Environmentalism -- Part III

The Truth Persists, All Cries Of “Consensus” To The Contrary

Conceding virtually all of the global-warming catechism has offered scant reason to sacrifice our freedom and prosperity on environmentalism’s altar. If we “come back to Earth” for a moment and acknowledge that man-made global warming remains at best a debatable proposition, the folly of entrusting environmental power to government becomes even more obvious. Yet even this humble acknowledgment of controversy proves impossible to secure from the other side, because like any religion run amok, environmentalism denounces and persecutes non-believers as heretics. One example of this zealotry unfolded during 2007 at “Live Earth: The Concerts for a Climate in Crisis,” a cathartic spectacle worthy of 1930s Munich. During the American leg of this tour, throngs of spiritual orphans listened with rapt attention as political scion Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. ranted that all environmentally-hesitant politicians should be condemned as “traitors.”

Public pathos and a juggernaut of government-greased “scientific consensus” notwithstanding,¹ true scientific inquiry never ceases and is constantly revealing more about the mechanisms behind global climate change, mechanisms that surpass anything that mankind could hope to accomplish for good or for ill.

First, mankind’s contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide amounts to at most four percent (4%) of the total generated by “natural” sources such as animals, volcanoes, forest fires, plate tectonics, and the oceans. Moreover, all carbon-dioxide sources together comprise only 385 parts per million, or 0.0385%, of the atmosphere. So if we succumbed to the most rabid environmentalist agenda by returning humanity to the Stone Age, ninety-six percent of the carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere would continue to do so unabated, bringing the carbon-dioxide content of the atmosphere down to 0.0369%. The decrease would be even less significant if we enacted the liberty-destroying measures that most environmentalists advocate. So much drama, and despite the fact that Earth has experienced carbon-dioxide levels of 1000 to 2000 parts per million, or 0.1% - 0.2%, an order of magnitude greater than anything humans have ever witnessed. Such elevated levels of carbon dioxide likely explain the incredible biodiversity of the dinosaur era, which makes the modern mission to “save the planet” by curtailing carbon dioxide supremely ludicrous, as illustrated below.

Figure 4.1

Atmospheric CO2 (measured in parts per million)²

Environmentalists demand that we submit to open-ended, global political control in order to shave the first bar of this graph ever so slightly. I think not. Supposing we should or could make a meaningful difference in total carbon-dioxide output – both man-made and “natural” – recent research strongly suggests that this would prove fruitless because carbon dioxide likely does not even cause global warming at all; rather, global warming may very well precede and cause the periodic surges of atmospheric carbon dioxide. In other words, the arrow of causation may run in the opposite direction: as the Earth experiences occasional increases in energy from the Sun and/or other cosmic sources, the Earth’s oceans slowly warm up and, centuries later, expel larger amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. One very articulate proponent of this theory is Dr. Sallie Baliunas, who received her doctorate from Harvard University, and who astutely compares the political rhetoric of today to the frenzied European witch hunts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries – an age when many women were executed on accusations of “weather cooking.”

And again for the sake of perspective, it helps to remember that Earth existed for billions of years before we arrived on the scene, and it has experienced conditions far more radical than the grimmest scenarios painted by today’s prophets of doom. When we consider a pre-historic atmosphere brimming with carbon dioxide; recurring mass extinctions that have wiped out the vast majority of all previous life on Earth; ongoing asteroid impacts that dwarf man-made nuclear weapons (as well as any man-made “climate change”), we can safely conclude that the Earth has seen it all before and will continue to see it long into the future.

Only a mind saturated with self-hatred could conceive that humanity’s infinitesimal blink of activity is so menacing that it must be stopped or severely curtailed by force. Earth is quite capable of taking care of itself, which is more than man can say when he cripples his potential with lies born of idleness and spiritual poverty. That poverty has settled like a dense fog on many hearts and minds in the once-proud West, causing its people to beg for the very deprivations that modern governments are all too happy to supply. Mainstream news sources habitually report on man-made global warming as if it were unquestionable fact, discussing with grim sobriety the varying statist proposals to combat it. Captive audiences of schoolchildren receive lessons portraying this mania as information to be uncritically absorbed along with their multiplication tables (if those are even taught anymore). An emeritus professor at a prestigious Australian university recently went so far as to co-author a book – The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy – that condemns the West’s (dwindling) protections of individual rights as an obstacle to centralized environmental planning by “experts.” A jury in the United Kingdom refused to convict six Greenpeace activists who had destroyed private property at a power station, since their end of combating “global warming” excused their vandalistic means. And in a collective spasm of self-flagellation worthy of the Middle Ages, numerous cities in countries ranging from Thailand, the Philippines, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Greece, and the United States imposed blackouts on their populations in order to “heighten awareness” about man-made global warming.

