Why Does Obama Hate Freedom?

Now that the O-Bomba is flexing his muscle, the dreaded SHCA hydra is returning to U.S. politics. Yes, that old many headed serpent, the Socialist Health Care Agenda is back, and by Zeus, it has got teeth.
As any liberal with a bleeding heart can tell you, people often seem to support the idea of institutionalised health care. (Usually it is because they are closet commies - no doubt the blood of those demanding fair access to health is red like Marx.) Some people even go so as to say that health care is morally important. I truly wonder why people hate freedom?
Fortunately, like any good citizen group, the CPR have swiftly stood up to the monstrous threat to choice that is socialised health care.
In a series of advertisements released in the U.S., the Conservatives for Patients' Rights have finally spoken the truth about health care. Following is selected chunks from Chris McGreal's article in today's Guardian:

[The CPR campaign claims that] "a state-run system strips patients of control over their healthcare. "[People] lose control over their own destiny in the health system,"...[This] campaign is being co-ordinated by the same public relations firm that masterminded the "Swift boat" attacks by President Bush's campaign against John Kerry in the 2004 election...CPR says that Obama's plans to control costs, while widening access to care for some 45m people without health insurance, means that the US will introduce rationing of treatment and drug supplies...[describing] Britons as "trapped" by the NHS, with medical decisions made by bureaucrats, not doctors.

Yes. The U.K. health care system is obviously a nightmare. Waiting lists can be long. Choice relating to doctors is limited. In contrast, the current U.S. system truly supports freedom: I can get the best health care in world if I truly want it. Choice is more important than being alive to make choices. I sure as fudge don't want some pesky socialist bureaucrat telling someone who oversees an institution to tell a medical Dr what to tell me. I would rather die from freedom than live in a world where I get healthcare without choices. As the founder of the CPR Richard Scott points out "What you see is when the government gets involved, you run out of money and health care gets rationed." I assume it follows that those who don't have money to begin with deserve their poor health. In fact those who don't have the money to pay for health ought to follow Scott's entrepreneurial model.
We ought avoid those pesky ideas like 'health' or 'wellness' in the world of healthcare. Healthcare needs only Scott's four pillars: "choice, competition, accountability and personal responsibility." Anything else must simply be a socialist conspiracy.

Happy New Year

Well, we're back. I got a bit slack come year's end about blogging, so I'll kick it off with a welcome, and then a shout out to the Obamarama. I found this on Uncertain Principles today: A picture tells 1,000 words.

Why I am not an economist

I was reading The Times and came across this from Dominique Strauss-Kahn,the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - "The IMF has called for governments in leading economies to spend a combined 2 per cent of global GDP, or $1.2 trillion (£1,075 billion), to try to fend off the danger from global recession.“If we are not able to do that, then social unrest may happen in many countries - including advanced economies,” Mr Strauss-Kahn suggested.

Kind of reminds me of what Peter Singer argues for in One World, among other places, where he calls for members of the developed world to donate 1% of their annual income, which he argues will not only meet the UN Millenium Summit Goals of halving world poverty, but eliminating it. (see pp 180-195, in particular p 193)

Now, I read these comments by Strauss-Kahn, on the necessity to deal with a global recession, and think of Singer's arguments and a certain frustration builds up in my liver. Trillions of dollars so far have been spent on saving a global financial system which is at best plagued by problems, at worst pathological, yet millions of people world wide live in preventable poverty. Citibank amongst others was 'too big to fail' yet a scheme like Thomas Pogge's pharmaceutical re-incentivisation scheme, estimated to cost 45-90 Billion US anually, seems too big to fund. Simplifying the issue, white collar jobs and investments trump basic health.

Now I am sure that there are peoples out there wondering what loose connections I am drawing, pointing out that what Strauss-Kahn is demanding is 2% of GDP, while Singer's 1% is individual contribution, or that the collapse of Citibank would precipitate great suffering, while Pogge's pharmaceutical ideas are suspiciously socialistic. All true, but this is why I am not an economist. I don't care about protecting an endangered habitat like the Global Economy, or saving endangered species like those poor financial specialists with the dodgy 700 Billion US Bailout.
In fact I don't really care about much at all. But my blood angers up at the weird disconnect that is going on world-wide at the moment between throwing money at a problem for reasons like the importance of national stability, whilst ignoring other preventable causes for unrest. And don't just listen to me. Try that bastion of left-wing intellectualism and academic communism, the US National Intelligence Council:
" New and reemerging infectious diseases will pose a rising global health threat and will complicate US and global security over the next 20 years. These diseases will endanger US citizens at home and abroad, threaten US armed forces deployed overseas, and exacerbate social and political instability in key countries and regions in which the United States has significant interests."

