Politics

Wow.

Word on the street is that North Korea is selling long-range ballistic missiles to Iran. I’m not sure why a totalitarian slave-state like North Korea would be able to create both nukes and ICBM’s while a marginally less-totalitarian but much larger slave-state like Iran is not. Gee, maybe it has something to do with Israel having the balls to take out the nuke-factories while our dear old President Clinton decided to “negotiate” with that epitome of honesty, beloved dictator Kim Il-jong. I doubt that N. Korea has the capablity to develop working nukes in the near future, though Iran certainly will if Bush decides to echo Clinton and “negotiate” with the death-happy Islamic fundamentalists.

Of course North Korea and Iran claim that their nuke plants are (mostly)intended for the peaceful purpose of “providing electricity to the People“. If the satellite photo below is any indication, they definately need it.

(If you Googled this in search of an argument against animal rights, read this editorial first, then check out the articles here.)

The House of Commons has just voted for a total ban on fox hunting in England. One might be tempted to dismiss this as another sign of the loony leftists in Europe, but the failure of the “pro-hunt” lobby holds a number of important lessons for conservatives in America. The primary causes for the failure of the hunting lobby was their willingness to compromise and a failure to offer a moral defense of their rights.

Two weeks ago, Andrew Linzey, a prominent British “expert” on morality and “animal rights” compared fox-hunting to rape. To quote, “‘Causing suffering for sport is intrinsically evil. Hunting, therefore, belongs to that class of always morally impermissible acts along with rape, child abuse and torture…All acts of cruelty to animals are of a kind ….they diminish our humanity and offend.”

While Linzey’s argument is wrong on oh-so-many levels, I am more interested in what the opposition had to say in response. Here is one of the spokesmen of the Countryside Alliance, a pro-hunting group: “If you ask a rape victim or a victim of torture who has suffered so much whether they think what they have gone through can be compared to hunting, I think you know the response you would get. Frankly, it’s disgusting. We are talking about a legal pastime which is being likened to illegal acts of gross exploitation.”

Note that no attempt is made to refute the moral equivocation Linzey makes between human beings and animals. The best answer the spokesman comes up with is that rape feels worse that hunting. The second part of his reply is to say that rape is worse because it is illegal, which is completely irrelevant in the question of whether it is right. Similar flaws are found in arguments in all of the Alliance’s defenses. Their latest slogan is “59% say keep hunting.” Other arguments call for a defense of their “way of life” and that hunting an improper priority for the legislature. Not one has dared to offer a moral defense of hunting or to explain why it’s wrong to kill humans but not animals. Having forfeited the moral argument, they resort to appeals to tradition and popularity.

In response to the Alliance spokesman, Mr Linzey could easily say “Well how do know that rape feels worse than hunting? Have you ever been hunted?” In a comparison between being hunted down by dogs and being raped, most people would probably choose rape, and any sane person would certainly say that both are immoral and ought to be illegal. If a clear distinction between the moral status humans and animals is not made, what possible defense of hunting can be made? And how can one defend the moral status of humans if one does not recognize what makes them different from animals in the first place?

In short, hunting is doomed in England not because the arguments of the anti-hunt lobby have any merit, or because the defense of the hunters is wrong, but because hunters fail to provide any defense for their views at all, other to offer vague clichés such as “tradition,” “way of life,” and desperate resorts to public opinion. Realizing that they have nothing to offer in defense, they argue for compromise measures such as registration and various limits on where and how they hunt.

The gun lobby in America faces the same proposition. While the liberals offer laughable claims that guns are intrinsically evil, gun owners fail to defend their position on a basis of individual rights and refer to the traditional role of guns in American society and the Second Amendment. There is no certainly no question that gun ownership is an American tradition and a right guaranteed by the Constitution, but until recently fox hunting was an even older British tradition that collapsed before a small but vocal minority. Until gun owners on both sides of the pond realize that they must defend their rights on a moral basis and offer a principled stand for individual rights, their freedoms will continue to be eroded by collectivists with preposterous claims that hunting amounts to rape and guns are evil while criminals are not. Ironically, it is Tony Blair who stated in response to calls to weaken the hunting ban that “this is a moral issue, and as soon as you try and compromise on a moral issue you end up hacking everybody off.” Until conservatives stop “conserving” and start defending their rights, their stance is as useless as the fox hunters.