People used to remark that the lights went out over Europe at the start of World War One, but posterity may very well note that the lights went out literally and figuratively over us all today.³ Such a cultural collapse renders almost futile any discussion of what is happening on the international legal stage in environmentalism’s name, since so many nations have already surrendered the philosophical fight to their domestic governments and thereby empowered them to perpetrate legitimized vandalism on a daily basis. On the other hand, however, environmentalists continue to rage that the “global community” is not doing enough, so perhaps there is some value in analyzing the international picture in the hopes of prolonging or deepening the environmentalists’ frustration.
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1. The notorious “hockey-stick” graph that illustrates a recent spike in global temperatures – and that erased the Medieval Warming Period in the process – epitomizes the intellectual corruption that always accompanies politics. Both the United Nations and the European Union latched onto this graph and touted it as proof positive for their designs, even after it came to light in 2003 that the graph is a farce of disjointed data cobbled together to produce a pre-determined outcome. An American physicist had generated the graph by intentionally ignoring contrary data and utilizing a computer algorithm certain to produce the conclusion that he (and his benefactors) sought.

2. Levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are thought to have greatly exceeded 2000 parts per million at various times prior to the Dinosaur (Mesozoic) Era, but employing this conservative ceiling makes the point nonetheless.

3. One heroic exception is Václav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, who has consistently denounced the global-warming dialectic as a politically-driven fraud. National sovereignty again proves its merit in challenging mass lunacy.

Environmentalism -- Part II

The Philosophical Quicksand Beneath The Global-Warming Hysteria

Perhaps the surest method for exposing the flaws in a proposition is to assume its truth. So let us assume that what environmentalism preaches is true, namely that human activity contributes too much carbon dioxide to the amounts already flooding into the atmosphere "naturally"¹; that our carbon dioxide indeed causes global warming; and that government is therefore justified in dictating the types and amounts of energy we use in our daily lives. How much atmospheric carbon dioxide, then, constitutes an acceptable amount? No credible source proposes outlawing our entire contribution; the U.N. Kyoto Protocol (discussed below) aims to take us back to the approximate emissions levels of 1990. But there’s the rub: the 1990 emissions themselves were once portrayed by the U.N. as excessive,² meaning that full Kyoto compliance would see us continuing to pump supposedly toxic amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and imperiling the environment – only this time, at the price of our liberty as well.

Let us concede even more ground by assuming that Kyoto is only a “first step,” meaning that government – in all its disinterested and selfless wisdom – knows exactly how much carbon dioxide the Earth can tolerate from us and will implement policies that target the proper output. What then, pray tell, is the correct temperature that we should nurse the Earth back to? We know that the Earth was both far cooler and far warmer in the past, long before mankind graduated into the industrial age: the most recent Ice Age ended 10,000 years ago, and global temperatures some 6,000 years ago (the “Holocene Maximum”) were higher than they are today. Temperatures were also higher during the Medieval Warming Period from roughly A.D. 1000 to 1300, again long before the Industrial Revolution. Last but not least, temperatures tended to oscillate up and down much more rapidly before civilization even developed, and we have occupied an unusually stable interlude in the Earth’s temperature. So just where do we set the global thermostat? How do we know when our “harmful” influence is fully remedied, given that a “healthy” Earth will continue to experience drastic climate changes all its own? It appears that there is no end in sight, somewhat similar to the United States’ unending crusade of affirmative action – racial disparities and climate anomalies are twin facts of life that will never disappear, thus perpetually justifying governmental interference to “fix the problem.” For example, environmentalist prophet Al Gore seized on the deadly Myanmar cyclone as proof of his religion, while like-minded others have gone so far as to blame everything from kidney stones to shark attacks on mankind’s environmental sins as well. Just as primitive peoples might conduct human sacrifice upon the occurrence of a solar eclipse, the high priests of modernity will re-enact that sorry spectacle on a massive scale during every environmental novelty that befuddles the public mind.

Let us disregard all these qualms and assume that: 1) mankind introduces too much carbon dioxide into the environment; 2) mankind’s carbon dioxide is to blame for excessive global warming; 3) government can calculate how much carbon dioxide the Earth can tolerate; 4) government can calculate the “natural” global temperature; and 5) any “natural” changes in climate will honestly and successfully be distinguished from changes that mankind has caused. Even yielding each one of these very dubious points fails to produce the environmentalist conclusion that governmental interference will rescue us from the brink of destruction. Only wealthy countries are capable of adopting “green” policies, since the wealthy can best afford to humor environmentalist agitation; people in poor countries are more preoccupied with daily survival than with the atmosphere, often making their treatment of the environment far worse. The Kyoto Protocol itself acknowledges this by imposing its most onerous obligations on the nations that can best afford them. Rather than safeguard and spread the free-market principles underlying this wealth, environmentalists propose quite the opposite: to cripple the engine of wealth where it exists. Private property, freedom of contract, and profit motive all make environmentalism possible, yet environmentalism has declared war on its parents and seeks to curtail or abolish them. Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, proudly admitted this fact when agitating at a U.N. conference concerning biofuels:³ “If we want to save our planet Earth, we have a duty to put an end to the capitalist system.” An honest effort to remedy the supposed menace of man-made global warming would reject this noxious ideology of central planning as a proven failure at generating the wealth and technology needed to accomplish environmentalism’s own ambitious program. Since environmentalism’s methods are self-defeating, they hardly merit serious consideration.

