Stupidity – Page 3 – Rolling Doughnut

Fire Officer Beavis

This is why television broadcasts should show fans running on the field at sporting events:

… A Philadelphia police officer Tased a fan who ran onto the field before the eighth inning. The kid seemed to be running around and waving a towel, but police took no chances. In fact, neither did Jayson Werth. He readied himself for a possible altercation when the fan jumped onto the field near right field, but the fan quickly darted past him before being takent [sic] down in left.

The Phillies said in a statement: “This is the first time that a Taser gun has been used by Philadelphia police to apprehend a field jumper. The Police Department is investigating this matter and the Phillies are discussing with them whether in future situations this is an appropriate use of force under these circumstances. That decision will be made public.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported the fan has been charged as a juvenile with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and defiant trespass. Police Commissioner Charles Ramsay defended the officer’s decision to Taser the juvenile.

“It was inappropriate for him to be out there on the field,” Ramsay told KYW Radio (1060-AM). “Unless I read something to the contrary, that officer acted appropriately. I support him 100 percent.”

An individual is tased for trespassing. Officials with the Major League Baseball team involved understands that this deserves scrutiny, talking about an “appropriate use of force.” [Disclosure: As I’ve made clear throughout my blogging, I’m a Phillies fan.] The police commissioner believes that the officer was justified in tasing the individual because trespassing is “inappropriate”. This should scare everyone.

Of course trespassing is inappropriate, as the property owner controls his property and every sports team has a policy against fans entering the field of play. But tasers can be lethal. Would the cop shoot the kid in the back with his firearm for this? Was he just compensating for being out-of-shape and not wanting to engage in the physical confrontation necessary to subdue the individual? The taser, as it’s being used, isn’t a tool for police to do their job. It’s now a substitute. That is worthy of actions to rein in police, not chuckles.

**********

For reference, watch this video about a suspect who died after police tased him. There are many implications, but notice how the spokesman blamed the now-dead suspect for getting himself tased and subsequently choking on a bag of marijuana he’d previously, visibly shoved in his mouth. Is that the mentality we want to endorse for any police force?

Grace, go to bed. You obviously have had a very busy day of crazy.¹

Here’s actress Debra Messing testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health in her role as an ambassador for PSI, asking for more federal tax dollars to support “voluntary, adult” male circumcision in Africa (emphasis added):

… I would like to tell you today about two prevention tools that could make a difference if there is continued investment: male circumcision and HIV testing and counseling.

First, voluntary adult male circumcision. There is now strong evidence that male circumcision reduces the risk of heterosexually acquired HIV infection in men by about 60 percent, yet only about one in ten Zimbabwean adult men are circumcised. PSI and its partners run circumcision clinics in Zimbabwe and other countries, with support from PEPFAR and other donors.

I was invited to observe the procedure, which is free to the client, completely voluntary and according to the young man I spoke with who underwent the procedure, painless. The cost of the procedure at that clinic—including follow-up care and counseling—is about $40 U.S. dollars.

UNAIDS and the World Health Organization have issued guidance stating that male circumcision should be recognized as an important intervention to reduce the risk of heterosexually acquired HIV infection in men.

Even with no demand creation, the clinic I visited serves upwards of 35 clients per day. It is estimated that if male circumcision is scaled up to reach 80 percent of adult and newborn males in Zimbabwe by 2015, it could avert almost 750,000 adult HIV infections—that equals 40 percent of all new HIV infections that would have occurred otherwise without the intervention—and it could yield total net savings of $3.8 billion U.S. dollars between 2009 and 2025. Male circumcision programs get robust support from the U.S. government in Zimbabwe and other countries, but greater resources would yield greater results.

Always remember that when public health officials – or actresses – talk about voluntary, adult male circumcision, they never mean voluntary or adult.

¹ Title quote reference here.

Spying on Students in Pennsylvania

For a brief summary:

The FBI is investigating a Pennsylvania school district accused of secretly activating webcams inside students’ homes, a law enforcement official with knowledge of the case told The Associated Press on Friday.

The school district has acknowledged that each student’s school-issued computer has software that allows the district to access it remotely, including the ability to capture images. My guess is that, in the case of the student who’s parents have sued, the alleged image was likely something the student downloaded and the school saw on his hard drive. If I’m right, it’s still creepy, but (momentarily) relegates to possibility the theories that the school captured images of naked students.

Since the privacy implications must still be considered, the article includes commentary from privacy experts. The experts aren’t quoted as saying anything surprising. The reporter offers a different perspective in her transition:

The Pennsylvania case shows how even well-intentioned plans can go awry if officials fail to understand the technology and its potential consequences, privacy experts said. Compromising images from inside a student’s bedroom could fall into the hands of rogue school staff or otherwise be spread across the Internet, they said.

Which school officials would not be ‘rogue’ if such pictures fell in their hands? I take the implication that somehow there are school staff members who should be legitimately authorized to see such pictures, that some spying is appropriate. I’m sure that’s lazy writing rather than a disturbing lack of skepticism of authority. But someone obviously authorized the installation of this software and didn’t notify the students or their parents that it was included. I always assume stupidity first, if it’s possible, but it would be unwise to rule out an conscious disregard for civil liberties.

