Will of the People

(This was summarised on my twitter feed, but I think it's an important point)

One of the easiest things to do, and the hardest things to do well, is to design a governmental system. A lot of people who are opinionated in politics, with or without a political background (and often without much knowledge of how law works in practice or the principles of jurisprudence), end up making a sketch of how a government that implements their most important values would work. This isn't always perfectly specific to their values; sometimes people have some ideas about procedures for change that they stick into that designed system, and they might allow for decisions to be made that contradict some of their weaker values. The process of designing such a system is a good exercise (more law-studenty people might design their own version of the Model Penal Code or something like that) for learning to think about governance. ( Read more... )(You will notice that these terms or their synonyms are often used as national mottos or other slogans; liberty and justice for all, liberte/egalite/fraternite (or the Vichy version of travail/famille/patrie), and so on)

One of the unsurprising things about Gay Marriage coming up as a campaign issue is that we're seeing conservative intellectuals speaking up on the issue, criticising the party's current apparent position on the issue and portraying gay marriage as a positive thing for conservative values.

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(a restatement, might offend some of you)

Those of you who've seen me discuss the topic know that I draw sharp lines on various kinds of activism; that I find cultural shaping generally acceptable in theory, but a tool to be used sparingly;( Read more... )

As a side-comment on a post on someone else's blog (where I'm not keen to post because a persona-non-grata is participating in the discussion there),( Read more... )

Obama's announcement, and a few other things:( Read more... )

There's an essay by Tamara Nopper on racetraitor.org, a site that someone I was having an unpleasant discussion with on G+ pointed me at as something he was involved with; the essay is one of the first things I read on the site, and I pretty strongly disagree with it. It also strikes me as batshit crazy; the wrong kind of social justice movement and actively harmful to these causes. I'm willing to dig through it and write a detailed response (for you, not really for the author, who is in my estimation not likely to accept my criticism), but I'm not sure it'd be interesting for people to read. Writing it would also be fairly unpleasant because it involve digging into the nitty-gritty of a document I consider actively repugnant. It might be worth it if a few of you might like to read a more detailed breakdown though. If you like, skim the essay, and let me know what you think in the poll (and optionally leave a comment if my poll options don't capture what you think very well).

Poll #1838995 Racetraitor essay response?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: Friends, participants: 3

After reading this essay, I think:

Would I like Pat to write a response to it?

SFGate had an okay article on the faction of occupy in Oakland/SF that've been allegedly smashing stores. ( Read more... )I am willing to support even violent direct action, and potential destruction of property or governments, but only when the situation makes such action prudent and ideally effective towards serving some decent social need. Direct action has a heavy cost on society and is not to be entered into lightly. I don't believe this support actually marks me as unusual categorically; most people we know today would, I hope, have been willing to take part in the Underground Railroad were they transplanted into the past, doing what it took for that operation to be successful. The causes and types of progress such devotion might cause me to support might mark my positions as a bit unusual, perhaps.

A few months ago, I bumped into James Salsman online; given our history of involvement in various projects, I probably should've met him earlier, likely offline, but oh well. He's one of the more prolific human posters I follow on G+. Recently he put together a proposal (not sure if he wrote it himself, nabbed something from Occupy's MoveToAmend project, or something else) for legal reform and put it up on a legal petition site. Some thoughts:( Read more... )

You might also enjoy the further conversation on James' post on the specifics.

Some weeks ago I was at a philosopher dinner with someone who's a local philosophy professor, and as the evening were wrapping up I mentioned gentleman-scholars and we had a brief discussion of what it means to do philosophy; he remarked that to him, there should be two terms, 「amateur philosopher」 and 「philosopher」, the latter either being employed as a philosopher or published and the former not necessarily being so. I mentioned that I use a different world-of-terms for that; 「philosopher」 being the general term and 「professional philosopher」 being the person who makes a living out of it (being published not really mattering to me).

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Some years ago in university, I gave a speech to a student group I was a part of to open up a discussion; the speech was on the limits of tolerance, ( Read more... )

Anyhow, JJ McCulough recently commented on another Dan Savage speech where he spoke against bullying and anti-gay culture while criticising Christianity as the origin for much of such behaviour.

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(I'll try to use the term CEAC in the future for posts like this; "Current Events And Commentary")

Two interesting posts from the EFF, on one of which I take the EFF's side, and on the other I am opposed:( Read more... )

Some commentary on other things:( Read more... )

And some commentary on some recent articles/blogentries that caught my eye:( Read more... )