One final concession drives the point home: even if mankind’s technological progress is somehow shortening the Earth’s hospitable lifespan, mankind represents the only hope of transporting life away from this mortal planet that will eventually be scorched and/or swallowed as the Sun balloons into a red giant. Even long before that inevitable demise takes place, we face the high probability of an asteroid impact that will terminate human life and much of the sacred biodiversity. To the extent that environmentalists succeed in hobbling mankind’s progress with their schoolboy socialism, they will have condemned to death what they claim to hold dear, and Earth’s life will remain trapped to perish as if it never were. One can honestly say that mankind represents the Earth’s seeds, and that mankind is very much part of nature’s effort to spread life as far and wide as possible. From this macro-perspective, environmentalists represent nature's deadliest foes.
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1. I place this word in quotes because of ongoing philosophical confusion over what constitutes “natural” versus “unnatural.” On the one hand, environmentalists tend to claim that mankind is merely a part of nature and has no unique status or rights over anything else on planet Earth. On the other hand, environmentalists tend to claim that mankind is somehow outside nature and has a unique responsibility to avoid influencing the environment in any noticeable way, even if it falls far short of the cataclysms and extinctions that preceded mankind’s appearance.

2. In 1990 the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (“IPCC”) issued its first major report, which concluded that man-made carbon dioxide had caused the previous century’s warming trend, and which recommended drastic cuts in existing carbon-dioxide emissions.

3. The biofuels saga presents its own tragicomedy of modern man’s undoing: governments take our money in order to finance a food-based fuel source (e.g., ethanol) that we have not chosen to finance on our own, driving up the price of food to the point that poor people find it harder than ever to subsist. Man freely and peacefully transitioned from whale blubber to kerosene to petroleum as fuel sources, and there is no reason that the free market cannot also encourage the next transition whenever the scarcity of petroleum drives up its price and makes alternative fuels profitable.

More Annoyances

Anyone who describes himself as a "progressive," an amorphous, feel-good term usually brandished by people who yearn for greater governmental control (i.e., regressive).

Anyone who describes himself as a "moderate," as if hewing to no principles and compromising on everything were something to be proud of.

People who are actually persuaded by campaign ads and stump speeches. Show me each candidate's beliefs and proposals on a sheet of paper, and I can immediately decide which candidate (if any) is worthy of my vote.

Entitled pedestrians, especially the ones who stroll into the street where there is no crosswalk and act huffy if traffic doesn't come to a screeching halt.

People who thoughtlessly open their car doors and ding the cars parked next to them.

Drawing a consistent string of lousy letters in Scrabble.

Plaintiffs who act shocked that I am contesting liability and will not just roll over to discuss damages.

People who curse in mixed company, especially when children are around (not so much women, who often are the ones cursing).

Another celebrity divorce that infests the news cycle for several weeks.

Another celebrity checking into rehab for alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction, anorexia, or any number of other self-inflicted pathologies.

Whenever anyone describes the President as "our commander-in-chief." No, he's the commander-in-chief of the federal armed forces, not of me.

The fact that Republicans want small government at home rather than abroad; that Democrats want small government abroad rather than at home; that neither side grasps the inherent contradiction in its views; and that both sides compromise by agreeing on big government everywhere.

Environmentalism -- Part I

Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.

~ G.K. Chesterton, 1930

Without any censorship, in the West fashionable trends of thought and ideas are carefully separated from those which are not fashionable; nothing is forbidden, but what is not fashionable will hardly ever find its way into periodicals or books or be heard in colleges. Legally your researchers are free, but they are conditioned by the fashion of the day. . . . This gives birth to strong mass prejudices, blindness, which is most dangerous in our dynamic era.

~ Alexander Solzhenitsyn, to the Harvard graduating class of 1978

ENVIRONMENTALISM’S POETIC LIE

No matter how superior modern man fancies himself over his ancestors, he still displays the overriding urge to believe an all-encompassing story of his place in the cosmos, to believe in myths. There is no shame in this need, for myths are not lies – myths are poetic truths. Shame should emerge only when a poetic lie overpowers the truth, as it did with the twentieth-century scourges of fascism, Nazism, and communism. Those lies gained ground because mankind had discarded the hereafter for the here, yearning to transport the kingdom of heaven to Earth. The defeat of those particular lies did not, unfortunately, defeat modern man’s ongoing hunger for a worldly religion that will save his body rather than his soul. Environmentalism feeds that hunger and counts as the poetic lie of the moment, reaching its zenith (or nadir) of late with the coronation of former Vice-President Al Gore as Nobel laureate for his malum opus, An Inconvenient Truth. As always, shame will have to wait until the moment has passed.

Environmentalism does not, of course, connote people who enjoy the countryside; who scrupulously avoid polluting; who disdain cruelty to animals; or who shun meat in favor of vegetables. Much more than a personal lifestyle choice, environmentalism prophesies the Earth’s death or irreversible degradation at mankind’s hands, an apocalyptic faith claiming dominion over other people’s lives and overshadowing all competing concerns for individual rights and justice. If this obsession with our material surroundings counts as modern man’s religion, then government undeniably counts as modern man’s church, possessing as it does authority over the things of this world. One catechism in the environmentalist creed has assumed primary status: government must reduce mankind’s carbon-dioxide footprint so as to combat climate change. Because the global climate is at issue, this catechism has proved most receptive to global governmental control, handing the political class an incredibly effective mechanism for crushing national sovereignty and individual freedom. Wagging his finger recently, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon proclaimed that global warming is undeniable and that “only urgent, global action will do.” So the cynical government and the spiritually-starved governed find common cause here, even more so than with “democracy” or “human rights,” thus rendering any attempt at reasoned discussion supremely futile if not outright dangerous. For what it’s worth, I will present an opposing view on the global-warming hysteria, a view grounded on the universal reason available to anyone willing to use it.

