing Muslim. This makes her views suspect or worse in the Muslim world.

That said, the issues she raises are real. Christianity went through a Reformation and had to come to grips with a secularist enlightenment. Islam is playing catchup with these developments, and this makes some of its followers defensive in the extreme with respect to the West.

Change in the Muslim world will come from engaged, thoughtful and flexible believers, not from secularists like Dr. Sultan, whose positive reception in the West will probably serve to convince other Muslims that the West is opposed to their faith and traditions.

Peter D. G. Moore
Los Angeles, March 11, 2006
The writer teaches humanities at the University of California at Irvine.

Ten years ago today, I sent the following e-mail message to my brother Glenn in Michigan. He had just announced that one of his llamas gave birth:

14 March 1996, 6:57 P.M. Glenn: I got your llama lletter. Are you even a llittle troubled by bringing another llama into this lland? It’s not as if llamas llive in the llap of lluxury, you know. They suffer from the same llatent anxieties and problems as the rest of us. They llisp. They llimp. They llash out at one another. They take their llumps. I know you’re thinking this particular llama is llucky; that it will llive a llackadaisical, lleisurely, llusty llife. That’s lludicrous. This llittle llama, in all llikelihood, will llive a llugubrious, llower-class, llonely, llanguid llife. It will come to lloathe you. If and when I come to your house, I will lliberate it. kbj

He replied as follows:

14 MAR 1996 20:41 It’s great that you take such interest in our amas. Of course, our amas will be iving a ife of uxury. You should stay in Tejas because we don’t need you here etting our amas oose!

Smart aleck.

Here.

Homœopathy, n. A school of medicine midway between Allopathy and Christian Science. To the last both the others are distinctly inferior, for Christian Science will cure imaginary diseases, and they can not.

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

If you like biology, you'll like this.

My claim that the Singer-Unger ideal divides us against ourselves is supported by the fact that even its most passionate defenders—Singer and Unger themselves—evidently cannot live up to it. Singer's actions make it obvious that he is sincere in his advocacy and tries to live up to his ideals. He gives away far more of his income than almost anyone—between 20 percent and 25 percent, according to various sources. But this is a far cry from what he thinks people should give: everything they don't require for their own or their family's basic needs. Singer suggests that he would give more if others did, but this is a feeble excuse. It is precisely when others are giving too little that his giving more is more needed, as he himself urges in response to those who object that they should not have to do more than their "fair" share just because others are doing less.

(Neera K. Badhwar, "International Aid: When Giving Becomes a Vice," Social Philosophy & Policy 23 [winter 2006]: 69-101, at 90 [italics in original] [footnotes omitted])

Here.

Dutchman Thomas Dekker leads the Tirreno-Adriatico stage race, which ends tomorrow. Here is an image from today's stage.

Here is Ronald Dworkin's essay about the cartoon war.

My goal is not to undermine religion. Some atheists want to subvert religion, because they see religion as the source of many social and personal problems. They have a point. Many wars in the past and today result (in part) from religious differences. Witness the Crusades long ago and the current conflicts in Ireland and the Middle East. Many fine people have been executed, tortured, tormented, and ostracized in the name of religion. Witness not only the Inquisition but also Matthew Shepard, who was tortured and killed because of his harmless sexual proclivities. Many more people suffer because religious institutions resist certain advances in education, culture, and medicine. Witness stem cell research, which promises to cure juvenile diabetes along with other horrors; its funding is restricted by the United States government because of opposition by religious leaders (and almost nobody else). So religious belief is costly. Those costs are what motivate some atheists to argue against the existence of God.

I share many of these concerns, but they are not my reasons for arguing that there is no God. In my view, religion is not all bad. Faith leads many people to perform wonderful acts of charity that they might not perform if they did not have faith. Faith can bind families and communities together in mutually beneficial ways. Some people need faith to face difficulties and find meaning and hope in their lives. Like law, science, art, and guns, religion is a powerful tool that can be used for great good as well as for great evil. I have no desire to obstruct the benefits of religion.

(Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, "Some Reasons to Believe That There Is No God," chap. 4 in God? A Debate Between a Christian and an Atheist, by William Lane Craig and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong [New York: Oxford University Press, 2004], 81-106, at 82)

Note from AnalPhilosopher: Sinnott-Armstrong needs to bone up on the facts. The 20th century was the bloodiest in human history. By far. Few of the conflicts of that century were religious in nature, unless, of course, one counts Marxism as a religion, in which case most of the conflicts were religious in nature.

Fifty-eight "contributors." No posts in 19 days. R.I.P.

To the Editor:

Forty years as a trial lawyer in New York have taught me that not all potential jurors are fair or impartial. Some potential jurors have entrenched preconceived notions that could affect deliberations.

In speaking with discharged jurors in the courthouse, I have been told such things as "Cops always lie"; "I won't take the word of a woman over any man's"; "the Lord says 'vengeance is mine'" (in a personal injury case).

A jury pool is a random selection of the community, including people with strange ideas and wholly closed minds. Some of these people play games with the lawyers to get on the jury. They answer all of the questions correctly. Sometimes a lawyer just knows he's being lied to.

The only safeguard is the peremptory challenge.

Sheldon Bunin
Jackson Heights, Queens, March 7, 2006

Here is Richard Posner's blog post about the Dubai ports deal.

See here.

Indecision, n. The chief element of success; "for whereas," said Sir Thomas Brewbold, "there is but one way to do nothing and divers ways to do something, whereof, to a surety, only one is the right way, it followeth that he who from indecision standeth still hath not so many chances of going astray as he who pusheth forwards"—a most clear and satisfactory exposition on the matter.

"Your prompt decision to attack," said General Grant on a certain occasion to General Gordon Granger, "was admirable; you had but five minutes to make up your mind in."

"Yes, sir," answered the victorious subordinate, "it is a great thing to know exactly what to do in an emergency. When in doubt whether to attack or retreat I never hesitate a moment—I toss up a copper."

"Do you mean to say that's what you did this time?"

"Yes, General; but for Heaven's sake don't reprimand me: I disobeyed the coin."

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

Here.

Here.

See here. By the way, I recently subscribed to First Things.

I don't always agree with Pat Buchanan, but I do on this issue.

American Floyd Landis has won this year's Paris-Nice stage race. A year ago, the race was won by American Bobby Julich. The French must be livid! Their top finisher was 12th. Maybe they'll make baseless accusations of drug use against Landis, as they did against Lance Armstrong. If you can't beat the Americans fair and square, lie about them.

The ideological connection between Marxist socialism and National Socialism is not fanciful. Hitler read Marx carefully while living in Munich in 1913, and may have picked up from him a fateful postulate that the two ideologies would share. It is the belief that history is a preordained succession of conflicts between groups of people and that improvement in the human condition can come only from the victory of one group over the others. For the Nazis the groups were races; for the Marxists they were classes. For the Nazis the conflict was Social Darwinism; for the Marxists, it was class struggle. For the Nazis the destined victors were the Aryans; for the Marxists, they were the proletariat. The ideologies, once implemented, led to atrocities in a few steps: struggle (often a euphemism for violence) is inevitable and beneficial; certain groups of people (the non-Aryan races or the bourgeoisie) are morally inferior; improvements in human welfare depend on their subjugation or elimination. Aside from supplying a direct justification for violent conflict, the ideology of intergroup struggle ignites a nasty feature of human social psychology: the tendency to divide people into in-groups and out-groups and to treat the out-groups as less than human. It doesn't matter whether the groups are thought to be defined by their biology or by their history. Psychologists have found that they can create instant intergroup hostility by sorting people on just about any pretext, including the flip of a coin.

(Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature [New York: Viking, 2002], 157 [endnotes omitted])

If Deborah Solomon were a man, Harvey Mansfield would have punched her. She certainly deserved it. See here for her sneering interview with Mansfield.

Read this editorial opinion from today's New York Times. The editors imply that if the South Dakota abortion statute contained exceptions for cases of rape, incest, and endangered maternal health, they would support the law. They wouldn't. They want abortion to be legally permissible throughout pregnancy. Also, notice the lack of concern for the fetus. To the Times, it's all about women. That's like supporting slavery on the ground that, if it were abolished, slave owners would be deprived of property.

