Pangloss

Quite right, and as a result, I blew that political analysis completely. Thanks for the correction.

For those who don't know, the Weekly Standard is more or less the rallying point for the neo-conservative movement. Its founder and editor is William Kristol, who also created the Project for the New American Century, one of the neo-con think-tanks and one of the main sources for the development of neo-con political positions over the past decade (membership in PNAC is generally considered to be one of the main indicators of whether a public figure in the administration "is a neo-con"; for example, Senator and former HUD secretary Mel Martinez was not a member of PNAC, but Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfled and Vice President Dick Cheney are members). Kristol is a regular contributor at Fox News Channel, and Fox owner Ruppert Murdoch helped fund the Weekly Standard at startup. Andrew Ferguson is the senior editor for the Standard. The new issue, celebrating the 10th anniversary, is interesting in a number of respects, one of which is some rather eye-opening criticism of the current state of the conservative movement. For example: Interesting, isn't it? If you view neo-cons as simply politically-active citizens with a perfectly reasonable political view, this is perhaps no great shocker. The Standard does criticize the administration from time to time, and is one of the few places where you will find the last vestiges of the pro-entitlement aspect of the movement (i.e. "welfare is okay", normally not a conservative position). Others, who see neo-cons as evil, will no doubt see something nefarious at work here. But either way, I think it's interesting, simply from the perspective of someone who observes politics and the Big Game. So I thought I'd pass it along.

Somehow I don't think Michael Moore will be investigating this, by the way. Jefferson is an African American and a Democrat. IMO this sort of thing just underscores the need for objective analysis of what happened.

This guy is pretty outrageous. Even as he was complaining about the Bush administration's poor response to Katrina, this guy used the National Guard to rescue belongings from his own home while poor citizens waiting at the Superdome for rescue. Apparently a brief tour was ordered, with the Guard escorting Jefferson around his district. When the tour passed near his home, Jefferson ordered the truck to stop next to his door (so he wouldn't have to step in the rising water), and he disappeared into his house, keeping the troop of six soldiers waiting for an HOUR while he threw items into several suitcases. When they went to leave, the truck was stuck in the mud, and a rescue helicopter was ordered to the scene. The chopper in question had four citizens on board who had been rescued from rooftops. A rescue worker descended from the helicopter to a terrace on the upper story and broke into the house through some French windows. The esteemed gentleman from Louisiana observed the situation for a while and then decided that he didn't want to ride in the helicopter after all. The chopper was sent on its way and rescued three more rooftop-clingers before it ran low on fuel and returned to base. Eventually a larger truck with additional troops was dispatched to the scene to rescue Williams and the first group of soldiers. All returned safely to base. Williams' reaction to all this? He's pissed that his French windows were broken. And he's still blaming the whole aftermath problem on Bush. http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/HurricaneKatrina/story?id=1123495&page=1

I think that's a fair point, Ophiolite, but I also see value in fighting demogogery itself. I think it would be a useful lesson for Americans to be educated on the concept and to learn to recognize it. There is a school of thought that believes that the Roman republic was destroyed by demogogery. The general perception exists that America is immune to such a method of destruction because of the Constitution. But in fact I think that history has shown that any piece of paper can be subverted by a sufficiently determined leadership effort and a sufficiently ignorant and unconcerned populace. After all, that has to be what Jefferson ment by "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance." What I'm hoping is that the lesson that future historians will remember from the "American Experiment" is that a representative government can work, rather than the lesson that such efforts are always undermined by demogogery in the end (so why bother).

Sure, I just meant it must be disappointing for those folks on an individual level. My general feeling is that we're way over the top in our expectations of federal government stepping in, and it's the worst body to expect efficient help from. We need to be less reactionary to what we see in the media and more intelligent in how we respond to disasters in particular. The biggest success stories in both Katrina and Andrew are, in many ways, the responses by private citizens and companies.

