Vox Popoli

Or freedom:

As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people’s private communications and financial information.

Kerr’s comments come as Congress is taking a second look at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Lawmakers hastily changed the 1978 law last summer to allow the government to eavesdrop inside the United States without court permission, so long as one end of the conversation was reasonably believed to be located outside the U.S. The original law required a court order for any surveillance conducted on U.S. soil, to protect Americans’ privacy. The White House argued that the law was obstructing intelligence gathering because, as technology has changed, a growing amount of foreign communications passes through U.S.-based channels.

The most contentious issue in the new legislation is whether to shield telecommunications companies from civil lawsuits for allegedly giving the government access to people’s private e-mails and phone calls without a FISA court order between 2001 and 2007.

It never ends. IT NEVER FUCKING ENDS. If you are dumb enough to go along with what initially appear to be fairly justifiable and reasonable requests, you can guarantee that the unjustifiable and unreasonable ones will inevitably follow.

None of this surprises me in the least, of course. Longtime readers will recall that my very first political column for WND, written right after 9/11, was entitled “Yield No More Freedom”. It’s still disappointing, however, to see how readily Americans have gone along with the creeping totalitarianism I expected.

Rod Dreher notes the similarities between Bush-Clinton America and the movie Brazil:

Jill: Doesn’t it bother you, the sort of things you do at Information Retrieval?

Sam: I suppose you would rather have terrorists.

It’s payback time, so I think I’ll experiment with a ProFootballTalk live blog of the game on the frozen tundra today. It occurs to me that it should be much easier than a soccer live blog due to the breaks in the action. We’ll give a whirl, anyhow.

11:42: Okay, we’re set up in front of the TV and ready to go. The Pack is favored by six, but I think the Vikings have a chance if they a) play Bollinger, and, b) put some pressure on Favre and get him into Bad Brett mode.

12:02: Williamson shows up, returns the kick. Thank goodness, Bollinger enters the field. How bad are our QBs that I’m genuinely excited that Bollinger is the QB?

12:03: Only 5 yards for AP on his first carry. Is it too soon to start panicking? Bollinger scrambles for 4 – Tarvaris would have been sacked. Stuffed on third-and-1, have to punt.

12:05: Das boot! Watching the Vikings punt coverage team is exciting… in a very bad way. Finally bring him down. Favre opens with a 7-yard out to the tight end. Favre guns the ball on second down, unfortunately, the receiver was only three yards away, incomplete. 3rd-and-3 – nice underhand shovel pass to avoid the blitz on the shotgun.

12:08: Vikes are putting on better pressure than usual, but the Pack is clearly anticipating it. Looks like they’re using screens to avoid the pressure and pull the secondary towards the line. Nice run by Grant. Williams jumps and then another screen to Grant. Grant’s run twice now and he’s moving the ball against a very tough Vikes rushing D.

12:12: And that’s what they were setting up for. Play action, Driver burns Griffin and Favre overthrows him. Leber knocks away the ball, but the Pack goes for it. Vikes aren’t set and call time-out. I like the decision to go for it, 53 yards outside in November is a tough kick and punting from the 35 is pointless. TMQ would approve.

12:16: They got it. WR goes down short, but doesn’t get touched and lunges forward for the first down. Vikings linebackers are tough, but no geniuses. Double-pump by Favre and a nice deep throw, but he puts it a bit too high otherwise it’s a touchdown. Pitchout to Grant and he goes 25 yards for a touchdown. Ah well, at least I started him in my other league. Nice start by the Packers rewards the smart decision to go for it on fourth-and-3. And in other news, Jones-Drew catches the ball for seven… I feel your pain, Nate, and it makes me smile.

12:23: Good field position, screen to AP gets two, and then AP scares the crowd, bursts into the secondary for a nice gain into Packers territory. Announcers appear to be more interested in Williamson’s paycheck controversy than the actual game, but at least they aren’t climbing up Favre’s posterior to join the King-Madden party. Bollinger throws it to no one and the Vikes have to punt. However, the offense looks functional, so that’s a step forward. Now the defense has to show up.

