Abortion/Feminism/Religion

Body autonomy

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Matt,

It seems you got ahead of yourself when writing your response to “Rachel”. I’m not going to address the flawed hypothetical presented as it is a severely flawed hypothetical when trying to support the idea of abortion, but the rest of your ideas attacking the very idea of body autonomy go a bit off the mark. You make five points to attack the idea of body autonomy, so let’s get right into this.

According to bodily autonomy, a mother could not be judged harshly for smoking, drinking, doing coke, and going skydiving (hopefully not all in the same day) while 6 months pregnant. If you really believe that a woman’s body is autonomous — that she has absolute jurisdiction over it — then you must defend a mother who does things that could seriously harm her unborn child, even if she hasn’t chosen to abort it. This is not a slippery slope argument; this is a reasonable and inevitable application of your principle.

Aside from “doing coke”, there is no law that says a woman cannot smoke, drink or go skydiving while pregnant – even all in the same day if she so desires. It certainly would be very bad judgment for a woman who is 6 months pregnant to do any or all of those things, but I am aware of no law that forbids such activities.

But I do not have to support or defend any woman who demonstrably places her unborn child in harm. If I see a woman smoking, drinking, doing coke and/or skydiving, regardless of whether she is pregnant, I certainly can and likely will judge the wisdom of her decisions and actions. I’m sure when Kari Byron was playing with guns on MythBusters while in her third trimester, there were people screaming at the screen and writing nasty letters to the Discovery Channel about it. Taking into account the fact she was wearing a bullet-resistant vest around her abdomen and the fact there were safety officers there at the time this was happening, was her decision to participate in that particular “myth” – they were testing the idea of curving bullets – a wise decision? Even with as vehemently pro-gun as I am, I’m still inclined to say no.

Am I inconsistent in my application of body autonomy? No.

The fact that what she did was all perfectly allowable under the law does not mean she is immune from having her actions scrutinized by others. But what allows me to scrutinize and judge her actions while still being consistent with the idea of body autonomy is simply that I wasn’t calling for Kari to be arrested or face some other reprisal because of her actions. Now if in swinging around that 1911 she unintentionally shot or injured someone on site, or even herself, then the circumstances have changed.

There are all kinds of things that individuals do that are unwise even if legal. A person’s actions being legal does not make those actions immune from scrutiny.

I support decriminalizing drugs, and in some cases I support full-out legalization. And to support that, I cite the idea of body autonomy – if a person wants to smoke pot or snort coke, who am I to say they cannot as opposed to should not. I can point to all kinds of things showing why a person should not smoke pot or snort coke. And I can say to someone “you shouldn’t do that”. But the moment I say they cannot do something is where the burden falls on me to justify forcefully stopping them from doing such, or subjecting them to any kind of reprisal for their actions.

But under your logic here, Matt, you seem to think that those of us who support legalizing drugs must also be willing to do the drugs we want legalized. Sorry but that’s not how it works. That’s like saying a woman calling for legalizing prostitution should also be willing to engage in prostitution. Uh, no.

And from there we can see the rest of your arguments against body autonomy break down.

I’m throwing this in here because most pro-aborts will not (vocally) defend abortion at 8 or 9 months. But — if bodily autonomy is your claim — you must. Is a woman’s body less autonomous when she’s been pregnant for 35 weeks? There is no way around it: bodily autonomy means that it is moral to kill a fully formed baby, at seven months, or eight months, or nine months.

It is the pro-lifer that argues, albeit implicitly, that a woman has zero body autonomy while she is pregnant, and that any claim to body autonomy is abrogated for agential claims of body autonomy for the fetus. I’ve gotten into arguments where it has been argued – despite tons of evidence (and dead women) to the contrary – that there is no such thing as a medical condition that is caused or exacerbated by an active pregnancy that places the mother’s life in danger. Worse are those that acknowledge such conditions, but still say the carrying mother must not abort the pregnancy to save her own life.

I can still support the idea of body autonomy while being against what you’ve said.

Aborting a pregnancy is to remove the fetus from the mother. In the 8th or 9th month, this tends to be called “inducing labor”. In the first trimester and early second trimester, the process itself is… not kind, to say the least, but it is still the basic general idea, and that has been the general idea for the last 5,000 years it has been practiced. That is the general idea when a woman swallows down a pill or potion with the intent of getting her body to eject the fetus – in case you’re curious, yes you can find articles describing how to do that online.

But again, what you’re saying is that arguing for body autonomy means I cannot personally hold views against certain things. And that is certainly not the case.

You say that our bodies cannot be ‘used’ without our ‘consent.’ Why should this apply only to pregnancy and organ donations?

It doesn’t. The fact one person is arguing from body autonomy in the context of abortion doesn’t mean abortion is the only context for the body autonomy argument. As an example, how would you feel about laws compelling blood donation, with the forced extraction of your blood being the penalty for noncompliance? You’d probably be rather appalled at such an idea.

Same if a legislator somewhere were to introduce a law calling for guys to donate sperm on a periodic basis, with forced extraction as a penalty for noncompliance.

An argument for absolute bodily autonomy means that it can’t be illegal, or considered immoral, for a parent to decline to do any of these things, so long as their decision was made in the name of bodily autonomy.

