there are four lights

Instapundit has done his best to add to the "conventional wisdom" of the Right about the Left, by accusing liberals of yet another character flaw:

On the Left, though, we find all these pseudonymous name-calling bloggers whose specialty seems to be abuse aimed at those deviating from the party line. De Long isn't one of those, of course, but this line from his post bespeaks a certain tribalism: "There's still time for Kaus to return to his neoliberal roots."

As the old saying has it, the left looks for heretics and the right looks for converts, and both find what they're looking for

I think this is exactly backwards.

How many times was Jim Jeffords called a traitor? What is Justice Souter's reputation? Would Janet Reno have ever introduced the TIPS program? Which side coined the phrase, RINO ? Were liberals the ones accusing Americans of being unpatriotic, or even treasonous? And of course there's John McCain, perhaps the perfect counterexample.

Remember that it was Ari Fleischer that reminded all Americans that "they need to watch what they say and what they do, and this is not a time for remarks like that; there never is." And that it was John Ashcroft who labeled debate on the tradeoffs of security vs. liberty as "tactics" that "aid terrorists for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve."

So, according to the Bush administration, it's people who speak out about their rights, or who dissent, who are heretics.

And as far as the right looking for converts, granted they have Mickey Kaus. What about Arianna Huffington? David Brock? Jim Jeffords? Could it be a two-way street after all?

And name calling is hardly limited to the right - there is Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage... There was Charles Krauthammer's assertion that liberals are fools. He also claimed that liberals think conservatives are evil, but doesn't have a single example to support that claim. Interestingly, the "liberals are fools and conservatives are evil" meme was first promoted by Eric S. Raymond, who is many things but a liberal least of all. There's definitely a degree of echo-chambering going on here.

what's the point of this discussion? to illustrate that labels have become a substitute for thought - empirical support of Steven Den Beste's theory. The only labels you really need are "Us" and "Them" and drawing that neat line opens the door to demonization and dehumanization.

This leads to double-think. Glenn can point out examples of liberals who engage in name calling, who have converted to conservatives, label them as witch-hunters, but fails entirely to see the exact same processes in operation on part of the conservatives. Ann Coulter decries those who make excuses for suicide bombers, but makes the same excuses for murderers of abortion doctors:

Coulter was asked why she condemns the terrorists so strongly, but not those who kill abortion doctors. She said that the latter have been extremely frustrated by the fact that they can�t vote on this issue, thanks to Roe vs. Wade, and that they worked within the system for twenty years withoutsuccess before turning to murder. She said that those individuals believe they had been left with no other routes for dissent in the face of an ongoing atrocity. Coulter further suggested that althoughshe would not take it upon herself to take extreme actions on the abortion issue, she will not condemn those who do.

It's almost a source of despair to see how little true denate is taking place (aside from the blogsphere). In print media and television and radio, it's this doublethink that prevails, slowly eroding away at the subtleties of our political spectrum. And in doing so, the Administration gets a clearer and clearer mandate from its supporters - Us Vs Them is all about getting You to agree with Us, in the end. Even if we end up in a police state, with citizen snoops and our library card records being vetted by the FBI and citizens detained without recourse to due process.

I wonder if Orwell's book should have been titled 2004 instead of 1984.

to you be your Faith, to me mine

Brian, out of some masochistic impulse, has signed up for a mailing list called Ar-Rahman (The Beneficient). As far as I can tell (from his reports), it's populated by teens whose Cool Identity Thing is Islam instead of skateboarding or the Confederate Flag or any other similar substitute for their self-esteem. One of these young earnest types posted his Revelation of the Week:

everyone person born is a muslim at birth, since it is the true religion. After time, whether it be parents, where we live whatever, that changes, and people have then conform to their different religions. So I have reverted back to Islam. Most people that I have talked to, do not like the word converted. That means you made an entire switch, which is not true. Since you start off as Muslim, you are just reverting or coming back to it.