Pain

Several of my posts remark on pain, an inevitable feature of life in this world. It always has been my belief that pain must be confronted and endured, not hidden or avoided, and this belief has made me a stronger person over time. But one type of pain is unique, several orders of magnitude beyond any other, and for which you cannot prepare: being betrayed by someone you love.

If I could wave a magic wand and spare everyone else that pain for the rest of eternity, I would. Unfortunately, the best I can do is console you that if you have your soul shredded in that manner and survive it, you will be reborn stronger than ever.

Guilty Pleasure

I have a unique talent for angering people. It's not something I ever planned to do; rather, it's something that simply happens when I go about my business. I keep to myself, concentrate on being the best person I can be, speak only when spoken to or when I have something important to say, and am polite to a T -- all of which drives people nuts.

It wasn't until adulthood that I grasped how shallow, desperate, and needy most people are (though maybe it's just Americans, as the people I've met overseas are more relaxed and less neurotic). I make sense of life by conducting my own internal inquiries and arriving at the answers; they make sense of life by shopping for pre-cooked answers from their surroundings. I have nothing to sell them. As born-and-bred consumers, they feel jilted at the sight of nothing to buy.

What I do offer is an exchange of ideas, at no charge, for anyone willing to trade. But that requires thought and effort, two things supremely unpopular in a society where the customer and his hind-brain impulses are always right. I would be far more popular if I belted out my unvarnished (or better yet, uninformed) opinions wherever I went, for that would place everyone at ease and let them know my brand without their having to lift a finger. As it stands, my friends are few and far between, the ones who have transcended mental infancy into adulthood. And that's precisely why I cherish them.

Being me once was difficult when I sought the approval of others. Now, I derive a rather guilty pleasure from pissing them off. The infants who can't handle interacting with an adult are filtered out; the adults join and enrich my life.

Thought For The Day

"Though one should conquer a thousand times a thousand men in battle, he who conquers his own self is the greatest of all." ~Buddha

La Yegua

En la orilla de las aguas claras, en plena vista de Sevilla,
Se encuentra un roble prodigioso cuya madera lo presencia todo,
Y cuyas ramas le brindan sombra a la yegua.

Una vez era linda y la envidia de toda Andalucía.
Penacho erizado hasta el cielo.
Pelaje resplandeciente bajo el brillo, o del sol o de la luna.
Y el caballero andante, que la amaba y respetaba.

Pero ya termina desgraciada.

Cabizbaja, lomo encorvado, cubierta de tábanos,
La yegua carece de herradura y apenas recuerda quién era.
Sólo le quedan la sombra, una silla de cuero harapienta,
Y la fusta, blandida por el jinete bruto que monta a ella.

Shutting Off Your Brain

This is a widespread fascination that I've always had a difficult time understanding. People put in a hard day's or week's work, and their only goal in the precious moments away from the job is to shut off their brains. But it's precisely when I'm away from work that my brain is free at last to explore the things I want, not the things dictated by bosses, clients, or anyone else.

Granted, there are times that my brain needs to rest, but I can't imagine shutting it off for the entire time that it is at my sole disposal. What a waste that would be, and what a waste it is for so many out there. Life's greatest triumphs and joys are the product of individual effort and creativity, not fulfilling the demands of others. Don't waste your freedom.

Human Rights Review

The “human rights” instruments I have discussed – the UDHR, the ICCPR, the ICESCR, the ICERD, the CEDAW, and the CRC – are the most prominent ones with global application, and they differ from the more humble instruments whose goals do not include the restructuring of civil society (e.g., the conventions against torture and genocide). Various regional instruments have emerged that echo the UDHR and its progeny, such as the European Convention on Human Rights; the American Convention on Human Rights; and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights. Taken together, these treaties signify the global ascendancy of an intrusive, government-centered philosophy that bears no kinship with true rights of speech, property, (non-)association, or parenting. Even the radical “Second Generation Rights” – which enslave some individuals to supply the wants and needs of others – have proved too moderate for the “human rights” zealots, who today browbeat for “Third Generation Rights” that will submerge the very concept of the individual into the collective. Tragically, the United States government has ratified the ICCPR and the ICERD, and it has also signed the ICESCR, the CEDAW, and the CRC. A more complete rupture with America’s founding principles could scarcely be imagined, as our government discards the individualist philosophy of the Declaration of Independence and surrenders to the Old-World outlook from which our ancestors fled.

