Category — Social Policy

The arbitrary and contingent cruelty of life: “Life is unfair. It is probably more unfair now than it has ever been, simply because some countries have been better at organizing their societies to produce more and better goods, and at stimulating their populations to act in more…”

(Via Paul Musgrave Dot Com.)

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Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where very man is enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty brutish and short. Hobbes.

Pro-Life Group Applauds Peterson Conviction, Wants Abortion Outlawed: “We warned months ago that the “Laci and Connor Law” was a ploy by abortion foes. They are coming out of the shadows now. The American Life League has issued a press release on the Scott Peterson murder conviction: The…”

(Via TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime.)

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i hope everyone can see what the strategy is here. it is to establish precedent that gives an unborn child equal rights to a citizen. it is a greatly flawed, because the living have rights, the unborn do not.

Supremely Dangerous:

As we brace for a challenge to Roe v. Wade and the Supreme Court nominees who would see it through, here is a reminder of what a society looks like when abortion is illegal — witness Portugal, where 1,000 women were hospitalized last year for complications from back alley abortions…and a teenager was recently prosecuted for taking stomach ulcer pills to terminate a pregnancy (she was acquited Tuesday for lack of proof). Women will exert control of their own bodies whether it is “legally” sanctioned by society or not; the only question is whether society will make it safe for them. It is estimated that more than 20,000 abortions take place in Portugal every year.Roe v. Wade established abortion rights in the United States in 1973:

“This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. The detriment that the State would impose upon the pregnant woman by denying this choice altogether is apparent.”-RH

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I wouldn’t want to live in a nation where only the extremely rich could afford to pursue a medically sound procedure and only the super rich could afford to keep it covered up. Remember the reasons why this became an issue in the first place, what the social consequences for people really are here… Humans, all humans, have a right to the sanctity of their own body. however, the living sustainable life of an adult human takes precedence in all cases to the unborn fetus’s rights. in short, abortion is base din privacy, it is based on the right to a woman’s privacy about the decisions she makes about her body, her body is the concern, not any other living things, in this case, and the right to that should not be changed, because if you do change it, it changes everything else for everyone. it means you no longer have the right to anything about your body, and the decisions you make about it. that includes doing anything that might enhance it or anything else. because, you would not have the right to privacy and with that the right to your own body.

Lessig “Where is the political party that demands respect for principles that I thought were fundamental.” [Scripting News]

It must be time to hand out copies of Nietszche again, because some people still seem to think that principles are fixed and not mere functions of transvaluation… Lessig though has some points in his short essay that are worth considering on your own as he is comparing soviet systems to our current state, which in my opinion is looking more and more alont the lines of stalinism than anything else, but who knows what tomorrow brings.

Video Game Hard Knocks Pain NFL. The National Football League has its jockstrap in a bunch over bone-crunching tackles, violent hand gestures and fisticuffs on the virtual playing field. Most recently, it asked Midway to revise NFL Blitz. By Brad King. [Wired News]

violence in video games take 23564324, action…

the times online has an article which discusses the classic literatures the U.S. military provides for its troops when they are readied for war. In particular, i find this quote:

The writer and Vietnam veteran Tim OâBrien once wrote: ãA true war story is never moral . . . If at the end of a war story you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie.ä This goes too far, for although the humane remnant surviving warâs carnage does not render it moral, it makes the horror bearable.

from the article to particularly interesting. I think the whole question of canon should be highlighted here… In the end, if you never tell the world about the reality of war, all you have left is the floating signification on top of war, the rhetorics of victory, etc. while leaving the rest to the public imagination, which is filled with other topics.

Web Reshapes the Pressures of High School. High school athletics used to be visible only by bonfire. Now, it is a high-tech phenomenon that has filled yet another void in a winner-take-all society. By Selena Roberts. [New York Times: Education]

Of course, it would be better if the whole damn educational-sport/military-religion complex was thrown out the window, but as we all know it won't be, it just grows every time something happens that garnes attention, an event of any sort related, seems to strengthen people's overall faith that football or fieldhockey will guarentee their students success far more than reading a book or talking to friends. In short, the realization that there is an us vs them in all of the above complex's really removes the thinking capacity of our nation, turning us into a dronelike organs that can be played by people mastering the us/them rhetoric.

Taming the Task of Checking for Terrorists' Names. To help identify potential terrorists, government agencies rely heavily on a vast database known as the Interagency Border Inspection System. By Sarah Milstein. [New York Times: Technology]

wow, variate parsing systems to enable law enforcement to overcome their natural biases, what will people think of next? I dunno, maybe they should just work on cultural awareness and education.

In Post-Soviet Russia, The Peace Corps Gets Sent Home To YOU!. Plastic::Work::International: In another sign of growing anti-Americanism, Russia has given the Peace Corps the boot. As an added afront, the Russians cite possible spying as an explanation. [Plastic: Most Recent]

This seems to me to be another indicator of the second rise of the nation state, i think we may be heading toward a reactionary phase toward globalization in which citizens and other state entities begin a round of isolation and reentrenchment. In this case, in the former Soviet Union, one can see this even more, but i guess the big indicator will be China.