It looks obvious

The new release of, once classified, documents is a reminder that Presidents can be sane, skillful and avoid being dragged into conflicts all over the world. But instead of a President that will follow the footsteps of Eisenhower that ended the war in Korea and avoided getting involve in Vietnam (or anywhere else), we are likely to choose between McCain, the official neoconservatives darling, and Hillary Srangelove:

AMERICANS have learned to take with a grain of salt much of the rhetoric in a campaign like the current Democratic donnybrook between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Still, there are some red lines that should never be crossed. Clinton did so Tuesday morning, the day of the Pennsylvania primary, when she told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that, if she were president, she would “totally obliterate” Iran if Iran attacked Israel.

This foolish and dangerous threat was muted in domestic media coverage. But it reverberated in headlines around the world.

[...]

A presidential candidate who lightly commits to obliterating Iran - and, presumably, all the children, parents, and grandparents in Iran - should not be answering the White House phone at any time of day or night.

The question of just war was, and still is, a source for many philosophical discussions. It was not only a theoretical question but a question that leaders considered practically, even if only for the purpose of legitimacy. It was also the justification establishing the league of nations and its younger, and equally failure, the UN.

My observations over the years brought me to believe that there are many more benefits for limited intervention or limited activism. My natural suspicious approach toward central planning, and the ability of central power to manage one country successfully, are in order of magnitude higher when a country tries to centrally manage the rest of the world.

The question I’m straggling with, without a good answer, is the question of moral obligation. Are there cases when a country must intervene in foreign war? The immediate answer is, obviously, a country should be obligated to stop cases of genocide. But this, as it usually is, isn’t as simple as we might have wish.

I believe that government only role, and justification, is to protect the human rights of those under its sovereignty. Is sending one to fight a none defensive war serve this purpose? Is this a justified expanding of the powers the government assume? I am not sure. Morally I would rather individual making a decision for themselves if, and how, they want to contribute to a struggle against evil around the world - but there is a valid question of practicality. Can an NGO stop a genocide without the backing of a state?

But even if we put the question of the state role aside there are many other, more practical questions. What level of genocide justified intervention? Why Darfur but not Congo? Is it a question of size or that wars between different groups? Should we stop a tribal war? What should we do in cases when the state kills its own people like in Cambodia? Or only certain segments of its population - like what have been done to women in Afghanistan?

If it was justified to stop Nazi Germany genocide why didn’t the world go to war to stop the killing in USSR under Stalin? Was it morally different?

Growing up I used to look at the pictures of my grandparents relatives that the german murdered in the holocaust. I used to imagine how would it be to belong to a big family, as it should have been if they would not have been murdered. It was obvious to me that it was immoral and evil to ignore the genocide. But I have no good answers what should be the right approach. I know the anger and pain of a nation that was the victim of such genocide, and the unanswered question: “How could you let this happen”? But I don’t know what should be the answer.

Today I finally converted my old IBM ThinPad T43 to Ubuntu Linux. It took me a while to get on board and give Ubuntu a try and and so far so good. I am not convinced that the most users will be in love with the idea of using Terminal for things they use to get with a click on other operating systems, but this isn’t my problem.

My home office is now a declared windows free zone!

There is very little in common between the crazy FLDS cult, which is now all over the news, and Professor Christopher Ratte and his wife Professor Claire Zimmerman. And yet it is obvious for most of us that taking all the children from the FLDS compound in Texas was justified but we nodding our heads in disbelieve when we are reading how the state took custody over Professor Ratte child:

The way police and child protection workers figure it, Ratte should have known that what a Comerica Park vendor handed over when Ratte ordered a lemonade for his boy three Saturdays ago contained alcohol, and Ratte’s ignorance justified placing young Leo in foster care until his dad got up to speed on the commercial beverage industry.

Even if, in hindsight, that decision seems a bit, um, idiotic.

[...]

Almost everyone Chris Ratte met the night they took Leo away conceded the state was probably overreacting.

The common between the two stories is simple - the overreacting and the rush to take children from their parents without considering the level of danger to child and without sufficient proof. We are often mixing between bad choices and illegal choices, and we are rushing to assume guilt of parent, but we must be very careful balancing between the want to protect children and the harm we are causing when rushing to intervene.

I decided to dedicate my lunch break today to Ron Paul’s book signing which was around the corner from where I’m working. I thought that the half hour lunch break will be sufficient and that I can grab something to eat later. How little did I knew.

As soon as I stepped into the store one of the worker announced that the Book - The Revolution: A Manifesto - is already sold out. I didn’t care much because I bought it from Amazon a while ago, but many people had to travel to other stores (One told me he had to go uptown to get it). The line of people waiting from the book signing was long, and although I was standing in the middle of it and although it moved pretty fast, it took me more than an hour and a half to get to the actual signing.

I will have to work an additional hour today, but I was impress with the large, and diverse, crowd that came in the middle of working day for this event. People from all ages and professions came to meet the Ron Paul and to express their gratitude for his efforts and to encourage him to continue fighting for the ideals of liberty.

One of the things I never learned is latin, but I trust this is accurate:

The regulator’s motto is “Dirigo, ergo sum” — I boss people around, therefore I am.

As the rest of George Will’s column about the dreary implications of the McCain-Fiengold campaign finance reform:

Parker North is a cluster of about 300 houses close to the town of Parker. When two residents proposed a vote on annexation of their subdivision to Parker, six others began trying to persuade the rest to oppose annexation. They printed lawn signs and fliers, started an online discussion group and canvassed neighbors, little knowing that they were provoking Colorado’s speech police.