For what it's worth, some of my friends here in South Florida say that FEMA responded to Katrina MUCH faster than it responded to Andrew. I would hope so, since Andrew was *13 years* ago, but it's worth noting that Andrew has been listed several times over the last couple of weeks as a FEMA *success* story, which most here in South Florida consider to be an outrageous fabrication. (Mea culpa: I didn't live here at the time.) The reason why I think that came up is because the FEMA director at the time was Clinton's man, who is generally being held up now as "the comparison" -- the guy who left it "working" so it ain't his fault that it's "broken". I believe he's been hired by the governor of Louisiana to aid the state effort in cleanup and restoration. My point just being that spin is spin, and both sides get pretty outrageous about it sometimes. Have these people no shame? How long will it be before we see Michael Brown running for some office in a red state somewhere, blaming his plight on Senate Democrats and anybody-but-Bush reactionism, rather than his own resume-doctoring bad behavior? Just as a side note, something like 180 homes were destroyed by Katrina in South Florida, and FEMA won't help them because they're below the 800-homes threshold. How's that for a kick in the pants?

My hat is off the ScienceForums Debate Team. That's one heck of a set of posts up there. You people are ruining the stereotype that electronic debate consists of nothing more than flame wars and cat fights. (grin) I even find myself nodding grudgingly at Bascule's comment that I've made a categorization fallacy -- it's a fair point. Seriously, nicely done. I really enjoyed reading this thread. I guess the only thing I can really take a lick at is this: By my calculation we spend as much in the War on Poverty every day as we spend in Iraq every week (and that only if you assume $200 billion/year on Iraq' date=' which I think is unlikely). Since 1964 we've spent $6.6 [i']trillion[/i] in the War on Poverty (according to George Will's column this morning in the Washginton Post*). How's that working out for us so far? * (subscription) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/12/AR2005091201260.html

Yah, well put.

So, thanks to legions of readers looking for a chief justice who can roll with the punches, here are the 13 Most Surprising Off-the-Wall Questions for John Roberts: 13. If you were stuck on an island at sea and had to choose one reality TV star to be your only companion, who would it be and why? And which one condiment would you take with you? 12. Follow-up question: You are trapped alone on a deserted island. What five amendments do you take with you? 11. Who is your least-favorite philosopher, and why? 10. Why does a chicken coop have two doors? 9. Who do you like better, Lynyrd Skynyrd or the Allman Brothers? 8. Have you read On the Origin of Species? Explain the bit about the sexual relations of barnacles. 7. If a person could travel back in time to the 1940s and prevent a political enemy's parents from meeting (and thus prevent the enemy from existing), who would have claim to bring suit against the time traveler, and which decade would have jurisdiction? 6. What's your strategy for solving Sunday's Su Do Ku in the Washington Post? 5. Why shouldn't the ground be able to cause a fumble in football? 4. What changes would you recommend to the motion picture rating system? 3. If you and five other friends were going to dress up as the Village People for Halloween, which Village Person would you want to be? 2. If you had to cast a vote to end either pornography or abortion, but not both, which would you choose? 1. Which Rice Krispies mascot would make the best Chief Justice: Snap, Crackle, or Pop? http://www.slate.com/id/2126134/

Allow me to submit another example of how demogogery is dangerous. Rapper Kanye West goes on national television and says "George Bush doesn't care about black people". Civic leaders and Democrats back him to the hilt, with the African American leadership saying that NBC was wrong to "censor" him when the show appeared on tape delay on the west coast. But here's a nasty question I don't hear anyone in the media asking: Would he have said that if a Democrat were in the White House? Consider: We can speculate with a fair degree of certainty that if Katrina had struck in 1997 the result would have been virtually the same. Louisiana has actually gotten MORE funding SINCE the Clinton administration left office for the purposes of dealing with the levee situation. So it's a reasonable conclusion that the city would have flooded, and that the situation 2-3 days into the aftermath would have been very similar. If we assume for the sake of argument that FEMA and outside Guard help is called in at exactly the same moment, then we already have widespread looting, death, and mayhem on the ground. Affecting exactly the same people. Would Kanye West have stood there on national television and stated that Bill Clinton, the first African American president, didn't care about black people? And if not, then the question gets even uglier: Why did he say it? If he isn't willing to apply that same label to whomever happens to be sitting in the White House at that theoretical moment, then why not? It's easy to follow a rabble rouser. Thinking is harder. And NOTHING about freedom is easy except throwing it away. "Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one." - Voltaire