And a parent actually can decline to do any of those things at any time. It is not any single instance of any of those things that draws the ire of the government, but a pattern that can be demonstrated to exist, at which point we call it neglect, abuse, abandonment, or any combination therein. While it might seem appalling for a parent to decline to provide care to their child, it is not uncommon. Every parent does it, even if you don’t realize it, or you delegate the task of providing care to someone else. If you’ve ever said to your spouse after they get home from work “He’s all yours now”, congratulations, you’ve decided to not provide care to your child and instead delegate, or rather conscribe someone else.

And when a pattern does develop and can be demonstrated, there are procedures that exist for ensuring the child is removed from such a home and placed with people who are able and willing to provide the proper care.

But here’s something you’ll likely find appalling: the relationship of the child to the parent does not automatically entitle the child to the fruits of the parent’s labors. Thanks to several hundred million years of evolution, biologically we are wired in such a fashion, to care for the children born to us. But that does not automatically mean your child is entitled to what you can provide. But then given you said being married entitles you to every iota of respect from your wife, I guess I can’t entirely fault you for making that kind of fallacy.

Instead what we recognize is two things: the biological parent is immediately charged with the care of the child unless it is demonstrated they are unfit to do so, and such a charge carries with it certain duties and responsibilities that must be carried out. This is why I commonly say that parents do not actually have “parental rights”, rights that exist simply by virtue of being a parent with a child to whom you are charged with providing care. Instead parents have duties and responsibilities and a fair amount of latitude in carrying them out.

If I can ‘do what I want with my body,’ then it becomes very difficult to launch a salient moral or legal attack against a man who chooses to sit in a playground in front of children and pleasure his own body.

That is utter bullshit, Matt. You seem to think that one person’s claim to body autonomy automatically nullifies everyone else’s claims to any rights whatsoever. If a person does do such a thing, everyone else who is around can certainly drive that person away. To say that the man’s claim to body autonomy means everyone else must leave him be and just put up with him is absolutely atrocious.

That’s like saying that I can sit on a park bench shooting up crack in front of schoolchildren and no one can do or say anything about it. Even if shooting up crack were entirely legal under the law, that does not mean everyone must put up with me doing it. And if I choose to park it on a bench in front of children to do so, others can choose to intervene in that matter, doing everything short of what could be considered assault to get me to leave.

You also forget the fact that society and common law recognize what is called necessitation. Self-defense falls under this. In criminal law, the claim of necessitation on the part of the defendant to a criminal charge means the defendant believed it was reasonably necessary to break one law to prevent or end the commission of a greater harm. Body autonomy does not mean you have the right to harm others, and harm comes in forms other than just physical harm.

After all, you seem to think body autonomy means I can snort up a huge loogie onto a sidewalk, while in likely every jurisdiction in the US doing that will get you, at the least, a citation from a law enforcement officer if you’re caught. Can I claim body autonomy as I sneeze and cough wildly around others? No. It’s rude at best, contagious in the intermediate, fatally so at the worst. Same with the loogie left on the sidewalk.

Once we’ve considered every complexity and nuance, we can rightly say that our bodies are autonomous in some ways, and in some circumstances, but not in others. We cannot say that they are absolutely autonomous, and I find it hard to believe that anyone truly thinks that.

Last I checked, the concept of autonomy does not come with conditions. We have long recognized that a person should be able to do as they please, so long as in so doing they do not demonstrably harm others – which is what makes your idea that body autonomy means you can masturbate in public without consequence all the more appalling.

If my body is autonomous, my person must be autonomous, and if my person is autonomous, then my very existence is autonomous, and if my very existence is autonomous, then it is simply unacceptable and (by your logic) immoral for anyone to expect me to do anything for anyone at any point for any reason.

I think you’ve overlooked the big difference between expecting you to do something for someone else and forcing you to do such. It is immoral and unacceptable to force you to do something against your will. You recently argued on your blog that “Business owners should have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason“, and I wholly agree with that stance. But when a person walks into an establishment, there is an expectation of service, but to force the proprietor to provide that service against their will is immoral.

It is not immoral to expect you to do something. It becomes a whole other matter when I say you must do something, and an even greater matter still when I attempt to force you to do it.

If you concede that we ought to be expected or even required to do certain things, then you are placing limits on our bodily autonomy. If you place limits on our bodily autonomy, then you are admitting that limits can be placed on our bodily autonomy.

To say that someone can expect something of me is not placing limits on my autonomy. Whether my actions or the results of my actions meet, exceed or fall short of someone’s expectations is not up to me, especially since expectations can change on the fly. But what about being required to do something? Well if you agree to do something, then that is an implicit requirement, but it is a requirement you voluntarily brought on yourself. And your failure to act as you have agreed can likely result in what is called a tort injury – and the response to most tort injuries isn’t to force you to do something, but to merely compensate the other for your not doing what you promised.

It is when requirements are made of you without you having any opportunity to examine those requirements and either assent or object to them that is problematic.

As such the only reasonable limitation – if you can really call it that – on a person’s autonomy is simply that you cannot harm others. Any additional limitations to your autonomy that you voluntarily take upon yourself is entirely your concern and not anyone else’s.

Marriage and Relationships

Respect must always be earned

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

If you haven’t yet heard of Matt Walsh, you must not have been on the Internet for long. Recently he wrote a post called “Your husband doesn’t have to earn your respect“. And for about the first half of the article, he’s pretty spot on:

But I’ve noticed that the corollary – a message about the respect women must give men, a message challenging wives and encouraging husbands – isn’t quite so palatable for many people. Disrespect for men has become standard practice. That scene I witnessed was sad but unremarkable; we’ve all watched that kind of thing play out a thousand times over. Men are disrespected by their wives – they’re disrespected publicly, they’re disrespected privately, they’re disrespected and then told that they have no right to be upset about it because they aren’t worthy of respect in the first place.

