RickRoll'd

To be frank, 2008 has sucked. Sure, the Kiwis won the Rugby League World Cup and on balance, NZ had a pretty good Olympics but the enduring legacy of the year 2008 (or, to be consistent with Paul D's earlier post, this particular 365-day calendrical cycle) is of a global economy in meltdown, skyrocketing unemployment rates, no progress on climate change, free trade deals or Zimbabwe De-Mugabeification. Oh, and the death of Heath Ledger. But throughout 2008, the big adventures of Barack (Hussein) Obama stood out like a beacon of hope in a swamp full of fail. And as a former recipient of Time Magazine's person of the year award, I can say with conviction that Mr Obama deserves to be singled out as this year's winner. His epic Democratic primary battle with Billary Clinton was far better entertainment than this year's lacklustre Super 14 or NZ's hope less cricket team. And the way he effortlessly dealt with John McPain and that godawful Alaskan hillbilly woman was a stirring victory for an America we thought had abandoned reason for madness (and Cheney). I heart Obama. Which is why that in my last post for 2008, I'm so suprised that I find myself bitterly condemning him.

Mr. Obama has chosen Rick Warren, the founder and senior pastor of an evangelical megachurchstravaganza (the Saddleback Church,) to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. For a man elected as the merchant of liberal change from the dark days of the Bush Administration's pandering to evangelicals, this is a depressing slap in the face indeed. It is an obvious attempt to reach out to the hardxcore Christian fundamentalists that declared themselves scared of Obama's MuslimSocialistTerroristExtremist hidden agenda during the election campaign, and voted against Obama, and all he represents, in massive numbers. (check out some of their solid, principled and logical reasons for doing so here). After all, Pastor Rick is wildly popular amongst his congregation, and apparently amongst the wider American public, his book 'The Purpose Driven Life' has sold over 20 million copies and the media's dubbed him 'America's Pastor.' He's also a gross, and miserable bigot.





What a prat.

Team Obama has defended the decision on two grounds. That Warren is popular, and that America, with its proud tradition of free speech, represents all voices, and the Inauguration ceremony must reflect that. For two reasons, thats complete and utter crap.

Firstly, Warren's raison d'etre is to actively advocate, to an audience of millions, why it is legitimate to deny basic rights to a group of people in society based on a biological characteristic, and to treat them as inferior. Some of the stuff Warren says goes beyond the type of free speech that says 'I have a position on a moral issue, and you should share this position and here is why' and is the sort of 'free speech' that says 'I believe that a group is inferior to me, and here are some lies about the things they do.' That type of hate speech may be free, but the social villification of homosexuality has major costs; the active discrimination of gays in society and in the law. In a weighing up of competing rights, I find it inconceivable to think that the right of Warren and the Saddleback kids to spew forth homophobic bile should be placed above the right of the gay community to be allowed to 'live according to their own conception of the good life', without fear of discrimination (last time I'll use that phrase in '08, promise) Your social contract shouldn't be inferior just because you sign it with a limp wrist, so to speak.

Secondly, even if you disagree with me on the previous point there is still a fundamental difference between saying 'we allow the views of Pastor Rick to be expressed in the marketplace of ideas' and saying 'here, Pastor Rick, please deliver my invocation in front of a global audience in their hundreds of millions'. That's not some perfectly competitive marketplace of ideas, that's winning the lottery. By asking Pastor Rick to deliver the invocation, Barack Obama tacitly accepts all that the Saddleback Church stands for, and all the Neanderthalic twitterings made by Pastor Warren against the legitimacy of homosexuality. Even if Pastor Rick is able to point to a flock of millions who share his views, Obama should not be satisfied that the job of the President is to reflect the general will, whatever that will may be. Obama's role must be to use the dignity associated with the President's office, to make the case for fairness and equality in the places where it is most unpopular.

For a man who claimed he would lead for all Americans, this is a disastrous start. For an American LBGTI community (think I got them all) still reeling from the shock passing of Proposition 8, an amendment to the Californian Constitution that explicitly bans gay marriage, this is a hammer blow to morale of the movement. Not only that, but with America still exerting it's influence as a moral force, attempting to bring a discourse of universal rights to some of the bleakest authoritarian regimes on the planet, the gay movement needs an America willing to acknowledge the legitimacy of homosexuals as equals, not as dirty inferiors to be explicitly excluded from the American definition of 'rights'.

November 4th 2008, and Obama's acceptance speech, was considered by some political pundits to be the 'moment of victory for the black civil rights movement.' Considering black Americans remain rooted to the bottom of major social statistics, I'd dispute the truth of that claim. Nonetheless, if Obama shows increasing willingness to embrace a raving evangelical's voice of hatred, January 20th 2009 could yet become the moment of defeat for the homosexual civil rights movement.

Alex

Happy New Year!

"Nothing changes on New Year's Day." (Bono)

As we get closer to having to buy another Hello Kitty Calendar, there’s a lot of talk of looking back on the year and reflecting. It happens at the end of every year. You often see things like the Year in Pictures or Best Snacks of 2008. You get people looking ahead; deciding on resolutions; planning on how they’ll change with the new year – how they’ve learnt from their mistakes and experiences of the closing year, or whatever. All this, I contend, is total crap.

These people – who are, I should say, typically suburban automaton drones – are wholly diluted in their own positivity. They think they’ve come up with novel ideas for change and improvement and that this is the best time to enact them. But, of course, they’re wrong (on both accounts). There’s nothing really unique about them, what they’re doing, or the situations they’re in. Countless people over the centuries have resolved to quit cheating on loved ones, to quit stealing, to quit being such a jerk. And there’s nothing particularly unique about the end of a calendar cycle – that’s just a remnant of the Roman Empire and trait of Western society that has, almost fully, been imperialized onto all cultures of the world.