Animal Ethics = Freedom Of Choice

I was reading an article about the 'shonky awards' today. These are put out by Choice Magazine each year.

One of the beneficiaries of this was the Australian Egg Corporation which won an award for their 'Free Range' barn laid eggs. Their free-range birds have the option of leaving the barn, and roaming in an open range area. Yet, many of the birds in the barn do not do this. Choice Magazine thought this was shonky. The managing director of the AEG, James Kellaway, defended their product through the lovelly use of a free-will argument. Here he is, taken from the Sydney Morning Herald:
"As for access to the open range, the corporation was not about to start strong-arming chickens out the barn door each morning."We need to ensure each bird has access to an open range, but it's a chicken's freedom of choice," Mr Kellaway said."

Gold!

Without wanting to ruffle the feathers of those of you who hate counting a pun before it is hatched, I would say that Mr Kellaway's argument is Eggsellent.

John McCain = Human Garbage

As part of his last ditch attempts to fool people into not voting for Obama, John 'I'm a Maverick' McCain has gleefully descended into into the human filth that seems to compose the Republican party.
The focus of his campaign now seems to be scare voters away from Obama. In their final debate McCain pitifully bleated that a voter enrolment group, ACORN (associated with Obama) "is now on the verge of maybe perpetuating one the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, MAYBE DESTROYING THE FABRIC OF DEMOCRACY." (My emphasis)
Now, these are serious claims, and they certainly warrant investigation and explanation. Yet the political import McCain's pig-screams cannot be understated. Democrat Congressman John Conyers raises the issue of the FBI leaks about the ACORN investigation. The concern here is that the leaks from a supposedly independent arm of the government were intended to influence the outcome of this year's election.

But, to my main point, how can John McCain say this crap and maintain his dignity as a human? Let me repeat his words - "maybe destroying the fabric of democracy'. My response to that consists of three words (and one letter) George W Bush President? This is the party who, through electoral fraud, stole the 2000 election. Stole? Yes. Whether it was the erasing of racial minorities from voter rolls, the collusion of the conservative dominated media in swinging the Florida vote or the role that Republican judges played in deciding that George W was the president, to name but a few examples, the 2000 election made a sham of democracy.

Well, that was just once, a one off, one might say. Wrong. The 2004 election was again plagued by Republican manipulation. And now, the same process is being repeated. Now, maybe I am simply a commie, blinded by my liberal bleeding heart, deliberately searching for facts to match my bias. But these examples seem factually accurate, and display the Republican party as willing to sacrifice democracy to keep their talons on the position of the president.

Over reaction? Perhaps. But when one reads that some republicans are attempting to prevent voters from voting in this election, because the banks have foreclosed on their home, one finds the bile rises to throat quicker than you can say 'democracy is the right to equal representation'.

No, John McCain, the ACORN situation is not a threat to the fabric of democracy. The Republican Party tore that fabric up years ago, wiped their arse with it, and now you want to jam that stinking rag in the face of U.S. voters? You sir, are garbage.

Basic Human Rights in the U.S. Election.

Well. Its about time someone stood up and offered some words of truth in this U.S. Election. Finally, 'Joe-The-Plumber' a.k.a. Joe-SixPack a.k.a. Average Joe has put the voice of common people into the mouths of those talking man shaped puppets, Obama and McCain.

Observe the wisdom of Our Joe, quoted in today's Australian: “Because you're successful, you have to pay more than everybody else? We all live in this country. It's a basic right,” he added. “And Obama wants to take that basic right and penalise me for it, is what it comes down to.

“That's a socialist view and it's incredibly wrong. I mean, 250,000 dollars now. What if he decides, 150,000 dollars and, you're pretty rich too. Let's lower it again. It's a slippery slope. When's it going to stop?”

