Please vote

I need my friends to help me settle a debate I'm having about how I define myself politically. Please read through this quick list of my positions and vote on how you think I should introduce myself to others (left, center-left, center/moderate, center-right, right). Thank you!

Social issues:
-Gays should have equal rights as heterosexuals (govt. should offer civil unions for all people and stay out of marriage entirely, since marriage is a religious sacrament like unto baptism)
-drugs should be legal (esp. marijuana, although others could also be legalized with restrictions) and taxed
-abortion should be completely legal; waiting periods, ultra-sounds, or excessive regulations which are designed to dissuade or badger women into alternatives should be illegal. There is room, however, for reasonable regulation such as ensuring that women understand their options (as long as such does not entail obvious fear-mongering or pseudo-science).

Environment:
-global warming exists and is man-made. Programs (like cap and trade) meant to stop global warming, however, are simply not worth the cost; they raise energy prices and hurt efficiency without actually stopping warming.
-government should invest significantly into basic science research, particularly in technology like fusion which may reduce the cost of clean energy below that of fossil fuels.
-organic foods are a scam.
-bio-fuels are merely an excuse for government giveaways and don't help the environment.
-"green jobs" are a boondoggle and a waste of tax-payer money. Solyndra is the most extreme example, but is a typical illustration of the waste that such subsidies represent.

Economics:
-income-inequality is not intrinsically a problem.
-America's falling social mobility, however, is a major problem.
-market-capitalism, properly-regulated, is the best economic model.
-America's tax code is shamefully complex and inefficient.
-social security needs to be phased out and replaced with a means-tested alternative.

Military:
-the war in Iraq was the stupidest, most wasteful decision America has made since it invaded Vietnam.
-pre-emptive war is never justified, and will ensure that America is constantly at war and less safe because of it.
-the military is far too large.
-military benefits need to become more generous, but given to a FAR smaller force.

Religion:
-God does not exist, at least in the versions He/She/It is understood by the world's major religions.
-there should be a separation between church and state.

29

I think I’ll continue the tradition of posting something not-jerky on my blog every year on my birthday. It’ll be like a New Year’s resolution of being nice (which, like any resolution, won’t last more than a month), or a State of the Union speech (so someone is in charge of posting “YOU LIE” in the comments section).

It’s tempting to write this post as if it were a Christmas letter; I could easily put on the warm tone of reflection, recounting the many wonderful changes that have happened to me since my 28th birthday. I could also—as I am wont to do—rave about all of the things about this year have been the absolute best in their respective categories. I have a penchant for superlatives, and I imagine that my birthday posts would be as boring for you to read as they would be for me to write. Every year of my life—with 2 notable exceptions—has been better than the last. I won’t bother making it official by reminding you of that every February 24th. If you want the update on what I’ve done over the past year, I can copy and paste the paragraph from my family’s Christmas letter (which I also wrote). I’ll even attach some adorable pictures of my dogs in their Halloween costumes, if it would float your boat.

I once had an interview with Charles Stoddard, my old stake president. Rather than ask me any questions about school, work, or the weather, he started out by asking me what I did for fun; since everybody has to fulfill their duties, he reasoned, what defines us best is what we do when we don’t have to be doing anything. With that rationale in mind, here is a list of things that I’ve been doing for fun in the last year, and things I would recommend to you as well.

Five movies came out in theaters in the last year that I think are worth recommending:
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Easy A (so I like cheesy high-school flicks. Sue me)
Inception
Toy Story 3
How to Train Your Dragon

I watched 4 TV shows this year that I’d recommend to everybody, namely Pushing Daisies, Modern Family, Battlestar Gallactica, and The Tick. True Blood is trashy and crass, but is also great fun.

I also watched 3 non-documentary movies on Netflix that I think were worth recommending. I’d been hearing that they were good, but didn’t get around to them until just recently.