(By the way, I think the NRA’s willingness to compromise on their principles makes them unworthy of anyone’s support. If you want to support an organization that truly supports your rights, I recommend you check out Keep and Bear Arms)

What do they say? If you can’t take the heat, (or the competition) get out of the kitchen. This "criminal at the computer" read your book and is tired of your "someone should do something!" commieconservatism.

Edit: A further comment. O’Reilly says

the Supreme Court actually helped [the child molestation people] by ruling that virtual child porn, computerized images of kids being raped, are legal, an extension of free speech.

What he is almost certainly talking about, is hentai, or the popular Japanese version of anime, or animated nudes. Japan has strict censorship laws that prohibit the portrayal of genitals (even animated ones), but are very flexible and open on everything else, including breasts. The weird result is that mainstream anime features plenty of bare-breasted women and porn has genitals that are digitized just enough to get past the censors. Anyway, women in Japanese anime only come in two forms: young, nubile, and top heavy, and old hag. Although their huge cleavage, enormous eyes, and purple/green hair hardly qualifies as "human," a number of conservatives (like Mr. O’Reilly) have labeled hentai as "child porn" and sought to ban it outright. It doesn’t take much brains to figure out that this is only a stepping stone to banning pornography, masturbation and all kinds of other things their preacher thinks are bad. So what is child porn and what should be illegal?

I was arguing with a prominent "libertarian" a few months ago who was said that while child molesters are guilty of a crime, those who distribute child pornography are are not, because they didn’t actually harm anyone. I compared this to saying that while a thief commits a crime, those who knowingly buy his stolen loot do not, since they didn’t steal anything themselves. (The libertarian agreed with this as well, at which point I gave up.) The fact is in both cases, both parties are guilty: one of the actual crime, the other of aiding and abetting. When dealing with virtual child porn however, there are no victims and no crime. The behavior may be immoral, but it’s in the same status as watching the numerous rape and gang-bang scenes in adult movies. (Not that I watch that kind of stuff, but did you know that the rape scenes frequently feature tiny white women and mean-looking black men, yet are happily purchased by all races?) Not surprisingly, I have heard many arguments made by feminists for banning "rape" scenes and by conservatives for banning adult stars who dress to look underage. Their logic is based on the implicit assumption that humans are like apes who mindlessly imitate whatever they see, be on it television, computer, or newsprint. If that were the case, then my many hours of playing Doom are a much bigger threat to society than my small but growing hentai collection. In any case, child porn it is not, and to prove it, I’ve posted a random sample here. Judge for yourself, but not for too long, since it may soon be against the law.

There are a number of interesting stories covering the witch hunt the government is pursuing against Martha Stewart. A number of papers are running stories such as "Official Poll: Is Martha Stewart guilty?" and Poll: Majority of New Yorkers think Martha Stewart is guilty. How the hell is Joe Shmoe supposed to know the details of the legal code or what Martha did or did not do? Fortunately, most of the editorials I’ve seen recognize the case for what is is: "U.S. government makes her the subject of a criminal test case designed to further expand the already unrecognizable boundaries of the U.S. federal securities laws." A number of sites in support of Martha have popped up, including Martha’s own MarthaTalks.com and the SaveMartha.com, which features several hilarious clips from her "enemies."

Martha’s own defense has been to say that she is only being prosecuted because she is a successful woman — but I think this take is misguided. Many successful men have gone to jail for insider trading, and Martha’s defense is doomed unless she acknowledges the real motivations of her prosecutors: to inspire fear, uncertainty and doubt into successful businessmen everywhere, and gain political prominence in the process. As the must-read article "Martha Stewart: Political Prisoner" points out,

It is politics, not the pursuit of justice, which is driving this case. Stewart is well-connected politically, but it is to Democrats, who control none of the branches of government at the present time. Her wealth and public persona make her a convenient target of a very political U.S. Department of Justice and of U.S. attorneys who see the example of the Guiliani path to fame and fortune.

I can’t say whether Martha broke the law or not: I’m not lawyer, I don’t know the facts of the case, and even if I were a lawyer, the SEC regulations are vague enough to mean whatever the government wants them to mean in any particular case. What I do know, is that the insider trading laws are a mockery of justice, and that the witchhunt against Martha Steward is only happening because she and Sam Waksal are successful individuals, and in today’s world, success can be a very dangerous thing.