Brian was somewhat offended by this, which is understandable if taken at a superficial level (which most assuredly, the author is doing). But it is actually a reflection of a deeper and more elegant concept, which is not unique to Islam, either.

The underlying matter of dogma is that the faith (in this case, Islam) is laid out as Ultimate Truth for mankind, by the authority of God. This concept is at teh heart of Christianity as well. Christianity focuses on personal salvation, whereas in Islam I would argue it is more of a personal responsibility issue, but that is truly tangential.

Regardless, Christianity is just as explicit as Islam about the damned state of non-believers. It is fair for a Muslim to call Islam the true religion, and both Muslims and Christians agree that there IS such a thing as a "true religion". Given that the True religion was presented to Mankind 1,423 lunar years ago or 2,002 solar years ago (YMMV), it is logical that all persons born after those dates are subject to that true religion. In Islam, religion is not just a lifestyle choice or a set of abstract philosophies, but rather a condition or state of being. It is the default state for a human being (according to the dogma, of course. If you aren't Muslim, clearly you won't agree.)

It's worth noting that Islam also recognizes as Prophets of equal station, Jesus and Moses (and Noah, and Abraham, and Adam). One of my favorite stories as a child was a tale how the Prophet Moses convinced Muhamad SAW to ask God to reduce the number of daily prayers from 50 to 5. Thanks, Moses :) So in actual fact, Jews and Christians are seen as cousins in faith.

Our young zealot^[1] above is focusing on a semantic issue, mainly. For him, it's all about the word "converted". It's a valid but pointless argument. And, due diligence would require that he also mention these Ayats (verses) of the Qur'an:

Ayat 2:256 - "There is no compulsion in religion"



Ayat 109:6, "To you be your Faith, and to me mine."



(click the image to hear a recitation in RM format, courtesy of islam.org)

The point here is that individuals make choices of free will, and part of that is what leads people to either reject or accept the faith. These choices need to be independent (2:256) and respected (109:6). But there is a Right Choice and a Wrong Choice (these moral absolutes are part of what makes a religion a religion and not a science, and are not unique to Islam).


^[1]I use the term zealot in a deliberately condescending sense. If I use the word fanatic, it would be in a "this guy is off his rocker and keep him away from my family" sense.

I am not a terrorist

although RIAA and their supporting companies can afford to spend 55 million dollars a year lobbying Congress and in the courts, they cannot afford to alienate every music buyer and artist out there. At that point, there will be a general strike, make no mistake. Just one week of people refusing to play the radio, buy product, or support our industry in any way, would flex muscles they have no idea are out there.

-- Janis Ian

the best argument against attacking Iraq is...

...Saudi Arabia. And the way to deal with Saudi Arabia is to leave Saddam in place

Here's the How and What, forget about the Why:

Iraq:

- continue to enforce the no-fly zone
- intensify observation and intelligence, possibly including human intel
- court Iraqi defectors and spires the way we did with Russia
- continue to pound any military installations where WMD development can take place
- intensify information warfare by funding VoA, dropping pamphlets, etc. to destabilize Saddam's police state and embolden opposition forces

If the Iraqis deserve freedom, let them achieve it themselves. That's the same standard we have to apply to Iran. A home-grown movement can take decades - so be it. But it will be far more stable than a puppet state like Afghanistan. It is in our long term interests to encourage democracy, especially in oil-rich countries like Iraq. We can wait. In the meantime, we can continue to contain Iraq and systematically eliminate his WMD capabilities from the air.

I call this approach a "Chilly War" because we can apply much of the same lessons learned in the conflict with the USSR. Iraq can not escape our scrutiny. It's impossible for Iraq's WMD programmes to continue if we apply the same level of espionage that we employed during the Cold War. It's then just a matter of enforcement with F-16s. Also, we have the advantage of new technoology like bunker-busting bombs that give us new capabilities.

let us also acknowledge explicitly that the White House's attempt to link Iraq to 9-11 is purely FUD. The argument can, and should, be made solely in terms of long-term threat re: WMD. Trying to invoke American Outrage^TM is just an insult to our intelligence, which is about par for Rove and Fleischer.