Zombieland
Mary and Max
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

As always, documentaries make up the bulk of the movies that I watch and would recommend. From best to least best, they are:

Collapse (you have to watch this one, not just listen to it. The subtext is told with the film work. )
Our Daily Bread (is the quietly spectacular German answer to the crappy American food documentaries like Food Inc. that I always complain about.)
Restrepo (up for an Oscar this year. I haven’t seen the others, but this one deserved a nomination)
The Great Happiness Space (as is almost always the case, my friend Lina deserves credit for finding this and passing it on to me.)
The Most Dangerous Man in America (not a brilliant art, but worth watching to frame the Wikileaks phenomenon)
Dogs Decoded: Nova (full of cool factoids and experiments.)
Capturing the Friedmans (depressing, but really well-made)
How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair (they really did a lot with very little on this one)
Blood in the Face (A movie with Michael Moore that doesn’t suck)
The Garden (warning: this will make you hate humanity)
The Union (worth watching, especially if you don’t yet believe that drug war needs to end)
Born Rich (Solidly made, but not life-changing)
Waiting for Armageddon (watch Jesus Camp instead, if you haven’t seen it. If you liked Jesus Camp, this one is worth watching.)
Atheism Tapes (these are good fodder for discussion, but aren’t intrinsically all that great. They’re a good starting point, but will leave you cold if you’re hoping for a complete argument or a refutation of specific points. Still, they’re short and worth listening to.)

I’d also recommend watching The Daily Show for kicks and giggles and reading The Economist for news, finding an Indian restaurant that sells Papdi Chaat, and watching Mitch Daniel’s speech from CPAC.

On food: my mother-in-law improved on the german pancakes recipes I’ve always used (she cooks hers with 1½ C. milk, 6 eggs, 1 C flour, salt, and vanilla and cooks it at 425, instead of 350. I’ve been experimenting with putting the brown sugar, apples, and pecans below the batter or above it and at various stages of cooking, but still haven’t found something worth passing on yet), I’ve started making Nutella gelato, and have started cooking my own dog food as well. If you have a picky dog, shoot me an e-mail and I’ll forward along the recipes my friend Megan sent me that I’ve been using.

Oh, and documentary recommendations make excellent birthday gifts.

abortion

One of the most common questions people ask me is whether I think abortion should be legal. Although I’ve recently read some great argumentation on both sides of the debate, it has either been too simplistic or too long to pass off as my own opinion. I will try and be concise with my opinion, but will answer any more nuanced arguments or questions any of you may have. Some of my positions have recently changed, so I’d be curious to know what those of you think who I’ve debated with previously.

I believe that a pregnant woman should have sole discretion and absolute authority in determining whether to abort a fetus or to carry it to term. This right is derivative of the fact that no other person beside the mother and no current technology can provide life to a growing fetus. The right to control one’s own bodily resources holds, even if we consider a zygote a full human, as I will attempt to show. Although this caveat will make more sense later, this paradigm does not justify partial-birth abortions, and I do support laws banning that practice.

Although I do not believe that a zygote should be considered a full-blown human, my position on abortion is not contingent upon this definition. For purposes of my explanation, I will consider zygotes as humans, possessing all rights and privileges that any other human has.

Living in Chicago, I am frequently asked for money by beggars. I often don’t carry much cash (after having been mugged), but I usually give any spare coins I have in my pockets. I take it for granted, however, that I am not legally required to give, no matter how desperately the person asking me needs the money. Even if, for example, I alone had the power to save the life of a fellow human being, I would submit that only a terrible law would mandate that I actually do so. If my freedom to withhold spare change is guaranteed, it should go without saying that my right to keep both of my kidneys—and let’s face it, almost any of us could save a life right now by donating our extra kidney—goes without saying. We can argue all day about whether it’s moral or ethical to refrain from giving, but no brightline of ethicalness exists which should suddenly trump legal rights. What if, for example, you could save 100 lives by killing an innocent person and sharing out their organs to those who need them? Should it be legal to do so? What number of lives would justify such a killing?