Well I respect your position, Al, even though I don't think that's what Moore is doing. There is certainly a point to be made for the position that the White House spin doctors are in full swing over Katrina, and part of their "swing" is to defray and deflect. I'm totally on board with that being a bad thing. But the opposite -- saying we should render full judgement NOW -- isn't any better. What the situation calls for, as I've said elsewhere, is a full, objective, bi-partisan investigation, along the lines of the 9/11 Commission. What I'm really objecting to is the demogogery more than the message itself. Reving up the mindless hordes to do his bidding. That just irks me. You don't solve problems by inflaming and/or terrifying people. You solve problems through reasoned discussion, logical and objective analysis, drawing conclusions and implementing them. Michael Moore contributes nothing to that process in any way, shape or form. (Uh oh, there goes my extremist-moderate streak kicking in.)

I don't see how. If you interpreted above and beyond what I actually said, that's hardly my fault. You seem to be really struggling with this. Why don't you just say what you want to say? I've already pointed out where he's saying that we should not investigate further. I'll post the quote again: How much more unequivocal can he possibly be? Say what you mean and mean what you say, please. I do. Which is why you're finding it so hard to spin me right now.

On the contrary. I think it unlikely that rolling FEMA into DHS had much to do with the Katrina failures. But there's only one way we're going to find that out, and it's the exact opposite of what Michael Moore wants us to do. Note that he's actually saying, in the quote I posted above, that we should NOT investigate further, that we should NOT dig deeper, that we should NOT listen to various points of view. I've seen few statements from him that are more indicative of what a rabble rouser he really is. There are probably very few people in the world who are less interested in the truth than Michael Moore.

The odd thing is that the most recent interviews I've seen with Sharpton and even with Howard Dean seem tame and even reasonable for the most part. I didn't agree with Sharpton's defense of Kanye West, but in general he had a valid point the fact that West was just giving his opinion (which NBC had a right to censor). Sharpton made it clear in his Bill O'Reilly interview that he didn't condone what West said, that he did not feel the authorities were shooting black people because they were black, and did not condone looting. Same deal with Howard Dean, whom I saw in an interview yesterday on a local political show here in Florida. Dean, of all people, surprised me by saying that now is not the time to pass judgement, and that he felt the president does care about those people. Of course he went on to blame the whole thing on the Bush administration, but that's to be expected. I guess my point being that things could be worse in the post-Katrina demogogery department. But Moore and the Moveon.org crowd totally cross the line with some of their ridiculous statements.

Latest diatribe from Michael Moore, who is apparently planning to make a movie about Hurricane Katrina: http://www.imdb.com/news/wenn/2005-09-12/celeb/2 And yet, it was Moore and the far left that INSISTED that we implement ALL of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Report, which is why FEMA was rolled into DHS. Unbelievable.