Another place where you can see this attitude is in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, in which the matriarch of the family, Maria, says “The man is the head, but the woman is the neck. And she can turn the head any way she wants.”

As Matt further points out in his article, it is not an uncommon point of view that the woman is in charge of the house, that the husband is subordinate to her, and that his role is to keep her happy. If a husband is buying flowers or jewelry for his wife, it’s to buy his way out of trouble rather than just because. If you remember the show Home Improvement, starring Tim Allen, one episode featured a bouquet of flowers the florist calls the “Tim Taylor Foot-in-the-Mouth Special”, which apparently had been purchased so often that Tim’s wife, Jill, could easily rattle off what went into it.

That also was almost 20 years go. Matt says that “disrespect for men is a joke to us now”. No, it’s been a joke for at least the last two decades.

The problem is certainly well observed and readily observable. Part of the problem is that women know that in divorces involving kids, the woman will almost always receive primary custody. If there’s a house involved along with the kids, she’ll likely also get that, and he’ll be forced to pay alimony and child support. A legal landscape has been created to where men have little choice but to submit to their wives to avoid having their home and kids used as bargaining chips against them in a bitter divorce proceeding.

Divorce is costly and messy, and I think it’s safe to say that neither spouse wants to go through it. So it shouldn’t be surprising that some spouses, likely wives mostly, realize they can use that as a means of getting whatever they want, threatening divorce and taking the house and kids if compliance is not absolute.

Matt is correct as well that men need respect. But so do women, let’s not discount that. If you want to see that notion readily observed, all one needs to do is look at any high school and middle school and the things girls are at times willing to do in order to earn the respect of the other girls around them, or of a particular girl seen as socially superior.

Where Matt’s article goes south is actually when he quotes the Bible:

These cultural messages aren’t harmful because they hurt my manly feelings; they’re harmful because of what they do to young girls. Society tells our daughters that men are boorish dolts who need to be herded like goats and lectured like school boys. Then they grow up and enter into marriage wholly unprepared and unwilling to accept the Biblical notion that “wives should submit to their husbands” because “the husband is the head of the wife.” [Ephesians 5]

The idea that one person, be in the husband or wife, must be in charge, that one must submit to the other, gives marriage an adversarial quality to it. Why must the wife submit to the husband or the husband to the wife? Why must there be any kind of submission in the relationship or marriage? I’ve asked that question numerous times and have yet to receive an answer that cannot be boiled down to just “the Bible says so”.

Submission shouldn’t exist in a marriage. Instead what needs to be there is communication and compromise. Compromise may look a lot like submission when it is being exercised, but there is a huge difference. In submission, one always cedes their wills and desires to the other. In compromise, both cede their wills and desires to come to a mutually-beneficial decision.

Now which do you have in your marriage, submission or compromise?

Often, people will say that a husband should only be respected if he “earns” it. This attitude is precisely the problem. A wife ought to respect her husband because he is her husband, just as he ought to love and honor her because she is his wife. Your husband might “deserve” it when you mock him, berate him, belittle him, and nag him, but you don’t marry someone in order to give them what they deserve. In marriage, you give them what you’ve promised them, even when they aren’t holding up their end of the bargain.

And things go further south still, and here is where Matt becomes part of the problem.

Getting married does not mean the spigot of respect from the wife is always open, nor does it mean the husband’s spigot of love is always open. Marriage is little more than a government-enforced “till death do you part” legal bind to each other. I said this in a previous article discussing a husband who pursued divorce over his wife’s weight gain:

Relationships, including marriages, are about give and take. Marriage does not mean that you agree to put up with whatever the other throws at you. We all have only so much patience. And if your significant other starts him or herself down an unhealthy and self-destructive path, you have right to demand they change or reverse course, and threaten to leave and actually leave the relationship if they refuse to do so. Doing so does not mean you are not committed to the relationship, nor does it mean you don’t love them. It means you recognize they are no longer committed to holding up their end of the bargain.

Matt is correct when saying that the husband needs respect. But it is not automatically due and payable to him simply because he’s married to his wife. Sorry that’s not the way it works, and to declare that to be the case means that the wife has no choice in the matter but to respect her husband, even if he doesn’t respect her. At the same time, his love to her is also not automatically due and payable simply because she’s married to him.

Everything in a relationship is a two-way street. Respect is also and always a two-way street. So is love. If you’re not getting it, it’s likely because you’re not giving it. But if you are giving it but not getting it in return, that’s going to take a toll on the relationship. And it doesn’t matter if it’s the wife or the husband who’s being more of the giver than the getter when it comes to respect.

It’s this line of thinking that respect becomes automatic because of the marriage vows that feeds into thinking that children must always respect their parents simply because they are the child’s parents, which is another notion that comes from the Bible. Again, that’s not the way it works.

This doesn’t mean that a man has a license to be lazy, or abusive, or uncaring. He is challenged to live up to the respect his wife affords him. If his wife parcels out her respect on some sort of reward system basis, the husband has nothing for which to strive. As the respect diminishes, so too does his motivation to behave respectably. Respect is wielded like a ransom against him, and he grows more isolated and distant all the while.

