Such a plethora of topics. I wanted to address the new icon I added to my sidebar - my pro-gay marriage graphic. Actually, at some point I wanted to address my feelings on homosexuality in general. Today, though, events bring me to a topic that I hadn't considered lately.

I've linked to Riverbend's blog before, so you can probably guess that I have a great deal of compassion for Iraqis who are just folks like most of us. I also have a great deal of sympathy for the soldiers and their families, some of whom are paying a tremendous price for this war in Iraq. I also feel a lot of pain for the workers from the U.N. and Red Cross. They are there to try and help - no more - and are getting blown up for their efforts.

So what do we do? I was anti-war before we went in. Now that we are there, what do we do? We went in, without any sort of international help (at least nothing substantive outside the U.K.), without any agreement from the international community. We blew the holy Hell out of their country from the air. Then we rolled across the desert in our tanks, APCs and Humvees, looking like some sort of latter-day cavalry charge. Of course, when we reached the beleaguered settlers (read: Baghdad and its citizenry) what did we do? Did we immediately set out to restore all the infrastructure we built? Did we work to secure the priceless historical artifacts from the "Cradle of Civilization"? No, but we showed our true intentions immediately. We secured the Ministry of Oil complex and set up security enough there to hold against an attack from some sort of mass army we expected to see, but which never materialized. So now we have a country which, despite having lost a vicious dictator and his even more evil sons, is perhaps even more dysfunctional than before. We went in and ruined their functional country. Regardless of who their leader was or what he did, is the current situation better? Is it going to become better anytime soon (I mean within the next five years)? We wrecked the joint, so it should be incumbent upon us to fix it, at least partially.

But what's the cost of that? Blood first of all. More blood every day. Soldiers from our volunteer army, not guys like President Bush the Younger or his ilk. Not guys like me who have jobs in cubicles. The guys for whom the military was a way to make something of themselves when no other opportunities were available. These guys made a personal commitment to themselves and to the country, and we should be very proud of them. But their blood keeps spilling onto the sand, and I do not see how to stop it, short of getting them out of there. But to get them out, we either have to complete the task (at a cost of billions of dollars and much more blood), somehow get the U.N. to come in and take over or just abandon Iraq. None of these is a good option. How about the stresses that the combat troops are under? Looking at Atrios today, I see that our returning soldiers have the same sorts of memories as the kids in Vietnam did. Small wonder - I'm sure the great majority of Iraqis are good people who do not, in general, wish harm upon our soldiers. Still, if you are over there, how do you deal with the fact that every man, woman and child may be an innocent or may be about to kill you? How do you make snap life or death decisions like that? What happens if you guess wrong and an innocent dies? If you have your own family at home that you are responsible for, can you afford to have anything less than a hair trigger? What happens when your best efforts to save yourself and your family kill another and tear someone else's family apart? I feel for anyone who has to make such a decision - I do not know how I could and keep my sanity intact.

Our best option would seem to be to get out and let the U.N. take over. Given the events of today why would the U.N. or anyone else want this job? I know there is a lot of anger and hate toward Americans in Iraq, but, for the love of God, why is it being taken out on people working for the U.N. or the Red Cross? They are not there to plunder or kill, they want to help!

All I feel is sadness and frustration. Innocent people such as aid workers, American soldiers and Iraqi civilians are all dying for this war. More innocent are going to die, because the United States will not leave Iraq until the oil wells and the production facilities are pumping dollars into the pockets of the war profiteers.

There's really no truth here, just unanswered and maybe unanswerable questions. That and death.

Jobs Leaving Charlotte

I'm a Charlottean and a SAS programmer. Not too long ago, SAS programming was a marketable skill. Then it began to morph into business analysis, with less of an emphasis on programming. Now this - these SAS jobs, these business analyst positions are moving offshore. Okay, I can pretty much hear the gears grinding. "He's liberal, he's moaning about job loss, this is going to be another anti-globalization screed." And you would be wrong, at least partly.