I mean, come on, the end of December 31 does not have any genuine privileged status. It’s a day, just like the next one, just like the previous one, and just like every other god damn day. The neophytes and philistines that are out parading around on New Year’s Eve are sick for doing so. Sick in the head. Fooled by another ridiculous tradition into thinking that there’s a genuine cause for celebration when, in fact, there is none. The worst is when this is their primary motivation for partying; it’s indicative of a shallow, unexamined, and empty existence. Celebrating New Year’s is, after all, as absurd as celebrating your birthday. Like, gimme a freakin’ break. There are few greater ways to be selfish and egoistic than to, once per year, have a party for being born (an “accomplishment” you, really, didn’t contribute to). These “times for festivities” are the most undeserving accomplishment and it’s revolting to sit there, act special (when you’re, quite clearly, not) and demand gifts and warm wishes from friends and family.

But the real nonsense of it all, of course, is: why wait until New Year's Eve to change? (As if the change on your ill set watch from 11:59pm to 12:01am marks some genuine threshold.) I mean, if you’re doing something wrong, or bad, or whatever, why wait? Changing something about yourself or what you do because “it’s a new year, man” is an offense to the concept of self improvement. You should always be striving to better yourself all ways. That should be the key motivation to change.

So what’s the moral of this story? Simple: to celebrate hallow days is to trivialize the important reasons in life for rejoice. Moreover, if you fail to recognize the foolishness of celebrating these hallow days, you’re no more than another slave to idiotic cultural norms. But take note: I’m not saying stay in on New Year's Eve and be unhappy. Instead, I’m pro going out and having fun. But don’t – DON’T – regard it as an important day or the reason to enjoy yourself. Enjoying life should be the aim of your pursuit; having a good time should be the reason to have a good time. If you’re only out and about because it’s your birthday, or cuz it’s New Year’s, or b/c you think TGIF, then you’re a sap and should just stay home (or, better still, just kill yourself). The assholes who are driven to celebrate these artificial motivations are the narrow minded yuppies who say things like “Why are you going out tonight? It’s Tuesday!” and ruin our society through their head-in-the-sand behaviour; they’re the people who think they’re right (when they’re not) without any really justification other than the fact that they believe that they’re special (when they’re not). I could say more, but I think that’s enough for now. This is just my spur-of-the-moment thoughts on the subject. I could be wrong. After all, what do I know.

A Dialogue on Failure: Xmas Edition

Buenos Nachos Failure Amigos,

We've been toying for a while with the idea of writing some blog posts in the form of a conversation. Some issues are hard and have many good competing arguments...so we thought maybe if we wrote in a 'stream of conciousness' style maybe, just maybe, we could reach some enlightened conclusions. Either that, or it will devolve into one of those classic interweb arguments where we compare each other to Hitler. As always, let us know what you think...

LOL Always,
Paul et Alex

***

On Being Grinches


ALEX: I guess I'll start off this little conversationfest with a rather morbid and depressing little fact about me. I, Alexander Joseph Nelder, do not like Christmas. Sure, I like it's ability to bring people together but I hate the rampant consumerism associated with it, those disgraceful movies about surburban American families competing with each other to see who has the best Christmas lights, Santa parades that are an excuse for every corporate logo in the Western Hemisphere to capture an audience of wide-eyed impressionable children, the fact the manger scene was made up by a Pope in the 13th Century and Santa by the guy in charge of Coca-Cola's advertising campaign. Obviously, I still celebrate Christmas - to refuse to would be the social equivalent of covering myself in horse manure and running naked through a kindergarten. Christmas, and the tree, and the carol singing and the cake and the presents (if not really the Jesus) are a big thing in my family as I'm sure it is for many families in New Zealand, and the Western World.

But, the wider point is that for many families in New Zealand and the Western World, Christmas is not one of the traditions celebrated in their household. So I find it offensive that in our society, which claims freedom of religion and a pluralistic state as two of its strongest corner-stones, Christmas is seen as a special holiday ,worthy of celebration in the public and private sphere, while other holidays of special significance to a cultural and religious group (namely, Diwali, Hanukah, Ramadam) are deemed to fall within the rubric of 'religious holiday' and cannot be recognised by the state. I'm not advocating the banning of Christmas Day (it didn't work out too well for Oliver Cromwell), nor am I calling for the recognition of all religious holidays to be granted as public holidays. However, I do think that public bodies in particular, but also corporations should have to write 'Happy Holidays' as opposed to 'Merry Christmas'. Doesn't seem to hard, does it?

What doth thou think, Paul?


PAUL: Well, I dunno. I'm not sure that to refuse to celebrate Christmas is the social equivalent of covering oneself in horse manure and running naked through a kindergarten. But what do I know; I've celebrated Festivus. But it seems to me that it's not important what you celebrate this time of year but, rather, that you celebrate. The fact is that this time of year is traditionally regarded as a social/family time of year; time to be merry. However religion is the traditional motivation to have get-togethers and be merry this time of year. But, I think, this turns out to be irrelevant too – traditional reasons for doing something don’t make that something is bad; nor do those traditional motivations need to be the only acceptable motivations. It's just easier for secularists (or, rather, all non-practicing Christians) to say they're celebrating Christmas when, in fact, they're celebrating christmas. (Did ya spot the difference there kids? The astute ones did, while those in the dunce hat went to go back to check.) So what's the difference that makes a difference between the big C and lil c? The former denotes a certain kind of religious event, while the latter just means you're having an event a la the end of It's a Wonderful Life or National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation .

Ok, Alex, before I let you get another word in let me answer your next question: So is it a good thing that religion has been kicked from the holiday season centre stage for most people in the Western World? Well, no, not really. I say that because the void that wouldn't have been left has been crammed full by corporations.

So what does that mean? Well I think that the absence of religious motivation backs up your (or, rather, our) intuition that public institutions shouldn't partake in "The Xmas Doctrine" – it doesn’t reflect the disposition of the majority. That aside, the problem boils down to this: even if public institutions are taken to mean christmas (lil c) when they say "Merry Christmas", that certainly doesn't make it alright; they are, after all, part of the public sphere and saying "Merry Christmas" makes other causes for celebration second-class (even if this isn't their intent). And that's wrong. So public institutions (and the representatives thereof) should only say "Happy Holidays". But I'm not convinced that Corporations should be as pliant to public attitudes as much as public institutions. I mean, so what if a corporation decides to distinctly celebrate Christmas? I certainly don't care if they bastardize it (more). Right??