(They’re children, after all. They have no rights at school or away from school if school officials deem those rights an impediment to order.)

Correlation Still Does Not Equal Causation

Nancy Pelosi’s office blogged about the Department of Labor’s latest jobs report. This graph is included in the brief entry:

From this, Rep. Pelosi declares:

Today’s jobs report marks a welcome step in the right direction for our economy and our families: the unemployment rate is going down. The Recovery Act, which Congress passed one year ago to pull our economy back from the brink of collapse, has already created or saved nearly 2 million jobs so far.

Yet our work is far from over. This recession that President Obama inherited has taken the worst toll on our job market since World War II. Too many workers have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. Leaders of both parties must work together to keep our recovery on track by helping small businesses create jobs, investing in our infrastructure and clean energy industries, and keeping police, firefighters, and teachers on the job. Congress will continue to act to build a new foundation for long-term prosperity.

I see the correlation I’m supposed to perceive, but that doesn’t prove what Rep. Pelosi expects me to assume, that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is the reason the graph looks as it does. It’s easy to claim success when you establish superficial results as the standards for success. If she’s going to make this claim, she must defend it with specific details about how money was spent and how that improved the jobs situation. Saying it isn’t enough if you’re skeptical of power rather than merely skeptical of your ideological opponents.

(Via Irene retweeting Markos Moulitsas)

Ezra Klein’s Fundamental Pact

It’s tempting to point and snicker at the schadenfreude in this Ezra Klein entry, Demoralized Democrats, but that’s rather pointless. Anyway, there’s a useful insight to be drawn from his partisan naivety. Consider:

The fundamental pact between a political party and its supporters is that the two groups believe the same thing and pledge to work on it together. And the Democratic base feels that it has held to its side of the bargain. It elected a Democratic majority and a Democratic president. It swallowed tough compromises on the issues it cared about most. It swallowed concessions to politicians it didn’t like and industry groups it loathed. But it persisted. Because these things are important. That’s why those voters believe in them. That’s why they’re Democrats.

The problem with Klein’s fundamental pact is that disaster must result from believing one can be all things to all people, even when “all people” is a subset of all people. He seems to believe the Democratic base consists of everyone who voted Democrat in November 2008. But the proof against his theory is within his paragraph. Where do concessions to politicians come from? Where do concessions to industry groups come from? Our corrupt two-party system requires compromises like this because the complexities of life must be divided into either-or options. But there are many people who possess ideas and preferences other than either-or. It’s a stupid way to run a government, but it’s obviously our current system. Klein’s fundamental pact doesn’t exist the way he thinks it does. I suspect his belief is widespread among all partisans, which is why this stomach-churning political pendulum continues.

The silliness of this supposed pact is why libertarians prefer a government of limited, enumerated powers. Everything else is left to individuals to decide for themselves. Concessions are voluntary or there is no agreement. Life isn’t viewed as a zero-sum game, as it must be in politics. The partisans continue playing this game, bloating our government more as each party’s minority-of-the-population base wins its next “decisive” victory to dictate public policy, believing that somehow its newest win is the final, lasting proof of its divine correctness. The rest of us must take solace in the predictable schadenfreude, which is expensive and unrewarding.

Why I Skim The Daily Dish

I still have Andrew Sullivan’s blog in my RSS reader, but only as a way to stay informed on what’s happening. Most days I only skim it, not carefully. Where he used to be open to questions, however scattered he may have bounced around on his emotional responses, now he usually exhibits a single with-me-or-against-me attitude. In anticipation of Brown’s victory in yesterday’s special election for the Massachusetts Senate seat previously held by Ted Kennedy, Sullivan wrote (emphasis in original):

The second explanation is the Brooks/Noonan theory that somehow everything feels wrong to the Independent or conservative-leaning voters. They have an instinctual fear of more government and, even though the Senate bill couldn’t be more minimalist within the confines of expanding access and controlling costs, this gnaws at them. I think this is a legitimate feeling (I have it too) – but an illegitimate argument.

Look: the markets conservatives have believed in have failed.

As the more honest conservatives (Greenspan, Posner, Bartlett) have noted, the financial crisis was a clear indicator that we need a more active and vigilant government in regulating the financial sector. And when you look at the results of America’s hybrid and dysfunctional healthcare system, it is more than clear that the status quo is unsustainable. Yes, this system has pioneered amazing breakthroughs and a pharmaceutical revolution that has transformed lives. But the cost and inefficiency of this is simply staggering. Look at the graph above. If you think it’s great, support the GOP. They don’t want to change anything, but a few tweaks.

Which part of America’s hybrid and dysfunctional health care system proves that the market has failed? It’s an interesting claim, but it’s not an argument. It’s a silly analysis of what the market should provide and how much it should cost. There’s nothing objective here. There’s only the expectation that we all agree that the government is the only way to fix the market failure of our hybrid health care system. As he writes later in his post:

At least Obama seems interested in government. The GOP seems interested only in politics and rhetoric that can sustain the bubble of deep denial they live in.

