The Problem of Torture

In the most recent Republican debate, there was an interesting exchange between the three leading candidates concerning the issue of torture. The hypothetical question was placed to the candidates that there had been suicide bombings in the U.S., and a fourth suicide bomber had been caught, and was believed to have information about more attacks to come in the near future. What, if in the Oval Office, would each of these candidates instruct their subordinates to do?

John McCain: If I knew for sure that they had that kind of information, I, as the president of the United States, would take that responsibility. That is a million-to-one scenario. But only I would take that responsibility. The use of torture -- we could never gain as much we would gain from that torture as we lose in world opinion. We do not torture people. When I was in Vietnam, one of the things that sustained us, as we went -- underwent torture ourselves, is the knowledge that if we had our positions reversed and we were the captors, we would not impose that kind of treatment on them. It's not about the terrorists, it's about us. It's about what kind of country we are. And a fact: The more physical pain you inflict on someone, the more they're going to tell you what they think you want to know. It's about us as a nation. We have procedures for interrogation in the Army Field Manual. Those, I think, would be adequate in 999,999 of cases, and I think that if we agree to torture people, we will do ourselves great harm in the world.

Rudy Giuliani: In the hypothetical that you gave me, which assumes that we know there's going to be another attack and these people know about it, I would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they could think of. It shouldn't be torture, but every method they can think of --[Q: "Water-boarding?"] -- and I would -- and I would -- well, I'd say every method they could think of, and I would support them in doing that because I've seen what -- (interrupted by applause) -- I've seen what can happen when you make a mistake about this, and I don't want to see another 3,000 people dead in New York or any place else.

Mitt Romney: Yeah, first of all, let's make sure that we understand that the key in electing the next president is to find somebody who will make sure that that scenario doesn't ever happen, and the key to that is prevention. We've all spent a lot of time talking about what happens after the bomb goes off. The real question is, how do you prevent the bomb from going off? And that's what I spent my time doing as a governor over the last four years, and serving on the Homeland Security Advisory Council. And that means intelligence and counterterrorism. Now we're going to -- you said the person's going to be in Guantanamo. I'm glad they're at Guantanamo. I don't want them on our soil. I want them on Guantanamo, where they don't get the access to lawyers they get when they're on our soil. I don't want them in our prisons. I want them there. Some people have said, we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is, we ought to double Guantanamo. We ought to make sure that the terrorists -- (applause) -- and there's no question but that in a setting like that where you have a ticking bomb that the president of the United States -- not the CIA interrogator, the president of the United States -- has to make the call. And enhanced interrogation techniques have to be used -- not torture but enhanced interrogation techniques, yes.

I hope the Democrats get asked similar kinds of questions in their upcoming debates. The question is really unfair to the person who has to answer it.

No one sane has ever suggested that we simply turn terrorists loose or that we should not try to get all the information we can out of them. I for one expect the government to do all that is within its power to protect me and my fellow Americans from the bad guys, which includes hunting down and killing said bad guys. And all three of these candidates are clearly in strong agreement with those sentiments. (In point of fairness, I don't doubt that even the Democrats would agree, at least in principle, with those ideas.)

But when the question becomes one of "torture," the ethical waters start to get muddy, very quickly. Because in emphasis, if not necessarily in actual policy, Senator McCain has two extremely good points. The first is moral -- we are simply not the kind of a people who should, can, or do condone actual torture. The second is practical -- we cannot rely on the evidence that would be obtained through torture, especially given a short time frame in which to use that information.

Now, let's think about what torture is. The Geneva Convention defines torture as:

...any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

U.S. law defines torture similarly, as "an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control."

Right away you can see a problem. How to tell whether "severe" pain or suffering is being inflicted, or the kind of pain and suffering "incidental to lawful sanctions"? The Geneva Conventions don't offer much guidance, but our own law purports to offer a definition of "severe mental pain or suffering" as the mental effects of:

(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;

(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;

(C) the threat of imminent death; or

(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality.