He’s spot-on with this notion, but it contradicts the idea that the wife “ought to respect her husband because he is her husband” (emphasis mine). Again to say that the wife should respect her husband simply because he is her husband essentially means that nothing he does should diminish the amount of respect she shows him. That means that, contrary to this assertion, it is actually a license to be lazy, abusive and/or uncaring, because it means she has little option but to put up with it, because, as the Bible says, she is to submit to him.

And the notion is continually displayed throughout the remainder of the article: women should always respect their husbands. He even concludes the article saying, “Respect your husbands. Even when he doesn’t deserve it.”

We all have limits. Everything is conditional in some way. There is no escaping that reality. The husband or wife who stands up and says that there isn’t anything that could cause them to contemplate divorce is a person with their head in either the clouds or buried in the sand. Not being able to immediately say what would cause you to contemplate divorce does not mean nothing will. It just means you’ve never contemplated the idea.

But to say that respect and love both must be unconditional ignores reality. Again, we all have limits, and you can only say your love and/or respect are unconditional so long as you never encounter a condition wherein you would no longer give respect and/or love to your spouse. Again, going on what I quoted of myself earlier, marriage does not mean that you agree to put up with whatever the other does, nor does it mean the other must put up with whatever you do. We all have limits, we all have only so much patience.

There are always conditions under which a person will withdraw their respect for their spouse, even if you’ve never contemplated or encountered them. I highly doubt you’d still respect your spouse if they became abusive or displayed a complete loss of self control on one or more fronts. Indeed Matt even implies such in his article:

Luckily, it’s usually pretty easy to love my wife because she’s kind, warmhearted, and beautiful. But if she becomes less kind, and I withdraw my love because of it, then my love was never love to begin with. It was just a pleasant feeling; a natural response to her nicer tendencies.

Wrong!

Now if you were to withdraw your love because she became only a little less kind, then yeah I’d have to wonder if you ever really loved her or if you were just merely infatuated with her. Would you try to determine why she’s become less kind, or would you just abandon ship? If the latter, yeah it was never really love. But if she were to become less kind to the point where she’d be confrontational with you, possibly bordering on physically, verbally or emotionally violent, I think you’d say a limit has been reached or exceeded and you’d set an ultimatum. And if that ultimatum were not met, you’d leave.

If you were to just put up with it, you’d be implying to her that she can basically do whatever she wants. If you set the ultimatum but don’t follow through, you’d be implying the same, that she can do whatever she wants.

Respect and love must still be earned, even in marriage. Even Matt recognizes that as evidenced by what he’s written in his article, even if he keeps stating the exact opposite.

Law/Life

Jasmine Edwards

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 9 Comments

This is Jasmine Edwards:

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This picture is from an incident on February 2, 2014, involving an acquaintance, Jazmine Bryson. Bryson is currently being held on Class C felony charges for the injuries Edwards sustained. Now the details are sketchy, but according to a news report on the incident, these facts can be established:

  1. Jasmine Edwards, 19, and Jazmine Bryson, 20, are acquainted
  2. Edwards and Bryson allegedly had “ongoing problems”
  3. Bryson entered the IHOP where Edwards works
  4. At some time after entering the IHOP a confrontation between Edwards and Bryson was initiated
  5. That confrontation escalated to where Bryson threw a glass at Edwards’ face, causing injuries requiring stitches at a local emergency room

On Facebook, Edwards is alleging that the confrontation led to her termination:

My name is Jasmine Edwards i worked at ihop in Evansville indiana as you can see i got hurt at work.A lady hit me with a glass of milk and i had to get 8 stitches. My boss told me that it was fired and that my people didnt know how to act,I didnt do anything wrong customers even said that i handled the situation very well.Any way he fired me and another lady for standing up for me.This is not right and i ask that you Please Share-thanks

So let’s talk about this incident a little. Presuming she was terminated, I’m of the conclusion that her termination was completely justified. Now for those thinking that I don’t understand what it’s like to be in her shoes, bear in mind that I do have experience working retail, and I know that retail and service employees don’t have many options when customers start getting hostile. You walk away and you can be written up for providing bad customer service. If the situation escalates, regardless of how or why, you can be fired.

The one thing many forget is that every confrontation involves at least two people, meaning one person always has the ability and power to end the confrontation by walking away.

In retail settings in any confrontation between an employee and customer, the employee is always presumed to be at fault in the confrontation. Now you might see this as unfair, but it’s part of customer service. I’ve had my share of asshole customers during the time I worked in fast food and retail, so I know what it’s like. Sometime you just need to suck it up.

If a customer starts getting unruly and starts a scene, the employee needs to just walk away. In part the burden is on the employee to walk away, to terminate the confrontation if one starts and to not initiate contact if an escalation to a confrontation of some kind is predictable. It’s best to be written up for failing to help a customer than fired for confronting them, especially if that confrontation turns violent, as it did in the case with Bryson and Edwards. After all the manager can always get the customer to leave, calling police if they refuse.

Had Edwards not initiated contact, or not acquiesced when Bryson initiated contact, the entire situation could have been avoided. Regardless of who started it, the onus was on Edwards to walk away. If Bryson was seated at one of Edwards’ tables, she could’ve asked another server to take the table, with a brief explanation being all that is necessary.

Edwards had more than enough opportunity to avoid or terminate the encounter, and she instead participated in it, and the encounter escalated to the point where Bryson threw a glass at Edwards, causing the injuries she sustained and putting other employees and patrons at risk of injury.

As such Edwards’ termination, presuming she was terminated, is completely justified given the circumstances.