I'm not opposed to a "global economy". I think that having a global pool of talent to apply to any problem will inevitably lead to better solutions to the problem. I think that since all human life is equally valuable, every human should have the same rights and privileges as every other person, be that freedom from repression or freedom to own a TiVo. If a programmer in India (or China or Mexico or Romania) is better than I am at some job, then by all means, he should get the gig.

Here's the first problem though. The salary levels those places are quite a bit lower than here. Thus, even if I am a better programmer than the person in India, I have to be so much better as to offset the salary difference. And while I'm pretty good, I'm not nearly that good. It is, in effect, a VERY uneven playing field. If I am going to compete with the programmer from India, I have to price myself competitively. If I do that, though, I am unable to afford to live in America.

This is the second problem. When a service provider, be it a programmer or a farmer or whatever, prices their labor, they price it at a level that will enable them to pay their expenses (housing, food, medical, etc.). In America, that price level is a whole lot higher than in India or wherever. So, when my Indian counterpart prices his labor, he is able to do it at a discount compared to mine.

The solution to this is not to make it more difficult to move work around the globe. I believe that as the world comes together, this worldwide distribution of work is a good and right thing. Imposing penalties for this movement will not change the dynamic, rather it will force whole companies to move offshore rather than just parts of their work. While there is an argument to be made that keeping a corporate shell in the U.S. while it's work is done overseas is no great thing, I think keeping corporations here has benefits. The solution, I think, is to accelerate the economic trend.

Ultimately, if jobs keep moving offshore, the supply of workers will far outstrip the demand. This will lead to a reduction in the cost of labor. As the cost of labor goes down, so does the buying power of the labor force. This will, eventually, lead to a decline in prices in the United States. This decline in prices will also be aided by the cheaper labor which will make the cost of goods go down. In time, prices and wages will stabilize worldwide. At that point in time, all service providers will be able to price their labor competitively. The playing field will be level and the demand for workers in America will once again rise. What is needed is some way to make this transition as painless as possible for those of us whose wages will be falling. We need to find a way to make the global stabilization of wages and prices happen very quickly or we need to consider the need to support people who are struggling while we wait for the stabilization to occur.

Now, having said that, there is a huge catch. Deflation (the lowering of prices, the opposite of inflation) is a huge economic bugaboo, one that I think is highly unlikely to happen voluntarily. So, the expectation must be for us to wait until such a time as workers wage demands in the rest of the world reach the same level as currently exists here. That may be quite some time in the future. It is, I think, incumbent upon organized labor to work toward unionizing those countries to combat the sorts of oppression (low wages, sweatshop conditions, child labor) that characterized the growth of industry in our country. Again, though, this is a struggle that will take quite some time.

Herein is the problem, the question for which I have no solution. In order to be competitive in the global economy, my cost of labor must be competitive with similarly skilled workers in that economy. If, however, I price my labor at that competitive level, I am utterly unable to afford to live. I think advocating the abolition of GATT, NAFTA and the WTO is the wrong solution. Hiding from a problem hardly makes the problem go away. I think we need to look very carefully at how we address wage and price disparities between the various countries involved in the global economy. Otherwise I think there will be a large and growing segment of discontented folks who have no jobs, or who have jobs that cannot support their families. That set of unhappy people has been, until now, largely uneducated and politically apathetic. As more white collar jobs are sent offshore, that demographic will shift, and that shift will then force the issue. It is better to deal with this now rather than later.

Fundamentalism and Me

I find Fundamentalism, as it is defined in the dictionary, an odd concept. For one thing, it fails to recognize that the document which Fundamentalists insist is the literal and absolute truth, has been translated from its original language to another and then, in some cases translated again. What's more, the idiom of the time has been translated to a more modern idiom. In addition, there is, in the Bible, a great deal of societal custom that is no longer considered an acceptable part of a civilized society. Despite these things, however, Fundamentalists insist that the literal interpretation of the Bible is right and appropriate.