I would submit that the freedom to deny an unborn child the right to life is equally absolute as the right to keep both kidneys.

I have heard many compelling arguments which attempt to define the rights of a child based on the intentions and responsibility the mother showed in beginning the pregnancy. A woman who is raped, for example, would have more rights to abort than a woman who willingly practiced unprotected sex. A full gamut of responsibilities and regulations may exist based on the intentions of the mother, the actions she took, and her level of knowledge about the risks she was taking. Although these arguments make logical and legal sense to me, I personally think they are too fraught and complex to be useful or practicable.

In keeping with my philosophy of radical choice, I think that the woman should also have the unabridged right to determine whether the life within her should legally be protected as a human or not. If a woman is planning on carrying a fetus to term, someone who purposely causes her to lose her pregnancy could be responsible for manslaughter. That, ultimately, should be her choice, however, and not merely a function of statute.

If I woman decides that she no longer wants to carry a child at a point when it could survive without her, she should only have the right to induce parturition or have a C-section. If the child can and does survive after separation, she would have no more right to kill it than she would to kill you or me. If giving birth or even having a C-section would prove an unreasonable danger to the mother, more radical abortive procedures would be justified under the same laws that allow for killing another person in the name of self-defense. Again, even considering the fetus fully human does not change this.

I don’t mean to imply in any way that discussing rights is somehow simplistic or clean. Should fathers have a legal right to veto an abortion, since the baby is genetically half his? What about the state’s vested interest in having more children? Although I firmly believe that a woman’s right to control what she does with her own body is a more fundamental right than either of these, I can understand how others—especially those who believe that a fetus has an immortal soul—might weigh another set of rights above a woman’s right to bodily autonomy. I ask only 2 points of consideration from those who want to discuss abortion:

First, allow each person to define their own advocacy. It’s rhetorically effective to demonize your opponent and define for them what they believe—“you are pro-life because you hate women” or “you enjoy killing babies so you’re pro-choice”—but it’s not accurate or helpful in any way. Just because it’s harder to actually engage your opponent than it is to make things up about what you assume they believe, it doesn’t make it honest or responsible to do so.

Second, try to define exactly what you think should be done on a policy level, and be ready to discuss the implications from the extreme cases. If you believe that every fetus deserves the right to be born, do you believe that we should mandate that all fetuses in IVF clinic freezers be implanted in women so they have the chance to be born? How, if at all, do the circumstances surrounding conception define the rights of women or fetuses? What are the disadvantages of allowing unfettered and absolute access to abortions? Should pro-life medical professionals be exempt from performing abortions? What about when the life of the mother is in serious danger?

As with almost any topic, 1000 words doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of what could be said. I’ve promised myself that I’d only spend 2 train rides on this topic, however, so I’m going to leave it at this. Cheers.

Obama's Spine

The overriding narrative that the Bush administration gave us was that the world changed on 9/11. Sure. The events of 9/11 were undeniably the most horrific thing that has happened to American civilians on our own soil that we didn’t inflict on ourselves (i.e.-the civil war). Many conservative pundits, as well as my conservative friends, however, are quite overselling the change that took place on 9/11, trying to unfairly re-write pre-9/11 history to make Obama look bad and Bush look good (an ambitious project, I will admit).

This post will attempt to address Ann Coulter's post from May 5, and the subsequent discussion I had with my friend Garth about it on Facebook.

Here, in simplified form, is the syllogism that some conservatives make about Obama’s softness on terror:

1) Before 9/11, nobody could have known that America was at risk to terrorist attacks.
2) After 9/11, Bush got tough on terror (the Patriot act, Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.), which has kept us safe ever since.
3) Obama “has no spine” and is weak on terror.
4) Any terrorist attacks on America are derivative of Obama’s weakness and vindication of Bush’s tactics.