Technology

It’s the learning curve, Jack

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Jack Wallen on TechRepublic is a major open source zealot, and like other Linux zealots, he’s been predicting the "downfall of Microsoft" for years, thinking that any release now, Linux (in particular Ubuntu Linux) will overtake Windows on the desktop.

So what’s his recent gripe? The "language of Linux":

Honestly, the language of Linux doesn’t register on the radar of many computer users. And while it’s a great feeling to be a part of the “in crowd,” that’s also one of the reasons why Linux often has a hard time gaining much of a foothold with desktops. Sure, anyone these days can learn a GUI — but Linux users are challenged to learn a completely different way of thinking, a different language, and a different wiring of the brain.

Here’s the thing that needs to be kept in mind: every system has concepts to be learned and a curve to that learning. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about an operating system or an image editor, a financial management system or an EMR system. You could take someone familiar with a Mac and drop them on Windows and they’ll probably be able to figure out a few things, but it’ll take a bit.

About five years ago, I released a program called the Puzzle Pirates Trade Profiteer, or "Trade Profiteer" for short. It’s a relatively simple program, but there are some concepts that you need to know in order to use it, and I say explicitly on the website for that program that it is designed for those who are seasoned merchant traders in Puzzle Pirates, people who understand what the commodity market interface shows, how bid tickets work, and the like. It is not a tool for the uninitiated.

And when it comes to financial management software, sure you can find a basic program that’ll allow you to track your checkbook. But as Mint.com and other online systems show, there is so much more information that can be garnered. Displaying that information is what Mint.com does. Understanding that information is your job. Understanding that information in such a way that you don’t misinterpret it and find yourself in bankruptcy proceedings is the learning curve. Okay, probably a stretch on that example, I’ll admit.

The problem with Linux is the number of concepts that must be learned.

That is why Microsoft and Apple try to keep the number of concepts you must learn on Windows and Mac OS X, respectively, as low as possible. But you still need to learn them to be effective with the software. This is why Apple and Google have had so much success with iOS and Android, respectively: there are so few concepts to learn and such a low learning curve that it has allowed for widespread adoption of both platforms.

Language isn’t the problem, Jack. The learning curve is the problem. The concepts that need to be learned are the problem. And if describing one concept continually leads you to having to describe or explain more, you’re going to lose your target audience to frustration.

Marketing/Politics

Coca-Cola

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

I’m pissed. Yeah I said it, I’m pissed. I’ve been drinking Coca-Cola for years and recently I heard about and watched the ad they played during the Super Bowl (no, I didn’t watch the Super Bowl) and now I’m absolutely livid…

At the way people have responded to it.

No I’m not changing my tune anytime soon. I’ll still be drinking Coca-Cola as it’s the brand I prefer. But the outrage over their commercial featuring “America the Beautiful” sung in several different languages, English included, is what has me absolutely livid and very, very worried about the direction this country is going.

I’ve said here on this blog that I’m descended from Hungarian immigrants. I also have Polish and English in my lineage, and my surname suggests Scottish blood as well, plus I have Portuguese ancestry and a spot of Native American. If you were to look back on your lineage, and you’re Caucasian, you’d likely find European ancestry as well, possibly some Native American to go with it.

In the United States you will find people from every other continent on the planet. And on every other continent of the planet, you will find Coca-Cola or one of their brands (they were involved in an expedition to Antarctica, so technically they have been on all continents).

Coca-Cola is the multinational company and a leading sponsor of the Olympics. They have done what no government ever has done. They have done what no other company has done. They have crossed borders where previously, and even still currently, only our military has crossed.

For them to ignore that diversity, the diversity of the entire fucking world, the diversity that formed and feeds the cultural landscape of the United States, would be the outrage.

Singing “America the Beautiful” in various languages acknowledges where everyone in America is from, acknowledges the cultural landscape herein. Now if you’re upset that the vehicle by which they acknowledged that cultural landscape is mixed-language lyrics of “America the Beautiful”, then all I can say is that you need to get over yourself. For one, “The Star Spangled Banner”, “God Bless America” and “America the Beautiful” have been translated and performed in other languages. The Federal government has commissioned such translations in the past. So there is no reason to say that these songs can only or must only be performed in English.

Former Representative Allen West said “If we cannot be proud enough as a country to sing ‘America the Beautiful’ in English in a commercial during the Super Bowl, by a company as American as they come — doggone we are on the road to perdition.” Here’s my take, how about being proud enough as individuals to sing “America the Beautiful” in whatever language you are comfortable singing?

It is only the cultish patriotism that has flooded this country since 9/11 that is causing people to take the position that these “sacred hymns” must only be performed in English and cannot be performed in other languages.

The Coca-Cola Company started in the United States and has its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia – if you haven’t visited the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, I highly suggest it. Coca-Cola, however, cannot be called “a company as American as they come”, namely because they aren’t trying to force America on the world, only bring a product to people who will buy it.

And hey, if you’re going to boycott Coca-Cola because of their latest ad, that just means more for me and more for the rest of the world.

And one last note: English is a language originally foreign to the United States.

Capital punishment

Revisiting capital punishment

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

It’s been a little over four years since I last wrote about capital punishment (i.e. the “death penalty”). There really isn’t a lot to be said about it. And since that time I’ve actually wavered a bit in my support for it, but not entirely. And I realize that in my libertarian views, it is a point of inconsistency, and I’ll explain why in a moment.

Recently, libertarian writer Julie Borowski posted a video called “Why You Should Oppose the Death Penalty” (embedded below, blog article here). And I don’t think she realizes her video could easily have been called “Why You Should Oppose the Criminal Justice System”, but let’s get into this.