ALEX: Even though my internet is currently too slow to let me watch clips from It's a Wonderful Life, you're right. There's two ways of celebrating Christmas, religious Christmas, which involves mass and manger scenes and Jesus, and secular Christmas, which involves red-nosed reindeer and those really nice pies with fruit mince. And I guess that elevates Christmas above other 'religious holidays' such as Ramadan. (It's pretty damn hard for an atheist to find starving themselves for a month fun.) I have heard a pretty good argument that, in fact, Christmas in NZ (and the rest of the Western world) had transcended its religious underpinnings to become an inherent part of Western culture, so to deny store employees the ability to wear Santa Hats in the name of 'religious sensitivity' was an attack on our cultural norms.

You've done a really good analysis of why public institutions should say 'Happy Holidays' as opposed to 'Merry Christmas'. The public sphere has to stay neutral on all aspects of religious activity, that is one of the demands of pluralism. But what would you say to a public institution displaying the more secular aspects of Christmas, the parts that don't pertain to religion directly. Obviously, a navitity scene set up on the grounds of a nation's Parliament would be an affront to pluralism, but what about a diorama of Santa and his reindeer. The bible doesn't mention Santa (though the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe does), so does that make it ok?

As for my original statement that corportations should also be forced to say 'Happy Holidays', let me try and defend that. In general, It shouldn't be the role of the state to decide what beliefs and celebrations are, and are not, acceptable for private individuals and entities to display. But maybe we should make an exception to this rule if the belief the private entity wanted to display was a comment on the inferiority of a class of persons in society. Say if Wal-Mart wanted to have a sale in honour of the KKK's existence or to celebrate the Holocaust, maybe it would be ok for the goverment to step in then and say 'That isn't OK'. Given you think that the reason public entitites should use happy holidays is to avoid a sense that other religious holidays are second class, surely a corporation that says 'Merry Xmas' at the exclusion of all other religious holiday is conveying this same sense of Christmas-centrism?

Maybe the difference I mentioned earlier applies again. Is it OK for a store to display Santa's Workshop, but not the Navitity scene?


PAUL: Well, shit, bro, I dunno. But I'd think that, when it comes to whether or not public institutions should be permitted to display icons of secular christmas (e.g. Santa and his elves), the issue hinges on the ambiguity between traditional/religious Christmas and secular chirstmas; and it's pretty ambiguous. When someone says Merry xmas I dunno really know if she's celebrating Christmas or christmas. So, because of that, it's essential that the government keep up appearances, I guess. And that can't be done if they throw Merry Christmas and Santa around. I'll try to make my point by drawing an analogy: it's not enough for those of public institutions to avoid conflict of interests, it's gotta also look like there's no conflict of interest. Follow me?

Now about corporations: So the issue no longer seems to be whether it's wrong for corporations, by their own will, to be pro-Christmas. Instead, it's should the government allow corporations the right to make that choice. I dunno. That seems a lil too much U.S.S.R. for me, but maybe I've just been reading too much P.J. O'Rourke lately. Private institutions are distinct in an important regard: they are primarily subject to the will of their shareholders and customers. So if you wanna say that Wal-mart ought not be allowed to have a KKK Day Sale, you'd better be comfortable saying that the customers and shareholders ought not be allowed t celebrate such a day as individuals. It comes down to the limits of acceptable free expression. Corporations are just another means through which ppl can express themselves; insofar as corps cater to the will of shareholders and customers. So here I'd say stores celebrating Santa-style xmas is okay, b/c it's an expression of what the (majority of) customers and shareholders are celebrating. This is, also, the mechanism by which Christmas has become de-religion-ized. Objections?

ALEX: Hmmm, I think we are in agreement as to Public Bodies, as in 'Dont mention Christmas, keep it neutral, keep it secular.' I'm not entirely convinced on your corporations point, but I don't think we're going to come to a conclusion on that unless we keep up this conversation 'till Jesus comes back. (lol) I think our disagreement lies in the fact you think that the state restricting a private entities right to celebrate something is a breach of the right to freedom of expression, and I think it's valid if it means people don't feel their religion is inferior.

I'd be interested to see what people think about this, whether we are valiant defenders of the pluralist state, or namby-pamby politically correct weiners. I'm going to go wrap presents now, and curse loudly every time an ad for that god-awful 'Four Holidays' movie comes on TV.

And from both of us at 'A word on Failure', Feliz Navidad.

Hey Jealousy

“Jealousy is a tiger that tears not only its prey but also its own raging heart” (unknown)

Jealousy is a funny thing. Some of us suffer from it more than others. Some of us experience it without justification. Some people probably like the power they get when they make someone else jealous. But I don’t think any of us enjoy feeling jealous. Let’s try to get to the root of it.

First of all, it turns out that describing jealousy is a easier said than done. It seems to have something to do with envy, but when we said things like “she can be a really jealous person” we, surely, we don’t just mean that she can be a really envious person. Envy and jealousy, while related, aren't the same thing. For them to be the same I think you'd have to be able give an affirmative answer to both: (1) is it the case that, when she sees some hoe flirting with her boyfriend across the bar and she become engulfed in rage, she’s simply envious for the flirtatious girl? And, (2) is she’s, when she tries to call her boyfriend and he doesn’t answer she becomes engulfed in rage, just envious of those she assumes he’s off having fun with? Some might think “yes” to these questions, but I’m hesitant.

In the bar example, we aren’t accurately describing the situation when we say that she wants to be in the position of the flirtatious girl (that’s what it means to be envious); instead she is provoked into feeling jealous by the situation – she doesn’t want anyone else to play with her toy; she’s possessive of her boyfriend – the situation triggers a different reaction in her than one of envy. The same is true for call example: his failure to answer her call triggers her feelings of emotional reaction. Here the trigger is speculation of what he might be doing; speculation fueled by an absence of trust. Envy doesn't enter in at all.