Is water-boarding torture under this definition? Yes, I don't think there's serious doubt about that. (Why the focus on water-boarding as opposed to anything else a captor might do to a prisoner, I don't particularly know.)

Did Hizzoner endorse water-boarding? Well, not exactly; Giuliani failed to specifically condemn it but he did say whatever was being done to question the suspect should not cross the line into torture. Did McCain specifically condemn it? Actually, no; he referred to the Army Field Manual, which was recently amended to prohibit water-boarding. What about Romney? He actually didn't answer the question about torture at all; instead he made gratuitous condemnations of basic civil liberties in the context of questioning captured terrorists. Romney also endorsed "enhanced interrogation techniques" but failed to parse out how "enhanced interrogation techniques" are different than "torture."

At the end of the day, my lawyer's training tells me the question is one of whether a prisoner's sensations are of "severe pain" or "incidental discomfort." And it's not a quantum jump from one to the other; it's a continuum, with no readily-identifiable benchmark along the way to say, "This far and no farther." And to make things more complex, as we all know, different individuals have different tolerances for pain -- some people can tolerate having their teeth drilled by the dentist with no anesthetic. (That's not me, by the way; I'm a dental wimp.) But even for such people, a Marathon-Man style interrogation session would obviously be torture.

The real problem is that such a question causes us to confront the basic moral schism of modern society: utilitarianism versus deontology. No person who claimed to be following anything close to the Golden Rule would condone torture, ever, under any circumstances. But no person sensitive to the plight of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, would shrink from doing whatever was necessary to prevent their harm. So the real problem with torture as an ethical and legal question is that it makes us confront a place where our ethical system rests on opposing foundations.

No universally morally acceptable answer to the question can be given. The question is a trap, a variant of the ethical game "Do good ends justify bad means?"

One way out of the trap is to deny that our prisoners are human beings. This we should be unwilling to do, for the reasons Senator McCain points out. Another way out of the trap is to try to define with greater precision what does or does not cross the line into the intentional infliction of "severe" pain. I think that was where Mayor Giuliani was starting to go, but time and political constraints prohibited any kind of a detailed or thoughtful analysis that is meaningful in any way. But playing semantic games and engaging in misdirection, like Governor Romney did, is not helpful at all -- that doesn't address the conundrum.

But the real way out of the trap is to point out that the game is rigged -- and falsely. Torturing our prisoners is a bad idea because it won't really save any lives. We need not confront whether torture is a useful but ethically repugnant thing to do because it really isn't all that useful for getting reliable information in the first place. If it doesn't really give us good, reliable information, then we aren't really going to save any lives by doing it.

So I think McCain took the high road here, to his credit. Giuliani was going down that road but probably hasn't thought about that angle as deeply as McCain -- which makes sense, given that McCain was personally the victim of torture during wartime, and Giuliani was at Ground Zero feeling the effects of a failure of intelligence to prevent a disaster. Romney offended me by sneering at civil rights; there is no reason to think that we could not afford basic due process to any terrorist prisoner, in an appropriately secure criminal forum, without compromising national security. Romney has made a false choice between liberty and security -- and he didn't even have to make it to answer the question.

And I also think that the choice between utilitarian and deontological ethical imperatives here is a false one, too. While it turns out that torture is not so easy to define, we are right to shy away from it even in extreme circumstances.

UPDATE (5/22/07): Matt Yglesias offers a surprisingly powerful definition of torture: If the KGB did it to extract false confessions, it's torture. He also points out that the association of torture with authoritarian regimes is more than a mere correlation; while this ought to be obvious, it's good to be reminded of that fact.

Happy Meal Indeed

In Chicago, your Happy Meal comes with:

• Cheeseburger
• Small Fries
• Small Drink
• Toy
• Weed
• Pipe
• Lighter

That's a good value for $3.99.

WTF?