I've taken some classes in Latin and German, and I've struggled through a few bits of Spanish. One thing that is imminently clear: the old bromide about a translation being the equivalent of looking at the backside of a tapestry is very apt. Most words that are translated from one language to another are approximations of their original meaning. This is all the more pronounced when one is comparing texts from times long passed. The act of translation, by its very nature, changes the text from its original form to a view through the lens of the translator's ideas and opinions on how the language should be translated. So, how is it that Fundamentalists can adopt a philosophy that embraces the exact, literal interpretation of the Bible, when that Bible has been translated from its original language (which varies from book to book)? What's more, it is also interpreted from the older English of the King James Version to the New King James Version or from some other older version to some newer version. It is not a stretch to say that the original thoughts of the author were penned at least two translations ago, and depending on the genealogy of the version in question, perhaps as many as four or more. It is fair to say that insisting on the literal interpretation of texts that have been fundamentally altered by one or more translators is, well, a bit odd.

Then there are some of the more archaic social customs of Biblical times. According to the Bible, slavery was acceptable. Various punishments such as stoning were not considered barbaric. There are a great number of things that are explicitly listed as acceptable that are now considered barbaric and cruel. For one to then insist on a literal interpretation of that text denies any change in social mores over the last 4000 or so years. I think no moral person, not even the most Fundamentalist, would insist, for example, that slavery is a good and moral thing. It is impossible, I think, to make the argument that the ethics of society have not evolved since the days of the writing of the various books of the Bible. It is equally impossible to argue that most, if not all, of this ethical evolution is to the good. Things like the status of women in society, the status of people of different races and beliefs and the ideas concerning the way people treat one another have all grown from the days of the book of Genesis or even the book of Matthew. In point of fact, the birth of Christ marks an incredibly radical shift in ethical belief about a person's relationship with God. Before Christ, the God of the Bible was a harsh and often cruel God. Some examples of that are the Flood and the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah. Once Christ was born, once the Son of God was part of the planet, the opportunity for forgiveness was given to all who truly repented of their sins. This is a tremendous departure from Old Testament belief. Yet even with such a radical shift appearing in the text itself, the idea of moral evolution is, at best, approached with a great deal of skepticism.

Thus, I find Fundamentalism very difficult to understand. It seems to me that this inflexible use of literal interpretation is merely a way for people to avoid consideration of various ethical problems, instead using a very old text that is likely quite different than the original as the matrix from within which all decisions must be made. In some ways, the Bible can then act as a sort of moral computer. Feed in a question and the Bible will give you a solution, all without the need for messy thinking.

Dennis Miller - You're Killing Me

I am a liberal. I believe in the power of government helping folks over the power of corporations helping folks. That's not quite true - really I believe corporations only help anyone when it benefits them. Corporate altruism is either bad business or an oxymoron. Still, aside from the vitriolic rancor of O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Coulter et al, the serious theory behind conservatism is of interest to me, if only because it is instructive to me to understand the flip side of my own beliefs. So, when a real live conservative wants to talk about the theory behind their belief, I am, I think, a receptive audience.

To my mind, conservatism is characterized by the desire for a strong defense, the belief that market forces are the most effective methods not only of economic performance but of social change and social justice and the belief that smaller, less intrusive, more localized government is preferable to a large centralized government. There is also the idea of "strict constructionism" which could be put as "constitutional fundamentalism". That is to say that the Constitution should get as literal and narrow a definition as can reasonably be made. I'm not sure of the basis for this, but I presume it has something to do with the fact that when we try to divine intent, we stray into a VERY unclear area where just about anything can be justified. Now, I don't really believe market forces work for social good, but I'm open to hearing arguments about it and I certainly do not disregard the other central tenets.

In addition to this, though, the Republican party has a second sort of conservatism, social conservatism. This is characterized, in my mind, by uncompromising positions on gay rights, the right to choose and the open declaration of America as a Christian nation. And here is where conservatives lose me. First of all, there's the move to make anything associated with homosexuality illegal. That is, make it a government function to police sexual practices. This seems counter to the idea of a smaller and less intrusive government. Then there is the drive to declare America a Christian nation. Now, as I read the first amendment, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . .", seems to be pretty clear on this point, certainly if one takes it very literally as a strict constructionist might.