So, while there’s definitely a close link between jealousy and envy, they aren’t the same thing. And they have certainly different triggers; I don't think an absence of trust can trigger envy in someone. I Also don’t even think jealousy is a particular kind of envy reserved for “romantic” relationships. While a jealous person might be triggered to feel envious of the fun or attention she speculates people are having with her object of desire, she also experiences a possessive feeling towards that object of her desire (e.g. her boyfriend or, lacking that, her crush). So jealousy can occur simultaneously with other emotions.

Is jealousy a good thing? I’m gonna say no. As I’ve already mentioned, there are a number of different triggers for one’s jealous feelings. A key one, that I mentioned, was baseless speculation fueled by the absence of trust. An absence of sufficient trust is a hugely bad thing. While the absence of trust is only going to play in when some is jealous of his or her romantic partner (rather than someone she wants to be her romantic partner), it’s in such situations that a lack of trust will be most damaging. Because of this, jealously is gonna be a bad this. But, in when there's complete trust between a couple of lovers, one of them can still get jealous. (Some might challenge me on that claim.) And here jealousy can still have detrimental consequences: in additional to be potentially damaging to a relationship (or a roadblock to the development of a relationship, since trust is earned not granted), jealousy is also a bad thing for those who experience it. Jealousy isn’t a pleasant experience. And it typically makes you do bad or irrational things. I think this is intuitively obvious -- I can't think of any reasonable person defending jealous as a virtuous emotion.

So I guess, then, the question de jour is whether or not we should tolerate romantic partners who suffer from jealousy. A knee jerk answer might be "Of course! Why not, fool? It's not really their fault." But hold on a sec. We just finished saying that it's a bad thing; it can be descrtuctive; it can cause suffering and hurt feelings. So, then, my answer is no -- you’re a sucker if you stick with an exceedingly jealous partner. But I’ll soften my position a bit with the following caveat: if you want go ahead and tolerate a partner who sometimes suffers from moderate jealousy; someone who can manage her jealously. But don’t settle for someone excessively jealous, or someone unable (or unwilling) to mange her jealousy. Here’s why I take this position: it not really pleasant to be with someone who’s really jealous and, if they really cared about you, they’d work their hardest to keep themselves from expressing their jealousy – they’d suffer solely internally such that you aren’t worse off because of their condition. Some one that dedicated to your happiness is someone worth keeping around. I could say more, but I think that’s enough for now. This is just my spur-of-the-moment thoughts on the subject. I could be wrong. After all, what do I know.

Between Iraq and a Hard Case : Part Two: Sudan > Saddam.

In my last post (written many eons ago), I promised that in this blog post I would attempt to answer, with typical bluster,swagger and know-it-all-ness, a question that has plagued human rights scholars, military morality philosophers and Dick Cheney ever since it became clear that there were no secret weapons stashes hidden in the deserts of Iraq, just sand. That question is 'Even if it turns the intelligence that Saddam had WMD's and was best buds with Osama was a complete and total farce, doesn't that fact that we got rid of Saddam anyway make the world and the Iraqi people safer and justify it all anyway?'

But it turns out, trying to write this blog post was a complete and total disaster. Turns out that this is a pretty difficult question to answer, and while most of my posts are written quickly, often when I am annoyed, sometimes when I am sad, occassionally when I am drunk (see if you can spot which posts convey which emotion, kids). But with this post, I've agonised for weeks over several drafts. The first time I tried I ended up writing a pretty heavy-handed defence of Saddam Hussein's (and Iraq's) right to sovereignty. But I decided a blog post entitled 'Who's Sane? Hussein?' would shred my valiant co-blogger Paul's wavering faith in my ability to have ideas and probably make him cry at the thought of his blog being reduced to this. My next draft went the other extreme, and defended the right of the US to intervene in any situation where there was the slightest whiff of Human rights abuses. Then I realised I had just justified, in my own head, a reason for the US to invade New Zealand on account of our Electoral Finance Act. It was at this point I decided I needed a lie-down. The issue is terribly convoluted, and even now, I'm not convinced I've been effective in outlining my position. So here are some general thoughts, and I may return to the topic later, perhaps in a more contemporary situation.

Firstly, I believe that there is a legitimate case for military intervention by a foreign power (preferably the UN, but unilaterally if necessary) in cases where there is gross persecution, genocide, breaches of fundamental rights by a government against its citizens. Genocides such as Rwanda, and the current horrific disaster in Darfur represent dark stains on the conscience of the international community. Obviously the most effective and enduring form of long-term regime change isn't one that comes from the guns and cowboy diplomacy of a foreign military that can't possibly understand (and in many cases makes no effort to understand) the subtle naunces, the political culture and the social norms that underpin that country's politics, it comes from an internal revolution. But in many cases an internal popular revolution, a la Les Miserables, in a country where the tyrannical government has a solid grasp on the military is just code for a lot of innocent and helpless getting mowed down. In situations where there is vast 'firepower' inequalities between those in power and those who would overthrow power, the only way that there can be realistic regime change for the better is with the help of a foreign military, which can stabilise a tattered country, prevent a power vacuum by which insurgencies can flourish, and create the conditions for which a new government can begin to rebuild a decent society.

I realise that in saying this , I am effectively telling the American mother in Kansas with three sons in the military that not only will her children put their lives on the line in defence of their country, they will also gallivant over the world saving people in places she has never heard of, from the action of governments whose leaders have names she can't pronounce. Also, her tax dollars will pay for this. I realise that it would be political suicide to suggest it, and good reason to at least wait for the UN to dictate that this is a situation that justifies an intervention on behalf of the entire world. But the UN Security Council remains moribund, and it's inability to gain traction on issues that cry out for intervention, such as Darfur, render it at best an embarrassment, at worst, criminally incompetent. And even if it is politically untenable, it doesn't detract from the moral force of the case for intervention. There must be action to avoid a second Rwanda, to end or prevent humanitarian catastrophes. America, as the leading military power in the world, as well as other Western nations with a conscience must exercise the UN's responsibility to protect, even if the UN doesn't want to play ball.


