…to make my point for me.

Recently I posted about how lame it was for the Aaron Sorkin to use Christians as the censoring force in his new drama about a sketch comedy show. I argued that this premise was laughable because I couldn’t remember the last time a comedy show had a scene or episode censored out of Christian considerations. To make my point even stronger, I just found out via Hot-Air, that NBC has decide to broadcast a popular children’s show that’s been around for quite some time. However the show has strong religious themes and NBC would put the show on the air under the condition that most of the religious references are removed.

NBC is broadcasting a show about Christians causing television to be unfunny by demanding censorship of sketches critical of their faith while at the same time they are willing to air another show contingent on it censoring it’s more stronger Christian themes.

Only in the liberal’s mind is Christianity the threat.

In Iraq, apparently a police academy building was so poorly built that it has to be tore down and rebuilt. Most annoying about this is that this building was constructed by the corp of engineeers. Juan Cole from Baloon Juice has this to say:

Such is life. This story highlights what is so frustrating about having to live with this decision- the construction of a viable Iraqi police force, not based on sectarian rivalries and long-festering hatreds and with a motivation that goes beyond settling Hussein-era scores is one of the most important things that needs to be done in the reconstruction. I know that, you know that, and the administration knows it. You would think we would approach the situation with a degree of seriousness and with a fully committed desire to succeed. You would think, at the very least, the Police Acadamy would have a solid PHYSICAL foundation.

If you really want to criticize the Bush administration I think this is the way to go. Or I should say this kind of criticism really appeals to me. I took it for granted that reforming Iraq was going to lead to a lot of death and destruction. That’s how things work when you forcibly make the benefactor’s of Saddam’s regime do things they don’t want to do. Plus it was obvious that this transition was going to attract terrorist like flies to a light bulb. Thus such violence, while unfortunate, I assumed was inevitable.

However, I had not anticipated the sheer incompetence of the administration in setting up a democracy in Iraq. Unlike Cole, I still would of been in favor of the war knowing what I know now because I believe that all people have a strong desire to live in a democracy and I think this is particularly true when the people of a country has lived under a brutal despot for many years. Such desire of the Iraq people, in conjunction with a US military that believes in what they are doing, practically guarantees that with enough time they will be able to get around every obstacle the administration incompetently drops in front of them. However, it would of been nice if the administration had given just a tad bit of thought about how one country transitions another country of 40 million from a despot to a democracy. That might of been somewhat prudent given the obvious partisan politics this war has been subjected to in this US.

I would vote for a Democrat that was unequivocal in his commitment to Iraq, but was highly critical of the Bush’s way of handling the transformation. The candidate must also provide tangible ways in which he would actively approach the transformation differently then the current administration. If such policies seemed more sound than Bush’s, which seems highly likely given this adminstrations incompetence, I would absolutely vote for that Democrat. Too bad the democrats are only interested in retreating from Iraq. Debate about how the transition is being executed would be much more helpful then whether we should cut and run.

Via Instapundit, Eric Scheie blogs on the relatioship between the right and left rhetoric regarding the current struggle with Islam.

I see the enemy as jihadists. (And I don’t mean jihadists in the sense of playing the piano well or getting straight As or doing a fine job as a teacher; I mean it in the sense of waging holy war in the name of Islam.) That sounds easy enough, but try putting it into practice in the United States today. One of the great ironies of the post-9/11 period is that while violent Islamic jihadists attacked this country, there is a constantly growing network — both organized and unorganized — of in-place apologists at virtually every level of society all ready to defend them. Criticize jihadists, and people on the left will call you a racist. An Islamophobe. A bigot. I have seen this too many times to count, and the reason I call it ironic is that before 9/11, feminists routinely criticized the veil. Gay activists did not hesitate to condemn Islamic homophobia. Atheists condemned Islam the same way they condemned Christianity. After 9/11, the PC crowd suddenly included a group which they’d previously neglected, and it seemed to me that the 9/11 attacks helped the image of radical Muslims with the left in this country. And in most newspapers, and on many campuses.