I think its about time that we, as philosophers and ethicists pulled ourselves down from ivory towers and confronted 'the battler'. Yes, being successful is a basic human right. Much more so than eduction, healthcare, fair and equal representation, partner choice in marriage, blah blah blah. All these things that bleeding heart lefties yabber about day in day out.
As for slippery slopes, well, Our Joe has really found his mark as a philosopher there. What starts at taxing 250,000 dollars could end up with poor students like ourselves having our money theived from us, by a Socialist Government. Castro would be laughing in his grave (if we had been allowed the right to 'ventilate' him like Che Guevera, John Lennon and JFK).

I think its high time that human rights and slippery slopes were brought to the front of this election campaign, to show us what real applied philosophy is like. When Obama (who is clearly a commie-monster-in-waiting)says things like "its time to share the wealth around" we all know it is time to arm our bears.

Demo-kratos and other lovely concepts.

One of my favourite authors, Patrick Rothfuss, wrote an interesting blog post today. Rothfuss, author of The Name of the Wind (which I heartily recommend you all read) describes in his self-styled Public Service Announcement why Americans should not vote. That's right, not vote. Let's take what I think is one of the funnier parts of the open letter to the American public (i.e. the interwebbers who watch his blog) is this:

For example, I was eating dinner the other day at a local restaurant and I heard someone at a nearby table say, "I'm voting for McCain. I heard Obama's into gun control. Nobody's taking away my guns." I'm not making this up. I'm not exaggerating or paraphrasing. These words have been echoing around in my head for weeks, and it's entirely possible that I will never be rid of them. If this sounds like something that might come out of your mouth, you need to realize that you are not very smart. I'm not saying you're a bad person. I'm not saying you're evil. What I'm asking is that you consider the very real possibility that you might not be capable of casting an intelligent vote. Let repeat myself just for clarity's sake. If you're willing to throw in with one candidate based on senseless fear and "something you heard" you are not well-informed, and you shouldn't vote. Again, I'm not saying you're a bad person. What I am saying is that the fate of the nation is probably too complicated for you to deal with properly. You should stay home on election night and watch some Nascar instead. That's right. Nice, comforting Nascar.

It raises what I think is one of the most interesting problems of democracy, or with any normatively significant practice: when rights or freedoms become duties or obligations. I'm a big fan of a view towards democracy that goes like so: every citizen has a right to vote. This right is given under a certain set of expectations, namely that such a citizen has the obligation to vote, and under an expectation that they will vote in an informed manner. Unfortunately, as with most of my beliefs, this is somewhat too good to be true. It seems that of the 224 countries who have universal voting processes, only 19 of them enforce compulsory voting. And, as Pat wishes to point out, maybe that's for the best. Whether or not compulsory voting leads to more extreme political stances is an empirical question, and one I'd love to have answered. It seems that the standard intuitive response is to the affirmative, that to allow voluntary voting within a western, developed, media-dominated democratic nation does lead to a more extreme stance by those who do turn out to vote. But I'm not really sure what this means: is this skewed towards one end of the spectrum or the other? I'm not a big fan of left or right extremism, and i don't think that the answer is so simple as one lovely blogite seems to imply, that if such an extremism is symmetrical than they cancel each other out. Please people, learn to math. These are vector sums at their simplest, although I'd suspect we'd need some pretty sophisticated, high ranking Tensors to sort that shamozzle out.

Also, it should probably be made clear that democracy does not presuppose libertarian views: some reasonably rudimentary history should settle that. Go look up some wikipedia, Indian Times opinion piece guy. If we are going to take the tack that we seriously want a liberal democracy , than maybe we want to say that one of these rights we've concocted to give people is that of voting, and right does not imply obligation, etc. Maybe so. Such arguments usually rest on some pretty boring and awful construal of everyone's favourite piece of philosophical cheap shots, The Harm principle. A whole swag of dead Afghanis and Iraqis, a crushed economy, and a streak of rights defacement beg to differ with how you use your vote, people. And as the right to vote does nothing to tell us when we shouldn't exercise such a right, maybe (don't faint, libertarians) we should be empowering voters to make the decision to vote or not. That means education, which may mean government involvement. Ha! Who would have thought that in order to live free of a restrictive government in a fashion which would allow for maximum preference satisfaction, we'd need some government involvement? Aaaah, Irony.  As my good friend Adam related though, democracy is not the right to decide how you live your life, but the right to ruin how others live theirs.