To the Editor:

Camille Paglia (Op-Ed, March 6) claims that "the provost, not the president, is the chief academic officer of any university." This is true only if the president is unwilling or unable to recruit and evaluate faculty and develop a rigorous curriculum.

Ms. Paglia's pronouncement reflects the fact that many boards of trustees prefer to hire glad-handers who are more interested in fund-raising, supporting athletics and charming alumni while leaving the most serious responsibilities of the university to a provost.

The Harvard Corporation, however, appointed Larry Summers with the charge to change Harvard for the better, and Dr. Summers brought to the presidency an intellect and record of scholarly achievement equal to any conceivable provost.

Presidents who turn the most important and most difficult tasks of university administration over to provosts are unworthy of the title of president. A more accurate title would be chief development officer or official schmoozer.

John Silber
Boston, March 7, 2006
The writer is president emeritus of Boston University.

Here.

Seal, n. A mark impressed upon certain kinds of documents to attest their authenticity and authority. Sometimes it is stamped upon wax, and attached to the paper, sometimes into the paper itself. Sealing, in this sense, is a survival of an ancient custom of inscribing important papers with cabalistic words or signs to give them a magical efficacy independent of the authority that they represent. In the British Museum are preserved many ancient papers, mostly of a sacerdotal character, validated by necromantic pentagrams and other devices, frequently initial letters of words to conjure with; and in many instances these are attached in the same way that seals are appended now. As nearly every reasonless and apparently meaningless custom, rite or observance of modern times had origin in some remote utility, it is pleasing to note an example of ancient nonsense evolving in the process of ages into something really useful. Our word "sincere" is derived from sine cero, without wax, but the learned are not in agreement as to whether this refers to the absence of the cabalistic signs, or to that of the wax with which letters were formerly closed from public scrutiny. Either view of the matter will serve one in immediate need of an hypothesis. The initials L.S., commonly appended to signatures of legal documents, mean locum sigillis, the place of the seal, although the seal is no longer used—an admirable example of conservatism distinguishing Man from the beasts that perish. The words locum sigillis are humbly suggested as a suitable motto for the Pribyloff Islands whenever they shall take their place as a sovereign State of the American Union.

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

Here.

I'm a conservative, but not a Republican. The former is a political morality, the latter a party. But as between the Republican Party and the Democrat Party, I side with the former. Politics is messy. You don't always get what you want. Often, you must settle for second best. Was George W. Bush my ideal candidate? No. But he was a darn sight better than the alternatives, Al Gore and John Kerry. Just one time, before I die, I'd like to be able to get fully behind a candidate. Settling is never fun, either in a relationship or in politics. Here is a New York Times story about the Republican Party.

Jeff Percifield is wicked.

Here is a cool image from today's stage of Paris-Nice. The stage was won by Kazakh Andrey Kashechkin. American Floyd Landis retained the overall lead. The race ends tomorrow. It will be the first major stage-race victory for Floyd. I hope he hasn't peaked too soon; the Tour de France is still four months away. Meanwhile, in Italy, Spaniard Oscar Freire leads the Tirreno-Adriatico stage race. Today's weather was not good.

See here.

How many of you have seen this man? He's William Kristol—the son of intellectuals Irving Kristol (who coined the term "neoconservative") and Gertrude Himmelfarb. The other day I learned that he holds a doctoral degree in political science from Harvard University. His dissertation, accepted in 1979, is entitled "The American Judicial Power and the American Regime."

We in Britain are sometimes told by our critics that we lack a dynamic political creed to set against Fascism and Communism; something to whose services all our children can be educated, all our young people dedicated, something that can fire the imagination and inspire prophets and priests. (Certainly neither Democracy nor Freedom can fill this bill.) It is a sign of our political maturity that we have no such creed; it is a pathological symptom when such a creed sweeps a State; this is monomania, and a monomaniac may appear a very dynamic person. But real values have their own dynamism; we have not lacked dynamic minds. We have had doctors, scientists, artists, lawyers, religious leaders—and, at need, soldiers, and statesmen—second to none in dynamic drive. But it will be an evil day for us when all these dynamisms are directed down a single channel. For this attempt must fail; the best men would be purged and most of the others terrorised. Only a few would remain who could so adjust their enthusiasm as to serve a new and single master or whom that master could make his tools. So it is the highest compliment to us that we have no political religion capable, like fascism and communism, of unifying all the lives of all the citizens and of crushing out every activity and every enthusiasm not subservient to its aims.

(J. D. Mabbott, The State and the Citizen: An Introduction to Political Philosophy, 2d ed. [London: Hutchinson University Library, 1967 (1st ed. 1948)], 161-2)

Law professor Darian M. Ibrahim has written an essay about animal experimentation. If you would like to read it, click here, scroll, and download.

Is broadcast television dying? See here.

Here is a New York Times story about a brave woman.

To the Editor:

Re "Both Sides of Inequality," by David Brooks (column, March 9):

We appreciate the discussion of Annette Lareau's research within working-class households. Her work reflects two core ideas in working-class studies: that class involves cultural differences as well as economic ones, and that working-class culture has many strengths.

But we strongly disagree with Mr. Brooks's conclusion that the working class is not exploited. Class is a matter of culture and of power. Mr. Brooks is correct that we should lessen the "economic stress" of the working class, but we would suggest that exploitation, not competition, is a central cause of economic inequality.

Middle-class children may well "outcompete" their working-class counterparts to land better jobs, but it is exploitation that ensures that those who clean offices or ring up groceries earn significantly less than their bosses do. It's exploitation when corporate chief executives make hundreds of times more each year than their average workers.

Economic disparity comes not from what kind of work someone does, but from a system of inequality that lead the rich to believe it is their right to keep workers in "economic stress."

Sherry Lee Linkon
John Russo
Youngstown, Ohio, March 10, 2006
The writers are co-directors of the Center for Working-Class Studies, Youngstown State University.

Here.

Usage, n. The First Person of the literary Trinity, the Second and Third being Custom and Conventionality. Imbued with a decent reverence for this Holy Triad an industrious writer may hope to produce books that will live as long as the fashion.

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

A further merit of the difference principle is that it provides an interpretation of the principle of fraternity. In comparison with liberty and equality, the idea of fraternity has had a lesser place in democratic theory. It is thought to be less specifically a political concept, not in itself defining any of the democratic rights but conveying instead certain attitudes of mind and forms of conduct without which we would lose sight of the values expressed by these rights. Or closely related to this, fraternity is held to represent a certain equality of social esteem manifest in various public conventions and in the absence of manners of deference and servility. No doubt fraternity does imply these things, as well as a sense of civic friendship and social solidarity, but so understood it expresses no definite requirement. We have yet to find a principle of justice that matches the underlying idea. The difference principle, however, does seem to correspond to a natural meaning of fraternity: namely, to the idea of not wanting to have greater advantages unless this is to the benefit of others who are less well off. The family, in its ideal conception and often in practice, is one place where the principle of maximizing the sum of advantages is rejected. Members of a family commonly do not wish to gain unless they can do so in ways that further the interests of the rest. Now wanting to act on the difference principle has precisely this consequence. Those better circumstanced are willing to have their greater advantages only under a scheme in which this works out for the benefit of the less fortunate.

The ideal of fraternity is sometimes thought to involve ties of sentiment and feeling which it is unrealistic to expect between members of the wider society. And this is surely a further reason for its relative neglect in democratic theory. Many have felt that it has no proper place in political affairs. But if it is interpreted as incorporating the requirements of the difference principle, it is not an impracticable conception. It does seem that the institutions and policies which we most confidently think to be just satisfy its demands, at least in the sense that the inequalities permitted by them contribute to the well-being of the less favored.

(John Rawls, A Theory of Justice [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1971], 105-6 [footnotes omitted])

Note from AnalPhilosopher: See here. The quotation shows that Rawls conceived of society as a big family.

This just in, courtesy of Mindy Hutchison.

Floyd Landis still leads the race, with two stages to go. Here is an image from today's stage, which was won by Spaniard Joaquin Rodriguez. Meanwhile, in Italy, the Tirreno-Adriatico stage race is under way. Race leader Paolo Bettini crashed on a descent and was unable to finish. I hope he's okay.