This network of PC critics is not only defensive in nature, but offensive. Hence, few American newspapers would dare print cartoons that would probably have been printed before 9/11 without so much as a passing thought. Before 9/11, few cared about the Supreme Court’s image of Muhammad, or the many images of Muhammad (such as Salvador Dali’s 1960s version). Now, even operas have to be careful. Lest they “offend.” I’m tired of that crap, and a lot of people are. I don’t agree that 9/11 supplied anyone with an excuse to be insensitive or act like a jerk. But then again, why in the world should a horrible attack like that make us more concerned with (what’s the phrase?) “Islamic sensibilities”?

I’ve watched the first two episodes of Studio 60 on the Sunset strip, which is a drama about the production of a sketch comedy show. The show begins with a scene intended to pay homage to the 1970’s movie the Network when the current producer bursts on to a live sketch to denounce censorship that has caused both his show and television programming in general to be bland and homogeneous. When the producer attributes television’s stodginess to TV execs kowtowing to fundamental Christians the writer of Studio 60 reveals his political colors.

For the creator and writer of Studio 60, Aaron Sorkin, I have one question: in what alternate universe are you talking about? Does he seriously wants me to believe that in current American culture Christians are a great threat to sketch comedy because they are successful at getting ‘good’ sketches censored because they poke fun at the Christian faith. I’m trying to think of the last time a comedy show in this country was prevented from airing something critical of Christians. South Park? Nope they have Jesus do all sorts of sacrilegious things. Daily show? Nope last time I checked they have a segment that makes fun of televangelists. How about Family Guy? Seen episodes making fun of Christians. How about the Simpsons, hmmm, no actually the Flanders faith was a constant source of mockery. How about Saturday night live? One should think an actual sketch comedy show might have had suffered censorship serving as the basis for Aaron’s first story arc. I have not seen SNL for quite some time, but when I did, they seemed to have no problem airing sketches of the church lady.

One must scratch their head when his story arc includes censorship due to Christian advocacy. I simply fail to see any evidence of Christians having any substantial clout to force the censorship of sketches that aim to mock their religion.

What makes this more frustrating is the fact that there are recent examples of a religion forcing a comedy shows to be censored. I talk of Comedy Central choosing to censor Southpark because they decided to show an image of Muhammad. During that same controversy, newspapers all over this country refused to show the cartoon images that caused the initial uproar throughout the Middle East. It goes further than that though, as we see anytime anyone is critical of the Muslim faith many of the faithful erupt in a fit of rage usually killing people and destroying property, and are assuaged only by apologies and vows to never speak critically of their faith again. If there is a religion forcing the American media into censorship it’s Islamic fundamentalism.

And so Aaron writes brave smart characters willing to endure the controversy and criticism that his fictional Christians will levy against them. Yet, extremely ironically, we find that Aaron himself lacks the courage he so valiantly places in his own characters. For in the real world the religion that has the force of censorship is the Islamic fundamentalist, and yet Aaron lacks the basic courage he has given his writers, to place them in the world of Studio 60 as the agent of censorship.

See Aaron this is what censorship looks like in this country.

This post summarizes a report recently published. You might know of it through NPR report where it focused on how Iraqis want the US out within the year. With my taxes I pay for that biased garbage.

Overall 94 percent have an unfavorable view of al Qaeda, with 82 percent expressing a very unfavorable view. Of all organizations and individuals assessed in this poll, it received the most negative ratings. The Shias and Kurds show similarly intense levels of opposition, with 95 percent and 93 percent respectively saying they have very unfavorable views. The Sunnis are also quite negative, but with less intensity. Seventy-seven percent express an unfavorable view, but only 38 percent are very unfavorable. Twenty-three percent express a favorable view (5% very).