Saudi:

This also needs to be revolutionized from within. The best way to achieve this, however, is to do one thing. Force Saudi Arabia to allow women to drive. The carrot is economic gain by allowing 1/2 the workforce mobility and greater prospects. The ban on women's diving, in addition to being unIslamic, immoral, cruel, and misogynistic, is also an enormous brake applied to what should be a fairly healthy economy (if you doubt this, compare Saudi to Dubai).

The stick is, Iraq. Explicitly state that our policy regarding Iraq is to enforce the no-fly zones, defend Israel, and destroy the WMD infrastructure. Military defense is no longer part of the plan. Speaking as a Shi'a, I can assure you that nothing quakes Wahabis in their boots so much as the thought of Shi'a taking control of Mecca and Medina (we might actually show some respect to the Wahabi-defiled graves of the Prophet's family, for one thing.)

And, we shoudl also have the VoA (in Arabic) used to full effect here, helping undermine the Religious Police's hold on the populace. Tell the women of Saudi that they should be driving. They pretty much agree, but let's make them really mad about it.

I accept the argument that WMD pose a threat to us. Agreed. But I don't buy the argument that neutralizing the WMD threat actually requires full-scale invasion. The proponents of an Iraqi invasion invoke the WMD threat, but Invasion does NOT logically follow from that threat.

Nor am I happy about the inevitable power vacuum - what happens if the Kurds move in to Baghdad, triumphant as the Northern Alliance? And then a resurgent Wahabi movement fosters another Taliban state. And Saudi becomes a haven for terrorists yet again. We have observed these cycles in Afghanistan already. The fact that all the debate has been on "Attack!" and essentially none on "what next?" should be of enormous concern. Currently, we have a dictatorial but secular tyrant running Iraq - that is far, far better than a theocracy run by Wahabis. We have actual empirical evidence on this.

And, the best way tod eal with Syria is to empower Lebanon. But that's an issue for later...

in defense of my SUV, part I: cargo and passengers

This is the first part of a multi-part series of essays on why I like SUVs (how so retro a topic, I realise). I am also working on my related and comprehensive essay describing why Apple Macintoshes are the SUVs of Home Computing :) I'm sure that title will offend pro-Mac anti-SUV people, but its actually a compliment. To think otherwise is almost hypocritical ;)

This is not an essay explaining why SUVs are the best possible car type ever. Its an essay (in series) describing why I choose to drive oine and why my next purchase will be another SUV. Your mileage may vary, pun intended.

My '94 4x4 Jeep Cherokee Sport is my first car. I never really thought about the SUV issue at first - my dad had bought it and when I moved to Boston he gave the car to me. It worked wonderfully in Boston's snow and rain. I moved to Houston and found it equally useful - Tropical Storm Allison was not fun. I'm hooked on 4WD and won't ever buy a vehicle without it now. But you don't necessarily need an SUV for 4WD or all-wheel drive (AWD) so that isnt a reason in and of itself to go for an SUV.

I like SUVs. That's my bias, up front. The rest of the post could conceivably be seen as simply rationalization (and probably will be dismissed as such by anyone who holds fast to ideology about SUVs. We could replace the word with Linux, or Mac OS/X, and have essentially the same conversation). My outlook is that cars are just tools, and SUVs fill several niches for me very well (including, but not restricted to, the aesthetic one). The truth is different for others and some might well find that a minivan is better or that a sedan or an econobox fits their needs.

That said, almost all of the arguments against SUVs are straw men. Each of the following issues are therefore looked at in the context of "all other things being equal". I'm also writing these points as "responses" to a fictional argument. The "quotes" are based on actual arguments in real life from some friends, but I have modified them to be more general for the purpose of this series.