12:28: Grant is looking more AP-like than AP at the moment. But just wait until the Packers D starts getting a little tired. Favre nearly adds to his legendary all-time interception record, he’s overthrowing everyone today. Another draw goes for 15, the delay is really throwing off the linebackers.

12:32: On the fourth Grant rush in a row, the Vikes suddenly remember that they’re supposed to be good against the run. Vikes hold on third-and-7 when Jennings drops the ball and this time the Pack punts. Good game thus far, both teams are playing reasonably well.

12:35: Sweet Lambeau Sweep, but AP is good. Takes a solid hit and just keeps going. Twelve yards on first down. I’d like to think Childress is setting up the secondary for a deep strike to Rice, but who knows. AP forgets the old maxim about not trying to run before you catch the ball and drops the screen. Third down, and at least with Bollinger behind center, there’s a better than 50-percent chance that the result won’t be a sack.

12:40: No sack, just a throw hitting the ground a yard behind the receiver. Another punt. Das boot! 57-yard kick and the punt coverage team actually manages to cover it, hurrah!

12:44: The announcers are upset that Favre isn’t throwing the ball deep. They’re also convinced that they can feel Favre’s frustration. It seems to have escaped them that Favre isn’t throwing deep because the Vikings are playing a full zone and giving up the short stuff – and that Grant has 92 yards rushing and the Pack has 10 first downs already. Make that 11 with a throw to Jones.

12:49: False start doesn’t do the Vikes any good. Three-man rush plus a blitzer gives Favre all day, first down. Williams nearly devours Grant, he doesn’t so much stuff the run as ingest it. Big stick by Henderson on the pitchout… Grant may not make it to 100 yards. Favre has Driver inside the ten in the middle and overthrows him. Field goal makes it 10-0.

Okay, I think I’m bored with this. Thoughts on the game after the game.

Speaking of soccer fans and football fans, there’s just no comparison between the two. In response to police shooting dead a Lazio fan earlier today in Arezzo, 200 Lazio tifosi just attacked a police barracks in Rome and set fire to it. As you probably already know, I consider this to be a perfectly healthy attitude towards the police.

Well, that was certainly a thorough beating. Green Bay really looks good, they should be able to give Dallas a run for their money in the battle for the NFC title. The one good thing about it is that getting shut out at Lambeau should be enough to bring an end to the Brad Childress era.

Was it a coincidence that the phone line went dead just as I was talking about how Ron Paul represents a break from the bi-factional ruling party of Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton? It seems even the once pristine principles of the Good Fraters have been corrupted! I blame Hugh Hewitt.

Anyhow, I hope those of you who happened to catch the show found it to be interesting. I think my favorite moment was when I went over Richard Dawkins’s quixotic “proof” in defense of his assertion that a Catholic upbringing is more damaging than childhood sexual abuse, which is based in part on an anecdote about Alfred Hitchcock driving through Switzerland, and one of the guys said: “hey, I’m convinced!”

CB wonders about the behavior of my critics:

I have been reading your columns and blogs for years. It is encouraging for me to read someone who has a Christian faith, but possesses the intellect to formidably debate all comers…. Which brings me to “Your idiot enemies”…. The critics of your blog are the real subject of this email. Whenever I read of someone talking about what you have said, all I see is “Women hater”,”Nazi sympathizer”, as well as countless other broad, stupid statements. It has been an education to me how all forms of media have taken little quotes from your writing, totally out of context because I have read those articles, and used them to form some cartoonish, nutcase, evil version of who you are. Incredible.