Academics are in a state of arrested emotional development. They have no real-world responsibilities, so they can—and do—revert to childishness. Their students, who are in adolescent rebellion against their parents and other authority figures, are all too happy to emulate them. They absorb the jargon, the modes of thought and feeling, and the attitudes of disrespectfulness and incivility. These students are in for a rude awakening when they enter the working world, where seriousness, respectfulness, discipline, and civility are not just encouraged but required. See here for the latest campus tantrum. (Thanks to Michelle Malkin for the link.)

To the Editor:

We are dismayed by your condemnation of the average citizen for not protesting the grotesque violations of law, justice and morality by our government (editorial, March 8).

My husband and I, average citizens, knew before The New York Times expressed any skepticism that this war in Iraq was wrong. We are horrified by the erosion of our democracy by the administration—the lies, the violations of law and the Constitution, the secrecy and, worst of all, the torture in our name.

We have written letter after letter to you protesting the illegality and injustice perpetrated by this administration. We write both our senators and our congressman on the same issues, and we offer any help we can give as citizens to work with them to stop the demolition of our democracy.

As citizens, we are powerless without leadership. Your editorials have rightly condemned the administration on a wide range of issues. What effect do you see as a result of your ringing rhetoric? Is there something more you can do to mobilize public opinion and action?

Rosalie Lang
Laurence Lang
Shoreline, Wash., March 8, 2006

One more time. If you're a woman, don't expect your husband to do domestic labor such as cooking, cleaning, and child care. He's not going to—or if he does, it will be grudgingly. He will, however, gladly maintain your motor vehicles, keep your lawn mowed and your hedges trimmed, feed the dogs, take out the trash, repair broken appliances, paint the house, and protect you and your children. It's called division of labor. It's efficient. It makes for happy households. See here.

Addendum: Why do discussions of housework never mention standards of cleanliness? What if the wife and the husband have different standards? What if the wife looks at a room and says, "It's dirty," and the husband looks at it and says, "It's clean" (or "It's clean enough")? Whose standard prevails? There is room for compromise here, just as there is in the case of sex. Most men (I suspect) would rather have more sex than they have, while most women would rather have less sex than they have. Loving couples compromise. If a woman insists that there is only one standard of cleanliness—hers—she's a tyrant.

Addendum 2: I have never understood the obsession with a clean house. When I die, the last thing I want someone to say is, "He kept a clean house."

Optimist, n. A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.

A pessimist applied to God for relief.

"Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness," said God.

"No," replied the petitioner, "I wish you to create something that would justify them."

"The world is all created," said God, "but you have overlooked something—the mortality of the optimist."

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

What were they thinking?

Here.

Will Nehs sent a link to this. If you don't like Westerns, you're not a real man.

I lifted the following from the website of the American Heart Association:

Your total blood cholesterol level
Your total blood cholesterol will fall into one of these categories:

Desirable—Less than 200 mg/dL
Borderline high risk—200–239 mg/dL
High risk—240 mg/dL and over

Here is some more explanation about each of these categories.

Desirable
If your total cholesterol is less than 200 mg/dL, your heart attack risk is relatively low, unless you have other risk factors. Even with a low risk, it's still smart to eat foods low in saturated fat and cholesterol, and also get plenty of physical activity. Have your cholesterol levels measured every five years—or more often if you're a man over 45 or a woman over 55.

Borderline high risk
People whose cholesterol level is from 200 to 239 mg/dL are borderline high risk. About a third of American adults are in this (borderline) group; almost half of adults have total cholesterol levels below 200 mg/dL.

Have your cholesterol and HDL rechecked in one to two years if:

Your total cholesterol is in this range.
Your HDL is less than 40 mg/dL.
You don’t have other risk factors for heart disease.

You should also lower your intake of foods high in saturated fat and cholesterol to reduce your blood cholesterol level to below 200 mg/dL. Your doctor may order another blood test to measure your LDL cholesterol. Ask your doctor to discuss your LDL cholesterol with you. Even if your total cholesterol is between 200 and 239 mg/dL, you may not be at high risk for a heart attack. Some people—such as women before menopause and young, active men who have no other risk factors—may have high HDL cholesterol and desirable LDL levels. Ask your doctor to interpret your results. Everyone's case is different.

High risk
If your total cholesterol level is 240 or more, it's definitely high. Your risk of heart attack and stroke is greater. In general, people who have a total cholesterol level of 240 mg/dL have twice the risk of coronary heart disease as people whose cholesterol level is 200 mg/dL.

You need more tests. Ask your doctor for advice. About 20 percent of the U.S. population has high blood cholesterol levels.

I received the results of my annual physical examination today. My total cholesterol is 115. My doctor wrote "fantastic!" I attribute it to two things: first, lifelong aerobic exercise (mainly bicycling and running); and second, a demi-vegetarian diet. As I've said many times in this blog, if you care only about yourself, and don't give a damn about animals, you'll eat very few animal products. I've had no dairy products (milk, cheese, ice cream, butter, or yogurt) since 1972. I've had no red meat (i.e., meat other than chicken and fish) since 1981.

Here.

3-9-86 I had another record-breaking day on my bike, again to Picacho Peak and back. Vowing Friday to ride a hundred miles in six hours or less (to Julianna Wilson, among others), I rode 102.2 miles in six hours, fifty-two minutes, for a gross-average speed of 14.88 miles per hour (my fourth-best time ever). Amazing! That would be a good gross-average speed for a Colossal Cave ride, and that’s only forty miles. My only regret is not breaking the fifteen-mile-an-hour mark (I missed it by four minutes). But there was plenty of which to be proud without worrying about that. Here are some notes and comments.

(1) I rode the entire 102.2 miles in tenth gear. Not once did I shift, even when, rationally considered, I should have. My philosophy is to strengthen my legs, even if it means sometimes pushing harder than is necessary. But in the main, tenth gear was fine. (2) I never got off the bike. Of course, I had to stop the bike at stop lights and stop signs, but when I did, I just stood there until traffic was clear and proceeded. I never stopped to refill my water bottles, buy something, or rest. This means that I used only two small bottles of water. By the time I got home I was slightly dehydrated. [Slightly?!] (3) I’ve already broken my 1983 mileage mark this year. I’m also 40.1% of the way to last [sic; should be “this past”] year’s record, and it’s still early March! I’m turning into a riding fanatic. I’ve ridden 1824.1 miles in the past year, and a total of 3162.5 miles in Tucson (slightly over two and a half years).

French students disrupted today's stage of Paris-Nice, which was won by Tom Boonen. Again. He is becoming a dominating sprinter.

Ridicule, n. Words designed to show that the person of whom they are uttered is devoid of the dignity of character distinguishing him who utters them. It may be graphic, mimetic or merely rident. Shaftesbury is quoted as having pronounced it the test of truth—a ridiculous assertion, for many a solemn fallacy has undergone centuries of ridicule with no abatement of its popular acceptance. What, for example[,] has been more valorously derided than the doctrine of Infant Respectability?

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

To the Editor:

Re "Unaware as Levees Fell, Officials Expressed Relief" (news article, March 2):

We now have a video proving that on Aug. 28, 2005, federal disaster officials, including Michael D. Brown, then the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, adequately and forcefully warned President Bush about the impending crisis of Hurricane Katrina.

Days later, Mr. Bush said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." Mr. Bush clearly lied to the American public.

How do parents teach their kids to be honest these days, when our people are lied to by their leaders, almost as an acceptable matter of course? How do we teach our kids to respect the law, when our administration consistently violates longstanding federal and international laws?

Instead of condoning this deception and self-justification, honest members of Congress, regardless of party affiliation, need to start with an independent investigation into the fraud and juggling of information that led us to war in Iraq.

Helen N. Hanna
Sacramento, March 2, 2006

The Left is out of power, so it can afford to be irresponsible. All it does is oppose whatever the Bush administration does. What is the Left's position on Iran? What would leftists advise President Bush to do? This editorial opinion in today's New York Times gives you a feel for what the Left would do. Nothing. Just let Iran acquire nuclear weaponry. Can you say "end of Western civilization"? One thing is certain: Whatever President Bush does, the Left will criticize him for it. There should be a rule: You can't criticize a policy unless and until you formulate an alternative. After all, the choice is not between policy A and no policy at all; it's between policy A and policy B. Not formulating a policy is formulating a nonpolicy.