Quite apart from the violence our institutions might suffer upon the federal government’s ratification and implementation of these treaties, we find that various state and local governments already have begun enforcing the anti-individualist conception of “human rights” that these treaties promote. In what was once meat-and-potatoes America, there have cropped up “human rights commissions” reminiscent of war-torn Africa, imposing sanctions and infamy on honest people who made the mistake of acting as if they were free.

Take the example of a T.G.I. Fridays located in Alexandria, Virginia, a town where I once resided: the Fridays decided to fire (i.e., to end its contractual relationship with) one of its employees because he was H.I.V. positive. In the old America, the employee’s recourse, if any, would appear in the employment contract and nowhere else. As America began shedding its limited-government tradition, the federal government and several state governments intruded on this private arrangement to punish such employer choices with civil remedies. In today’s America, even those punitive measures look too mild, so the Alexandria Human Rights Commission investigated and essentially adjudged the employer an enemy of humankind.

Consider also the plight of Geno’s Steaks, a popular restaurant located in South Philadelphia, and whose owner dared to post a sign requesting that customers place their orders in English. Even though Geno’s never refused service to anyone, a collection of sociopaths at the Philadelphia Commission On Human Relations filed a discrimination complaint against him. It was only by drawing national attention that Geno’s escaped sanction, a result that so angered Philadelphia Councilman James Kenney that he actually said the following: “He's like a legend in his own mind. He’s spun it so that he's a martyr in people's minds in order to gain financial benefit. He’s a selfish individual.” So this is what our “leaders” think of us when we attempt to exercise our God-given rights: as “selfish.” Insanity of this sort will only worsen as long as the United States does not actively challenge and refute “human rights” as currently conceived, which are completely out of step with our founding principles.

It would be bad enough if the United States were destroying only itself, but by participating in a worldwide enterprise of this sort the United States is once again helping to torch the sovereignty of the nation-state. In furtherance of that objective, a body of “human rights jurisprudence” continuously swells in the courts and breaks loose from any treaty text, taking on a life of its own that “human rights” advocates consider both legally and morally authoritative. Private lawsuits in particular have proved highly corrosive to national sovereignty, as the old defenses of sovereign immunity and the act-of-state doctrine give way to the onrush of plaintiffs from around the world who flock to the United States to take advantage of the manifold litigation weapons that our court system offers.

Such “human rights” lawsuits are beginning to target private entities rather than just governments, thereby functioning again to destroy international law – which applies to nation-states – and replace it with open-ended system of supranational law that directly and uniformly dictates all of our duties as “global citizens.” For example, citizens of Ecuador filed a lawsuit in a United Stated federal court against Texaco, alleging that the environmental impact of Texaco’s operations violated international law and their own “human rights.” Similarly, an Indonesian plaintiff brought a “human rights” lawsuit in federal court against an American company on the basis that its mining operations harmed the environment and disrupted the habitat of a native tribe. Although those early efforts failed, a more recent federal complaint was filed against Unocal for constructing a pipeline in Myanmar, alleging that Unocal knew the military junta in that country often forces people into slave labor. Even though Unocal did not act with governmental authority in any way, the plaintiffs sought to hold Unocal liable as a “human rights” violator for cooperating with Myanmar’s military regime, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the lawsuit to proceed even though Unocal was a private entity. Unocal ultimately settled out of court rather than endure a trial in which a parade of government-inflicted horribles would be attributed to it. In the wake of this episode, courts have continued to allow these lawsuits to obliterate the distinction between private law and public international law.

For now, most of these lawsuits have made headway because they revolve around egregious practices such as torture or slavery, which no one wants to appear to be defending. But hard cases make bad law, and it is only a matter of time before a federal lawsuit successfully tars a private defendant on the other side of the planet as a “human rights” violator for denying maternity leave from work; for making racist and/or sexist jokes in the workplace; for refusing someone membership in a social organization; or for openly criticizing homosexuality.

In the final analysis, “human rights” is a phrase that appeals to everyone’s sense of justice, but which governments have manipulated to achieve greater global control. Under the banner of “human rights,” governments enumerate finite behaviors that we may engage in. Under the banner of “human rights,” governments reserve un-enumerated and presumptive powers for themselves. Under the banner of “human rights,” governments claim the ability to revoke our rights during an "emergency." Under the banner of “human rights,” governments force some individuals to toil for the benefit of others in order to redistribute the fruits of labor. Under the banner of “human rights,” governments monitor private speech and work to eradicate disfavored attitudes. Under the banner of “human rights,” governments deny parents the ability to raise their children as they see fit. And under the banner of “human rights,” governments invite us to cannibalize each other with a global system of law that once applied only to governments themselves.

If there is a lesson to be learned from all this, it would be to reject any official definition of “human rights” and to retain your own understanding of that noble concept, an understanding grounded in a familiarity with the struggles of our ancestors, personal experience, and common sense. Our rights are just that: ours. No grouping of corrupt men wearing the badges of political authority can encapsulate them or ration them out to you, so do not fall into the trap of justifying what you do with your life; instead, demand that government justify its own serial intrusions into your pursuit of happiness.

Etymology

Words fascinate me, since they have the incredible power of transmitting a unique concept or feeling from one person's mind to another, even over the expanse of millennia. Words also have their own unique identities and origins, capturing historical moments just as tree rings or layers of rock record geologic time. Occasionally I stumble on etymologies that are particularly interesting (at least to me), many of which become apparent when comparing English to Spanish.