They have either not read what you write, or choose not to intellectually challenge your thought. I guess it is the typical “shout them down” strategy. It is typical of most of the blogs I read because I never have found a good challenge to what you write. It is always some personal attack on you or members of your family. Why are these people such intellectual wimps? Can’t they come up with anything good? This must be some form of what Christian persecution must be like. First, they have to demonize you, then discredit you. They must know most people have very emotional, knee-jerk reaction to things and thus, will not give something a two-side, deep analysis. Some people cannot handle the truth, period.

Although there are many similarities between their behaviors, it’s important to understand that there are two very different kinds of critics. Most of them who behave in this manner simply don’t have the intellectual ability to even comprehend what I’ve written, much less the capacity to construct a relevant critique of it. They resort to name-calling because they simply don’t have any other way of expressing their distaste for my opinion; this doesn’t bother me any more than a dog growling at me offends me. It is merely their inarticulate way of saying that they don’t wish to have their beliefs challenged and they really wish I would stop.

The second type of critic is far more contemptible, because he understands precisely what I am saying but intentionally chooses to misrepresent it in order to attack it. (I was recently accused of doing just this in the recent past, but I should shortly be able to offer definitive proof, direct from the source, that I was doing no such thing.) Michael Medved is only the most notorious of this sort of critic, who isn’t ashamed to misrepresent, dissemble and outright lie in order to attack what they know perfectly well to be a substantive and well-reasoned argument.

They do so, for the most part, because after reading what I have written, they know they are in over their heads and that they are otherwise incapable of even attempting to refute my arguments with any reasonable expectation of success. You’ll note that when a critic is more confident of his position, like Scott Hatfield in his defense of the theory of evolution, he feels no need to engage in such baseless calumny.

There’s nothing wrong with the occasional cheap shot, done right it can be an enjoyable art form. But if that’s all you’ve got, well, then you’ve got nothing.

Some of Nothing offers a demonstration of why women shouldn’t vote:

Couched in the language of rationality, the basest, most absurd arguments appear even more idiotic than when a silly caricature such as Ann Coulter says them…how is this possible? Apparently, this blogger either doesn’t count women as humans or has the most arcane definition of liberty I’ve ever come across. Nonetheless, with a statement so internally illogical, I won’t spend too much time on it other than to illuminate for others what, apparently, has been hidden from me for so long: Dude, these people still exist!

Let’s just list the errors:

1. I’m not a Republican.
2. An opposition to a certain population voting does not indicate fear of that group. Very few people believe that children should vote, this does not indicate that they are afraid of children.
3. See if you can spot any possible definition of liberty – using the very dictionary to which she linked – that requires women’s suffrage:

1. freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.
2. freedom from external or foreign rule; independence.
3. freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice.
4. freedom from captivity, confinement, or physical restraint: The prisoner soon regained his liberty.
5. permission granted to a sailor, esp. in the navy, to go ashore.
6. freedom or right to frequent or use a place: The visitors were given the liberty of the city.
7. unwarranted or impertinent freedom in action or speech, or a form or instance of it: to take liberties.
8. a female figure personifying freedom from despotism.

My upcoming visit to the Northern Alliance promises to be a little feistier than previous ones, as we’re going to discuss the Republican Party and the Ron Paul Revolution tomorrow:

This Saturday, we will once again welcome Vox Day to the First Team of the Northern Alliance Radio Network airwaves. We’ll discuss his forthcoming book “The Irrational Atheist” and will also likely get into his support for Ron Paul.

Now, I am not a backer of Mr. Paul. His proposed foreign policy solutions are not adequate to deal with the challenges we face in the world today and I don’t believe that they will make America stronger and safer in the long run. I also think that he has done his campaign a disservice by embracing too much of the Left’s rhetoric on Iraq. There is a principled conservative/libertarian argument against the war in Iraq, but Paul has too often strayed from making it. And I don’t share his view that giving more power to Congress at the expense of the Executive branch is necessarily a good idea.