But I could bang on about morality all I want, but as I have already pointed out, there is no political mandate in an economic recession and in the aftermath of two flailing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to justify humanitarian intervention. This is why justifying Iraq on the grounds that 'it got rid of Saddam' is so wrong. Firstly, in cases of humanitarian intervention even more important than the overthrow of the tyrannical government is the stabilisation and security of the area, this is what lets the voters and the taxpayers back home know that lives were lost in the pursuit of peace, not in some hopeless cause. But Iraq was so poorly handled that the American civilian was subjected to years of Iraq turning from a country ruled by an iron-fisted dictator to the country where the rule of law was a joke, and the quality of life of the Iraqi people even worse. That reinforces the idea that interventions can never work.

Secondly and more importantly, Saddam, for all his evil, was a lot less worse than many other nasty regimes. Think the military junta in Myanmar, the Hutu extremists running riot in the Congo, the Janjaweid militia in Darfur, Mugabe's goons in Zimbabwe....the point is that if you set the 'threshold for intervention' at Saddam, then you force yourself to take on a whole basket of conflicts in all far-flung parts of the Earth. The voting public look at the possible expenses, both in terms of lives lost and financial cost, and baulk. Humanitarian intervention needs to be justified as something that happens in 'really, really bad cases', where there is a broad consensus that a government is denying citizens the ability to survive, rather than just breaching what Westerners would consider to be a valid human right. The goal is to prevent genocide, not install America as 'World Police'. But by neo-conservaties declaring Iraq as a 'Charge of the Rights Brigade', instead of just showing some balls and admitting they fucked up their intelligence, an already difficult case for humanitarian intervention becomes almost impossible to make.

In conclusion, Genocide sucks.

Alex

And Justice For All?

“My occupation now, I suppose, is jail inmate.” (Theodore Kaczynski)

Let’s take a trip down memory lane... back to a time when the grass was green, the air was fresh, and cell phones were huge. Let’s go back to the 1990s. Back then this guy named O.J. Simpson was the defendant in “the trail of the century”. He was accused of murdering his wife and her friend. While he spent time in jail during the trail, in the end he escaped conviction and went free.

Now O.J. Simpson is off to jail. Again. But this time he’s not just in jail for the duration of a trial. No, this time he’s been CONVICTED, and sentenced, to hard time in the slammer. What does this mean? Well it means 2 things. For one, it’s another instance of the public’s fascination with the wayward lives of celebrities. For another, it means there’s justice in the system after all. While I could waste our time talking about the former, I’ll instead try to say something meaningful about the latter.

I think (or hope) that we all know about O.J.’s exploits. From his murder trail (Alex isn’t the only one who can link), to his related civil suit, to his most recent “let’s steal sports memorabilia” trail.... and let's not forget his book 'If I did it'. So now that we're all up-to-date let’s say, for the sake of argument, that O.J. is in fact guilty of killing his wife (Nicole Brown), and her friend. Can we, now that he’s going to jail “for good”, say that justice has been sufficiently served? If he DID kill his wife and friend back in the 90s, there was clearly a miscarriage of justice when he was found not guilty. But karma came around, right? He’s off to jail now. The victim’s families won their civil suit. Alls well that ends well, right? I’m not so sure.

If cops and lawyer shows on TV have taught me anything, it’s that the system can’t always get the bad guy for the exact crime committed. Instead, those fighting on behalf of us sometimes need to settle for some other or lesser charge. For instance the “little fish” criminal is allowed to plea to a lesser crime in exchange for evidence against the “big fish”; or those Ness types settle on getting those Al Capone types on whatever they can. And there seems to be this perception that that’s okay; that, when such things happen, justice is still served.

But I’m not convinced. And I think the O.J. case is a good counterexample. I think here it's much harder to say that justice hasn't been served, especially with regard to the Brown family. And I don't see how they could get any better deal than what they got now. But just because they can't get anymore out of the system, that doesn't mean they should be satisfied. Don't get me wrong, they have reason to be happy that O.J. is off to jail. But, come on, that wrong he committed against Nicole Brown, her family, her friend, and society at large hasn't been righted.

So how is this different than Al Capone? I think our intuitions about Capone are different: I think here we want to be able to say that justice was served. So how are the 2 cases different? Well, for one thing, O.J.'s murder trial was bungled; whereas they just never tried Capone for the murders and whatnot he did. But surely that's not enough – it doesn't seem to make sense to say that justice was served with Capone despite the fact that they couldn't even get to trial against him (except for tax evasion). Like O.J. the end result is the same: the wrongdoer isn't punished for all the wrongs he did (or, rather, all the wrongs he's known to have done).

So, then, is it just the case that this kind of halfway justice a by-product of our system? Sometimes justice just can't be served fully? That seems to also be something TV has taught me. But that feels wildly unsatisfactory. If this is how it is, why should we be content with system? Because it can't be practically improved? Again, feels wildly unsatisfactory. I could say more, but I think that’s enough for now. This is just my spur-of-the-moment thoughts on the subject. I could be wrong. After all, what do I know.

Paul & Alex Present: Point/Counter-Point

Greetings faithful fan(s) of AWordonFailure,

Today we present the first post using the Paul and Alex joint account. As you may have noticed from our older posts, we disagree on just about everything (including how much pie is too much pie or when is it okay to order a prostitute), so we figured it might be fun, and kinda interesting, to write blog posts in the form of a point/counter-point debate: present two sides of an issue and then let you, the reader, decide if one of us is right - or if we are both totally nuts. At other times we thought it would be interesting to write some blog posts in the form of a conversation, and see if we can reach a consensus, or at least get some deeper analysis on some big issues. (Look for this in the near future!) Send us a comment telling us what you think; comments really do make us happy, further the discussion, and boost our ego.

So without further ado here's our first joint blog post, where we are going to get all hubristic, and pretend to be the governor-general of Canada.