Obama and the rest of the Democrats are interested in government as the solution, which is the wrong approach. It’s easy to suggest that government will be reformed in the process, but that’s a rather nonsensical assurance when the problem is systemic in our interest-driven political system. Wishful thinking will not stop the flow of special handouts and exemptions that result with government involvement.

There’s a complex case to be debated, which hasn’t happened because it’s easier to spew anecdotes as universal fact. It’s easier to write “…Tea Partiers are just opposing the working poor having a chance to buy health insurance,” as Sullivan wrote in November, than it is to confront a group’s objections. In fairness, Sullivan has questioned what Republicans would do instead. But assuming indifference and malice in the face of silence is unhelpful speculation.

This is not to endorse the Republican approach. I find the party to be devoid of any value, which is to say I hold Democrats and Republicans in equal esteem. Nor am I endorsing Senator-elect Brown as a beacon of principled leadership newly arrived in Washington. From the little I’ve read, he’s more of the same, defending torture by the American government, for example. But him not having a coherent or satisfactory answer on the current Senate and House health care bills does not equate with there being no coherent or satisfactory rebuttals to the current bills. As Mark at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen wrote:

It is increasingly frustrating to me that, for many supporters of Obama, any belief that the existing health care reform bills will do more harm than good is automatically written off as being in bad faith or, as it were, “nihilistic.”

I believe I’ve advocated here that any health care reform aimed at reducing costs must start with untangling health care from employment. An individual’s employer is no more responsible for her health than it is for insuring her automobile or home. It’s a holdover from the ridiculous tax rates of the World War II-era, where offering health insurance as an employment benefit was economically wise. Rather than fix the rates, government enshrined the concept in tax law. That was stupid, but it worked when people worked at a single company for life. Today it’s uncommon to have had only a single employer by age 30. If we don’t fix that broken government-provided incentive, we’ll continue to have people lose their health insurance when they lose their jobs.

The current legislation keeps that tie, but punishes indiscriminately for receiving “too much” of a benefit. That’s just doubling down on the madness of the past, thinking that government can fix what government broke by adding more government. It’s the nonsensical thinking of the central planner, the kind who believes that anything that isn’t what it should be in a hybrid market is clear proof that the market has failed, requiring more of the planner’s expertise.

To show that other ideas exist, Megan McArdle offers her suggestion:

Raise the Medicare tax by half a percentage point, and eliminate the tax-deductibiity of health insurance benefits for people making more than $150K a year in household income, $100K for singles. Then make the federal government the insurer of last resort. Any medical expenses more than 15% or 20% of household income, get picked up by Uncle Sam.

I’m not a fan of this because it still messes with the tax code, encouraging employers and employees to tinker with non-cash compensation for borderline salaries. Other people may want that approach, but I’d rather have cash and make my own decisions. Social engineering is not good. For example, a $100k threshold means different realities in D.C. versus Omaha. It’s a lot of money either way, but that punishes people unfairly in areas with a higher cost of living. The tax code would need to be more complicated to rectify this problem, which proves the need to simplify away from government trying to influence “correct” decisions.

That said, I’m willing to consider it as an opening to ridding the tax code of the health insurance exemption.

So, alternative ideas clearly exist. But it’s easier for Sullivan to vent, lumping everyone who disagrees with him into a tidy, immature opposition. In a later post yesterday, he wrote in a post titled “A Libertarian Revolt?” (emphasis in original):

Since so much of the energy behind the Brown candidacy seems to be driven by anti-government sentiment, why is someone like me – who actually criticized Bush for being big government long before these late-comers – so dismayed?

Here’s why. The rage is adolescent. It did not exist when the Republicans were in power and exploded government during years of economic growth. Fox News backed Bush to the hilt through it all, as he added mounds of unfunded entitlements to the next generation’s debt, and then brought Beck in as soon as Obama inherited the mess. Scott Brown, moreover, has no plans to cut the debt or control government: none. He is running in d
efense of every cent in Medicare. He wants to increase the deficit by more tax cuts. He favors an all-powerful executive branch that can suspend habeas corpus and torture people. He has no intention of cutting defense. His position on the uninsured is: get your own states to help. His position on soaring healthcare costs is: stop the first attempt to control them.

We hear Karl Rove lamenting big government! We hear Dick Cheney worrying about deficits! The cynicism here is gob-smacking. And the libertarian right is just happy to go along.

Like I said, I don’t endorse Brown for these reasons. If I lived in Massachusetts, I wouldn’t have voted for him or Coakley in yesterday’s election. So why am I lumped into the nihilist group because I’m a libertarian who thinks the current health care bills would cause harm to the nation? Sullivan is aware enough to understand that Libertarians ≠ Republicans, yet he pretends they’re synonymous without looking at what libertarians offer because both groups oppose the solution he wants. It’s unfair to rant incomprehensibly against something that is clearly untrue. One might say it’s adolescent, which is why The Daily Dish is no longer must reading for me.

Our Security Makes Me Afraid

This:

The man who is believed to have slipped into a secured area of Newark Liberty International Airport and to have caused a six-hour shutdown of a major terminal on Sunday has been arrested, Port Authority officials said on Friday night.
…

Mr. [Haisong] Jiang’s arrest [on a charge of defiant trespass] came a day after a video showing security footage of the incident was released by Mr. Lautenberg. It shows a man in a light-colored jacket standing near where arriving passengers exit a secured part of the airport. When a security guard leaves his post, the man embraces a woman and slips across the rope into the secured part of the terminal. The two then walk away together.