Here.

Here is Peggy Noonan's latest column.

Here is Tom Graffagnino's latest poem. For my money, Tom's poems are much better than those posted by Brian Leiter.

It occurred to me today while driving home from school—my 11-day spring break has begun—that leftists think of society as a big family. Government is the father: stern but loving; just but compassionate; determined to treat all his children equally; a good provider who insures his family against risks, who protects them from harm, and who wreaks vengeance on those who wrong them.

I'm sorry, but society is not a family. It's a loose association (confederation) of independent (sovereign) beings. I have no particular affection for others. I tolerate their existence. I expect them to tolerate mine. I contribute to projects from which everyone, including me, benefits, such as interstate highways, libraries, and public schools. I am nobody's keeper and don't expect you to be mine.

Does this seem right? Do leftists and rightists have different models of society? If so, why? Perhaps leftists feel insecure and want to reconfigure society as a big family in order to feel safe and secure, whereas rightists feel secure already and want to liberate individuals to experiment and create. Perhaps leftists had unhappy childhoods and want to try again on a larger scale. Or perhaps they had happy childhoods and want to recreate the same warm, fuzzy feelings on a larger scale.

As an exercise, read John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971) and Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974). You get a very different vibe from these works. When I read Rawls, I sense an overwhelming timidity that borders on the pathological. He wants everyone to be safe, secure, loved, and happy, with ample self-esteem. He thinks it's reasonable to trade economic liberty—the chance to become wealthy—for economic security. When I read Nozick, I sense adventure, excitement, competitiveness, and risk-taking. He thinks it's unreasonable to trade liberty for security. The dominant Rawlsian value is security; the dominant Nozickian value is autonomy. Rawls is for women; Nozick is for men.

Addendum: As some of you know, Rawls believes that individuals in the original position would reject both utilitarian and libertarian principles of justice. Instead, they would choose the difference principle, which requires that inequalities work to the advantage of the worst off in society. Rawls is an egalitarian. Inequality, in his view, is a necessary evil; it is justified only if, and only to the extent that, it is necessary to create incentives that increase the size of the economic pie. I have never been persuaded by Rawls's argument for the difference principle. It rests upon risk-aversion, which is no more rational than risk-preference or risk-neutrality. (To be fair to Rawls, he says that it does not rest on risk-aversion. I'm not convinced by his argument.) Risk-preferring individuals would choose libertarian principles. Risk-neutral individuals would choose utilitarian principles. Here is Richard Posner, discussing Rawls's argumentative strategy:

He [Rawls] offers no argument that will appeal to people not already predisposed in favor of the welfare liberalism that he appears to be advocating. He offers a form of life that you may not cotton to.

Rawlsian man in the original position is finally a strikingly lugubrious creature: unwilling to enter a situation that promises success because it also promises failure, unwilling to risk winning because he feels doomed to losing, ready for the worst because he cannot imagine the best, content with security and the knowledge he will be no worse off than anyone else because he dares not risk freedom and the possibility that he will be better off.

If you don't like this lugubrious creature, or don't feel that your genes are something you rented from a common pool, you're not going to be persuaded otherwise by Rawls. (Richard A. Posner, The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1999], 51 [footnote omitted] [quoting Benjamin R. Barber])

Exactly. Sometimes I wonder why Rawls is considered a great philosopher. He has done little more—in my view—than tease out the implications of risk-aversion. His book might better have been entitled A Theory of Justice for the Timid.

Here are Stephen Nathanson's reflections on professorial hostility toward students. Like Nathanson, I enjoy teaching. The other day, while lecturing on utilitarianism, I had an awful feeling that the students were bored. My first thought was, "How could anyone be bored by this? It's the most fascinating topic in the world!" But that's life. One person's fascination is another person's boredom. I just hope that some of my enthusiasm got through to the students. If nothing else, they saw that it's possible to get excited about ideas.

Here.

Jacob Weisberg calls Democrats Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Howard Dean "The Three Stooges." I've never seen Pelosi when she didn't appear flighty. Reid is an intellectual lightweight. Dean is a megalomaniac. The longer they remain the face of the Democrat Party, the longer Republicans will retain power. Americans do not want to be led by Moe, Larry, and Curly. They have already rejected Shemp and Lurch.

Here is William F. Buckley's column about South Dakota's ban on abortion. Unfortunately, I don't detect an argument. It's more like random jottings. By the way, some commentators are troubled by the South Dakota law's failure to allow abortion in cases of rape. But why should it? Offspring of rapists are not rapists. They have the same moral status as any other fetus. It's one thing to have a gut feeling that abortion should be allowed in cases of rape. It's quite another to articulate a principle that produces that result.

Here is the latest from The Pocket Part.

Did you know that Americans have won 10 of the past 20 Tours de France? Frenchmen have won zero of the past 20. Americans are beginning to dominate professional cycling. A year ago, American Bobby Julich won the Paris-Nice stage race. Today, American Floyd Landis, who recently won the Tour of California, took the lead in Paris-Nice. See here for the story. Barring disaster, he will win. He appears to be on form for a strong Tour de France this summer. Another American, Levi Leipheimer, will also contend.

The utilitarian who favours punishment regards it as a necessary evil. If less painful means of keeping law and order are established as being equally efficient, he will drop his support for the institution of punishment and favour these other means instead. That is, of course, provided he has made sure there are no less obvious but greater evils they threaten.

(T. L. S. Sprigge, "A Utilitarian Reply to Dr. McCloskey," in Contemporary Utilitarianism, ed. Michael D. Bayles [Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1968], 261-99, at 298 [essay first published in 1965])

To the Editor:

Re "It's Not Isolationism, but It's Not Attractive" (column, March 5):

David Brooks offers the specter of a fictional Democratic demagogue appealing to the rising isolationism of the American people. He manages this only by conflating two very different concepts.

Americans are not fearful of engagement with the rest of the world. They are tired of President Bush's brutal and incompetent imperialism. This administration is the least engaged with the rest of the world of any in recent history.

The president and his subordinates try to justify their policies by conjuring false threats and engaging in deceptive dialectics. It's about time we started disagreeing honestly.

James Ivy
San Antonio, March 5, 2006

Elysium, n. An imaginary delightful country which the ancients foolishly believed to be inhabited by the spirits of the good. This ridiculous and mischievous fable was swept off the face of the earth by the early Christians—may their souls be happy in Heaven!

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

Here.

A young woman whose apartment building caught fire confided to a Dallas Morning News reporter that she was "in freak-out mode." Is this form of speech an artifact of the computer revolution, which gave rise to such expressions as "screen-saver mode"? Let's apply it elsewhere. When he writes his semiweekly column for The New York Times, Paul Krugman is in Bush-hate mode. When Brian Leiter blogs, he's in thug mode. When I'm running, I'm in distress mode. When I eat a popsicle, I'm in pleasure mode. When I watch a film, I'm in enjoyment mode. Lovers are in love mode. When I use a urinal, I'm in urinate mode. When Dick Cheney goes hunting, he's in hunt mode. Scientists are in puzzle mode. Murderers are in murder mode. When I ride my bike, I'm in pedal mode.

To this.

Here.

European, n. 1. A native or inhabitant of Europe. 2. Muslim.

Nepotism, n. Appointing your grandmother to office for the good of the party.

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

There is nothing in sport like the furious, frenetic, frightening finish of a bike race. It's been called boxing on two wheels. Here is an image from today's sprint finish in the Paris-Nice stage race. Belgian Tom Boonen won his second consecutive stage and retained the overall lead. I would guess that Boonen was traveling 40 miles per hour as he crossed the line. Imagine crashing at that speed, with dozens of other hard-charging cyclists running into you and tumbling over you. Come to think of it, don't.

Europe was once vibrant. Now it is decadent. See here.

To the Editor:

After reading Verlyn Klinkenborg's Editorial Observer (March 3), I smiled and breathed a hearty "amen."

I just moved, and despite the fact that this is an exhausting and sometimes frustrating endeavor, one of the things I love about it is unpacking the books again.