LOL ALWAYS,
P-Diddy and A-Nel.

***

Great White Crisis

Canada is a country normally famous for putting the sap of maple trees on pancakes, saying 'eh' and 'aboot' an awful lot, and generally being pretty, well....boring. And stable. So it's pretty amazing that over the last couple of weeks, the Canadian media has been bandying about terms like 'coup', 'banana republic' and 'Zimbabwe North'. The Prime Minister, or at least a man who could once claim to be prime minister, may now just beat out Sarah Palin and the Australian Rugby League team for the title of BIGGEST FAIL EVER. He, a man who won 20% of the popular vote at the last election, has been burning up the airwaves rambling about plots that would lead to the destruction of Canada. What the hell happened?

It's all explained pretty well in this article. But for those of you who are too lazy to click on the link, here's the 411:
There was an election in Canada on October 14, where the Conservative party (led by Stephen Harper) won the most seats (but not enough to form an majority government). Normally this would mean Harper would be settling down and looking forward to being the PM for at least a while, steering his country through the financial crisis and looking like an awkward jerky robot in photographs. However, the Liberal and New Democrat parties, as well as the separatist Bloc Quebecois, enraged by the hubris of the Conservatives have allied together. This is noteworthy because, together, they control a majority of the seats in Parliament such that they can force a no-confidence motion in the Conservative government, topple it, then form their own hydra-government. Strictly speaking, though, the NDP and the Liberals alone have entered into an agreement to create a coalition government; the Bloc as only formally agreed to oust the Conservatives from power and support the Coalition for at least 1.5 years. (That is, the Coalition would only be made up of NDP and Liberal MPs.)

Okay, now that you've passed Canadian Politiks 101, here's the graduate course: So even though this would be a historical first in Canada. Realize that this isn't a "crazy" or even novel idea: New Zealand, for instance, has had coalition governments before and that pretty lil country hasn't devolved into a Mad Max wasteland. Moreover, it's recently come to light that MPs in past Canadian Parliaments had this same idea -- apparently the Alliance Party (which has now been swallowed up by the Conservative Party) once considered trying to form a coalition government back when the Liberals formed the government.

If it sounds complex, that's cos it kinda is. The result is that Stephen Harper now resembles a broken man, having gone from Prime Minister to 'former' Prime Minister without ever losing an election outright. For New Zealand reader(s), imagine that next month Act and the Maori Party abandon their support for National and decide to get behind a Labour/Greens/Jim Anderton coalition, then ask the Gov-Gen to let them be the new government. That's sort of what has happened here.

In these kind of situations, the Governor-General (GG) of Canada (or for good measure Australia, New Zealand or any of the other Commonwealth countries) has three choices. He or she can: [1] choose to suspend Parliament, basically telling all the MPs to sit in the corner until they can play nice; Or, [2] allow the new coalition to form a government; Or, [3] dissolve Parliament completely and call another elections.

The other day the GG choose to suspend Parliament, effectively throwing Stephen Harper a lifeline. For two reasons, we think that she made a bone-headed and baffling move. Firstly, by suspending Parliament the problem doesn't go away. The opposition seems pretty committed in it's quest to roll the Conservatives, perhaps even more now that Stephen Harper has shown his willingness to hide behind arcane constitutional levers, rather than face his government's impending demise like a grown man. So unless the GG plans to suspend Parliament FOREVER, then she hasn't saved this government, merely unduly postponed the inevitable. After all, the GG will probably end up facing the same choice again in late January when Parliament resumes. Secondly, not only is suspending Parliament useless, it is desperately unprincipled and woefully undemocratic. By suspending Parliament, and letting the Harper government continue without any evidence that the Conservatives still have the confidence of the House of Parliament, the GG, an unelected individual, has strayed dangerously close to the line of picking favourites. Really, the role of the GG is no more than to tick a constitutional box, a figurehead which says 'Yes, there is a government'.

So while we agree that the GG is a muppet, we vehemently disagree on the right way forward for Canada. With our expansive experience in Canadian constitutional affairs (Paul IS a Canadian who fled to NZ and Alex went there once and thought it was neat), we now present our differing views on what the Governor-General SHOULD have done. Let us know who you think is right.

Alex sez - CALL AN ELECTION
I realise, given that Canada just had an election, and that a new election would be Canada's fourth in five years, that I am advocating a position that is difficult, unpopular and some would say damaging to my Canadian street-cred. But just because something is difficult and unpopular, that is not a reason to avoid it if is the right way forward. And I believe it is.

Obviously the Harper government, surviving only due to the good grace and poor decision making of the Governor-General, no longer has any legitimacy in the eyes of the Canadian constitution, and cannot claim to be the constitutionally legitimate leadership of Canada. But my concern is that a coalition, cobbled together out of the disparate elements of the Canadian left and the separatist Bloc, will be something far worse - a government that does not legitimacy in the eyes of the Canadian people.

It is one thing to say that it is the role of the public to elect their representatives to Parliament, and then it is the role of those representatives to form a government, which may take whichever shape those representatives choose. That may fit a formalistic definition of 'voting', but in reality people do not just vote for a person or the party that they represent in a vacuum, but they vote with a wider view as to the shape they would like that government to take. To use a New Zealand example, in 2002 many socially conservative voters, who normally would associate with the National party voted for the small, 'family-values' oriented United Future party. The rationale was that if Labour was to form the Government that year (as looked likely, National were tumbling in the polls) then it was better that the Labour government went into coalition with social conservatives ,rather than the socially liberal Greens.

My point is that this coalition appears to have come from out of left-field, and it is not something that we can claim is in the reasonable contemplation of the ordinary Canadian voter as they made their choice at the ballot box. My guess is that if the only two choices in the election had been 'Conservatives' or 'Liberal + NDP + Bloc Quebecois', then the overall vote for the Conservatives would be much higher, and have allowed them a majority. As it stands, the Canadian people face something completely unexpected, and if the coalition government is allowed to form they face a democratically unpalatable prospect of Stephane Dion, a man who led his party to their worst electoral showing in a century, and who received only 20% of the popular vote, becoming the Prime Minister. At least until May, when the Liberals elect a new leader.