I have a few arguments to point out to debunk this annoying set of arguments:

1)
The distinction between pre- and post-9/11 America is a logical fallacy of the first degree. An attack on NYC was neither unprecedented nor unpredictable; 9/11 wasn’t even the first time that the World Trade Center had been targeted.

This said, conservatives are right to argue that Bush was not personally culpable of any gross negligence or conspiracy as regards 9/11. While I do not think very highly of Bush’s skills or even his work ethic, I have seen the evidence presented by both sides that 9/11 was actually preventable, and I think that the problems were systemic, not individual, unfortunate, but not negligent.

The subtle and underhanded logical slip comes when conservatives want to look closely at the run-up to 9/11 in order to forgive Bush, but then do not afford that same diligence to the Christmas day attempt or the Times Square attempt. Bush can’t be held responsible for allowing 9/11 because he could not have done anything personally to prevent it. Obama, however, is damned for anything that happens between 2009 and 2012, regardless of what he could or could not have done about it. If Coulter and Hannity can repeat it into the void enough times without anybody challenging it, however, people will inevitably accept it, even though it’s dishonest and misleading.

2)
The efficacy of Bush’s anti-terrorist policies is still a matter of debate. Although compelling arguments exist on both sides of the discussion (on the one hand that an aggressive approach dissuades potential terrorists from violence or on the other that injustices perpetrated in the War on Terror radicalizes moderates and affected family members to take up terrorism), the logical flaw in this argument is that we can conclude that Bush’s policies are the reason for our span of relative peace, or that any terrorist events must be the result of our deviations from them. This is the same weak-headed logic which causes people to think that antibiotics cure viral infections, homeopathy does anything, or vaccines cause autism. This is, perhaps, why so many people who believe these logical fallacies are also so willing to accept their political equivalents. Ad hoc ergo proper hoc is not sound logic. Furthermore, the likes of Giuliani have to ignore the Richard Reid attempt or the attack foiled in Britain to even make this argument; I can’t decide whether he’s overtly dishonest or just stupid.

3)
This argument is annoying not only because the facts actually refute it completely, but because it would be a fallacious argument even if the facts didn’t contradict it.
Obama has greatly increased the use of drones against suspected terrorists in Pakistan, he’s upped the ante on the war in Afghanistan, and he’s had numerous successes in taking out ranking members of terrorist groups in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Anyone who wants to call Obama weak on terror must ultimately ignore the actual things he’s done and instead focus on his rhetoric or his, GASP!, bowing to world leaders.

Rather than contradict the so-called indictments against Obama that he’s rhetorically weak on terror or too conciliatory with our enemies or rivals, I’ll instead make the more important argument which often gets overlooked in this discussion: the rhetoric of the American president is not an important factor in recruiting terrorist attacks against America or American interests. Anyone who argues otherwise is selecting their cases in a dishonest and selective way (for example, was the bombing in Beirut the result of Reagan’s pussyfooting around with terrorists?), or doing so without any evidence at all, relying on the partisan I’ll-accept-anything-that-Hannity-tells-me-ness of their listeners.

If anybody would like to try and make the argument that trying KSM in NYC is somehow going to anger terrorists, I’d love to see your internal logic. Keep in mind, however, that in order for the trial to be the cause of the attacks, you’d have to argue that these terrorists would not have wanted to bomb NYC before the trial, but would make the attempt if the trial took place. I’ll wait.

4)
This is an ad hoc ergo propter hoc argument waiting to happen. For those of you who weren’t paying attention, the Bush administration made no such claims until they were out of office. When their tenure was over, however, Cheney immediately began claiming that it was his and Bush’s policies which had prevented another attack. They had found the magical incantations necessary to keep us safe, and anything that went wrong from January 2009 until the end of time was no longer Bush’s fault. Rather than refute this unsound argument, I’d like to just pose a few questions for you to consider: what specifically did the Bush administration do to tighten up the no-fly lists (which may have prevented the underwear bomber from attempting his attack, and would have also stifled Faisel Shahzad’s near escape)? Did the Bush administration do anything to increase security in NYC that would, for example, have prevented an inept Pakistani-American from leaving a car bomb in Times Square? Do Bush or Cheney deserve credit or blame for Richard Reid’s failed attacks?