I don’t have much to say on the facts of the case. I haven’t seen the video, so I can’t decide whether or not the Mr. Jiang’s alleged actions were intentional. Instead, I want to comment on this:

The security guard has been on administrative leave since Tuesday, and he faces disciplinary action, according to the Transportation Security Administration. Derrick F. Thomas, a national vice president with union representing the guard, told The A.P. that the guard has “been rated a model employee.”

While in high school, I worked at a drug store. One day, the assistant manager in charge of the store during my shift left for approximately 30 minutes to run personal errands. She left a senior clerk in charge. If my memory is correct, that clerk was a high school student like me. Nothing occurred at the store during her absence. The next time I reported to work, I learned the manager had fired the assistant manager for her action.

If ~~secure~~ restricted areas of an airport demands attention and scrutiny to each individual entering, as we’re told it does, what’s less severe here than what occurred at a drug store twenty years ago that makes administrative leave appropriate rather than immediate dismissal?

My initial conclusion is to accept the obvious distinction. The drug store was a private enterprise. The TSA is a government entity. The former requires accountability. The latter can’t. I’m inclined to be skeptical of this conclusion, since I don’t wish to be an ideologue. Then I read this (via KipEsquire):

A bystander waiting for an arriving passenger noticed the breach and told the guard. TSA officials then discovered that surveillance cameras at the security checkpoint had not recorded the breach and were forced to consult backup security cameras operated by Continental Airlines.

There could be any number of issues why such a lapse might occur, technical or otherwise. None of them are acceptable. This is security theater, not security. And we’re doubling down on our stupidity with every new, predictable incident.

“Doesn’t everyone believe that it is evil to be selfish?”

Spoiler Alert: This entry includes a discussion of plot points from “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged.”

In the New York Times Adam Kirsch reviewed Anne Heller’s new Ayn Rand biography, “Ayn Rand and the World She Made.” I have nothing to say regarding Heller’s book specifically because I haven’t read it yet. Here I wish to focus on Kirsch’s grasp on Ayn Rand’s two major novels. There is nothing to definitively suggest he hasn’t read them, although I suspect he hasn’t. There is plenty to prove that he hasn’t understood them if he has read them.

He reveals his ignorance in the first seven words of his review:

A specter is haunting the Republican Party — …

The implications of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead are as relevant against the Republican Party as they are against the Democratic Party. Neither cares about anything beyond handing out favors to its preferred group of insiders in exchange for continued power. The individual is a tool to be manipulated for the party’s needs. Kirsch’s references to Whitaker Chambers and Wendell Willkie should’ve been enough for him to at least explore the validity of his thesis. Instead he cited the rantings of outrage-huckster straw man Glenn Beck, who is not a libertarian.

(Note: The term libertarian is the easiest way to represent liberty here. But Rand was an Objectivist, which is similar but not synonymous. See here, for example.)

Next, Kirsch attempts to summarize Rand (emphasis added):

And while it’s not hard to understand Rand’s revenge-fantasy appeal to those on the right, would-be Galts ought to hear the story Anne C. Heller has to tell in her dramatic and very timely biography, “Ayn Rand and the World She Made.”

“Going Galt” is likely a revenge fantasy to those claiming they will now “Go Galt” as a result of some offense by the Obama administration, but that doesn’t guarantee it reflects the meaning of what they’ve co-opted. First, Rand would’ve been no less an opponent of George W. Bush’s administration than she would’ve been of Obama’s. Or likely any other presidential administration since the publication of Atlas Shrugged because of the ever-growing control of the modern presidency (and legislature) over the choices of individuals.

More importantly, “Going Galt” is about withdrawing from a society that seeks only to act as a leech. Some of the words Rand gave to Galt:

There is a difference between our strike and all those you’ve practiced for centuries: our strike consists, not of making demands, but of granting them. We are evil, according to your morality. We have chosen not to harm you any longer. We are useless, according to your economics. We have chosen not to exploit you any longer. We are dangerous and to be shackled, according to your politics. We have chosen not to endanger you, nor to wear the shackles any longer. We are only an illusion, according to your philosophy. We have chosen not to blind you any longer and have left you free to face reality-the reality you wanted, the world as you see it now, a world without mind.

We have granted you everything you demanded of us, we who had always been the givers, but have only now understood it. We have no demands to present to you, no terms to bargain about, no compromise to reach. You have nothing to offer us. We do not need you.

Galt’s speech is “goodbye,” not “let’s negotiate a compromise.” But it’s only a goodbye to the world of moochers and looters, not from producing or living as he wishes. Galt’s Gulch was a society where men and women produced. This year’s “Going Galt” meme was about going idle. It is a reaction to the ongoing problem identified by Rand, but it is not her solution.

For one thing, it is far more interesting than anything in Rand’s novels. … The characters Rand created, on the other hand — like Galt or Howard Roark, the architect hero of “The Fountainhead” — are abstract principles set to moving and talking.