Calling an election will be a ballsy move, that will in all likelihood infuriate the Canadian people, and lead to a disproportionately greater turn-out in the next Parliament for protest parties such as the Greens. But the Canadian people should not be infuriated, they should be pleased that they have a chance to have their say and get a government that they want and expect. If nothing else, it will force Canadian political parties to be clear in explaining who they will work with, and what their coalition demands will be, making sure that a constitutional crisis of this sort never happens again, and that Canadian politics is not about snatching the levers of power, but making sure those levers are being used in a way that is best for ordinary Canadians.

If nothing else, that's a reason for a revote.


Paul sez - INSTALL COALITION GOVERNMENT
Hells ya this prospective coalition government would be a good thing. There are a few reasons why that's true. Let me explain.

For one, a coalition government would mean more stability than any minority government. Because a minority government can fall at any time, things are always kinda on edge whenever Canada has one. The lil pact between the Liberals-NDP coalition and the Bloc entails that there'll be at least 1.5 years of stability.That's what they've formally agreed to. Stability like this is especially desirable in troubled times... like when an economic crisis is going on. The real nightmare would be another election. That kind of instability would be worrisome… I mean, come on, it's only been 7 weeks!! That would be a waste of time and resources when Ottawa needs to be getting stuff done; now, more than ever, Canadians needs a stable and active government. On that point, there's also a degree of moderation that a coalition government would bring. A coalition government won't be able to push through the same sort of crazy unilateral legislation that a 1-party government could. Coalitions create an additional check-and-balance to moderate the actions of the government; that is, this government would need to cater to the policies of both the NDP and the Liberals. Even though this particular coalition government would be left of centre, by having to appease both parties it would be appealing to the sentiments of a wider range of Canadian voters than a government of either party individually. Yay!

Here's another thing to bear in mind: this move by the NDP and Liberals in no way goes against the will of Canadian voters. Here's how the system works: voters elect Parliaments. The elected Members of Parliament, then, form a government. Not the other way around. The voters elect whichever candidate running in their riding will best serve their interests. Nothing about that is changed if the current minority government is replaced with a coalition government; the same elected members still holds the same seats; the same MPs still represent the same riding. It's hard to say that voters vote expecting one party to take office, especially in this case since the last Canadian election was super close. But can we say that voters want whichever party the representative they elect for their riding is a member of to form the government? Sure, but that doesn't change anything. It's the sum of all the ridings in Canada that are important. So the government should be formed by the greatest number of MPs possible that are willing to work together. Traditionally, that's always been 1 party (the party with the most seats). In the current situation, it's the coalition (they, together, control more seats than the Conservatives). We can say that the voters expressed more (implicit) support for a NDP-Liberal coalition government than for a Conservative government. Yay!

And while some of those "boo hiss anti-coalition" naysayers have been postulating that this would be the first step in the break down in Canada (since the Bloc are involved), that's just silly. This Liberal-NDP coalition isn't "anti-Canada"; those wacky Bloc ppl aren't officially part of the coalition, they've just formally agreed to support it. Really, the Bloc is faced with the following choice: which is preferable - a NDP-Liberal coalition government or a Conservative government? Because the Bloc is more left leaning, they see the coalition as the "lesser of the two evils". That's it. No new talk about Quebec separatism because of a possible coalition.

Ultimately, whether or not this coalition is a good or bad things doesn't matter, the precedence of a coalition taking power is of true important. Were this coalition to end up being a 3 stooges act, an election will eventually be called and the people can collectively decide where to go next. But at that stage the Canadian people will have had a taste for something different; they will know what it's like to have a coalition government. This gives them, and the federal parties, more options. That's growth. That's something I can believe in.

Between Iraq and a hard case - Part One: Weapons of mass justification?

When historians one day are trying to list the three defining historical moments of this decade three will stand out - 9/11, the election of Barack Obama, and George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq. In a way they are all kinda interlinked, the need to root out the 9/11 terrorists was a justification to invade Iraq, and the calamitous fail that was the handling of the post-Saddam, Iraq insurgency was one of the key reasons why Barack Obama, and not H.R Clinton or J.S McCain will be reciting the pledge of allegiance come January 21st. In a desperate attempt to be at the forefront of defining historical moments (and often, getting around to blogging about them after they are so old, they can indeed be defined as history), I have already opined about 9/11 (which Paul D still refers to as the post where Alex showed clips of Comedians crying) and at great length about Barack Obama. Today, to what I expect will create much rejoicing on the streets of Baghdad, it's Iraq's turn to be blogged.

Since 2003, the war in Iraq has led to the loss of thousands of lives, billions of dollars in military spending, shredded relations between America and the Middle East (and Europe), the UN turning a more irrelevant shade of pale and America's ability as a spokesperson for human rights looking about as legitimate as Ron Jeremy extolling the virtues of abstinence. Oh, and Saddam's dead. Not bad for a little war that was only meant to last 6 weeks, and got its very own 'Mission accomplished' party, with its very own banner on an AIRCRAFT CARRIER. Iraq is probably the best ever example of how to win a war, and then make an absolute fail of how to lose the peace. Honestly, did the neo-cons actually believe the US would be greated as 'liberators', that centuries of animosity between Sunni's and Shia's would disappear, leaving them singing 'I got you babe' (Sunni's and Shia's = Sunny and Cher, geddit?) and worshipping at the altar of democracy? The flaws in logic, the holes in the strategy were almost elegant in their exquisite level of suckyness. Like turning up to a Spanish exam with a really cool pen, but having studied for Calculus instead.

But this blog post isn't going to be about lambasting the Bush administration for their epic fuck-up. It isn't even going to be about praising the Bush administration for stumbling upon the right answer to what seemed like certain defeat, in the form of the troop surge of late 2006. It's easy with the benefit of over five years hindsight to criticise. What I want to do is far more controversial, and probably far more suicidal to my attempts to be taken seriously as a 'guy who writes about stuff.' I want to try and justify the invasion. Or at least, show that in a different universe, where everything worked out differently, we might even consider patting W. on the back and buying him a beer.