Argument 1: Hauling people and cargo :

Minivans can hold more people more comfortably than even the largest SUV's, they're easier to get in and out of and usually have more cargo room...Getting seats in and out of a minivan (in order to haul stuff) is easy since they tend to be low and roomy.

This common argument clearly doesn't apply to large SUVs like the Ford Expedition which seats 7 comfortably, or the Excursion which seats NINE. No minivan that I am aware of matches that capacity.

The latest crop of mid-size SUVs have third row seating as an option (like the Ford Explorer and GMC Envoy XL). That makes them equal in carrying capacity to normal minivans, so I don't see any advantage. You can argue that SUVs or minivans are more/less comfortable by finding any two representative models to fit your desired result, but on the whole they are equal. I've spent 2,200 miles on the road from Boston to Chicago to Houston in my jeep and my butt was just fine. Kimberlee can chime in as to whether the Jeep was comfy for the Boston-NYC roadtrip we did, or not.

I only need seating for five. A minivan is overkill, just as a 7-passenger SUV.

with regard to cargo, Minivans and SUVs, on average, have about equal theoretical maximum cargo volume, but achieving the maximum capacity in practice is very different. To haul stuff, you have to make some modifications. In my Jeep, that means flattening the middle seat, which takes me about 30 seconds. In a minivan, that usually means physically removing the third row.

However, you usually have enough cargo area even in the default configuration of an SUV that reducing the passenger seating is not necessary. The cargo area on my Jeep even with the rear setback up and five people sitting inside is still enormous- for example, when I dropped my inlaws off at the airport for their trip to India last month, they left with three suitcases and three carryons. When I picked them up from the airport, they had six suitcases, two boxes, six carryons. And a friend who needed a ride. Stuff is cheap in India. If I had been in a minivan, there would have been a third row seat left behind on the tarmac to accomodate the extra goodies.

If you carry both cargo and people on a regular basis, A minivan simply involves extra hassle and less flexibility. I make enough trips to the airport (at least two a month) dropping people off that its not a negligible annoyance. I rarely need to just haul passengers or cargo, I usually haul both, and a minivan won't cut it for me.

(note that this issue is related to engine power, discussed later.)

The "hauling" excuse for an SUV is equally spurious. The actual weight allowance of most SUV's is so low that moving furniture safely would be totally out of the question. In fact, there are passenger cars with higher weight allowances than some large SUV's. The reasons behind that are twofold:SUV's sit up very high, and are heavy themselves so you've got both a center-of-gravity problem and a weight problem.

This is demonstrably false. If it were true, then standard trucks like the F-150 would also suffer from teh same flaw and be utterly useless. After all, the Ford Expedition (a large SUV) is built on the F-150 platform.

But look at the actual numbers between minvans and SUVs. The Ford Explorer can tow up to 3500 pounds sith the standrad tow package. With the optional tow package, it can tow up to 7500 lbs. The optional 4.6L V8 has 239 horsepower at 4750 rpm and 282 lbs.-ft. of torque at 4000 rpm. Compare that to the Ford Windstar minivan (one of the best minivans out there) which handles only 2000 lbs standard, 3500 as an option. The biggest engine that the Windstar has is a 3.8L SPI V-6 with horsepower @ rpm 200 @ 4900 and torque (lb.-ft. @ rpm) 240 @ 3600. The SUV has a truck engine, and the minivan has a car engine, basically.