This takes so much time, probably more than is required because I have to open them, and sometimes (actually quite often) begin reading, and allow all kinds of memories to charge forward just as Mr. Klinkenborg described.

No matter how yellowed the pages, no matter how stiff the glue, and no matter how many pages fall out, I just can't bear to part with any of these treasures.

And I cannot even begin to imagine having such a personal experience with a digitized version of a book.

Irene Lieban
Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, March 3, 2006

Here is a story from The Guardian about the catfight between Daniel Dennett and Michael Ruse, which I wrote about yesterday. By the way, I was reading the comments on Uncommon Descent and saw that one of the bloggers, "ds" (Dave Scott?), removed the link to AnalPhilosopher (while leaving the name). He wrote: "I’m trying to keep it clean here. Change your name to something unoffensive if you want to participate." Two things. First, I didn't "participate." I linked to Uncommon Descent. This was a trackback, not a comment. I rarely post comments on other people's blogs. I can barely find time to blog, much less comment on blogs. Second, Dave has a dirty mind. He sees the word "anal" and immediately thinks of anal sex! (Brian Leiter did the same thing. Is he a latent homosexual?) For the record, this blog's name is a play on two phrases: "anal retentive" (which describes my personality) and "analytic" (which describes the sort of philosopher I am). I'm the anal-retentive analytic philosopher. Get it? Please reconsider, Dave, and stop thinking those bad thoughts!

One of my readers sent a link to this.

See here.

Here are some of my favorite bloggers (in no particular order):

Dr John J. Ray (Dissecting Leftism)
Steve Rugg (JusTalkin)
Peg Kaplan (what if?)
Jeff Percifield (Beautiful Atrocities)
Ally Eskin (Who Moved My Truth?)
Dr Bill Keezer (Bill's Comments)
Dr Bill Vallicella (Maverick Philosopher)
Michelle Malkin (Michelle Malkin)
Donald L. Luskin (The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid)
Norm Weatherby (Quantum Thought)
Kim du Toit (The Other Side)
Glenn Reynolds (InstaPundit)

If you think I'm missing a good blogger, let me know.

Here.

Mindy Hutchison (my former student) sent a link to this story about my university's cycling club, which has had its ups and downs. I was faculty adviser to the Maverick Cycling Club for a few years in the early 1990s. There may have been a dozen members. We rode together many times. Early on, I wasn't familiar with the roads in the Metroplex. I laid out a 50-mile route to Waxahachie and back for my own use. The club members agreed to do it with me one weekend. The route was along heavily traveled Highway 287, which has exit and entrance ramps that make cycling on its shoulder dangerous. There was also debris everywhere. And talk about boring! It was 25 miles out and 25 back, on the other side of the highway. Nobody said anything, but everyone probably thought I was nuts. Ah, memories. Speaking of memories, I'm listening to Sting's Nothing Like the Sun (1987) as I type this. It don't get no better.

Addendum: One of the cyclists interviewed for this story commented on the Hotter 'n Hell Hundred bike race/rally in Wichita Falls: "The first 75 miles were fun; the last 25 were literally hell." I've done the Hotter 'n Hell Hundred 16 times. I assure you, it wasn't hell. Or put it this way: If it was hell, then, to quote AC/DC, hell ain't a bad place to be.

Here.

As strange as this may sound, my plan while in law school was to move to Rapid City to practice law. I love South Dakota. Alas, I fell in love with philosophy shortly thereafter and moved to Tucson instead. But I still have a soft spot in my heart for the state. As you know, South Dakota's governor just signed an anti-abortion law. The case will work its way to the United States Supreme Court, which may or may not decide to hear it. Many of the posters at Democratic Underground say they're boycotting South Dakota. See here. How many of those who are boycotting would have gone to South Dakota otherwise? Probably none, in which case it's not really a boycott, is it?

Michael Ruse and Daniel Dennett are philosophers. Both are Darwinists and both are atheists. But there’s an important difference between them. Ruse takes his philosophical obligations seriously; Dennett does not. Here is a recent letter from Dennett to Ruse (lifted from Uncommon Descent):

Dear Michael,

Funny you should ask. They didn’t publish my/our letter, and today you can see why. The ugly review from Wieseltier. I attach my response, which they WILL publish (but not till March). I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I think the NYTBR is under the spell of the Darwin dreaders. I’m afraid you are being enlisted on the side of the forces of darkness. You may want to try to extricate yourself, since you are certainly losing ground fast in the evolutionary community that I am in touch with. As you will see, I do lump your coinage in with “reductionism” and “scientism” etc. and think you are doing a disservice to the cause of taking science seriously. Are you among the Wieseltiers? I’d like to think not, but you are certainly being pulled in by them.

Best wishes,

Dan

Let’s parse it.

I’m afraid you are being enlisted on the side of the forces of darkness.

Dennett divides individuals into two mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories: those who are “enlightened” (like him) and those who live in “darkness.” It’s not unusual for philosophers to think that those who disagree with them are unenlightened. To rectify this, they argue, hoping thereby to persuade, rationally. But Dennett appears to think that those who disagree with him are benighted. This bespeaks ideology.

You may want to try to extricate yourself, since you are certainly losing ground fast in the evolutionary community that I am in touch with.

This foreboding sentence implies that Ruse should put solidarity with “the evolutionary community” ahead of truth. But Ruse is part of the evolutionary community. So what could Dennett mean? I believe he means that segment of the evolutionary community that is hostile to religion. Dennett is telling Ruse that he (Ruse) is not sufficiently antagonistic to religion, and that this will hurt his standing among the militant atheists. Again, this is not in keeping with the ideals of philosophy, which puts truth ahead of solidarity and other goods. Imagine Socrates making such a choice.

As you will see, I do lump your coinage in with “reductionism” and “scientism” etc. and think you are doing a disservice to the cause of taking science seriously.

This sentence is ironic, since Ruse is the author of a book entitled Taking Darwin Seriously. Is Dennett implying that only those who are hostile to religion take Darwin seriously? Is Darwinism incompatible with theism? This will come as a surprise to the many Darwinian theists, just as it would have come as a surprise to Darwin himself. Note, too, the term “cause.” This is the language of ideology, not philosophy. Dennett is on a crusade to destroy religion. He is enraged that his old friend Ruse will not join him.

Whatever happened to the dispassionate search for truth? When did philosophy become a tool of ideology? Philosophers are trained in conceptual analysis. They have an important role to play in reconciling religious belief with science, or in showing which types of religious belief are incompatible with which aspects of science. Dennett shows no interest in using his philosophical training to perform this task. His mind is made up. Religion is false and harmful and must be destroyed. You’re either with him or against him in this crusade. Ruse is not with him. Thank goodness for people like Ruse, who stand up to ideologues like Dennett. If enough other philosophers take a stand, there may be a future for philosophy after all.

3-6-82 Saturday. Ayn Rand [1905-1982] died today at the age of seventy-seven. She was a noted philosopher who espoused the doctrine of egoism—that doctrine which holds that a moral act is one done in the individual self-interest. Rand rejected the doctrine of utilitarianism, which holds that the welfare of the group is more important than that of any one individual within it. I agree with Rand on this issue, just as I agree with her atheism. The first time I ever heard of Ayn Rand I was watching a late-night talk show [The Tomorrow Show, starring Tom Snyder] on which she was a guest. I was very impressed by her views on religion (“a sham”) and rationality (“our last best hope”), and soon began buying her books. I now have four of her works and will someday have them all. The trouble is, I have not yet found the time to read the ones I have. [I still have only these four books: Anthem (1961) [1938]; For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (1961); The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism (1964); and Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (1979).]