This is at once the failure and the making of Rand’s fiction. The plotting and characterization in her books may be vulgar and unbelievable, just as one would expect from the middling Hollywood screenwriter she once was; but her message, while not necessarily more sophisticated, is magnified by the power of its absolute sincerity. …

Rand was a Romantic, which is why her characters “are abstract principles set to moving and talking.” I’ve heard it said (I forget by whom) that Rand was a 19th century writer in the 20th century. That’s an accurate description, but as a criticism from Kirsch, it’s purely subjective. The proper approach to criticism is to judge whether or not the literature works at what the writer attempted rather than whether or not the reviewer approves of the writer’s intent and/or method. Her ideas, which are what Kirsch attacks¹ in his essay, are not false simply because he perceives her characters as abstract principles.

Personally, I enjoyed Rand’s approach to both novels as literature. I found her characters and situations compelling and effective in achieving what she sought to present. However, she could not write sex scenes. The sexual relationships in both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged suggest that she had a bizarre concept of sexual intimacy. Whatever she believed in her life, Roark’s rape of Dominique in The Fountainhead is an inexcusable error in her presentation of Howard Roark as an idealized man. She was not a perfect novelist never to be questioned.

Kirsch reveals his misunderstanding (or ignorance) of Rand’s novels in this paragraph:

Rand’s particular intellectual contribution, the thing that makes her so popular and so American, is the way she managed to mass market elitism — to convince so many people, especially young people, that they could be geniuses without being in any concrete way distinguished. Or, rather, that they could distinguish themselves by the ardor of their commitment to Rand’s teaching. The very form of her novels makes the same point: they are as cartoonish and sexed-up as any best seller, yet they are constantly suggesting that the reader who appreciates them is one of the elect.

In Atlas Shrugged there is a difference between John Galt and James Taggart, but there is also a difference between John Galt and Eddie Willers. Rand presented the idea that talent is real and identifiable, but also that, while everyone isn’t moral, anyone can be. Eddie Willers wasn’t invited to “Go Galt” because he wasn’t a creator, but he wasn’t despised because the heroes of Atlas Shrugged knew him to be moral who recognized the difference between producing and looting. Patronizing to the untalented moral man? Probably. Evidence that Rand believed everyone could be an elite? No.

Kirsch next engages in the type of cartoonish characterization he attributes to Rand’s novels. When discussing Rand’s process for writing and publishing Galt’s speech, he states (emphasis added):

… Rand labored for more than two years on Galt’s radio address near the end of “Atlas Shrugged” — a long paean to capitalism, individualism and selfishness that makes Gordon Gekko’s “Greed is good” sound like the Sermon on the Mount. … [Random House’s Bennett] Cerf offered Rand an alternative: if she gave up 7 cents per copy in royalties,
she could have the extra paper needed to print Galt’s oration. That she agreed is a sign of the great contradiction that haunts her writing and especially her life. Politically, Rand was committed to the idea that capitalism is the best form of social organization invented or conceivable. This was, perhaps, an understandable reaction against her childhood experience of Communism. …

Yet while Rand took to wearing a dollar-sign pin to advertise her love of capitalism, Heller makes clear that the author had no real affection for dollars themselves. Giving up her royalties to preserve her vision is something that no genuine capitalist, and few popular novelists, would have done. It is the act of an intellectual, of someone who believes that ideas matter more than lucre. In fact, as Heller shows, Rand had no more reverence for the actual businessmen she met than most intellectuals do. The problem was that, according to her own theories, the executives were supposed to be as creative and admirable as any artist or thinker. They were part of the fraternity of the gifted, whose strike, in “Atlas Shrugged,” brings the world to its knees.

Wall Street is a fine film, but it’s full of hogwash as an attempted refutation of capitalism. The movie is Oliver Stone’s half-understanding of “greed”, which is similar to the very common misunderstanding of Ayn Rand’s vision of “selfishness.” Advocates of capitalism don’t push it as the best form of social organization in order to create an enclave of Gordon Gekkos. It is the best form of social organization because it is based on voluntary exchange. Decentralized decision-making is better at discovering and meeting individual needs and desires. It is based on the realization that elites can’t possibly know what’s best for everyone or anyone.

A key facet of economics is that all tastes and preferences are subjective. Rand’s willingness to concede 7 cents per copy to keep Galt’s speech unaltered indicates only that she valued the presentation of her unedited work more than 7 cents per copy. It was a voluntary exchange, mutually beneficial to her and Random House. Suggesting that this is a contradiction of her philosophy, that no “genuine capitalist” would ever give up money, is a pejorative little different than suggesting that “no genuine Jew” would choose principle over pennies. Kirsch’s statement is a smear of lesser magnitude because his stereotype is more acceptable politically, but it is still a smear.

Rand presented her view of money in Atlas Shrugged, as spoken by Francisco d’Anconia in his speech on money. An excerpt relevant to Kirsch’s cartoonish mischaracterization of capitalists:

“So you think that money is the root of all evil?” said Francisco d’Anconia. “Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

The notion that Rand’s only action consistent with her philosophy would be to hoard “lucre” reveals Kirsch’s ignorance of Rand. His disagreement with her does not disqualify him from critiquing her. Not understanding her novels or her philosophy does.