Today, I got a most unpleasant piece of mail. I've long been suggesting that one of the nice things about Tennessee was that the government is relatively libertarian in its outlook; the state does not govern or do things more than it really needs to, and as a result it does not have to tax its citizens any more than it really needs to.

But it seems that in an effort for the state's leaders in Nashville to avoid implementing a bound-to-be-unpopular income tax, they've had to come up with some more creative ways of squeezing money out of people. Thus, I received this:




"Professional Privilege Tax"? What do they think the membership fees I pay to the Tennessee BOPR for my license are, if not a tax on my ability to practice law?

Now, bear in mind that I've already paid my Tennessee bar dues. I've already paid my fee to demonstrate compliance with my Tennessee continuing legal education requirements. I've already jumped through all the hoops that the Supreme Court, the Board of Professional Responsibility, and the Committee of Bar Examiners have asked me to. This is the Legislature, acting through the Tennessee Department of Revenue, trying to get their pound of flesh out of me, too, with the proceeds going directly into the state's general fund.

Bastards!

It seems that my choices are to pay the tax -- which, if you add in my BOPR dues and CLE compliance reporting fee, would make my Tennessee license more expensive than my California license -- or resign my license voluntarily. I'm leaning towards the latter, since I'm not really using my Tennessee license right now anyway. But the thing of it is, I now feel as though I've been taxed three times for the same thing.

Nashville can suck it.

Cat v. Tortoise

Three Roses

Three years ago this day, the very best thing that has ever happened to me, happened to me. I've been happier, healthier, and better in every way that I can think of since then. And only one person gets to take credit for that.

The Wife.

Happy anniversary, my darling. I love you very much. Thank you for making our lives together so joyful, enjoyable, and fulfilling.

Abdication

The President has found his war czar. Should When things don’t go very well as Iraq’s parliament retires for a two-month recess and eventually reconvenes for its rigorous schedule of meeting for two hours a day three days a week, and surprises the world by failing to achieve any kind of political unity in the country, General Lute will be looking at a new career as a scapegoat. So I presume he has negotiated his compensation for this service in advance. What bugs me is that this is the President’s own job – coordinating multiple fronts of military activity, economic developments, and variations in international political stability is the role that the President plays in foreign policy. Having people to help and advise him, and make policy on his behalf, is one thing; it’s something else to just punt all of these duties to an active-duty general and focus on the fun parts of the job.

Short Attention Span Politics

Start with the Democrats, with each candidacy reduced to a few words.  Then move on to the Republicans, whose summaries are even terser.  If you’re like me, you’ll wind up wanting a general election between Zombie Ronald Reagan and Zombie Lyndon Johnson.  Now that would be an election to remember!

Death of an Evangelist

Jerry Falwell has died and, like Andrew Sullivan, I can think of nothing particularly complimentary about the guy to say.  Andrew Sullivan will pray for Falwell but that’s a fruitless exercise if you ask me.

European Narrative

Europeans sometimes seem to forget that the visual arts are about narrative. Their movies, TV shows, and music videos sometimes just... end. Case in point (if it ever loads):



That's an enjoyable little pop song, fun and peppy. Quite popular a few years ago, you may recall -- a version sung in English was released here in the States, but the French language version is much better (the artist is Italian, BTW). But the video? There's one bit of narrative development at the very end, but aside from that it's nothing but two people either driving or standing around and not really even interacting with each other. Although I must grant that the dancing Elvis is a nice touch.

Superpages are Superuseless

In the past, I’ve found a useful tool for locating people and things in the online Superpages. Now, it’s become so overgrown with advertisements for things that I don’t want and that are located so far out of my way that it’s completely useless.

I know that the first twenty or so entries I see will be paid-for advertisements with dynamic taglines like "Michael's Beachside Bicycles! Proudly Serving 93551 Since 1974!" I know those dynamic tag lines will be lies -- foul, damned lies which will do nothing but waste my time and make me say bad words.