She starts out the video talking about her history of supporting the death penalty, which is immaterial to the discussion. But she says what started to turn her away from it is when a friend pointed something out about it to her, “Okay Julie, so you’re cool with the government having the power to kill people?”

In actuality, her entire video should’ve revolved only around this question. This is really the only reason to not support the death penalty. Death is certainly quite serious, and we treat it seriously as well — and have for… well, forever. So giving a few people the power to, albeit only under certain, very limited circumstances, the power to kill people without penalty is certainly quite troubling.

And any person who wants to argue against the death penalty need only have that as their point of argument. Everything else, including most everything else in Julie’s video, is immaterial. Virtually every other argument she presents in her video I’ve already handled in my previous article on the topic, so I’m merely going to be doing a copy/paste job here to reply to them.

Many, many studies have shown no credible evidence that the death penalty deters crime.

I would not consider it unreasonable to expand the argument to say that the entire criminal justice system doesn’t deter any crime. All it takes is a moment to ponder this question: does a person typically consider the potential criminal penalties of an action before performing it, or not until after, if at all?

For a long time I assumed that the death penalty was cheaper than feeding and housing a prisoner for life. I was wrong. Turns out the death penalty costs taxpayers more than life in prison.

She goes on to give the details of this. Again, the details are irrelevant.

It also costs more to incarcerate a person for life than it does to parole them after 20 years, depending on the prisoner. Should we abolish mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole?

If we start successfully arguing that certain punishments should not be allowed because of cost, eventually it’ll become that no punishment should be allowed because of cost. Instead of incarceration, perhaps just fine people for their crimes since that actually provides a positive revenue stream to jurisdictions instead of paying out to support prisoners while they are in jail.

Now a lot of you might be thinking that I’m arguing that such a statement about the costs of capital punishment is a slippery slope, and in a way it is. It is the only criminal sentence for which cost is actually brought up. No one argues about how much it costs to house a 21 year-old murder convict for the approximately 55 to 60 years it’ll take for that convict to die of natural causes, presuming average life span. And I’ve seen estimates that it costs about the equivalent of an average median household income per year per prisoner to keep them incarcerated, and the United States leads the world in the number of incarcerated persons per capita.

So why not just get rid of the entire corrections system, then? Imagine how much in taxpayer dollars that would save!

But then no one argues in that direction, because it would be considered certifiably insane to do so. Instead most people argue about what should be a crime (seeming mostly arguing in the direction of legalizing a lot of things that are crimes) and, once defined, what kind of penalty should go with it. But never is the cost of the penalty to the taxpayers ever really considered… until the topic turns to the death penalty.

More people are wrongly convicted than a lot of people might think. Just imagine being on death row for a crime that you didn’t even do.

Julie then goes on to point out the number of people who’ve been released from death row after having their convictions overturned and how terrible such a thing is. Miscarriages of justice do result in lost years for the innocent, and lost lives in the case of a wrongful execution. True there isn’t any way to truly know how many people were executed for a crime they did not commit.

But again, such an argument can again be used against the entire penal system. You might as well say that those who’ve been released from prison, as contrasted from death row, due to new evidence surfacing means that the entire penal system should be abolished.

The fact that the prisoner was on death row is irrelevant to the argument. They were incarcerated by the State following a conviction by a jury of their peers in a Court of law, meaning the jury weighed the evidence presented to them and returned a verdict of Guilty.

Evidence later surfacing that provides the reasonable doubt necessary for a conviction to be set aside isn’t a problem with capital punishment, but with the criminal investigation. The only thing that capital punishment brings to that party is an implied time limit. I say “implied time limit” because there is not any limit on when a person can have their conviction overturned or vacated to the best of my knowledge. The only difference is whether the person will be alive when that happens.

Indeed recently there has been a push to seek a new trial for George Stinney. Stinney was 14 years old when he was convicted of killing two white girls and executed in the State of South Carolina in 1944.

But the notion also applies equally to individuals not sentenced to death, as the person incarcerated could die unexpectedly in jail, whether on death row or not, or might expire during a life sentence before new evidence surfaces that allows the conviction to be vacated.

And yes, there have been cases where a person’s conviction has been posthumously vacated where the person in question died in prison. In 2000 convictions for murder against four members of the Patriarca crime family were overturned. The conviction was secured in 1968, and by the time the conviction was overturned, two of the men had expired in prison.

Miscarriages of justice are unfortunate, but abolishing the death penalty will not eliminate them, and there is nothing to suggest that the occurrence will be reduced. And using miscarriages of justice as an argument against one criminal penalty means that same argument could, in theory at least, be used against all criminal penalties.

Again if you’re going to argue against the death penalty, the only argument anyone, libertarian or otherwise, need employ is simply that the death penalty is the government having the power to kill people without penalty. And following on a common libertarian argument, if it is not legal for one person to kill another, it should not be legal for the government to do the same. And while a person has the ability to claim self defense, the government does not.

Politics

Fuck the rules, because we’re Americans!

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Recently it was reported that the International Olympic Committee is requiring the goalie for the US Women’s Hockey team to remove an inscription of the Constitution from her mask. Now the IOC rules are clear about what can and cannot be on a team’s uniform:

“It is our understanding that this is not an issue about the patriotic nature of the image depicting the U.S Constitution,” Koch said. “The adjustment was necessary because the image did not meet IOC guidelines. It contained wording, which is not allowed on uniforms for any sports at the Olympic games.”