11/1 Update: The more I think about Adam Kirsch’s book review of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged Anne Heller’s Ayn Rand and the World She Made, the more I realize it was worse than I depicted. Rand explained what she thought of Kirsch’s idea of the “genuine capitalist” in The Fountainhead. His name was Gail Wynand, the news tycoon who published ideas he believed to be false in order to collect “lucre” from customers. Nothing was beyond Wynand’s preference for pennies over principle, as evidenced by his publishing Ellsworth Toohey’s words. In the novel’s conclusion, Wynand did not get what he wanted because he did not deserve it. He’d sacrificed himself for something smaller.

¹ Remember, though, that his essay is ostensibly a book review of a Rand biography.

Nancy McDermott Is Wrong On Circumcision

In replying to an essay against infant circumcision by Ethan Epstein at Spiked, Nancy McDermott attempts to defend parental proxy consent for routine infant male circumcision. She is mistaken.

The main problem with The Circumcision Discussion in general, and with Ethan Epstein’s article in particular, is the appeal to Science with a capital S to validate what is essentially a personal decision for parents. There isn’t really overwhelming evidence for or against infant circumcision, which makes this issue quite unambiguously a matter of preference, and more so than some other issues such as breastfeeding or vaccination where the scienctific research is abundant.

There is overwhelming scientific evidence against infant circumcision: the boy is healthy. Surgery on that healthy person is only unambiguously a matter of preference if the healthy person makes the decision for himself. It is not a valid personal decision for parents to make for their healthy children, male or female.

A good blogger would stop here because McDermott’s case is already refuted. But there’s more to say. Effectively, McDermott advocates using science without the capital E of Ethics. Would we entertain a discussion of whether or not removing the breast bud’s of female minors is a valid parental decision because it might reduce her risk of breast cancer? Of course not. Yet, we abandon such critical thinking because circumcision has a long history. We ignore that science without ethics encourages us to choose the science we prefer while ignoring objective reality. Again, the child is healthy. He needs no intervention. Therefore, the child’s human rights are involved, even when medical intervention is indicated. As discussed here it is the ~~primary~~ sole issue because the child is healthy. McDermott’s argument is the usual sophistry unleashed to defend genital cutting on male children as a parental right, despite the lack of need and demand that we only extend this right to their children of one gender.

She continues:

But that hasn’t stopped Epstein from trying to use Science to support what is essentially his own particular set of prejudices. In the end, his attack on infant circumcision is not based so much on evidence but rather on a degraded notion of personal autonomy that is contemptuous of parents and reduces the whole parent/child relationship to the matter of a few inches of skin.

Defining the foreskin down as “a few inches of skin” indicates a particular set of prejudices. Defining surgery as a relationship tactic indicates a particular set of prejudices, as well.

As for being contemptuous of parents, I am. When parents engage in contemptible behavior, I will call their behavior contemptible. Since it’s always worth repeating in this discussion, the child is healthy. Performing surgery on him (or her) for the parents’ subjective reasons is unethical because it violates a basic human rights principle: Performing medically unnecessary surgery on a non-consenting person is wrong. Where facts differ from any of the conditions involved in that principle, the discussion changes to proxy consent. But circumcision as understood in this essay involves all of the facts involved in the principle. Proxy consent is not valid.

Referring to Epstein’s essay, McDermott continues (footnote removed):

Take for instance his attempt to establish – or rather to assert – that male infant circumcision is on a par with ‘female circumcision’. It’s a comparison that defies even a basic familiarity with human anatomy. ‘Female circumcision’, or Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) as it is usually called, involves the removal of some or all of a woman’s external genitalia and is associated with side effects like intense pain, infection, haemorrhaging, infertility and urinary incontinence. Comparable surgery in a man would involve the removal of most of the penis and the scrotum. But male circumcision as it is currently practiced consists of the removal of the foreskin and nothing else. Statistically it is a very safe procedure with few complications (in some cases, there may be minor bleeding or a local infection).

The moral equivalency exists because medically unnecessary surgery on a non-consenting person is wrong. Gender is irrelevant. Extent of damage is irrelevant. The World Health Organization defines female genital mutilation as “procedures that intentionally alter or injure female genital organs for non-medical reasons.” The intent is generally different between male circumcision in America and female genital cutting in other cultures, but a well-intentioned act can still be objectively harmful. Outcome matters. And male circumcision meets the definition applied to female genital cutting, since the male child’s genitals are intentionally altered for non-medical reasons.” There is usually a difference in degree, but there is no difference in kind.

Given that male genital cutting matches the definition applied to female genital cutting, it’s crucial to explore how McDermott is under-informed about FGM. As it’s typically practiced, it involves removal of some or all of a female’s external genitalia. But FGM is defined to include “all other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes, e.g. pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterizing the genital area.” These (less commonly practiced) forms are similar in enough ways to male circumcision to make the point. Parents who force it on their daughters often give similar subjective reasons for both procedures. Yet, our anti-FGM laws make no distinction for extent of cutting or personal preference involved in the parents’ decision. The focus is on the autonomy (and health) of the minor, which is where the focus should be.