Even Ann Coulter is too smart to rely on such inane argumentation. I conclude that she manages to sell such garbage to her followers (full disclosure, I actually like Ann Coulter and think that she’s both a good writer and an insightful commentator on certain, albeit limited, issues) because it’s what they already want to hear. If she were to honestly call out Bush for his ineptness or forgive Obama for things that aren’t really his fault, we’d have a much better dialogue about terrorism in this country. Unfortunately for Ann Coulter, however, she might not get the attention or book deals that make her so much money if she were to do what’s best for America. Pundits make their money by selling irresponsible half-truths. In a reasonable and rational discussion of the issues, Ms. Coulter would probably not have a place at the table.

on dark urine

In the past few months, friends and family have e-mailed me links advocating quack science of all kinds. Of all of the things that pass my view that I want to comment on, the quack science claims lauding vitamin megadosing, organic foods, natural cures, perpetual motion machines, healing crystals, magical thinking, or young-earth creationism tend to rile me up the most. Unfortunately for me, however, I find myself consistently unhappy with my own writings on these topics. I often write posts during one sitting, let them ruminate overnight (as is often my M.O.), and realize the next day that I have managed to be both condescending and insulting to my friends and family I am trying to persuade and also essentially unpersuasive.

As it turns out, I am not a great science writer. As passionate as I feel about the value and importance of science, I am not particularly skilled at explaining how and why science is important, and why it makes me so angry that people make so much money by selling false hopes and worthless medical products.

And so I hope you'll take 17 minutes to let Michael Specter's TED talk do it better than I can.

http://www.youtube.com/v/7OMLSs8t1ng&hl=en&fs=1

Some day I may be up to the important challenge of convincing my friends and family not to waste their time, money, and energy on ginko, echinacea, acai, and organic foods. I hope to also prevent them from falling victim to anti-vaccination dogmatism, conspiracy theories, or global-warming alarmism. Until I can find a way to do all of this without angering and offending all of the people I love, however, I think I'll probably stick to 500-word diatribes about contemporary politics, religion, and philosophy; you know, the topics people don't take so personally.

A further revision for the DSM IV

I need to interrupt my series on the Great God debates to give a shout out to my friend Bruce.

Bruce is a friend from the BYU debate team. While he and I never debated either as partners or against each other at any tournaments, we did always debate fiercely controversial topics on the car rides to every tournament. Although we were very much on different poles of the spectrum on almost every issue when we first met, we’ve both become more pragmatic and moderate as we’ve gotten older, and we actually agree on most things now, and for the same reasons.

Yesterday, however, he pulled off masterfully what I’ve been trying and failing to do for months. I still can’t say whether he’s done it on purpose, or if this was similar to inventing penicillin, but if his method turns out to be reproducible, he may go down in history as the discoverer of the cure for a very serious mental disease.

To make a long story short, he may have cured Obama Derangement Syndrome.

For those of you who have been paying attention to any conservatives or their news sources, you may have been under the impression that the Second Coming of Christ is only days away. Democracy is dead. Capitalism is dead. The American dollar is worth less than the Zimbabwe dollar. Socialism has triumphed. Your freedoms have all been revoked. Obama has single-handedly turned the well-oiled machine of an economy that Bush built and turned it into Russia’s economy circa 1988. Obama needlessly destroyed our government-interference-free utopia of a health care system and replaced it with U.N.-led death panels. In fifteen short months, America has been transformed from an Emersonian paradise into an Orwellian nightmare.