For instance, I tried to find local Italian restaurants while my parents were here. I got a listing for Louise’s Trattoria in Redondo Beach and a pizzeria in West Covina. Huh? As the crow flies, these places are about fifty miles from the ZIP code I put in. Driving, it could easily take two hours to get to these restaurants.

Today at work, I tried to find a real estate office I need to deal with on a case, whose address seems to be nowhere to be found in our own database. Once again, I got listings so far afield (in Glendora, Oceanside, and Indio) that it’s just plain ridiculous.

You would think somebody programming an online phone directory would give half a thought to distance and travel time when putting together their algorithms for advertising. People in the Antelope Valley don’t particularly want to hire plumbers from Long Beach or Diamond Bar.

I realize some people consider the Antelope Valley to be the ass end of civilization; and yes, if you ask the editors of Los Angeles Magazine, we may as well be a small seal-hunting and methamphetamine-producing village in Nunavut (and they aren't real fond of other distant in-county outposts like Westlake or Pomona, either). But the Superpages aren’t supposed to be about looking down your nose at philistines who use the wrong kind of dental floss; they're supposed to help ordinary consumers find ordinary products. And here, we’ve got something close to half a million people in our six zip-code area – making this community larger than Knoxville, Tennessee. So you would think that the advertisers might be able to get some approximation of service for a community of that size rather than just lumping every listing into a grab-bag for called "Los Angeles County."

Chrysler Sold For $7.4B

DaimlerBenz is selling an 80% stake in Chrysler to a U.S.-based VC firm for $7.4 billion. Daimler bought Chrysler for $37 billion ten years ago, so this represents a loss of more than two billion dollars a year since then.

Why is it that U.S. automakers are apparently unable to compete in today's business environment? Both GM and Ford are losing money in their auto manufacturing operations; their only consistently profitable business activities are their finance arms; GM makes more money selling home mortgages than doing anything else and would be lucky to break even on its auto sales. Same thing with Ford; its credit cards are its biggest profit center, and only its trucks and SUVs are sold at anything approximating a profit.

Are they the victim of unfavorable trade policies or unfair subsidies by the home countries of their competitors? Are they taxed too heavily by the U.S.? Are they overburdened with oppressive union contracts? Or is it just that their cars suck?

Perhaps more interestingly, should we Americans even care?

Gay Marriage in Connecticut

Arguments are being heard today in a challenge to Connecticut’s marriage laws. Connecticut already has civil unions which provide the state equivalent of marriage to same-sex couples; the laws enacting that new institution in Connecticut were enacted through the democratic process rather than being initiated by the courts.

The real legal problem, of course, is that the bulk of the rights and entitlements that really count for marriage happen at the Federal level. And I rather doubt that this Congress will be willing to revisit the Federal “Defense” Of Marriage Act; its hands are quite full of efforts to line the pockets of the contributors who funded the recent party switch efforts and grandstanding to no positive effect about Iraq.

The case in Connecticut, however, leaves something to be desired in my mind. I’ve stated many times on this page that my own sense of legal equality and the rights for all are satisfied with civil unions. I don’t care if the phrase that gay people get to use to describe their legal relationship is “marriage” or “civil union” or “domestic partnership” or whatever other phrase one cares to come up with. If the substantive rights are the same, and the ease of getting the partners into the legal relationship is substantially similar, to that of marriage, then I think the demands of equal treatment are satisfied.

In Connecticut, the challenge for the plaintiffs today is explaining the difference between “marriage” and a “civil union,” and for the life of me I can’t see what that would be other than semantics. If Connecticut has done all that it can do to give a gay couple entering into a Connecticut civil union the same rights that Connecticut gives to a straight couple getting a Connecticut marriage license, then I just don’t see why the word used to describe this arrangement matters. It looks to me like these plaintiffs in Connecticut who demanded that their state give them equal rights can’t take “yes” for an answer.