It was a productive day. I finished [reading] two books on the American Revolution [George Athan Billias, ed., The American Revolution: How Revolutionary Was It? 3d ed. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980); James Kirby Martin, In the Course of Human Events: An Interpretive Exploration of the American Revolution (Arlington Heights, IL: AHM Publishing Corporation, 1979)] and did a bit of work on my suicide paper. This evening I went to the [Oakland] Mall to browse and pick up a book that I had ordered several weeks ago: Alan Donagan’s The Theory of Morality [Alan Donagan, The Theory of Morality (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1977); I finished reading this book on 11 August 1984]. After eating supper at McDonald’s, I came back home and read the first two chapters of it. It is quite interesting, though I tend to reject what Donagan is trying to do. He is attempting to lay a rational base under traditional Hebraic-Christian morality, and therefore make certain mores binding on all rational creatures. This, as you might expect, flies in the face of my professed egoism and anarchism [?], but I intend to hear Donagan out fully before rendering final judgment. At this stage of my career I am trying desperately to place a philosophical foundation under all of my learning, in order to be able to enter graduate school. I missed a lot of basic material while studying the likes of political science, economics, history, and law. Therefore, whenever I get spare time, I read philosophy. I think that I would rather read philosophy than date.

To the Editor:

Re "George the Unready" (column, March 3):

When Paul Krugman writes that "our country is being run by people who assume that things will turn out the way they want," he nails precisely the reason a thorough review of the Dubai ports deal by Congress is necessary.

The Bush administration has an appalling track record when it comes to being prepared for worst-case scenarios. It may well be that the ports deal would entail no security risks. But can we proceed just on this administration's say-so?

When President Bush says people shouldn't worry about security, that's when I start to worry.

Kate Connell
Holliston, Mass., March 3, 2006

Here is Camille Paglia's op-ed column about the pathetically weak Lawrence Summers—a man who capitulated to a bunch of hysterical feminists. With men like that, who needs women?

It's been several months since I read a column by Paul Krugman.* Twice a week, all I see is the one- or two-sentence tease beneath his image. Here is today's tease. It appears that nothing has changed. It's all Bush-hatred, all the time.

* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

Here.

Doing without thinking is blind; but thinking without doing is idle. It is only in the combination of the two—in what we think and what we do by reason of that thinking—that we are in any wise effective. What a man may do deliberately is all that it lies within his power to control or influence; it represents his total impact on the world he lives in. Except for his encumbering the earth, it is all he counts for, all the difference he will ever make.

(Clarence Irving Lewis, Values and Imperatives: Studies in Ethics, ed. John Lange [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969], 5)

Satyr, n. One of the few characters of the Grecian mythology accorded recognition in the Hebrew (Leviticus, xvii, 7.) The satyr was at first a member of the dissolute community acknowledging a loose allegiance to Dionysius, but underwent many transformations and improvements. Not infrequently he is confounded with the faun, a later and decenter creation of the Romans, who was less like a man and more like a goat.

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

Leftists love to ascribe malice (bigotry) to anyone who doesn't enthusiastically endorse the homosexual agenda. Does that mean Hollywood, which panned Brokeback Mountain, is bigoted?

Here.

The United States Supreme Court just upheld the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment, which requires that law schools provide access to military recruiters or lose federal funding. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for the Court. It was a unanimous (8-0) ruling. It'll be interesting to see whether law schools refuse federal funding. It's one thing to take a position when it doesn't cost you anything. It's another thing to do so when it costs you dearly.

One of my readers sent a link to this site. I haven't looked it over, so don't view this post as an endorsement. Check it out for yourself.

I'm disappointed again. See here.

Here.

Here is John Silber's column about former Harvard President Lawrence Summers. Silber is a philosopher by training. As for Summers, I lost all respect for him when he apologized to the feminist rabble-rousers who were "outraged" (do you suppose some of it was feigned?) by his remarks. What he said was true, and he knew it. Why would he apologize for speaking the truth? Is Harvard no longer committed to truth-seeking?

All I can say after reading this column by John Leo is, "Thank God I live in the United States of America," where speech is still free. I'd rather be dead than live in Europe.

Here is George Will's column about John Edwards. How anyone can be poor in this land of opportunity baffles me. As I like to put it, you have to work very hard—by making bad choices—to be poor in this country.

Here, courtesy of Will Nehs, is a story about Harvard professor of government Harvey Mansfield Jr.

The Paris-Nice stage race, won in 2005 by American Bobby Julich, began today. It's the first UCI race of the year, which means professional cycling has begun in earnest. Here is the report of the first stage. The riders call this the race to the sun, since it begins in chilly Paris and ends on the sunny shore of the Mediterranean Sea.

Addendum: American Chris Horner looks like the alien.

Somebody explain to me the purpose of album reviews. Either I like the album or I don’t. If I do, nothing the reviewer says is going to change it. If I don’t, nothing the reviewer says is going to change it. I admit that a review might induce a person to buy an album, or to listen to it, but whether the person ends up liking it is function of other things besides the review. I mention this because I’m often astounded by the things I read in reviews. I love the band Yes, for example. People say such things as that the band is pretentious. Is that supposed to cause me to dislike the music? Certain artists, such as Robin Trower, are said to be derivative (in Trower’s case, he’s said to be a knockoff of Jimi Hendrix). What if I like the original? Am I supposed to dislike something I like because it’s not original? If I like Hendrix, won’t I be delighted to find Trower, since it gives me more of what I like?

Book reviews are different from album reviews in several relevant respects. Books have cognitive content. If a reviewer says that book X is poorly argued, poorly documented, or poorly written, I will take note, for these bear on the intrinsic quality of the work. The analogy in the case of music is saying that an album is poorly produced or sloppily performed. But album reviews rarely mention such things as production and performance. Instead, they harp on irrelevancies, such as originality. At the end of the day, you must listen to an album in order to determine whether you like it. You can’t allow others, including so-called experts, to make that determination for you. This is why Mark Twain’s quip about the composer Richard Wagner is so funny. He said that Wagner’s music is “better than it sounds.” Indeed.

Utopianism and despair are closely allied. Acutely conscious of the gap between the actual and the conceivable, the utopian despairs when there is no prospect for bridging it. Intellectuality conduces to utopianism by stimulating the political imagination. The ordinary person has difficulty imagining an ordering of society radically different from the current one. The intellectual does not, and, being inclined by his calling to blame shortcomings on intellectual confusion rather than on practical impediments, thinks that merely pointing to the gap between ideals and achievement is a significant contribution to the cause of social reform.

(Richard A. Posner, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2001], 349-50)

To the Editor:

David Brooks quotes Peter Beinart of The New Republic as saying that Harvard students often graduate "without the kind of core knowledge that you'd expect from a good high school student," and that required courses can be "a hodgepodge of arbitrary, esoteric classes."

But Harvard students are in most cases outstanding high school students, so they arrive with at least the core knowledge expected of a good high school student.

As an undergraduate at Harvard, I took some wonderful core classes on a hodgepodge of subjects: the history of China, the Civil War, medicine and society in America, modern Jewish literature, medieval literature and culture, economics, justice (a philosophy course, where, yes, we read the ancient Greeks) and chamber music.

These courses were not arbitrary. They piqued my interest, and helped me develop a variety of critical thinking and writing skills. These types of classes are what a liberal arts education is about.

Sarah Resnick
Berkeley, Calif., March 2, 2006

Picture, n. A representation in two dimensions of something wearisome in three.

"Behold great Daubert's picture here on view—
Taken from Life." If that description's true,
Grant, heavenly Powers, that I be taken, too.
Jali Hane.

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

Here.

I think highly of Steven Pinker, who thinks highly of Judith Rich Harris. I haven't read Harris, but I suppose I should. Here is William Saletan's review of Harris's new book on human nature.

Here.

Here is Mort Kondracke's column about Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who is my choice for president in 2008. Read it and decide whether you share Romney's values.

Donald Luskin caught Paul Krugman* in a lie. See here.

* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

Did the attacks of 11 September 2001 change you? If so, how? Here are some possibilities:

1. You came to believe some things you previously disbelieved (or came to disbelieve some things you previously believed).

2. Your attitudes toward something or someone changed.

3. Your outlook, orientation, worldview, or frame of reference changed.

4. Your desires, ends, preferences, or values changed.

5. Your behavior, including your interactions with loved ones, changed.

Do tell all. I'm genuinely curious about this.

See here.