Vetter’s alterations — she was also required to remove a depiction of the Olympic rings and a Wisconsin Badgers logo, a nod to the University of Wisconsin, her alma mater — are not without precedent.

Four years ago, U.S. goalies Ryan Miller and Jonathan Quick had to change their masks. Miller had to remove the phrase “Miller Time,” and Quick had to drop the words “Support our troops.”

Again, this is about a uniform not meeting the long-standing rules regarding team uniforms during the Olympics. But for some reason, there are people who just cannot accept that as the reality and, basically, want the rules bent for this goalie simply because she’s an American. On Fox News Insider, these were some of the comments left using the Facebook plugin:

ioc_comments.png

Yes because the IOC is out to destroy the American way of life and all that is American.

In case you haven’t noticed, there is the word “International” in the name of the International Olympic Committee. This means the rules they make must be observed by all nations participating in the Olympics. No exceptions.

That and some Americans just cannot get it through their minds that we are not the greatest country in the world and do not deserve to have everyone bend to what we want simply because we’re the United States. Grow up, people!

Abortion/Religion

Legislating morality

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

In any debate regarding abortion, it can be expected that someone may say, “You cannot legislate morality.” That person’s opponent may reply by citing several provisions of the criminal code, such as the laws regarding murder, rape and assault.

But doing so avoids the larger question of whether actual morality can be legislated. In saying that one cannot legislate morality, what is being said, in actuality, is that the government does not declare what is moral and what is not. Now nothing is stopping Congress from creating a new title within the US Code called “Morality”, or passing a bill with the title of “Moral Code of the United States”. Would they then be said to be “legislating morality” if they were to do this? No.

So can morality be legislated? No it cannot, because the government does not have the power to declare what is moral and what is not, and that is often what is meant when someone says that you cannot legislate morality. To counter by citing provisions of our criminal laws overlooks the fundamental truth: laws must be consistent with what is moral, not declare what is moral.

So then what is the basis of morality?

In answering that question, many turn to the Bible, declaring it and the god associated with it to be the only and true source of morality. And it is true that you can find the definition of morality in the Bible, but the Bible is not the only source of it.

I am referring to what is known as the Golden Rule. It goes by several names and exists in several different incarnations, but the basic idea is the same: treat others as you would want to be treated. Libertarians know this as the non-aggression principle, that one shall not initiate violence or force against another except when necessary to counter force or violence that has been initiated against you or to protect and defend someone else against the unjustifiable initiation of violence against them.

More importantly, one must also not call upon someone else to initiate violence or force against someone else except when necessary to counter force already initiated against them or someone else.

This also means that the God of the Old Testament has, in many ways, acted against the Golden Rule, declared “laws” that have no basis when weighted against that basic moral principle.

When keeping that basic moral principle in mind, you can easily see that much of our criminal code is consistent with that principle. It is immoral to kill someone because I’m pretty sure you do not want to be killed either. It is immoral to break into someone else’s home and steal things because you do not want that happening to you. In both instances there is very demonstrable harm, and in both instances it is the initiation of violence against you.

At the same time, just as you cannot kill someone unless that person is trying to take your life, you cannot have the government kill that person either.

So, again, the government (“we”) does not legislate morality, but merely declares actions that are to be called “crimes”, whether they are inconsistent with the Golden Rule or not, and declares punishments for those actions. There is no legislating of morality, and in many cases legislation that is quite inconsistent with it.

Charity/Economics/Religion

Giving the gift of well-being

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Ah Christmas. Certainly a great time of year, where people are generous – or at least try to be – and people become upset at the gifts others thoughtfully bought them. That’s why December 26th is the day customer service departments all across the country loathe.

So how can you prevent your gifts from being returned? Well take a page from my book.

Whenever my parents or anyone else asks me what I “want” for Christmas, I turn it around and say to them what I need. Indeed for the first couple years after I moved out of the house, I always said to my parents to focus on what they think I need when thinking of gifts to buy. And if I don’t need anything, I give them a list of places I frequently shop and ask for a gift card to one of those places. I know a lot of people hate giving gift cards, because they seem so impersonal, lazy and thoughtless, but that’s actually not what you should be thinking.

Allow me to explain.

Typically when it comes to gift cards, I say one of three things: Wal-Mart, Amazon.com, or Visa. I’ll add a fourth to this list: HyVee. There’s a reason behind all of these: my wife and I frequently shop at Wal-Mart and HyVee, we order things through Amazon and have things on preorder as well, and a Visa gift card can be used anywhere – though I hear they can be somewhat problematic trying to swipe them at gas pumps. Does Phillips 66 have gas gift cards?

When someone gives my wife and I a gift card to Wal-Mart or HyVee, what they are actually doing is making our next grocery runs a little easier on our budget. Implicitly they’re saying, “I want to make it a little easier for you to get what you need“. As most households do not have the income mine enjoys, when you give someone a gift card, you’re making their life easier, especially if you’re giving a gift card to a place where they buy their groceries.

It’s one of the reasons people love to receive cash as gifts, whether that cash is set aside or spent within the next couple days, or put in the bank to be applied to later bills. You are saying to that person that you want to make their life just a little easier, even if for a short while. Money is the one thing we all need, because it is the only way we can conveniently participate in the economy, so cash and gift cards will typically always be welcome gifts.

Gift cards are also, more often than not, better than cash, because if it’s lost or stolen, it can be reported and replaced, although with some loss of convenience.