Certainly the word “marriage” carries a certain level of social prestige and legitimacy. But that kind of social acceptance being afforded to their relationships is not really something that the state of Connecticut can legislate. It is something that each gay couple will have to earn in the eyes of their friends and neighbors, by being good people and good members of their communities, and having long-lived relationships together. This is not a battle for the courts or the legislature of the states, gay plaintiffs; it is a lifetime challenged to be good to your chosen partner and to let people see your love for and commitment to each other.

I’m all for equality and I have concerned myself more on these pages with this issue than is probably important in the grand scheme of issues facing our country. But it seems to me Connecticut has done all that could be asked of it already. Maybe a Loyal Reader with a different opinion on the issue can educate me as to why the phrase used to describe legally equivalent institutions should matter.

Lots of Class

My second live class will come to an end tomorrow. Fortunately, there isn't a lot of preparation I have to do for it -- I will give a lecture similar to the one I finished with my last live class, and then let my students give their final presentations. And I'll order pizza for the guests who are coming to help evaluate my students. And that will be it.

But there's no rest for the instruction-minded. Another online class starts the very next day, and my previous online class is not yet finished. The good news is I believe I have finished transforming all of my classes into an all-objective test format and those are pretty much cut-and-paste jobs now. The bad news is that they still take about an hour each day, and with two of them going at once for the next three weeks, that will be a big bite out of my mornings. (Maybe I'll do one in the morning and one in the evening.)

This will be the thirtieth online class I have taught. My three-year anniversary at UoP is coming up and after that I am (I think) eligible for a raise. Which is good because teaching these classes isn't really that much fun. It's not that hard but it's also not a challenge anymore. And it is occasionally very frustrating to see low-quality students flail about, fail, blame others, or slack off. Seeing the good students excel is a more rare event and it doesn't make up for the downside. But that's why they call it "work" and not "fun." As I've learned, other colleges offer similar sorts of frustrations, so I can either suck it up and do it, or abandon my sidelight job.

Diplomacy

It would appear that we (meaning the United States) will soon have direct talks between our Iraqi ambassador and an equivalent from Iran, in Baghdad. This is a welcome development. Iran has been causing a tremendous amount of trouble for the U.S. and the west recently and we need to figure out who to do about them.

Talking seems like a pretty good piece of the puzzle to have included. We never once withdrew from engagement with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and for good reason. Since we can't realistically impose regime change in Iran, and we can't do nothing about them, we have to do other things.

The same thing should be true with our adversaries now. Diplomacy can't be the only thing we do. But we can't achieve our interests without first understanding our adversaries and we can't do it without engaging them, too.

Lengthy Visit

My folks came to visit over the last week. We had a great time. This was as good and enjoyable a visit from them as I could possibly have wished for. Everyone got along great; everyone had fun; everyone enjoyed everyone else's company. The time together was far too short. We didn't even have to do that much. It was sufficient to spend time together, to enjoy being together, and to eat and drink and be merry.

I took particular pleasure in seeing The Wife and my mother get along well; they both enjoy looking at open houses and new house models, so they seemed to do quite a bit of that. They also share a fondness for stamping and making cards. My father and I (more him than me) fixed some of the broken sprinklers out on the lawns, and that may well improve the appearance of the RMID. While he's much more capable than I at such things, it is enjoyable working with him and learning how he does things.

It's also exciting to hear about the improvements and plans that my parents have for The Estate At Louisville. My father's retirement business is going swimmingly well and it looks like they'll be able to fund a lot of those improvements very well in a fairly short amount of time. I'm very pleased that they're enjoying their retirement and that things are falling in place for them out in Tennessee (and out here). My father may have found a new client in the High Desert so hopefully we'll be seeing more of them soon!

Saturday night, we had some friends over; they brought their baby and we locked the dogs in the back yard. My folks had brought a premium tri-tip down on their drive from Northern California; I put it in my special marinate for a day and we grilled it up and served it with roasted rosemary potatoes, sunflowered haricots verts, and sweet corn on the cob. My mother made chocolate creampuffs and we managed to knock back a couple bottles of wine. A very good time was had by all.