Ah, a bit of a convoluted post.  I've been away too long from the blogosphere.

Failure of democracy or evidence of its success?

For those of you following the current US economy, no doubt you are enthralled by the failure of the US$700 Billion bailout of their economy. The proposed emergency legislation was canned last night, in a decision of 205 for and 228 against. ( Interestingly, the party split was 33% Republicans in favour and 60% Democrats in favour. Despite this, however, some lay the failure of the rescue plan at the feet of the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who is a Democrat.)

Bipartisanship aside, it seems that one of the decisive factors was the looming election, and politician's fears of supporting an unpopular policy. “People’s re-elections played into this to a much greater degree than I would have imagined”

So this raises the question, is this evidence of a mortal failure of the model of representative democracy or a rallying cry, screaming that it is very much alive and kicking? On one hand, this may show that a politician's chief concern is re-election: Blind to all other considerations until this condition has been met, politicians are willing to sacrifice anything to maintain personal power. On the other hand, however, this may show that politicians are deeply receptive to the fears and wishes of their constituents, and won't be bullied into supporting something that they don't believe, simply because their party leaders command them.

So what does it all mean? Are we watching the collapse of representative democracy as we know it, or witness to its phoenix-like rise from the ashes?

U.S. Federal Election

I am sure that some of our loyal and devoted fan base (consisting of millions, no doubt) have been following the recent developments in the U.S. Federal Election.
First off, we have Obama as the first 'non-white' major party candidate, then McCain names Sarah Palin as his running mate/potential Vice President. She is young (mid fourties) conservative, and she is female. She also has five children, one of them 17, pregnant and - shock horror - unwed. As the dirt diggers fire up their engines, and rumours and scuttlebut abound, I am become more and more fascinated by this election. Obviously the outcome wil be interesting, but to see what happens during the process leading to the outcome will be really really interesting.

Just to add a little slacademic fuel to this fire, this is a quote from our girl Sarah P from today's Australian: She is expected to highlight her focus on ethics issues in Alaska and other accomplishments...

Hmmm, I wonder if she takes an irrealist or a non-descriptive cognitivist approach, or whether she is a full blown realist. Methinks the last.

Emo Brings Down The Russian Bear

Supposedly, according to the Blogosphere Russia is banning Emos, because they might kill themselves or bring down the Russian Government.

Well, it looks like I might have to ditch the Heavy Metal/Punk stuff that I have been holding onto for so long, and get with the real winners, Emos.

To paraphrase Bill Hicks:

A guy says, “I hate Emos,” and I said, “Why?” He goes, “Because they killed Russia.” They believe that. If I believed that the Emos killed Russia, I’d worship the Emos, ’cause shit, there’s some badasses on that team, man. I haven’t seen Russia ever, I see Emos all the time – go figure.

Politicians and integrity

This topic could run on for ever, but I just read this rad thing on Victorian politicans. In particular, I would like to call your attention to this awesome factoid:

"The Government's reliance on the car came under fire in April when Premier John Brumby used a chauffeur-driven car for a 400-metre trip from Parliament House to 55 Collins Street — to sign an agreement to cut greenhouse emissions."

I don't know why, instead of getting angry about this, it just makes me feel warm inside and very smiley. Like my blood is made from puppies.

Anyone else get that feeling, or have I completely lost the plot?
Also, if anyone else finds such beautiful factoids about politicans and integrity, my eyes would like to look at them in order to maintain this PFB delusion (PFB being 'puppies-for-blood').

The Data Smog

So, I was passed on a link this morn to the NSW Food Authority's register of penalty notices, released in early May this year. My contact expressed her happiness that such information would be released. Her justification, unsurprisingly, was that now people can know who is violating what when it comes to food. Note that this is the penalty register: the offences register is on a separate page. We'll get to a comparison of the two momentarily. For now I want to focus on the former.

Because, being a PhD student, I have a problem with the site, much as I have a problem with lots of things. Too many books = whinges a lot.