And this takes me to my title. I've always enjoyed the various rants of Dennis Miller. His politics seemed somewhere between libertarian and liberal, at least liberal in terms of the above social issues. One thing that has always seemed to be true, though of Dennis Miller is that he has a rather low tolerance for bull. Which is why I am utterly mystified by his sudden conversion to the side of George W. Bush. Actually, a bit more than mystified, I'm a little hurt. If Miller had chosen to be a sort of Rockefeller Republican, I can certainly understand and respect that. But to align himself with the Fundamentalist Christian president, the ultra-intrusive Justice Department and the rest of the current administration - well, it seems like he's pretty much going counter to all the things he's been saying for the last 15 or so years. Maybe it was all schtick and his true beliefs were different than what he presented to us. Still and all, I feel like the man who made himself out as the comic "crap detector" was feeding us a heaping plate of it all along.

Terrorism: A Question Without an Answer?

Let me preface this by saying that my mother-in-law died in the World Trade Center. The issues surrounding that and how they affect my viewpoint are ones that are way too complex to look into here. I'm just letting you know that bit of background so you can take it into your calculations.

Terrorism. Specifically, what do we do about terrorism? How do we stop it?

Here is one truth I feel about terrorism. No amount of violence will cause terrorists to stop doing what they do, not unless you kill every terrorist, their wives, their kids, their brothers, their sisters, their cousins and their parents. One living survivor is enough to keep the hatred going. Violence cannot end this, except (maybe) through genocide, something that we all want to avoid.

Here is another truth I feel about terrorism. We find ourselves in a world where we have created the means for one person to quickly and (relatively) easily kill thousands. The goal of military technology has always been to kill more with less. I'm not saying that as a criticism - countless soldiers have been spared because we developed better ways of killing enemy soldiers. War is horrible and killing is horrible, but if you are in a war, it is incumbent upon you to win that war with as little hurt to yourself as possible. The net result is the ability of one man to kill thousands. That ability, though, is what gives terrorism its teeth. We opened this Pandora's box, we loosed this genie from its bottle. The ability of terrorists to do their work is the consequence of that.

Here is another truth I feel about terrorism. Allowing those in a minority to dictate anything to those in the majority is a very bad idea. When as few as five people are capable of bringing down one of the Trade Center towers, that means any five people with an axe to grind are capable of devastating acts. Can we allow those same five folks to dictate policy to the country? Of course not.

So, having said all that, what does it mean?

In summation, we cannot bargain with terrorists. We cannot fight terrorists. Even the smallest groups of people are capable of conducting devastating terrorist attacks. Sounds pretty hopeless, really.

I think that the upshot of this is as follows: terrorism will always be with us and always be an issue, no matter what we do. We can do a few things though. We need to look at why the people who conduct these attacks decide that this is the proper answer. We need to understand the despair and anger. In cases where the anger has some rational basis, we need to examine what is causing the anger and see what we can do to mitigate it. Terrorism's mother's milk is anger and despair, its lifeblood is hate. Remove these things are terrorism will wither away. This isn't to say that terrorists should go unpunished - those who commit these acts, those who plan them and those who finance them deserve the full weight of our displeasure. This punishment needs to be tempered, though, with some degree of mercy and humanity. If the punishment is so harsh as to create more hatred and anger and despair, then it merely creates more terrorists. We also have to accept that being a target for terrorism is the cost of doing business as a superpower. We cannot address all the various gripes the world and its billions have. The tricky bit is to know which groups to listen to and which ones not to listen to; which groups to keep a close eye on and which groups to disregard. I didn't say it was easy, but this balancing act is the only way I know of to counter the threat of terrorism.

Raison d'Etre

Wow, that was portentous. Or, perhaps I should say, that was pretentious? Whichever, what I wanted to do now was take a moment and introduce myself and explain what I am trying to do here.