For Mother's Day I made up a championship-quality quiche and we had a peach strudel. Then we looked at more houses for sale. After a while, it got to be late enough in the day that my folks had to get driving back up to Sacramento to catch their flight home (they had originally flown out to go to a wedding in the wine country) and so we bid them farewell.

But not before thanking them for the wonderful anniversary present (a new dryer) and finding the one thing they'd left behind -- what may be the last bottle of a particular kind of German wine my father likes very, very much and which he won't figure out he left behind here until he gets home tomorrow night. Rather than drink it myself, I'll pack it up and mail it to him tomorrow.

Cool Toy

This cool little Java toy tells you the popularity of names given to babies going back to the late 1800's. So if it seems like from out of nowhere there are suddenly a lot of fifth-graders named "Zachary," "Brittany," "Ashley," "Jeremy," and the like, that's because there are.

TL, Sincerely

Lawyers write lots of letters. Some days it feels like that’s all I do. A lawyer friend of mine asked the other day how to close his letters, and another lawyer friend pointed out that the closings on lawyer letters struck him as odd when he read them literally; “very truly yours” was a phrase that struck him as nearly meaningless and he got my curiosity up about where that phrase came from.

There are lots of rules for closing out general business letters as well as lawyer letters, like the rule that says use “Yours faithfully” when you don’t know the recipient and “Yours sincerely” when you do. I’m not at all certain that these rules are hard and fast or that grammar authorities have any consensus on the question of the best way to close a professional letter. But “Very Truly Yours” is a valediction that is used almost exclusively by attorneys. Why is that? The etymology of the phrase (and other phrases using the word “yours”) traces back through the custom in Merry Olde England of signing off letters identifying the author as the “servant” of the addressee, even in cases where the letter was intended as an insult.

This seems to go back to medieval England when pretty much the only things written down at all were either legal or ecclesiastical in nature, and so all writings ended either with an “Amen” or some other invocation of God, an affirmation that the writing was authorized by the King, or with some supplication to the correspondent because the contents of the letter were a petition or some other kind of request for a favor.

So, the custom of medieval correspondents explaining why they ought to be given the favor that they requested traced back to the relationship of a vassal to a lord, which was ostensibly a relationship of a contractual exchange of services. The vassal should be given a favor because he is the vassal; the lord is supposed to render services of protection to the vassal, and thus both are servants of one another and that is why each should do what the other says. (In reality, of course, the vassal begs the lord for something which was either given or not, and the vassal took what he got and liked it.)

This evolved into lawyers petitioning judges and royalty for favors, and they kept the custom of reminding their correspondent that they (the lawyers) were the humble servants of the king and the court, and so it worked its way into polite written exchanges. One might imagine a note reading something like this resulting from this tradition:

Dear Mr. Burr,

Your Grave Insults to my Honour have not gone unnoticed and this brand of Knavery most Foul shall not go without ƒuitable response. I today demand an Immediate and most forthright Apologie in retraction of ye remarks, as ƒhould befit a proper gent. of true name, that which ye have disproven yourƒelf extant in the estimation of the better folk of New Yorke.

Failing to have recd. from you by Tuesday next your Apologie, I shall await ye arrival upon the Jersey banks of the ƒhore of the Hudson River at daybrk. on ye Friday, to resolve this Affair of Honour with the implement duello of your choice, as the Gentleman’s Right ƒhall then be yours.

I remain your most obedient and humble servant,

Alexander Hamilton.

(Obviously, the letter is fictional; Hamilton’s challenge to Burr was delivered orally, and through proxies, as was the custom of the day.) But you get the idea; no gentleman worthy of the name would have closed a letter to another without begging to be the “Most True Servant” of his correspondent. The servile phrasing of the valediction here would have seemed entirely customary despite the aggressive tone of the preceding portions of the letter. But from a closing like “I beg to remain your true and humble servant” the phrase would have been shortened to something like “I remain your true and loyal servant” to “Your true servant,” to “Yours truly.”