Views of Osama bin Laden are only slightly less negative. Overall 93 percent have an unfavorable view, with 77 percent very unfavorable. Very unfavorable views are expressed by 87 percent of Kurds and 94 percent of Shias. Here again, the Sunnis are negative, but less unequivocally—71 percent have an unfavorable view (23% very), and 29 percent a favorable view (3% very).

The more middle easterners begin to see just how bad terrorism is for all people everywhere the more rapdily terrorism will dissipate.

Apparently U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has been talking some rhetoric about how the federal government needs to play a larger role in our colleges and universities. In supporting her argument that the federal governmnet can do good by having more control over higher learning institutes she shows our public elementary and secondary schools as sucecess stories. The post paraphrase it this way:

Perhaps the saddest aspect of Spellings’ efforts to control higher education, however, is that she openly touts federal work in elementary and secondary education as the model for what needs to be done in higher ed.

How much crack must you be on to use our public school as the example for the good the federal government can be for something. Its like arguing that the drug war proves how effective the federal government has been at controlling illegal drug usage.

Funny that Michael Moore’s arguments are not laughable when they support you. But, I certainly agree that much of our gun violence is related to the drug war, and other social problems unique to the US. I guess I’m not sure what the statistic you need to measure to answe rthis question is - how many people in England want to commit a violent crime but don’t becasue they can’t get a gun? Obviously there’s no way to measure that. So I agree, the statistic I cited doesn’t really prove my point, but it’s still my instinct that these laws would create fewer violent crimes involving guns.

All Michael Moore arguments are laughable. All of them. My use of Moore was simply to indicate a similarity between your argument and his. His arguments in bowling for columbine are just as laughably bad as they are in all of his other movies.

I can’t see were this argument can go from here. We need numbers which probably don’t exist, and besides, I’m somewhat comfortable with higher rates of violence for the freedoms it affords the citizenry.

First of all, the difference between free speech and free gun ownership is the difference between talking to someone and shooting at someone. It’s always been my own personal morality that you can say and do anything oyu want, but as soon as your actions cause real physical harm to anyone else, you’re over the line and need to be stopped. That’s where I see the difference between guns and free speech.

One can cause plenty of physical harm through their words. I’m reminded of a crappy episode of nightline where a group of girls tricked an insecure boy into thinking they liked him and then informing him they were joking. The subsequent humiliation and derision resulted in the boy committing suicide. Another example is leaking military plans to the enemy. Here freedom of expression could end up getting our military personnel killed. Do you advocate banning freedom of speech because it can be used to real harm.

Conversely, one can do good with firearms. In the Bullshit episode about gun control one of the stories was about a woman that was held hostage along with her parents in a restaurant. The gunmen decided to kill some of the customers and so the daughter was forced to watch as both her parents were killed. What makes the story infuriating was that she had her handgun in her car, but at that point the law of the state did not permit her to carry it with her. Had her rights been protected, she would have been able to do good by shooting the murder of her parents before he would have a chance to kill them.

Distilling the argument from the examples is that we should manage how citizens express their fundamental rights instead of simply eliminating those rights. We already do this with firearms. Simply shooting someone you dislike with a gun or passing on information to our enemies is illegal. Using weapons for self-defense and expressing disapproval of our elected leaders decision to go to war is not considered illegal.

For some odd reason you seem to think that harm by gun is so much greater than the harm of other freedoms that you were are willing to ban this right while keeping the others. Perhaps you can tell me how guns are more harmful then these other kinds of freedoms such that you can justify a total ban on gun rights.

I should note that the original idea behind granting citizens rights was to protect them from the tyranny of the state and not regulate interaction between citizens. Rights are laws beyond the states control. If this interpretation holds then the only appropriate argument to have is whether allowing the citizenry to be armed acts as a safeguard against state tyranny. In such simplified form, you would to be an idiot to disagree particularly when you compare an armed citizenry with an unarmed citizenry.