Blogs are, I think, very much a vanity thing. To imagine that one's own natterings are somehow of interest to the world at large is, I think, a very functional definition of vanity. The counter to that is just because it is vanity does not preclude it being useful. Politics is perhaps the perfect expression of vanity: imagining that one's ideas are not only interesting, but are capable of leading people to a better life, whether that is in a school district or a nation is unbelievable vain. Yet we rarely view politicians as vain men, at least when it comes to their ideas. Their obsession with their "legacy" is another matter entirely. So, while I am indulging my ego with this project, I would ask that you look beyond the stroking of my ego to the thoughts I share as having some value.

I have found over the past year or so, news stories have set me into a frame of mind that encourages philosophical thoughts. Whether these stories are on my NPR affiliate, on one of the many websites I like to keep up with (see partial list on the right), or just in conversation with friends, I find that I am turning these thoughts over with an eye toward how they make me feel, and more importantly, what is the reason they make me feel this way. For example, the previous entry was inspired in part by reading Riverbend's blog about life in wartime Iraq, as well as various stories that boil down to the premise that one's material wealth has some relationship to the value of one's life. In my way, then, I am trying to reject that premise and to also commiserate with Riverbend, a person who I have a great deal of admiration and sympathy for. I also believe I am a liberal, though not without a pragmatic streak, and even on occasion, flat out hypocrisy in my thinking.

This blog rises from those things. I wanted to share these musings with people to see if I am representative of anything in my thinking. I also wanted to record these philosophical ramblings to help me spot my own hypocrisies, or, to put it more nicely, to encourage me to maintain some semblance of continuity in my own thinking. Finally, and perhaps most vain of all, I wanted to record my thoughts so that I could show them to my girls some day and hopefully provide some idea of what their dad was blathering on about.

Oh yes, one other thing - the name of the blog. It's pretty simple - the philosophical bases for my thinking are things that I think are universal truths (or at least they should be in my arrogant mind). They should be self-evident. As in "We hold these truths to be self evident . . . ".

On The Value of Human Life

All human life is equally valuable.

Yes, I know, I'm not really breaking new ground here. But let's look at this statement closely. All human life, be it American or Iraqi, Palestinian or Israeli, Republican or Democrat is of equal value. Okay, this may be a bit more questionable, but still, this is pretty well within the scope of what is considered mainstream thought. All human life being equal also means that all lives are of equal worth. Saddam Hussein's life is as valuable as George W. Bush's. Charles Manson's life is as valuable as Mother Teresa's. Oh dear, here come the cries of outrage.

The truth of the matter is, though, that when we start grading lives, we begin to get into a very dangerous area, one where, I think, we have no business treading. Okay, so we say Manson's life is worth less than Mother Teresa (a stance that the soon to be sainted woman might have disputed). Why is Manson worth less? Well, he committed horrific, inhuman crimes. This takes away from the value of his life. Mother Teresa was a godly, patient and giving person who helped some of the most wretched humans without thought of herself. This adds to the value of her life.

Once we start doing this sort of "life-calculus" though, where does it end? In a clear-cut case like the one above, it may be readily agreed that the equation is valid. However, even the most clear cut cases can quickly become murky. If one were to pose the question of Yassir Arafat's life-value versus Ariel Sharon's life-value to the Israeli cabinet and to the Palestinian cabinet, I think that diametrically opposed "clear-cut" views would be expressed. Or, to put it simply, in attempting to determine the value of any human life, it is frankly impossible to do so, without resorting to wholly subjective measures, which render any such judgment valid only to the observer, and therefore, worthless to society at large.

I will make note of one rather large exception I take to this truth. I believe each individual can and does determine the value of his life. For example, if I were forced to choose between my life or that of my wife and daughters, the choice is crystal clear - I would suffer anything to make them safe. If I choose to join the armed forces or the police, I realize that I am placing my life at risk for some greater good (well, hopefully, anyway).

Overall, though, the truth here is that as a society, we must recognize that all human life has equal value. That is a premise that I hold inviolable for any just and moral society.