Yet, it’s easier to explain why McDermott is wrong. How does she arrive at the implied conclusion that removing a male child’s foreskin is not “the removal of some or all” of his external genitalia? Implicitly (and incorrectly) positing that the foreskin and its removal are trivial isn’t enough. She ignores the truth that, as surgery, circumcision is harm. Instead, she relies on self-reporting studies that she believes support her stance (footnote omitted):

Epstein doesn’t do much better when he tries to show evidence for psychological trauma and sexual dysfunction as a result of circumcision. He relies on a 2002 paper written by self-proclaimed ‘intactivists’ which indicates that some men enjoy sex less after circumcision. Had he more objectively investigated what he says is ‘quite evidentially true’, he might have come across any number of studies that show the opposite. My favourite is a large-scale study from 2008 (with over 4,500 participants) in which an overwhelming majority of Kenyan men reported no difference in sexual satisfaction or function after their circumcisions.

What is incompatible in comparing a study that indicates some men enjoy sex less after circumcision and a study that shows an overwhelming majority of men reported no difference? “Some men” and “overwhelming majority” are both synonymous with “less than 100%” for the purposes of the ethical discussion of medically-unnecessary child circumcision. Some males will not be happy being circumcised. I am not. Some men will suffer more than the standard, “acceptable” damage. The issue is about an individual right, not a right based on parental desires.

Continuing:

It is striking that midway through Epstein’s article the CDC’s proposal to ‘promote’ infant circumcision mysteriously transforms into a plan to ‘m
andate’ infant circumcision. This is not a slip and it’s not just that Epstein has got his facts wrong (although he has). …

I’ll pause here to make the point that I am not defending Epstein’s article. Were I to write about it, I’d call out the same flaw McDermott notes about the CDC’s intentions, as I wrote when the CDC news stories broke in August.

… Rather he makes this change in terminology because he isn’t really talking about the CDC at all any more. He’s talking about parents. For anti-circumcision activists, all infant circumcision is mandated in the sense that infants do not consent to it.

Exactly.

In what seems an attempt to defend her indifference to what the boy doesn’t need and may not want, her next paragraph demonstrates how she’s failed to grasp this fundamental aspect of the ethical case against infant circumcision.

On one level Epstein is right. It is of course impossible for an infant to consent to anything, and parents make decisions large and small on behalf of their children all the time. Some of these decisions affect their future and many are far more difficult than the question of whether or not to have your infant circumcised.

That some decisions parents make are “far more difficult” does not validate parental proxy for infant male circumcision.

In the second excerpt above, McDermott mentions the parent/child relationship. This inevitably leads to a mistake that advocates of infant circumcision, or at least of parental choice, make. McDermott is no different:

Many of the choices we make as parents profoundly affect our children. But when we look back at our own lives it is often things that didn’t concern us directly at all that had the greatest impact – things like parents’ decision to divorce, to change jobs, or to emigrate. As children we rarely have any say and yet we manage to adapt and often to flourish. One of the major reasons we are able to develop this resilience is because we can depend on our parents. It is the parent/child relationship – each one unique and dynamic, a complex mix of love and trust, and mutually crazy-making – that creates the sense of inner confidence that helps us learn shape our own destinies.

By counterpoising the ‘personal autonomy’ of an infant to the judgment of his parents, Epstein and others who campaign against circumcision reduce the relationship between parents and their sons to one moment; a moment that forever defines the child as victim and the parent as victimiser regardless even of what the boy himself thinks about it later in his life. Once a victim, always a victim.

McDermott’s shift from discussing the parent-child relationship to the parent-son relationship reveals the flaw in her thinking. There’s a key distinction because she talks in generalities to establish parental authority before shifting to a specific case in which she omits a gender from consideration to reach her preferred outcome. If parents have a right to choose that is superior to the personal autonomy and health of their sons, that same right exists superior to the personal autonomy and health of their daughters. She rejects objective health and risks in favor of subjective decisions by parents for their sons, yet accepts objective health and risks as a defense against subjective decisions by parents for their daughters. That right doesn’t exist, but if it did, she’s being contemptuous of the parents of daughters because she refuses to let them exercise their right. She’d deny that, but regardless, it’s clear she started with her preferred outcome and worked her way backwards to find only the relevant facts she needed.

She concludes:

There are all sorts of reasons why parents do or don’t circumcise their sons. For some it is the embodiment of their faith, for others it is simply custom. For some the thought of subjecting their child to any unnecessary pain or alteration is unacceptable. The important point is that the choice takes place within the context of the parent-child relationship. ….

Again, the choice she’s defending takes place between the parent-son relationship. She’s established this separate category, incorrectly as I’ve shown, without offering an explanation for why this is legitimately a separate category beyond an incorrect assumption that the removal of some or all of a female minor’s external genitalia is offensive in a way that removal of some or all of a male minor’s external genitalia is supposedly not.

…The CDC is not, as Epstein implies, planning to circumcise every male infant in the United States, but the change in its recommendation, just like every other official pronouncement about the right way to raise children, should be greeted with scepticism. Not because, as Epstein argues, it might lead parents to make a wrong choice, but because it questions their right to make choices in the first place.