The curb weight of a Ford Windstar is 4355 lbs. The curb weight of a Ford Explorer is 4344 lbs. They basically weigh the same. whither excess metal?

as for the center of gravity, thats also nonsense. Its true that smaller SUVs have rollover problems (for example, of the same size class as the Saturn VUE or smaller). Of course, an idiot could roll any SUV regardless of size. But the same is true for minivans or cars - put someone who doesnt know how to drive in charge, and its a menace regardless of make or model. I know I'm not taking sharp turns at 35 mph, whether I am driving my Jeep or my wife's 91 Corolla.

btw, the minivan is much more expensive. By about $2,000 for a comparably-equipped vehicle, amenities-wise. But we will examine amenities in the next post.

the fourth humour

Check out this new surreal blog called 4TH Humour, by Phlegmatic. His first post is dark, twisted, and strangely addictive reading:

It hits me that something this nonsensical like this could only happen if it facilitates the an event, the importance of which supercedes the laws of physics. I figure that the event is my death, that I somehow cheated it back in that hallway, and that Thrombus is going to hunt me down until I'm dead. I communicate this to the man and woman, and start to descent the escalator of my own will, when it shifts into moving upward for us instead. "Or not," I think to myself. Looking up/forward, I see Thrombus on another escalator, coming down toward us.
...
The cat hangs one arm out the window like a cool frood, the other paw on the steering wheel, looking about with that collected self-assuredness and assumed territorial ownership that cats have. In reality, R is using the gas pedal and steering with his left foot and hand from the passenger's seat. And yet I'm in the driver's seat, too, superimposed on the cat, I guess.

I am making a point of visiting blogs beyond the politico-lefty-warblog-spheres. There's a lot of great writing out there - Lileks is not the sole source of great prose. I do encourage dropping by 4TH Humour - it's something to be experienced...

live free or die

Dalia Lithwick of Slate has taken the contrarian position that the Citizen Snitch program, TIPS, is actually a good thing. She makes a good point in that we do have similar "snitch" programs, namely mandatory child-abuse-reporting laws:

...these same dire possibilities lurks in the existing mandatory child-abuse-reporting laws, yet few of us are arguing for their repeal, and fewer of us argue that they have brought about the parade of horribles cited by the critics of TIPS. Indeed, many of us recently called for expanding the reporting laws to include clergy, following the recent church sex scandals. We believe that reporting systems work.
...
The states' mandatory-reporting statutes exist for good reason: We believe ferreting out child abuse is worth sacrificing some privacy. We believe child abuse is so clandestine that anyone able to pierce the shroud of secrecy should report it. We believe that simply asking good Samaritans to come forward and report abuse is ineffective; they don't. And we believe that child abuse is so awful that identifying the small number of substantiated cases is worth sifting through masses of false reports.

Why is terrorism different? Can't an equally compelling argument be made that terrorism is so vile, and obtaining information so difficult, that it's worth sacrificing some privacy to root out cells before they strike?

but the problem is that terrorism IS different. The reason is that a false accusation can be much, much more harmful. If you are falsely accused of child abuse, you still have a degree of due process. But for accusations of terrorism, all that is required to lock you away without access to counsel or your constitutional rights is simply labeling you as a menace. Just ask Jose Padilla, who has been secreted away without access to his lawyer for crimes he hasn't committed.

already we have seen the effect of having hyper-paranoid civilians in minor positions of authority. Consider the case of 20 year old Samyuktha Verma, a movie star from India flying to New York with her family:

The Vermas' excitement over seeing the New York skyline and the Statue of Liberty for the first time and the seat-switching, finger-pointing and exclamations in a foreign tongue so alarmed one passenger that she alerted a flight attendant, fearing the group might be terrorists.

The end result was that the plane was escorted into La Guardia by F-16 escorts, and police officers stormed the jet and the entire family was taken into FBI custody, and freed after questioning. Verma was understanding but quite shaken - she said in an interview:

. "Now I am afraid to be here, that if I go shopping and start laughing or talking too loudly in my language, someone will think I am up to something. I say to Indians, 'Don't laugh during a flight. Just sit there quietly, read something or sleep.'

The problem with TIPS is that is exists in the post-9-11 world. Mandatory reporting laws still exist in a pre-9-11 atmosphere. But when it comes to the spectre of terrorism, you often hear the refrain, "the Constitution is not a suicide pact."

New Hampshire voters would disagree. Their position is, "Live free or die."