Contrary to the belief spread by the radical scientists, eugenics for much of the twentieth century was a favorite cause of the left, not the right. It was championed by many progressives, liberals, and socialists, including Theodore Roosevelt, H. G. Wells, Emma Goldman, George Bernard Shaw, Harold Laski, John Maynard Keynes, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Margaret Sanger, and the Marxist biologists J. B. S. Haldane and Hermann Muller. It's not hard to see why the sides lined up this way. Conservative Catholics and Bible Belt Protestants hated eugenics because it was an attempt by intellectual and scientific elites to play God. Progressives loved eugenics because it was on the side of reform rather than the status quo, activism rather than laissez-faire, and social responsibility rather than selfishness. Moreover, they were comfortable expanding state intervention in order to bring about a social goal. Most abandoned eugenics only when they saw how it led to forced sterilizations in the United States and Western Europe and, later, to the policies of Nazi Germany. The history of eugenics is one of many cases in which moral problems posed by human nature cannot be folded into familiar left-right debates but have to be analyzed afresh in terms of the conflicting values at stake.

(Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature [New York: Viking, 2002], 153 [endnote omitted])

Deputy, n. A male relative of an office-holder, or of his bondsman. The deputy is commonly a beautiful young man, with a red necktie and an intricate system of cobwebs extending from his nose to his desk. When accidentally struck by the janitor's broom, he gives off a cloud of dust.

"Chief Deputy," the Master cried,
"To-day the books are to be tried
By experts and accountants who
Have been commissioned to go through
Our office here, to see if we
Have stolen injudiciously.
Please have the proper entries made,
The proper balances displayed,
Conforming to the whole amount
Of cash on hand—which they will count.
I've long admired your punctual way—
Here at the break and close of day,
Confronting in your chair the crowd
Of business men, whose voices loud
And gestures violent you quell
By some mysterious, calm spell—
Some magic lurking in your look
That brings the noisiest to book
And spreads a holy and profound
Tranquillity o'er all around.
So orderly all's done that they
Who came to draw remain to pay.
But now the time demands, at last,
That you employ your genius vast
In energies more active. Rise
And shake the lightnings from your eyes;
Inspire your underlings, and fling
Your spirit into everything!"
The Master's hand here dealt a whack
Upon the Deputy's bent back,
When straightway to the floor there fell
A shrunken globe, a rattling shell,
A blackened, withered, eyeless head!
The man had been a twelvemonth dead.
Jamrach Holobom.

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

To the Editor:

Enough already with how hard it is to be a mother in this day and age! You're depressing all of us who are just managing to pull it off. (Every time I read one of these articles, I wonder, "Is there something wrong with me that I'm not more miserable sending my child to day care as I tromp off to work every day?")

You quote Cathie Watson-Short saying: "Most of us thought we would work and have kids, at least that was what we were brought up thinking we would do—no problem. But really we were kind of duped. None of us realized how hard it is."

But when upper-middle-class women choose to have three children, they should consider how that might affect their careers.

Part of adult life is facing hard choices and living with sacrifices and compromises. If you believe that you can "have it all" without any pain, you've been watching too much TV.

Debbie Berne
San Francisco, March 2, 2006

Michael Ruse, like me, is (1) a philosopher, (2) a Darwinist, (3) an atheist, and (4) a respecter of religion. Militant atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Brian Leiter, who hate religion and despise the religious, are vilifying him for it. See here and here. Leiter calls theists "theocrats," as if, given the chance, they would impose their religious beliefs on everyone. In fact, it is Leiter and his ilk who would impose their leftist beliefs on everyone. (Read Leiter for a few days. You'll see what a totalitarian he is.) I am far more concerned about the likes of Dawkins, Dennett, and Leiter acquiring power than I am about Christians (for example) acquiring power.

Addendum: Did you read Leiter's post—the one to which I linked? Notice the implication that Ruse is (now) an outcast. He has been cast out, by Leiter, from the inner circle of militant atheistic Darwinists. This is totalitarian thinking, my friends. Party line; dogma; true believers; false consciousness; vanguard of the proletariat; &c. One must not deviate from the party line! One must show no respect for the enemy! Solidarity! Leiter would make a terrific KGB agent.

Addendum 2: Darwinists like to say that their opposition to teaching design theory in public schools is merely prophylactic. They say they want to keep science and religion distinct. Do you believe that? Leiter and his comrades care less about the integrity of science (and science education) than they do about suppressing religion. The end, in their view, justifies the means.

Addendum 3: The Darwinian legal strategy is pure, unadulterated cynicism: Impugn the motives of those who want design theory taught in public schools. How often have you heard it said that design theory is "really" an attempt to proselytize or indoctrinate impressionable students? But two can play this game. If supporting the teaching of design theory is an attempt to sneak religion into the public schools, why isn't opposing the teaching of design theory an attempt to suppress or destroy religion? Why are the motives of only one side questionable? And why do we care about motives, anyway? We should focus on design theory itself, not on the motives (or purposes) of those who support or oppose it. Philosophers are taught to focus on reasons, not motives. Leiter seems not to know the difference.

Addendum 4: Uncommon Descent says that I "hit the nail on the head." Aw, shucks.

Here.

The general problem of war is a difficult one, but here I need assume only one point, namely that fighting in self-defence is justifiable. There are of course many high-principled men who reject this view. In the War of 1914-1918 England exempted such objectors in principle, though the composition of local tribunals and the hysteria of public opinion made the application of the law difficult and sometimes impossible. In the War of 1939-1945 hysteria was less marked and the application of the law was fair and reasonable. These exemptions are possible because genuine pacifists are few and many of them are prepared to do noncombatant duties. Let us imagine, however, a country attacked by a barbaric and 'totalitarian' enemy and containing a minority of Quakers so large that their exemption would ensure military defeat for their country. It would seem in that case that the government should introduce conscription without exemptions. This would force those of weaker faith to fight. The government would have to punish those whose faith held out, though it would admire them the more. Its justification would be that conquest by the invader would be the end not merely of national independence, but (far more certainly) of Quakerism also. I agree that the position into which such a government is driven is an 'impossible' one, that is to say a position in which no solution avoids absolute wrong. But this only confirms the conclusion that war as such is wrong. So also in everyday life I may be 'put in an impossible position' by someone else's wrong-doing, and in that case the 'someone else' is to blame. It is one of the strongest arguments against war that it leads to such insoluble dilemmas—to the punishment of men because of their devotion, to the necessity of sending men to their death, because they are better men than their fellows, to the suppression of what is intrinsically good in the hope that finally a greater good may be achieved.

(J. D. Mabbott, The State and the Citizen: An Introduction to Political Philosophy, 2d ed. [London: Hutchinson University Library, 1967 (1st ed. 1948)], 129-30)

3-3-86 My [Introduction to Philosophy] students did poorer than usual on the exam that I gave Friday, so I began today’s lecture by chewing them out. “This is not a bullshit course,” I said. “Philosophy is an attempt to get clear about things, and I expect you to be rigorous in your thinking and writing. Maybe you came in here thinking that you could get a good grade just by throwing some ideas around and regurgitating what I say. If so, you’re seriously mistaken. This is the one course where memorization and loose thinking won’t get you anywhere.” The students seemed to detect an underlying anger during my remarks (so they told me afterward), which is what I wanted. I really do expect a lot from my students, not because they’re smarter than the norm, but because the norm is so pitifully bad. I’ll see if [sic; should be “whether”] they do any better on the next exam.

See here for my post about chimps.

Addendum: Here is the study mentioned in the New York Times story.

Coming soon to a bookstore near you.

Jeff Percifield continues to delight, inform, tease, edify, rant, protest, conspire, insult, titillate, bedevil, taunt, lecture, dismay, impugn, expose, defame, and shock. See here. Did I mention that his Oakland Athletics are going to get their asses kicked by my Texas Rangers?

See here.

See here.

What would happen if someone started a blog entitled "WhiteProf.com"? See here.

Here.

To the Editor:

President Bush may stumble when explaining our presence in Iraq, but Vice President Dick Cheney and his buddies at Halliburton know why we fought: It's the oil, stupid.

Most Americans should know this as well. Every time they fire up their S.U.V.'s for a trip to Starbucks, turn up their thermostat to 72 or reach for a plastic bag to save their leftovers: It's the oil.

The problem is that just a few are fighting so that many can preserve their way of life. Each American, not just a few, should be able to say: "My car, my heat, my plastic bags—are worth my son."