Even today, subjects of the British Royal Family are requested, for sake of politesse and etiquette, to address most members of the Royal Family in writing with the now-obviously similar phrase “Yours Very Truly,” with the exception of the Queen, of whom you must “remain” Her Majesty’s “faithful and obedient servant.”

In modern professional writing, a letter requires a closing of some kind to indicate to the reader that the content of the letter is complete. By custom and tradition, this comes before the signature of the author, which is given to verify the origin of the letter. Certainly, a closing must be complimentary rather than insulting or sarcastic in professional use; you can’t end the letter with something that leaves a bad taste in the reader’s mouth. And a professional valediction is of necessity cool in tone, as the letter is not being written in general to express friendship or warm feelings, but rather to accomplish some kind of professional purpose.

Now, for some reason, “Sincerely” seems to not be used (at least by attorneys) as its literal meaning is thought unnecessary – if you weren’t sincere about what you just wrote, why did you go to the trouble of writing it? But that logic doesn’t hold up when considering what “Very Truly Yours” really means. So I like “Sincerely.” When I am writing a lawyer from the law firm of Condescending, Stubborn, Foolhardy & Arrogant, LLP, to tell him that I’ve had it with his hide-the-ball negotiation tactics and filed suit against his obstinate client instead, I am in no way making myself that attorney’s “servant” – I am taking what I want from his client through the compulsory process of the courts, which is pretty close to the opposite of what you would expect from a “faithful and obedient servant.” I suppose “Very Truly Yours” is perfectly fine, but I’ve come to use “Sincerely” more often than “Very Truly Yours.” I’d prefer to be thought of as redundant rather than obsequious.

The Godfather: Libertarian Treatise

Ilya Somin makes an interesting case for Mario Puzo’s novel (and, by extension, the movies which faithfully adapted it) as a libertarian treatise.  Certainly, Professor Somin recognizes that the real focus of the story is personal – the corruption of Michael Corleone – and that the story’s exploration of similarities between the Mafia, big business, and the government reaches a point of demonstrating their general moral equivalence, which sounds more liberal than libertarian to me.  But the backdrop is based on a (perhaps unconsciously) libertarian world view about protective associations in the style of Robert Nozick, the dangers of political corruption and inefficacy within the state, and the dangers of violence and social degradation that result from criminalizing substances, both narcotic and alcoholic.

Race and Cheating

I know that most of my Loyal Readers are not particularly sports fans, and I've not made many remarks about sports for a while. But it's likely that this year, Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants will surpass Hank Aaron for having the most career home runs in the history of Major League Baseball. This prospect is generating decidedly mixed reactions on the part of baseball fans.

The problem, according to some, is race. Apparently, no one wants to give Bonds the benefit of the doubt because he's a big black man, so they "presume" he's used steroids and therefore doesn't "deserve" the record. Never mind the evidence against him on that point, we're talking about the emotions generated by racial differences here. So you can disregard, if you like, the photograph to the right of Bonds when he started playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1986. But I look at that photograph and I see a good-looking 22-year old in that photo, exactly what I'd expect to see in a young athlete. Bonds looks like he's in pretty good shape, and has the slender, fast build and the serious, earnest attitude of a young baseball player.

Now, to the left is a photograph of Bonds today. Still in good shape -- hell, he's in phenomenal shape. He looks more like a prize fighter than a baseball player. Twenty years later, what happened to that man's neck? Good nutrition?

Yes, top-tier professional athletes have become better, faster, and stronger than their counterparts from yesteryear, and there are a lot of reasons for that. But there is no way you can tell me that this change in the body of a man in his forties is solely the result of good nutrition and exercise. There's been some other kinds of science helping him out, too.