So what is what is wrong with this site, for me? It can be summed up best in Alasdair Roberts' catchphrase: data smog. Data Smog is the effect where an institution releases a whole bunch of information under the guise of being a good citizen and letting the folk know what's going on in their world, but ends up releasing so much information so quickly and in such a messy state that they may as well have not released any data at all. The site is a table (sortable by a number of categories) that lists those businesses whom the Food Authority has slapped with a fine regarding a food-related matter: storage, cleaning of food or premises, handling, sale, labelling, etc. On the surface, it looks reasonably manageable. However, the information doesn't really give any substantive insights. To get any information about what particular penalty a particular business has been given, one must click on the link embodied by the penalty code off to the right of the table. This code, again non-descriptive, takes you to the particular information on the case, where you can see the details of the infraction for that business. So, conceivably, if one knew where one was going to dine, or what area, one could scroll through the table to find specific restaurants or restaurants in a particular area.

However, this is all done manually, and requires shifting back and forth from the table on the front page to the specific penalty incurred, and back again, for each offense. Not just each premises, but each offense. So, if an inspector has been having a bad day and goes nuts on a particular joint, there may be a number of incidental penalties that appear in sequence, that one has to look at separately if they are to assess how serious each claim is. For instance, a particular supermarket was fined for labelling a pack of mutton as lamb. Not a serious offense, but still, it is flagged.

Now, I have no problem with all these incidentals being released per se. I'm sure that there are particular religious denominations or others who will find value in such info. But there is no way to screen for a particular offense, for example. So, if someone has a life-threatening condition, say, a bad nut allergy, they can't find who has been charged within the last 2 years (the time period which penalties are noted for) for accidentally introducing nuts into meals. This is important for them, and may influence their choice on where to go based on repeat, or single infractions. However, if one wanted to know this, they'd have to search through all this data manually to get what they wanted. Simple filtering systems aren't exactly new or complicated: If a Microsoft product can do it, it shouldn't be too problematic. Or even just to put a brief description of the infraction within the initial table, for easy viewing.

Never mind that there is no consistency between the penalties and offences tables. In penalties, you click on the penalty rego number to get details, in offences, the business name. Of course, this isn't noted.

I'm all for free information. But it seems like a waste of time and money to throw it out there without at least some rudimentary ability to filter through such information. I mean, because of the two-tier structure of the penalties notices, one couldn't even copy the first table into, say, excel and go from there. They'd have to copy each offense individually. I dont' believe it is enough for governments to provide information to their citizens. They have to provide it in such a way that someone without expert knowledge on the subject can approach the data and manipulate it to acheive their goals, particular when such goals are related to health.

Wikileaks -- when does freedom of information go too far?

I read with great interest this article on wikileaks.org, a fascinating site that allows whistle-blowers to do their thing. As the article mentions, it's already played a huge part in several astonishing cases around the world -- disclosure of information about the looting of Kenya by a former president, money laundering by a Swiss bank, and US interrogation procedures in Guantanamo Bay.

The article looks at criticism of its "free-for-all" policy, publishing actors' tax bills with their SSNs, or scripts for upcoming movies, and for its publishing of Scientology and other secretive religious documents.

All this got me wondering, where should the line be drawn? The old saying "information wants to be free" seems to be the key ethic of wikileaks itself, but how is publishing movie scripts or innocuous tax bills at all useful?

I'm all for freedom of information, but if there's no greater good to be gained from the publishing of it, it seems purely malicious and somewhat counterproductive to the aims of wikileaks itself (establishing it as a reputable source for information, for example). There are certain industries where whistleblowing, although legal, will get you in a lot of trouble if you go through the official channels, and wikileaks adds a good level of anonymous abstraction to the process which can certainly be used for a lot of good.

What do you think?

Just a heads-up...

Just to let everyone know, this week some rather Important People will be hanging around the hallowed halls of CAPPE. Firstly, Professor Simon Rogerson from the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility at De Montfort University in England, Professor Don Gotterbarn, from the Computer and Information Science Department at East Tennessee State University, and finally, Justice Michael Kirby, all of whom are here for a conference on Ethical Governance of ICT and the Role of Professional Bodies which is on Thursday and Friday. Unfortunately it's too late to register for the event, but I'll be sure to keep you all updated (perhaps in real-time, depending on internet access!) on what goes on!