As for the tyranical government thing, I do agree that this is a place where having an armed populace makes sense to me. However, I do feel that if the entire US government, along with everyone in the entire military, suddenly decided to turn on the American people, the American people wouldn’t stand a chance, no matter how many hunting rifles your uncle has in his log cabin. The military just has too much technology which is almost a century beyond a simple handgun- and I hope we can both agree we’re against private ownership of ICBM’s. I think the more pragmatic way to prevent such a nightmare scenario is constant vigilanc eon the part of voters- for instance, by opposing presidents who seek to increase the power of the executive branch, circumvent checks and balances, surveil american citizens, etc etc. As things are today, if teh President said to his military advisors that he wants them to start shooting anyone who says anything negative about him, they’d simply refuse. To my mind, it’s much more important that we keep things that way than that we stockpile weapons for the day when they agree with him.

I go back and forth on what kind of damage an armed citizenry can do against our current military. Its unlikely the citizenry could hold any position but it could certainly hinder and do damage to the military in a guerilla warfare. However I think this kind of discussion is largely irrelevant.

Its better to think about how an armed citizenry fosters a culture that always sends the message that the government serves at the citizenry’s request and not by coercion. I would agree with you that ‘constant vigilance on the part of voters’ is crucial to keeping a coup from being a reality. While both an armed citizenry and unarmed citizenry can be vigilant it seems to me that an armed citizenry is more capable. In part, because they have some teeth with actual weapons, but also because the right of gun ownership makes a statement about the citizenry’s responsibility about taking care of their own safety. This statement will make an armed citizenry more vigilant then an unarmed citizenry.

The personal responsibility argument is interesting. I agree with the idea that this means that we’re trsuting a nanny-state to take care of us instead of taking care of ourselves, and that is DEFINITELY distasteful too the idealist in me. However, my pragmatic side is what ussually carries the day, and I’m still not pragmatically convinced that no gun control would actually lead to better lives for everyone, all idealism aside.

That being said, I have come to recognize the pragmatic value of ideals, and the fact that degrading the idea of personal responsibility has all types of very real social and political consequences is not lost on me. Therefore I agree that this is a pretty persuasive argument.

I’m not arguing against the complete abolishment of gun control laws. I’m arguing that citizens in good legal standing should have no laws barring them from acquiring weapons. Felons proven to use firearms to murder people should be banned from acquiring those weapons even if it’s unlikely to stop them from acquiring them on the black market. If anything, granting the right to acquire weapons and then passing laws that restrict those that prove to be irresponsible with their weapons simply reinforces the value of personal responsibility.

Please do not quote me out of context to make me look stupid- my very next sentence says that clearly this has not worked to stop all drugs from entering the country, but the number of people in jail on drug-related crimes proves that some level of enforcement is possible. Since you’ve already said that you’re not thinking about enforcement as part of the argument, we can forget that for now.

In effort to be fair I have included the second sentence.

I do not think this neccessarily must be the case. If it was illegal for any citizen in the country to own a gun, you could have crack-downs of the types that we have for drugs. Now, obviously we do have plenty of illegal drugs in this country. However, think about how many people in the US are in jail for drug-related charges. This shows that enforcement does happen on these types of illicit materials, even if enforcement is not 100% effective.

Did you seriously use the banning of drugs to prove that gun control will work? Seriously?

Biologists do work on Anthrax and physicists on fortified Uranium; why should we restrict access to those? For every type of government regulation, there is a calculation made between the costs of that regulation (inefficiencies for business, curtailing of freedoms, etc) versus the damage done by not having that regulation in place. Obviously, the calculation for spreadsheets and DVD burners has come out that they’re not dangerous enough to regulate. I’m arguing that maybe the calculation for guns comes out on the other side.

And I’m arguing that the calculation comes out on the side were gun rights are worth the potential harm.

Overall, I think that your strongest arguments are personal responsibility and protection against a corrupt government. Those are pretty convincing to me. I just think it’s best to stay away from the ‘this won’t even help reduce gun-related crimes’ argument, because that’s simply an empirical question which we don’t have the evidence neccessary to answer.