Now if the person on your giving list is someone on SNAP, or otherwise not really well off or is financially struggling, food, especially non-perishables, will always be welcome ideas. I can speak from experience on this one, as that is what my parents gave my wife and I back in 2008 while I was still sitting on unemployment. I think my mom also handed me an uncooked meatloaf that Christmas, or it might have been on a different night.

If you’re financially well-off, but have a friend or family member in the area that might not be, or who came on hard times, take them to the grocery store and stock their pantry and fridge on your dime. I call this the “Bob Cratchit” treatment, because in many movies adapted from A Christmas Carol, they typically show Scrooge being a lot more immediately generous to his clerk than he actually is in the book, though they all still accurately portray Scrooge scaring him shitless on Christmas morning. Or rather, it was the day after Christmas when Bob shows up for work.

Don’t get me wrong, Scrooge is still generous, but it’s in the way he is generous that really counts. On the day following Christmas while at Scrooge’s business, shortly after Bob walks in later than he was told to report, Scrooge declares:

I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!

When you give cash or a gift card to a place where someone buys their groceries, you are helping someone with their livelihood. When you focus on what someone needs as opposed to trying to come up with a thoughtful gift to give, you are again helping with their livelihood.

And given how many people are still struggling as we approach Christmas Day this year, making someone’s life a little easier, even if just for a short while, is always going to be the most welcome gift of all.

Free speech and press

Misconstruing free speech

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Ah, another article about the recent “Duck Dynasty” fallout. How nice, right? Oh and it’s by an atheist, so this is gonna be good, too.

Let me say up front that freedom of speech and freedom of religious expression are two concepts I have very heavily defended everywhere possible. Phil Robertson has every right to speak his mind in whatever venue will allow him to do so. The venue that allowed him was Gentleman’s Quarterly (GQ). In response to the comments he made, not just about homosexuality but also the Jim Crow era, A&E put him on an indefinite suspension.

1525306_727405303937117_1920767008_n.jpgIn response to the suspension, conservatives and Christians in the US are blowing things way, way, way, way out of proportion. If you listen to any Christian conservative, you’d think that A&E somehow nullified everyone’s First Amendment protected right to free speech. Sorry, cousin, but that not only did not happen, it is not possible. Free speech is not in danger, but

No speech is immune from consequence

If you were to look up the domain name for this blog, you’d find that this blog is not hosted on WordPress or any other blog hosting site. Instead I set up this blog myself on my own web space for which I pay a quarterly fee. Sure I could instead point my domain name to a WordPress.com subdomain and save a good chunk of change every year, but I have very specific reasons for not doing that.

But I’ll go one step further.

I am employed by one of the largest companies in health care in the United States, which enjoys between 20% and 25% of hospitals and hospital networks in the US as clients. They also have clients in several countries around the world, and their reach is expanding. If you look around this blog, you will notice I don’t talk about health care all that much, and when I do choose to talk about it, I’m not typically all that specific. I’ve barely stated my opposition to the Affordable Care Act.

No law stops me from talking about health care. And the First Amendment protects my right to talk about health care in the United States, using whatever words I choose to employ.

However, anything I write about health care in the United States could be seen by one of the higher-ups at the company that employs me – i.e. the company currently funding my livelihood, including the ability for me to pay for the web hosting that keeps this blog running. If I write something that could be interpreted as disparaging my employer or one of their clients, or could be viewed as not being in line with the corporate goals or mission, or, while highly unlikely, could interfere with their ability to compete in a particular market space, I could lose my job.

And there isn’t any law in the US Code or the Revised Statutes for the State of Missouri that would stop them from doing so unless what I write happens to qualify for whistleblower protection.

No speech is immune from consequence. Even what I write on religion and politics could be used against me at work, albeit in more subtle ways that keep up an air of plausible deniability.

Speaking of, if you’re someone who is trying to use the Federal statutes to say that Robertson’s suspension was illegal, while at the same time calling for the striking down or non-enactment of laws that would protect homosexuals from being fired merely for being homosexual, then please take your hypocrisy and shove it up your ass.

While you’re at it, have you also forgotten that Robertson said the Jim Crow laws – i.e. state-sanctioned segregation and discrimination – weren’t all that bad?

But listening to the Christian conservatives who’ve backlashed against A&E, I’m starting to think we do need a law to shut them up, and not in the way you might be thinking:

No person who makes any kind of speech or expression that is consistent with the words and teachings of the Holy Bible shall be subject to any kind of reprisal or consequence stemming from said speech or expression. If said person does become subject to reprisal or consequence due to said speech or expression, such person shall be entitled to reasonable punitive damages.

What do you think, conservatives? This is what you’re wanting, isn’t it?

Given what you’re saying right now, how free speech is so under attack because a private organization suspended someone for some rather disparaging remarks, I know you feel all speech consistent with the Bible must be immune to any consequence because it is speech consistent with the Bible. Sorry, but things don’t work that way.

The First Amendment only protects your speech from reprisal by the government. It does not protect you from reprisal by anyone else. No person can subject you to serious harm for anything you do say, just as no person can subject you to serious harm for any reason other than to defend him or herself, but no expression is immune from ridicule, criticism, rebuttal, or societal repercussions.

How can you tell if your right to free speech and free expression has been violated? It’s really quite easy: did your speech land you in jail? As Phil Robertson is still a free man, he still and always has had his right to free expression, just as you still have your right to free speech and free expression.

Phil Robertson’s “suspension” from A&E did not change that, so stop acting like it did.