For example, we have the expression in English of "beyond the pale," meaning something outrageous or outside the scope of acceptable conduct. The "pale" was a stake driven into the ground to mark the outskirts of a community, so going past it means to take yourself outside the community, literally and figuratively. It so happens that Spanish has the similar word of "palo," which means a stick or post.

Charles Martel was a Frankish leader who rescued most of Europe from invasion and conquest by defeating a Moorish army at the Battle of Tours in 732. His nickname was "The Hammer." It so happens that the word in Spanish for hammer is "el martillo," which is ironic considering that the Moors indeed conquered Spain -- Charles kept the Moors cooped up there and out of France.

English has the archaic word of "coney" to mean a rabbit, and the Spanish word for rabbit is "el conejo."

Then there's the "crane," which means not only a piece of construction equipment but also a type of bird. For years I have noticed that the Spanish word for a construction crane is "la grúa" while the word for the bird crane is "la grulla," which sounds almost identical. I just found out this is no accident. The bird has a long neck and uses it to reach down and forage, which inspired both English and Spanish speakers to describe the construction equipment in a similar manner. For those of you who speak Spanish, here's an interesting article on this etymology.

EDIT: I stumbled on another fascinating factoid. In Spanish one of the terms for a sponsor or patron is "el mecenas." I was just reading a history of ancient Rome and ran across the name of Gaius Maecenas, a famous patron of the arts. No wonder Spanish adopted this term; the Romans colonized Spain long before the Moors did. Who needs drugs? I'm high on knowledge.

Of Zombies And Vampires

Mythology surrounding zombies and vampires has been around for centuries, yet for some reason it has exploded in popularity in recent years. As usual, I think I know what the reason is, though it differs for each species of monster.

Zombies and the narrative of a "zombie apocalypse" appeal primarily to young men, who relish the opportunity to break free from societal restraints; kill lumbering and menacing groups of people who look human but are dead inside (i.e., their parents and other older folk); do battle with guns, explosives, and wicked-looking blades; and generally act tough. Surely this desire always has existed on some level, but it achieves a more conscious and pronounced status today because 1) modern society no longer acculturates young men or teaches them how to use their rage constructively; and 2) modern society is bankrupt in almost every way and indeed is unraveling, creating a sense of dread that seeks an outlet. As resentment grows toward the Baby Boomers and the harm that their selfish generation continues to inflict, and as feminism continues scorning and punishing the mere act of being male, young men are preparing themselves psychologically to take matters into their own hands rather than conform to the genteel and unjust violence of the state.

Vampires appeal primarily to women and are now held hostage in the fever swamps of chick lit. Perpetually young, wealthy, physically powerful, sophisticated, occasionally sensitive yet always "dangerous," the vampire represents the impossible perfection women crave. This craving has become more pronounced today because technology and the welfare state have liberated women from the yoke of domesticity, allowing them to pursue anything they wish. Ironically, this pursuit is all the more desperate because women found out that liberation didn't make them happy as promised. Having burnt their bras and their bridges, women have only Edward Cullen to turn to now -- but he doesn't exist.

Beliefs are driven by need. Both men and women today are driven to believe in zombies and vampires because the world as they once knew it has crumbled. If everyone devoted a fraction of the energy wasted on fantasy to rescuing the Republic, we could solve our problems relatively quickly. But as I mentioned once before, people are far more willing to risk their lives than their illusions.

Human Rights -- Part VII

The Convention On The Rights Of The Child

A more recent arrival to the “human rights” canon is The Convention On The Rights Of The Child (“CRC”), entering into force in 1990. President Clinton signed the CRC in 1995 but never sent it to the Senate, and the CRC remains unratified to this day, leaving the United States with a barebones duty to avoid violating the CRC’s object and purpose (as with the ICESCR and the CEDAW).

For reasons that should be obvious, children occupy a special place in our hearts: their innocence, inexperience, and relative helplessness demand adult care and instruction. Moreover, children represent society’s future, so we share a vested interest in ensuring their healthy upbringing. While the CRC acknowledges these tender mercies, it also plays upon them to pursue objectives that have neither children’s nor society’s interests at heart. Chief among these is to drive a wedge between the child and the family, which outpaces the other “human rights” treaties insofar as they merely alienate the citizen from his nation (a far less intimate relationship). In particular, the CRC places the child in a vacuum by bestowing “rights” that lack any reference or deference to parents, whose views on proper upbringing may well differ from those of diplomats and professors. So we find Article 13(1) of the CRC guaranteeing a child’s freedom “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers,” brushing off the right of parents to monitor the pace and content of their children’s education. If, for example, parents wish to postpone their child’s exposure to sensitive topics such as drug use, birth control or homosexuality, they have no choice but to yield to their child’s unquenchable curiosity. This same Article decrees the child’s “freedom of expression,” which subverts timeless parental authority over a child’s speech and deportment. This child-in-a-vacuum dynamic resurfaces in Articles 14(1) and 15(1), consecrating respectively a juvenile “freedom of thought, conscience and religion” and “freedom of association and . . . freedom of peaceful assembly,” again obliterating the parents’ control over the ideas and people to which the child may be exposed.