The point of the criminal argument is not that gun violence won’t go down. It probably will. The problem is that it won’t have much effect on the group of people most often used to justify constraining our right to bear arms. Many gun control arguments center around the idea that criminals will no longer be able to use weapons because they are illegal. That simply is not the case, because criminals by definition will ignore such laws. Thus that justification simply fails to work and borders on absurdity.

The place where you will see decreases in gun death is were fits of anger come into play. I’m sure death will decrease here because its harder to kill someone with a knife or a blunt instrument, the weapons of choice in a gun free country, then with a gun. Does the reduction in deaths justify sliding responsibility of defending yourself to the state and weakening the citizenry message that the state is there to serve and not command? The answer is most clearly no.

Tell me what you think.

Darwin writes in my recent post on Gun Control:

If gun control laws fail to remove guns form criminal hands, then why are there fewer gun-related crimes in countries like England where guns are illegal? You seem to be making the assumption that law-enforcement agencies are incompetent and will fail to enforce these laws effectively.

I’m not even thinking about the capacity of law enforcement to enforce these laws. That a very different question. The less gun crime argument is simply a reformulation of the Michael Moore argument found in bowling for columbine. So far as I know, Canada’s gun control laws are more-less equal to ours in stringency. If this is the case, then it would suggest its not the gun control laws that control gun violence. I suspect a more likely explanation for our high rates of gun violence is the so called drug war. It would not surprise me that if you adjust for gun violence committed in drug trafficking that the overall number of deaths in gun violence would be commensurate with other countries that prohibit gun ownership.

Even if it turns out a country permissive of guns end up with slightly higher rates of gun violence im still comfortable with granting the fundamental right of gun ownership. Immutable rights come at some costs. Freedom of speech allows people to state things publicly that I believe is wrong. Freedom of religion of allows people to believe things that I think are laughable. Freedom of press permits coverage of topics im sympathetic towards in ways that cast it in a bad light. We pay a price for are immutable rights and gun rights may incur a cost of higher rates of gun violence and I prefer that to one day being defenseless when the state goes tyrannical on my ass.

The argument you completely ignored, unsurprisingly, is the personal responsibility argument. Its probably the strongest argument I have. When we confer immutable rights to the citizenry we are making a statement about personal responsibility. Being given rights implies that the state will not interfere with you in these matters so that you are responsible to see after them in the way you see fit. Taking away the right to gun ownership implies that the state must interfere with how one protects them self both from the state and would be criminals. It says you are no longer responsible for protecting yourself from the actions of others.

I do not think this neccessarily must be the case. If it was illegal for any citizen in the country to own a gun, you could have crack-downs of the types that we have for drugs

Did you seriously use the banning of drugs to prove that gun control will work? Seriously?

By arresting people for possesion of or attempting to purchase a gun the same way we do with guns, we would take huge numbers of criminals off the street BEFORE they had a chance to use those guns to commit violent crimes.

I have already handed the argument for gun control in terms of making it more discernible for police to determine would be criminals. You apparently didn’t read it so I will state it again: the logic employed leads to the conclusion that practically everything should be made illegal. Some simple examples should easily illustrate the point. To commit some kinds of white collar crime one might use spreadsheets, therefore we should make Microsoft Excel illegal so that it’s clear that those using it are likely to be committing a crime. Another example would be banning DVD burners since some use it to illegally to make copies of movies and albums. With the burners illegal determining likely wrong doing is simply a matter of finding those that have burners. Since its likely that practically anything can be used to commit some kind of crime the logic of your argument dictates that all things should be made illegal.

I bet on some level this device is good for the enviroment and yet its development had nothing to do with helping the enviroment.

The device, called GridPoint Protect, is the size of a small file cabinet and connects to the circuitbreaker panel. (The company also offers a lower-capacity version designed for homes, which costs $10,000.) A built-in computer powered by a Pentium chip will make intelligent purchase decisions, buying when prices are low, then storing the electricity for later use. That will make it possible to run your company during the workday with cheaper electricity that you purchased at 3 A.M.