Some of you may not have heard that America is in its final death throes. You might not even believe that others are being so dramatic about it as I am implying. If this is you, I’d urge you to listen to Glenn Beck tonight. Turn on Rush Limbaugh. Shoot me an e-mail and I’ll copy and paste dozens of Facebook status updates from the past week.

So what is this magical cure? How can you convince your friends and loved ones to unload their guns and step away from the brink of an aneurysm? The technique is quite brilliant, actually. Send them to this link. In this piece, an American ex-patriot regales you with dozens of foolish reasons why America is worthless. The author urges you to immediately flee the sinking ship that is America for better countries, of which there are apparently scores.

Suddenly, and without warning, the same people who have been decrying America and Obama will begin to defend him. They will take back all of the apocalyptic and unsupportable pessimism in order to rebuff the unsupported and apocalyptic claims made by an America-hater.

And it will make you smile.

And so, Bruce, I congratulate you on curing our Republican friends of their temporary hatred of America. If your technique works just as well on lefties who blame Bush for 9/11, I might seriously consider nominating you for a Nobel Peace Prize (although apparently that award doesn’t have any cachet anymore either). If nothing else, I award you an honorary degree in civil psychology. Congratulations.

Great God Debates: Part II

Generalizations and labels are tricksy for me. While I can see the value in generalized scientific claims like “an alkyl halide reacts with an alcohol in an Sn2 reaction” or “copper is an efficient conductor of electricity,” claims like “tomatoes are good” are markedly more problematic. Are all tomatoes good? What exactly does “good” even mean? Isn’t context important, especially in matters of taste?

I should have known that my attention to nuance and definitions would have caused problems in a debate over whether God exists or not, or whether religion is good for the world and its followers or not. All too frequently, the actual theme of the debate wouldn’t come up until the third or fourth speech. The debates were interesting, but they fundamentally fail when no specific questions can be asked or answered, since no position or thesis has to be defended.

The atheists did a horrible job of pinning down Dinesh D’Souza to a particular belief and then hammering him on it. When they mocked Jehovah as a bronze-age genocidal tyrant, D’Souza smoothly told them to talk to a rabbi about it, not him, since the Old Testament is a Jewish, not a Christian holy book. When they criticized the Catholic conception of the pope, D’Souza calmly explained that he, along with most Catholics, does not really believe in papal infallibility. Time after time, the atheists would criticize a common belief and put it to scorn, only to find that D’Souza was unwilling to stand by that belief himself.

While I was listening to the debates on God, I was endlessly impressed with Dinesh D’Souza’s style, skill, and charm. His debate tactics were first-rate; he had a way of convincing you he was answering the charges against him, even when he was utterly ignoring them. After every speech he gave, I felt like he was under control and would have my vote, even when I disagreed with some of his points.

The drawback of such a style, however, is that it leaves me cold once the charisma is forgotten. While I felt at the time that D’Souza won all but one of his debates hands down (the exception being Peter Singer’s), his message has none of the staying power that the atheist’s did because he never clearly staked his ground and defended it. I know what brands of Christianity D’Souza doesn’t believe in, but not which ones he does. He is agnostic about whether a resurrection will take place (and rightly demands that the atheists take the same position), he admits that a belief in Christ is not absolutely necessary for salvation, and he acknowledges that liberal humanism can serve as a basis for pro-social behavior (though he doubts it will ultimately last, and asserts that it owes its origins to religion). This moderate world view has the advantage of being, in all likelihood, true. It also avoids the polemic absurdities of his opponents who claimed that religion has always done far more bad than it has good. What it does not do, however, is justify or defend the type of religion that most religious people actually follow. I mentally voted for D’Souza after almost every debate. In so doing, however, I was silently agreeing that religion really should occupy only a peripheral place in daily and societal life. In refusing to argue with the often justified barbs of his adversaries, D’Souza retreated to an amorphous position where God, even if He or She does exist, is essentially worthless. He may have won the battles, but Dinesh D’Souza definitely lost the war.