No parenting worthy of the name can take place under these slack conditions, since parenting embodies the affirmative and laborious act of instilling bedrock standards and values into a young mind that is born without them. But when we consider the ideology at play in most “human rights” treaties – whose avowed purpose is to demolish prevailing attitudes and to remake society – it makes perfect sense to sever the link between the old and the young. As foreshadowed by earlier instruments such as the UDHR and the ICESCR, Article 29 of the CRC steps in to fill the generational gap by prescribing universal educational content, commanding that children absorb a proper “respect” for the U.N. Charter and the “natural environment,” along with a non-judging attitude of “understanding” and “tolerance.” So a child may not, it is presumed, scorn the poverty, corruption and cruelty endemic to several of the world’s cultures in the past and the present; instead, the child must learn to become a values-free automaton. Among these various educational dictates, Article 29 ironically recommends preparing children “for responsible life in a free society,” a goal that the CRC and the other “human rights” treaties consistently conspire to defeat with their imperious commands and constraints. To the extent the CRC concedes any parental rights at all, for example in Article 14(2), it is simply “to provide direction to the child in the exercise of his or her right in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child.” Parents may not, in other words, deny any of the child’s “rights” as decreed in the CRC, but rather must cooperate with the CRC to implement them.

The Committee created by the CRC to monitor national compliance has wasted no time in making ominous pronouncements such as this: “The effective promotion of article 29(1) requires the fundamental reworking of curricula to include the various aims of education and the systematic revision of textbooks and other teaching materials and technologies, as well as school policies.” This educational crusade even calls for asserting political control over the media, since “[g]overnments are obligated by the Convention, pursuant to article 17(a), to take all appropriate steps to ‘encourage the mass media to disseminate information and material of social and cultural benefit to the child.’” Parents should not go thinking that they retain disciplinary authority within the confines of the home, since “States parties [must] move quickly to prohibit and eliminate all corporal punishment . . . .” The Committee is undaunted by the fact that the CRC does not specifically prohibit “corporal punishment,” taking a cue from American constitutional lawyers when declaring that “the Convention, like all human rights instruments, must be regarded as a living instrument, whose interpretation develops over time.” This ensures that the Committee will not follow the actual treaty its members agreed to join.

Any lingering hope of sanity vanishes with this Committee pronouncement: “A shift away from traditional beliefs that regard early childhood mainly as a period for the socialization of the immature human being towards adult status is required.” Here parades an open admission of the de-civilizing project at hand, whereby the vertical invasion of the barbarians will proceed unchecked and dissolve all societal values in the boundless egoism and narcissism of youth. Once the child is wrenched away from the civilizing and acculturating influence of adults, the path lies open for him to be molded into the deracinated and compliant global subject so craved by the political class.

Quite predictably, President Obama wants to ratify the CRC and portrays the United States' failure to do so as "embarrassing," a statement that reveals far more about him than us.

Human Rights -- Part VI

Of all the things I've written on this blog (so far), perhaps this will be the most inflammatory. But it needs to be said, and I don't hear anyone else saying it.

The Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women

A close cousin to the ICERD is The Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women (“CEDAW”), which the U.N. General Assembly adopted in 1979 and which entered into force in 1981. Even before it entered into force, President Carter rushed to sign it in 1980, again flaunting his fervor to entangle the United States in the “human rights” thicket. The Senate has never given its advice and consent, and while this renders the CEDAW’s provisions not directly binding, it nevertheless obligates the United States to uphold the CEDAW’s “object and purpose.”

This is most unfortunate because the CEDAW, like the ICERD before it, has the object and purpose of regulating private speech, thought, and conduct in a manner repellent to a free people. As admitted in CEDAW Article 5(a), the parties undertake “[t]o modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women.” So we as private citizens are reduced to bacteria in the government’s Petri dish, to be manipulated and managed according to an ideological agenda. It should go without saying that this philosophy contradicts every noble impulse that went into the founding of America, a land where you could live your own life and adopt any attitude or disposition free from federal interference . . . even an unpopular attitude. Yet a United States President – holding an office once occupied by men who fought to make the American dream a reality – saw fit to join this patricide.

As if that weren’t offensive enough, the CEDAW proves even worse than the ICERD because it seeks to rescue only one of the sexes from discrimination, not both, thereby proceeding on its own sexist presumption that only women suffer from disfavorable “social and cultural patterns.” Article 5 makes a limp attempt to dispel this lopsidedness by declaring generally that men and women alike must not be victimized by prejudice, but when the rubber hits the road, the CEDAW speeds to the aid of women only (as its very name denotes). The CEDAW does this primarily by mandating women’s irreproachable involvement in areas of society such as voting; holding public office; formulation of government policy; participation in international affairs; higher education; the workplace; and finance. While women are thus invited to depart the gilded cage of domestic existence, no invitation is extended to the vast majority of men trapped in their own cage lacking any hint of gilt upon it. Miners, ditch diggers, military conscripts, non-biological fathers forced to pay child support, and untold legions of similar male toilers have no “human rights” treaty promising to whisk them away from their thankless sphere or to abolish the societal scorn that would surely accompany any such escape effort. The truth of the matter is that men and women throughout history have endured lives fraught with hardship and unfair societal expectations, and the advent of a treaty designating half the human race as uniquely aggrieved by this phenomenon warrants little more than denunciation.