So there are two questions -- first, does race have anything to do with the baseball-loving public's distaste for the prospect of Bonds getting one of the most prestigious and prominent records in the rich history of the sport? I think not. I'm not saying that America is colorblind. I'm saying that sports fans -- even ones who may have some obnoxious racial attitudes in other parts of their lives -- are more than willing to accept and admire black athletes. Non-sports fans don't care about Bonds one way or the other, but sports fans as a group tend to care about performance and achievement.

No, I think people don't like the idea of Bonds having that record not because Bonds is black, but because Bonds is a jerk. You don't have to be white to be an asshole. Besides, the current record-holder, Hank Aaron, is also black. And Bonds' godfather; the two men are personally very close, which most sports fans think is pretty cool even if they aren't particularly big Bonds fans themselves.

Second, do we care if Bonds is using human growth hormone, steroids, or various kinds of supplements that are not part of a "normal" diet and exercise regimen? These are not "normal" people who are just playing baseball for fun. The market rewards athletes who push themselves as hard as possible, and do whatever is within their power to excel. We sports fans love it when we see records being broken and demonstrations of feats of remarkable strength, agility, speed, and physical abilities. So why shouldn't Bonds use (legal) drugs and other products to make himself better? Didn't athletes of the bygone years of "fair play" engage in unusual training and dietary regimens, too? Granted, their ideas of what to eat and how to conduct their lives to be better at their craft were different than ours today (lots of red meat, sitz baths, and things like that) but we don't put asterisks next to their names anymore.

Ultimately, it doesn't make much difference in the world if Bonds is a steroid user, HGH user, or if he's simply an honest baseball player with an image problem. He'll very likely break the home run record this year, and good for him. He is what the sports market has demanded that he be, and he should reap the rewards that go with it. If the achievement seems corrupted (and it does) that is not just Bonds' fault. It is also the fault of the governing authorities of the sport who mollycoddle and turn a blind eye to what they call "cheating" and it is also the fault of the fans and consumers of the sport who demonstrate, time and again, that "cheating" isn't nearly as important as winning. That is a problem that goes well beyond Barry Bonds.

And the fact that Bonds is black is really a minute issue compared with the fact that society rewards cheaters.

Coasting A Little

Not many posts recently because The Folks are in town and staying with us. They've no desire to intrude on our lifestyle but we don't get to visit with them much. So I'm devoting more of my time to being with them while they're here. For instance last night my dad made some really good steaks and grilled vegetables, and we had a relaxed, enjoyable dinner together. It's a great pleasure to have them here and everyone's getting along very well indeed.

Yes, I'm normally a more prolific writer than this but a week of coasting is probably no skin off anyone's nose. After all, this is a completely noncommercial blog so you're still getting your money's worth.

One thing to note is a debate between the Rational Response Squad, a group of young atheists, and the Way of the Master guys (Kirk Cameron and an English preacher), both of whom have brash, in-your-face styles of presenting their world views. The Way of the Master guys claim to be able to "prove" the existence of God without reference to faith or the Bible, and there will be a debate on that subject on ABC News Now today (May 9) at 2:00 and later tonight on Nightline at 11:35 p.m. (No, I don't have a clue as to why ABC insists on broadcasting Nightline at 11:35 instead of 11:30.) I do not anticipate anything new being said by anyone, but it might make for an interesting confrontation.

I also anticipate that the side you agree with before watching the debate will be the side you will think won the debate afterwards. I will try to keep an open mind, but I've seen the internet video of the Way of the Master dudes before and I think they've got pretty weak ketchup, from an intellectual point of view, although they do have a pretty slick website. I've also seen a preview from the debate, and it looks like the Way of the Master guys -- while perhaps making a decent case to the already-converted -- fail in their objective to prove the existence of God without reference to faith or the Bible.

Meanwhile, the RRS guys have been proceeding on other fronts, too -- including a most interesting copyright suit against Uri Geller (the widely-debunked, spoon-bending "psychic").

UPDATE: On second thought, I think I've written plenty today.