However, all that being said, I find myself appalled at the some of the mainstream conservative/Republican reaction to Paul and his supporters. While Paul’s campaign has no doubt attracted a higher than average percentage of certified kooks, the vast majority of Paul’s followers are solid, rock-ribbed conservatives who simply have lost confidence in the GOP.

They want fiscal constraint, smaller government, and secure borders to be more than campaign buzzwords. And you can’t really blame them for that given the way the Republican Party has abdicated its commitment to these areas in recent years. Ron Paul’s candidacy and some of the policies he proposes may not be realistic, but the values underlying them are legitimate. For the most part, legitimately conservative.

And so, when I hear conservative commentators dismissing Paul and his supporters as a bunch of clowns or even worse accusing them of being anti-Semitic bigots, I get a little ticked. Last night, Hugh Hewitt was doing exactly this on his radio show.

Yes, it certainly is likely that we will get into it… I suspect the only question is whether we’ll manage to get out of it long enough to get around to TIA. Now, I know the NARN crew are good friends with Hugh Hewitt and I have no doubt that Hewitt is a decent and likable guy, but I have to admit that despite reading his WND column for years, I still don’t understand what, if anything, the man’s core political principles are. The idea that a pragmatist who has championed both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Arlen Specter in the past has anything particularly serious to say about either conservative or republican principles doesn’t really add up.

And I have little doubt that I can make a rational case for Ron Paul’s foreign policy, whether the gentlemen of the Northern Alliance find it convincing may prove to be another matter entirely.

For those of you who can’t listen, I’ll post a link to the Fraters Libertas page with the mp3 once they have it up.

PZ gets called on the absence of science from his “science blog” and gets just a little bit upset:

I noticed that this blog is in the running for a Best Science Blog award. I’ve looked over the site. Can someone point out where the science is on it. I have looked but I can’t find any.

In PZ’s defense, there are lots of pictures of squid, and since he’s a biologist aka butterfly collector, he genuinely believes that passes for science.

The amusing thing about the relationship between atheism and science is the way many atheists can’t seem to make up their mind about their own beliefs regarding the two concepts. If atheism is merely, as Brent Rasmussen reasonably says, the absence of god-belief, then there is no relationship. The problem is that so many atheists are science fetishists that they can’t bear to let go of the notion that the two are somehow inherently entwined, which is why PZ can write nearly non-stop about atheism and then react so angrily when it’s pointed out that he isn’t actually writing about science.

Hey, Belgium doesn’t. From NRO’s Corner:

Talks designed to resolve Belgium’s political ‘crisis’ (the country has now been without a government for 150 days or so) have once again collapsed. The International Herald Tribune has this to say about Yves Leterne (despite his name he’s the head of the Flemish Christian Democrats), the politician who came closest to winning the country’s elections back in June:

Leterme didn’t help his cause as a Belgian unifier when he could not say what was celebrated on Independence Day and sang the French Marseillaise when asked for the Belgian national anthem.

May the crumbling continue!

The Israeli Football Association on Thursday banned fans of Beitar Jerusalem from two home matches after they booed through a minute’s silence in memory of assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.

“This was an outburst of a large number, hundreds, of Beitar fans in the stands on an issue that is considered a national consensus and an affront to our existence as a democracy,” the IFA said in a statement. The IFA also slapped the Israeli champions with a suspended punishment of two additional matches without a crowd.

Before kick-off in Sunday’s match against Maccabi Haifa, more than 2,500 Beitar fans refused to observe the silence, called in honour of Rabin and also to protest against violence in Israeli society and at sports stadiums.

This is utterly ridiculous. Why should people be expected to honor someone they have reason to regard as a traitor to their country? Obviously it’s not a “national consensus” or thousands of people would not have been loudly expressing their opinion on the matter.

One would think that this sort of thought-policing behavior in Jerusalem would concern Jews far more than Ann Coulter response to theological questions.

And if speaking your mind in public is truly “an affront to Israel’s existence as a democracy”, it’s pretty clear that Israeli democracy’s days are numbered.