Relishing the chance to push this warped ideology on a global scale, collections of appointed “experts” regularly issue pronouncements to further the CEDAW’s objectives. True to form, these pronouncements range from the insipid to the outlandish: governments must actively participate in and promote sexual education, contraception research, and health care – including that holy of holies, abortion (which is to be “free,” meaning forcibly paid by others). Governments must also snuff out Mothers’ Day because it “encourag[es] women’s traditional roles.” On the other hand, governments should by no means impose criminal penalties on prostitution. Bureaucratic bloviating of this sort is the last thing that America needs any more of, and we can only hope that the Senate retains enough of a spine to keep this convention filed in the trashcan.

Human Rights -- Part V

The International Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Racial Discrimination

Straying from its thankful resistance to the ICESCR, the United States in 1994 ratified a treaty devoted to decimating freedom of association and freedom of speech: The International Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Racial Discrimination (“ICERD”). The ICERD entered into force in 1969, and President Carter characteristically signed it and sent it to the U.S. Senate in 1978. For the next sixteen years the Senate resisted the impulse to rubber-stamp this cloying declaration of sentiments, but the Senate lost its nerve and cleared the path to ratification by the Clinton administration in 1994. As with the ICCPR, the United States issued a reservation stating that the treaty’s language cannot bind us without separate, implementing legislation. The United States also issued a reservation noting that the ICERD’s commands infringe on freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. Once again, though, these moderating measures provide little solace because federal courts and legions of “idealistic” municipalities remain poised to smuggle the treaty into our laws anyway, not to mention that the very nature of the ICERD is so odious that full rejection of it stands as the only justifiable response.

Article 2(1)(d) stands as a testament to this conclusion, declaring as it does that “[e]ach State Party shall prohibit and bring to an end, by all appropriate means, including legislation as required by circumstances, racial discrimination by any persons, group or organization[.]” This command reaches beyond governmental conduct and grabs private citizens by the scruff of the neck, admonishing them how they may speak and act, thus embodying pure social engineering: the manipulation of civil society according to the designs of the political class. No country calling itself “free” can legitimately undertake to force its citizens to adopt a specific attitude or to interact against their will. Spiritual development and brotherly love cannot and should not be coerced; free men may dislike or disassociate from each other for any reason until such time as they choose to associate, and on their own terms. Simply stated, freedom of association presupposes the freedom of non-association, and the ICERD’s outright disregard for this moral truth counts as the original sin from which sprout so many others:

Article 4 stabs at free speech by calling on governments to repress – with criminal penalties, no less – any individuals or organizations advocating disapproved viewpoints on the subject of race.

In the next breath, Article 5(c)(viii)-(ix) purports to protect “freedom of opinion and expression” and “freedom of peaceful assembly and association,” plunging the ICERD into contradiction and hypocrisy.

Article 6 arms any person who is aggrieved by the private racial choices of his countrymen with the power to extract reparations from them, effectively deputizing the private citizen in a governmental crusade to destroy liberty.

Not only is private speech about race to be curtailed, but Article 7 decrees that government speech about race is to be endorsed – provided that such speech advance the pre-approved slate of ideas and attitudes “in the fields of teaching, education, culture, and information . . . .” In other words, government will squelch disfavored speech and proceed to fill the void with the government’s own, supported by taxpayer dollars, and transforming the phrase “political correctness” from a humorous epithet to an enforced reality.

The remaining Articles establish a procedure whereby member nations must regularly report on their race-relations “progress,” such reports to be submitted to yet another bureaucracy, the Committee On The Elimination Of Racial Discrimination. In a highly disturbing such report submitted in 1999, the United States government boasted that existing federal law complied with the ICERD, but also lamented that “American society has not yet fully achieved the Convention’s goals,” thus necessitating further measures “to promote the important principles embodied in its text.” Not content to scorn the living, the report went on to disparage our ancestors and fretted that the federal government’s draconian measures immediately after the Civil War “did not succeed in changing attitudes,” concluding that the unlawful excesses of the Supreme Court and the U.S. Congress during the latter half of the twentieth century only partially delivered us from our ancestors’ sins. These insulting ramblings serve as an open admission that the federal government believes it possesses both the right and the duty to re-make American society, and the federal government now resorts to an outside, international bureaucracy to advance its illegitimate objective. And more recently, that international bureaucracy has dispatched a “special rapporteur” to our shores to investigate and help stamp out the forbidden forms of speech that we choose to engage in. Our ancestors, whatever their failings, had enough of a spine to have grabbed their muskets.

Republicans Show Their True Colors

Several Republican candidates failed to meet the deadline for placing themselves on the ballot in Virginia. As people who profess to honor the rule of law and personal responsibility, they graciously admitted their mistake and vowed to learn from it.

Or, maybe not. Feel free to choose which from this collection of hypocritical losers has what it takes to rescue America.