Somehow I suspect she doesn’t believe we should be skeptical about the official pronouncement (i.e. a law) from the United States Congress criminalizing the parental “right” to choose female genital mutilation. But we are not to question the parental right to make that choice for sons, with circumstances and reasoning explicitly rejected for female minors. Her essay is a self-absorbed excuse for parents and their made-up right to impose their whims based on irrational traditions and willful ignorance.

Talk About The Issue, Not Rush Limbaugh

I’m probably supposed to deal with this:

Limbaugh then elaborated on the reference to him in the lyric. “I would remind the rapper Jay-Z: Mr. Z, it is President Obama who wants mandated circumcision. That means if we need to save our penises from anybody, it’s Obama. I did not know I was on anybody’s balls, either. I’m happy to know that they think I am, though.” The mention of Obama is in reference to the fact that the Center for Disease Control is considering recommending circumcision to high-risk adult men to reduce the spread of HIV, according to The New York Times.

Rush Limbaugh is a hack using controversial buzzwords because he knows it will get him attention, which is all he wants. He’s a deejay, not a political thinker. Using his nonsense for political arguments on any side of any debate is stupid.

With that out of the way, Ed Brayton has a post in which he begins:

The record of demagoguery and lunacy from the right wing continues. The CDC is considering — just considering, mind you — adopting a policy to encourage — just encouraging, mind you — people to have their children circumcised on the grounds that it reduces the risk of disease. Run that through the silly straw prism of right wing spin and it magically becomes “Obama is going to force us all to cut off our genitals!”

Fine, fair enough. Again, Rush Limbaugh is a moron. But Mr. Brayton links to an article that unfairly maligns Ed Morrissey’s post about circumcision and the CDC’s potential recommendation that I used yesterday as a starting point for discussing single-payer and circumcision. Whatever other issues Mr. Morrissey may have in how he presents political arguments, he was correct in the suggestions of his piece. Any other interpretation is a failure by the reader to interpret his words using their common meanings. As he wrote:

Why should the CDC push circumcision at all? The government has no business being in the middle of that decision. Under ObamaCare, however, when the government starts paying more and more of the health-care tab, they will point to ambiguous cost savings down the road — in this and other cases, decades down the road — to pressure Americans into surrendering their choices now.

As I mentioned in my entry, he unnecessarily cluttered his argument with the term “ObamaCare,” but other than that, I can’t find anywhere he mentioned that the government would force circumcision on anyone. “Pressure” does not mean “force”. The writer at Salon directly, and Mr. Brayton indirectly, are undeniably wrong.

Yet, Mr. Brayton’s post generated this comment:

… While I think the net effect of such a policy would be detrimental, to equate it with forced circumcision is BAT SHIT INSANE. …

To equate a recommendation with forced circumcision is not BAT SHIT INSANE. I’ve written this several times over the last week, but it’s worth repeating here: For the circumcised male, why does he care whether circumcision is mandated by the government or merely by his parents? The result – forced circumcision – is the same for him. Eliminating the choice of a healthy child is the issue, not who forces the circumcision.

We can and should rebuke those like Limbaugh who offer absurd suggestions of government-mandated circumcision as a result of health care reform. It’s political nonsense intended to distract. But we mustn’t falsely accuse someone of making that argument who hasn’t, in fact, made the argument. Doing so is no less a distraction from the legitimate issues.

**********

From another comment to the Ed Brayton post:

You can count on Limbaugh to say something stupid, but the Ed Morrissey quote is right. CDC guidelines are pressure on doctors and patients. They are supposed to be. The real problem with the Morrissey piece is the following:

“Why should the CDC push circumcision at all? The government has no business being in the middle of that decision.”

That is wrong. The point of the CDC is to study the spread of infectious disease and recommend the most effective ways to slow or stop the spread.

As Mr. Morrissey wrote in the paragraph before the one I excerpted above:

I’m neutral on the issue of circumcision, which has become a controversial practice, but find this idea of interventions very, very odd. In the first place, circumcision does not provide an immunity to STDs, not AIDS or anything else. Studies indicate that circumcised males may have less danger of acquiring an infection, but as the NYT points out, that’s from heterosexual relations — a very minor channel of AIDS communication in the US. Men have much better choices than circumcision for avoiding HIV infection, including the use of condoms (still not a perfect defense, but better than circumcision), refraining from intravenous drug use with shared needles, avoiding high-risk sexual practices altogether, and so on.

Any recommendation to circumcise infant males to reduce the risk of HIV is unethical because it encourages genital cutting on a healthy, non-consenting individual. It is also stupid. Infant males are not at risk of HIV now, and will be at little risk of the only type of transmission (female-to-male) that voluntary, adult male circumcision has been shown to reduce when they begin having sex, even if they do not use condoms, which no one is suggesting they may do after circumcision. Like WHO and UNAIDS, the CDC is considering recommending infant circumcision because they know such recommendations convince parents. If they were confident that men would embrace it, they’d focus on adult volunteers. They know that’s a dead-end for mass acceptance, so they recommend it for those who can’t say no. It is not force by government, but when told to a receptive audience acting on behalf of another, the difference is in tactic, not outcome.