Only then will we have reached a consensus on the rationale for the war.

John E. Colbert
Chicago, Feb. 28, 2006

Handkerchief, n. A small square of silk or linen, used in various ignoble offices about the face and especially serviceable at funerals to conceal the lack of tears. The handkerchief is of recent invention; our ancestors knew nothing of it and intrusted its duties to the sleeve. Shakespeare's introducing it into the play of "Othello" is an anachronism: Desdemona dried her nose with her skirt, as Dr. Mary Walker and other reformers have done with their coat-tails in our own day—an evidence that revolutions sometimes go backward.

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

Here.

Memo to women: You can't have it all. Nobody can have it all. Men don't have it all. Men have always had to choose between work and being a hands-on father. If feminism told you that you can have it all, feminism lied to you. See here.

Unhindered by external checks and balances, the academic moralist has no incentive to be useful to anybody, and so is free to pursue academic prestige by encouraging brilliance. Moral philosophers compete with one another for academic fame and fortune by demonstrating how carefully they have read the canonical texts, how cleverly they can develop an analogy or spot an inconsistency, how consistently they can reason from premises to conclusions, how many fine distinctions they can draw, and how deftly they can skewer an opponent. But like high IQ in general, the intellectual gifts moral philosophers exhibit need not, and in their normative work usually do not, generate a positive social product.

(Richard A. Posner, The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1999], 80)

3-2-86 Sunday. It feels funny sitting home all day on a Sunday. This is my “riding day.” But I took advantage of it by grading exams, working on my farm manuscript (what eye strain!), and calling Mom and Mark. I also watched a tape replay of the Race Across America, a bike race in which participants cross the country in nine or ten days. The winner, Jonathan Boyer, is a veteran of European races such as the Tour de France. He’s a hill-climber and a braggart. But he backed up his claim that he would win the race, and I must give him credit. I can’t imagine doing what he and the others did. They rode almost continuously, eating on their bikes, sleeping only an hour or two at a time, and taking whatever terrain the route had to offer. The second-place finisher, Michael Secrest of Flint, Michigan, rode for some three days before sleeping, and finished almost as strongly, covering something like 400 miles in the last twenty-four hours of the race. What I do is utterly insignificant compared to what these people did and are doing. Some day, given enough time and money, I’d like to attempt this race. I don’t plan to win it, just finish it.

I get more nasty mail about my language posts than about anything else. I don't know why that is. People who write for a living have strong views about language, I guess. I'm a prescriptivist. Certain uses of words are bad and should be avoided. (Descriptivists refuse to make judgments.) Do I always avoid what I consider bad uses? No. One reader complained that I have used the expression "Needless to say," which I recently condemned. Okay. What follows? I shouldn't have used it. I'm not a perfect writer. Nobody is. Peter Singer doesn't live up to his strong famine-relief principle. Does that mean the principle is to be rejected, or only that Singer should try harder? Jews and Christians don't love their neighbors as themselves. Is that a failing of the commandment or of the commanded?

Today's language note concerns the expression "total stranger." (One also sees "complete stranger.") Isn't stranger status all or nothing? If so, then "total stranger" is redundant. Could there be a partial stranger? Needless to say, no.

Dr John J. Ray, my polymathic friend Down Under, is blogging up a storm at Tongue Tied.

Mouth, n. In man, the gateway to the soul; in woman, an outlet of the heart.

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

Here is Peggy Noonan's latest column.

Here.

To the Editor:

Re "Ike Saw It Coming," by Bob Herbert (column, Feb. 27):

As perplexing as it sounds to describe our country as one invested in a war machine that runs on fear, President Bush's proposed 2007 budget confirms that description.

President Bush proposes that Congress allocate 52 percent of discretionary spending to the Pentagon, not including the costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

At $439 billion, Pentagon spending dwarfs what we spend on education, health, veterans' benefits, international affairs, the environment and economic development combined.

We finance weapons manufacturing and militarism as if they were the only solutions to international conflict.

When will we invest instead in conflict resolution, diplomacy and working with neighbor nations to solve the root problems that lead to terrorism?

We just can't afford to keep this war machine well oiled, not at the expense of our children.

(Rev.) Amanda Hendler-Voss
Asheville, N.C., Feb. 27, 2006

Note from AnalPhilosopher: Is this person's status as a reverend relevant to the content of the letter? If not, why is the information provided? Is she trying to fool people into thinking that she's a moral expert?

One of the things lawyers are trained to do is extract the principle from a line of cases. Having read The New York Times for several years, I have come to the conclusion that the Times's operative principle is, "If President Bush supports it, we oppose it." See here. Can you say "reactionary"?

One of my readers sent a link to this. It's hilarious.

Here.

One of my friends sent a link to this.

Can Hillary Clinton be elected president in 2008? You bet.

Production of the greatest good is obviously a relevant consideration when determining which punishment may properly be inflicted, but the question as to which punishment is just is a much more basic and important consideration. When considering that question we need to determine whether the person to be punished committed an offence in the morally relevant sense of 'offence' and what punishment is commensurate with the offence.

(H. J. McCloskey, "A Non-Utilitarian Approach to Punishment," in Contemporary Utilitarianism, ed. Michael D. Bayles [Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1968], 239-59, at 257 [essay first published in 1965])

3-1-86 Usually I ride my bike on Sundays rather than Saturdays, but David Cortner wanted to ride with me this weekend, so we rode today instead. This was the first time that David has ridden to Colossal Cave, and he seemed to enjoy it. But he found the long incline to the cave fatiguing. I stopped several times to wait for him. While waiting for David to rest at the cave entrance, I climbed to the top of a nearby hill. What fun! It made me want to go even higher, perhaps to the highest points in the Rincon Mountains. But I was on a bike ride, not a hiking trip, so I came down and we headed for home. The weather was great; in fact, at eighty-seven degrees [Fahrenheit], it was the highest riding temperature in four months, since 27 October 1985. It was also a record high temperature for this date. My top speed was forty-two miles per hour.

When I got home, I was delighted to find a copy of my farm manuscript [“The Ethics and Economics of Right-to-Farm Statutes”] in my mailbox. The editors of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy have transcribed my manuscript to their computer disk and made some changes. They want me to review it and make additional changes. So apparently the article will be published; that means that I’ll get the final $300 of my [Leonard P. Cassidy] fellowship. Also in today’s mail was a letter from William Rowe. He agrees with me that Anselm does not beg the question in the ordinary sense, but thinks that he begs the question in a narrow, epistemological sense. I’m frankly surprised to get a response to my letter. My students will be interested in what Rowe has to say.

To this.

Here is Harry V. Jaffa's column about Iraq. Here is Victor Davis Hanson's column about Iraq. Every day, Iraq my brain to come up with interesting material for my readers.

Here.

To the Editor:

Re "We Can Live With a Nuclear Iran," by Barry R. Posen (Op-Ed, Feb. 27):

I suppose it was inevitable that as Iran ineluctably proceeds toward acquiring nuclear weapons someone would suggest that such a development would be "manageable" through a policy of deterrence.

Of course, the entire premise of such a complacent idea is that Iran is run by a rational group of political leaders whose extreme statements, including its objective of "wiping Israel off the map," even if it meant an acceptable loss of the lives of its own citizens to a retaliatory response, should not be taken at face value.

This was the conventional wisdom among many in the West when Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany in the 1930's. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

David Schimel
Great Neck, N.Y., Feb. 27, 2006

End, n. The position farthest removed on either hand from the Interlocutor.

The man was perishing apace
Who played the tambourine;
The seal of death was on his face—
'Twas pallid, for 'twas clean.

"This is the end," the sick man said
In faint and failing tones.
A moment later he was dead,
And Tambourine was Bones.
Tinley Roquot.

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

Here.

I love living in North Texas, but the weather can be downright bizarre. Here is a breakdown of high temperatures (in degrees Fahrenheit) for this past February:

30s: 2 days
40s: 5 days
50s: 5 days
60s: 7 days
70s: 6 days
80s: 3 days

Ten days ago, it was 30.7º during my run. Today, it was 86.4º. We've had winter, spring, summer, and fall in the space of 28 days. It's a wonder we're not sick all the time.

Here is Tom Graffagnino's latest poem.