One proponent of annexation sued them. This tactic — wielding campaign finance regulations to suppress opponents’ speech — is common in the America of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. The complaint did not just threaten the Parker Six for any “illegal activities.” It also said that anyone who had contacted them or received a lawn sign might be subjected to “investigation, scrutinization and sanctions for campaign finance violations.”

The First Amendment guarantees freedom of association, “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” The exercise of this right often annoys governments, and the Parker Six did not know that Colorado’s government, perhaps to discourage annoyances, stipulates that when two or more people associate to advocate a political position, and spend more than $200 in doing so, they become an “issue committee.”

As such, they probably should hire a lawyer because even Colorado’s secretary of state says the requirements imposed on issue committees are “often complex and unclear.” Committees must register with the government; they must fund their activities from a bank account opened solely for that purpose; they must report to the government the names and addresses of all persons who contribute more than $20; they must also report the employers of plutocrats who contribute more than $100; they must report non-cash contributions such as lemons used for lemonade, and magic markers and wooden dowels for yard signs.

Warfare and Caring about the environment, are they really mutually exclusive?

In The Know: How Can We Make The War In Iraq More Eco-Friendly? 

I’ll open this thread of links with good news, and it is coming from no other than New Jersey. There are many questions about privacy in the era of facebook, It will take time until we will be able to sort the right formulation of privacy and the limits we set on corporations like google from using the knowledge the gather about us. But it is even more important to keep the government from abusing its power and protect our privacy:

The Supreme Court of New Jersey became the first court in the nation yesterday to rule that people have an expectation of privacy when they are online, and law enforcement officials need a grand jury warrant to have access to their private information.

In state proceedings, the ruling will take precedence over what attorneys describe as weaker U.S. Supreme Court decisions that hold there is no right to privacy on the internet.

It was somewhat amusing when in France the court ordered Amazon to stop the practice of Free Shipping, in the name of protecting competition and consumers interests. This story joins it proudly . This is how you justify government monopoly on alcohol in Sweden:

Imagine that you suddenly get this question from a tourist. Perhaps you know exactly how you should answer. If not, it might be good to know what the results of a recent survey showed: The Swedish alcohol monopoly saves many lives each year. If strong beer (Note: beer with more that 3.5% alchohol per volume), wine and spirits were sold in grocery stores consumption would increase by 30%, researchers believe. And they stress that this is a conservative estimation—the increase could be more. They calculate that there will be approximately 1,600 more deaths each year, 14,000 more assaults and around 16 million more sick days.

So the monopoly makes a huge difference for a lot of Swedes. And because it will only be around as long as people want it to be, we at Systembolaget have to do everything in our power to make sure our customers are satisfied.

This has resulted in our having perhaps the world’s largest assortment of strong beer, wine and spirits. (And an assortment one not finds in Stockholm and Gothenburg, but also in Jokkmokk and Töreboda.)

But if am I already bashing the Europeans for their lack of respect for Human Rights and individual’s liberty I can’t avoid the Brigitte Bardot story. The idea that people stand a trail for insulting others and the lack of freedom of speech in France is simply sad. As a side note it is also very interesting how it is more important to some people, Bardot including, to treat animals like humans while they are treating other humans like animals…

French former film star Brigitte Bardot went on trial on Tuesday for insulting Muslims, the fifth time she has faced the charge of “inciting racial hatred” over her controversial remarks about Islam and its followers.

[...]

Since retiring from the film industry in the 1970s, Bardot has become a prominent animal rights activist but she has also courted controversy by denouncing Muslim traditions and immigration from predominantly Muslim countries.

Reading the NY Times is often upsetting, but than once in awhile it demonstrates why it is an important newspaper. This story dig deep into who are the military analyst appearing on our evening news show, what motivate them and what is the quality of the analysis we are getting. It is not a short reading, but it is highly recommended.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration’s war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized.

Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.

And the last link for this post will focus on the true conditions of bloggers. Sometimes considered an hobby or a more comfortable for those who chose it as profession the true nature beyond the risk of blogging reveals here:

Please come to rescue me!

I guess that Wesley Snipes knows now that taxes aren’t really voluntary after all….

The story about the polygamist compound in Texas will probably be material for movies - a mysterious phone call, wired cult that is most likely damaging its children and abusing it women and the heroic raid of the authorities to save the children. Should the authorities have acted upon the phone call - unequivocally yes. This is exactly why we should have a government - to protect human rights, and especially children human rights. Should they have responded differently - probably.

I agree with those who argue that the government should have taken custody on those children that were in danger of abuse even before it had enough evidence. Certain level of suspicion that those young girls are being forced into unconnected sexual relations should be sufficient for a temporary removal of the children and taking custody. However it should be temporary and should be justified with a proof in court. But the decision to take all the children from the compound was a mistake. Nobody argue that the little children were in any immediate danger of abuse and the fact that we don’t approve the lifestyle of this cult isn’t a good enough reason to intervene.

Defining the line, were government justified to intervene when protecting children rights, is always more problematic than when discussing adults rights. After all children has less freedom to decide as they are under the control of their parents. However, the state is often use “children rights” as a tool to assume more power and to restrict more rights. We should carefully prevent cases where a mere disapproval of life style, belief or even less competent parenting become a justified reasons for government regulations and taking over parents control. It seems that in Texas the state crossed that fine line.