No, you're right, I'm not concerned about plant rights or feelings. What I am is curious about hypocrisy, and why otherwise intelligent people sometimes fall prey to it (and why I fall prey to it myself). It's your position, you're entitled to it and I support your freedom of choice completely. But did you notice something? You brought it up as an example of personal extremism, remember? In other words, it's a position that you have which you feel goes beyond the normal bounds of reason. Otherwise you wouldn't have mentioned it, right? But as soon as I questioned you on it, you went right down a normal, even predictable route: a defensive response, even to the point of linking a clearly partisan source. I'm not trying to pick on you, I'm just pointing out that "fessing up" is easier said than done! Had the shoe been on the other foot, for example had you challenged me on my position on extremist moderacy, I'm sure I would have reacted in exactly the same way. Doesn't all this just more or less make your original point? Clearly we all have extremist positions that we have trouble admitting to. Another example might be the way Thomas Kirby was so adamant about science over religion, but asked us to take it on faith whenever he spoke of the problems of child abuse and sexual predator laws, refusing to support his points and calling it "common sense". He was, in effect, becoming the thing he hated most -- someone who insisted that others accept his opinion at face value, as a matter of faith. I found that to be fascinating -- hypocrisy that blatant is seriously rare. But in the end it was just the same thing we all do. Are we just incapable of recognizing such flaws in ourselves? This thread -- just the fact that we're talking about it -- would suggest otherwise. But I'm not sure we can really do anything about it in a substantive way. I think we can joke about it, or talk about it on an impersonal basis, but as soon as we feel that personal pressure, the judgement of others creeping in, up go the walls. And they're VERY difficult to actually deal with. As I say, an interesting thread. My compliments.

Hehe! But in fact don't you have exactly the same amount of incontrovertible, uninterprable evidence of plant suffering and value-holding as you do about the same in animals? Put another way, not all animals express themselves in familiar ways, nor do we know for a fact that animal expressions represent the same internal thoughts and emotions that we use those expressions to represent in ourselves. So why assume that plants lack such feelings, just because they cannot visually express them? All that aside, doesn't moral vegetarianism, in the final analysis, come down to a matter of faith?

Well if so they're not alone. Oliver Stone's 9/11 movie is in full pre-production mode now, I believe. Nicolas Cage stars as a Port Authority officer trapped under the rubble of the WTC, reminiscing on his family life and no doubt wondering why he voted for Bush in the 2000 election.

But what about plants, IMM? Don't they deserve our sympathy and care? Why do animals rate special treatment, and who are you to say they deserve care, and plants do not?

A number of governments in Africa are strong and stable, and have human rights records no worse than China's (not that that has anything to do with economic success, or so China keeps showing us). I don't think there's any particular reason why Africa, even aside from South Africa, can't compete with China and, say, India, or SE Asia. It's just a matter of taking the appropriate measures to make that happen, something they have so far been unable to do, mainly due to corruption, so far as I can tell (in my limited experience with the subject). I read somewhere that when Bush came into office the leadership of a number of African nations got together and declared that they hoped they would be getting some kind of Marshall Plan for Africa. In fact they've gotten something like the equivalent of four Marshal Plans from the US, and they've pissed away all of 'em, mainly into the pockets of corrupt leaders. This is why we were somewhat hesitent to pack in another wad when Geldof and Bono came around earlier in the year. But they're taking a new approach over there, so I guess we'll give it another shot. Sooner or later you'd think something would stick.

On a more serious note, I wonder sometimes if I am too adamant on the need to avoid partisanship and ideologies in order to further humanity. I think there is a point to be made that having people take opposite sides on an issue can aid in ensuring that all aspects of an issue are fully considered. The trick, of course, being to know when to stop being a partisan and meet on that middle ground. But when I say I wonder if I'm an "extremist" about this issue, what I mean is that sometimes I'm less tolerant than I could be about listening to points of view that are a bit farther out from the center than normal. It may be that good ideas can still come from farther-out positions. So there's my mea culpa for the day.

There is no way that you will ever convince me that I hold any extremist views!!!! (Fun thread!)

Isn't that what they said about China? What's the difference?

I love my wife dearly but she doesn't know a spatula from a spanner. I do all the cooking, and she brings home the bacon. (That's literally the deal -- I *hate* the grocery store. I don't know if it was just some kind of freak accident in my youth or what, but I loathe the place. Go figure.)