Please don't stop reading, or switch back to DailyKos or The Standard or TeenHarlot or where ever it is you usually get your internet jollies from. Provided you don't suscribe to the ridiculous and offensive notion that the Iraq war was some sort of master plan by Bush and Cheney to create an American Empire and get some sweet, tasty oil, hear me out. (And if you do suscribe to that ridiculous and offensive notion, click on this link for something else that might interest you.). The primary justification for Iraq was because intelligence said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Given that events of the past 5 years have shown that intelligence was a bit, er, wrong, it seems a bit ludicrous to try and justify Iraq based on this. But we were not to know that in 2003. In 2003, the intelligence suggested that the decision that had to be made was 'given that Saddam Hussein had access to weapons of mass destruction, should the United States intervene to overthrow Saddam before these weapons get used?'

This question cuts to the very heart of the 'Bush Doctrine' (by using the words 'Bush Doctrine' in a sentence, I'm now more qualified to talk on this topic than Sarah Palin), and the idea that certain situations justify pre-emptive military action - attacking an enemy before that enemy attacks YOU. I guess two questions need to be kept in mind;

1) How probable is it that an enemy has weapons of mass destruction?
2) How likely is it that that enemy plans to use it on you?

No-one would say that in cases where an enemy tells you they have a nuke, and plan to drop it on your mother next Saturday, you would be unjustified in blowing up their nuclear facility and their capacity to strike before then. To rule out the idea of pre-emptive military action, to only strike in retalitation if attacked, not only removes your diplomatic options in a dangerous world but also compromises your ability to protect your own citizens.

I understand there needs to be a high threshold, before you invade a sovereign nation and attempt to cast yourself as the moral force and legitimate power. It's not enough to be reasonably sure of the existence of WMD's, you must be sure beyond any reasonable doubt, and also be sure beyond any reasonable doubt that if you do not strike first you will be attacked. We know in 2008, that there were no WMD's in Iraq and that Saddam Hussein was not planning on giving these WMD's to Al Qaeda. But we didn't know that in 2003. In 2003 we believed, given all reasonable intelligence by the very best intelligence agencies in the world, that Saddam Hussein passed a threshold. And so did Bush. So while, Bush deserves his tarnished legacy for a complete and total failure of the peace process, perhaps we should cut him some slack on the war process.

I'd love to be proved wrong on this, either that Bush knew things we didn't or that the intelligence did not suggest othe WMD's were beyond reasonable doubt. The only thing cooler than making sad attempts to justify my support for the invasion when I was 15, while my friends were buying 'Good Bush, Bad Bush' shirts and hiding them from their parents, would be to write one of those ever-so-trendy blog posts screaming 'BSUH IZ A WAR CRINIMAL LOL!!1!!'

A second, and maybe more important question, would be to ask ' Well, even if there weren't any WMD's, is the war justified because they got rid of Saddam Hussein?' It's a really interesting question, and one that serves up many moral conundrums about military intervention to protect human rights in general. But as it's 1:38am and I have a disgracefully busy day ahead of me tomorrow, it will have to wait for my next blog post.

Great Expectations

“The best things in life are unexpected - because there were no expectations.” (Eli Khamarov)

Like the weather, too much depends on expectations. Expectations rule out lives. Expectations are bad things. We should regulate or limit our expectations as much as possible. I know that I’m kinda swimming against the current here; the big secret to never-ending happiness according that (stupid) book “The Secret” is to expect that the things you want to happen will happen. (Sorry to ruin it for you, but now you don’t need to waste your time or money on it. Yay!)

So why are expectations - your beliefs about what will likely happen – bad? Well for one thing they regulate our behaviour. If you expect something is going to happen, you’ll act differently. You’ll act differently than were we to expect it to not happen, or if we were to have no expectations about it either way. So, for example, if you expect that hottie you picked up at the bar will do anal, you’ll probably act differently when you get together than how you’d act had you not had that expectation. But the adverse way expectations impact our behaviour is only half the problem. Expectations are so often the source of our suffering. When the things we desire don’t come to fruition, it sucks: If you expected something to happen, and it doesn’t, you can find yourself dishearten. And that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is the net result of when what you expected to happen failed to occur coupled with the way your behaviour was influenced. You acted like an idiot – you trotted around expecting certain things will come your way when they never did.

Sure, sometimes expectations will come true. And that can be the source of pure glee. But that’s not enough to offset to badness that can come from misplaced expectations. After all, you’ll still be joyful when things you would have expected come about even if you never expected them… but you won't endure the same suffering if they don’t come about and you had you never expected them. Moreover you wouldn’t have acted like an idiot either! So the safe bet is to minimize your expectations.

You might be thinking “Gee, Paul, you make an excellent point. But sometimes my behaviour - modified from my expectations - makes it more likely that those expectations will be realized. So can’t expectations still be a good thing?” Whether or not your expectations make it more or less likely that that which you expect to happen will happen is irrelevant. You shouldn’t want to influence people and their actions in such a way. Even though it’s nice to get what you want, you should respect everyone individual agency – their individual ability and right to decide what to do and how to contribute to the outcome of a situation. (Things are different, of course, if they actively seek your in put in making their decisions.)

Having said all that, it’s important to realize exactly what I’m saying here (and what I’m distinctively not saying). I’m not being pessimistic here; I’m not advocating negative expectations instead of positive ones (e.g. instead of expecting that mommy will remember your birthday this year, expecting that she won’t remember). That would be pessimistic. That’s not what I’m saying. Instead, what I am saying, is that you shouldn’t have expectations about things either way (e.g. instead of expecting that mommy will remember your birthday this year, have no expectations about her behaviour – don’t think that she will; and don’t think that she won’t). This is the liberating view I’m espousing here. I could say more, but I think that’s enough for now. This is just my spur-of-the-moment thoughts on the subject. I could be wrong. After all, what do I know.