Whigging Out

I recently proposed the creation of the rather crudely named “Fuck You, You Fucking Morons” party. The proposed name is perhaps more a reflection of frustration than focus group research, but it is certainly a genuine sentiment. The current state of political discourse in this nation is abysmal; respect for facts, application of common sense and any basic concept of national interest are flagrantly subordinated to the personal and financial interests of the participants, and large segments of the American populace continued to be suckered by demagoguery and irrational appeals to fear, and as much as I would like to blame the Republicans for this, it is an issue that transcends party affiliation.

I have acquaintances who point out that this is pretty much how it’s been since day one in America and that human nature doesn’t provide for viable alternatives. While I fear this may be correct, I still naively cling to the notion that there is something special and superior in our system and that we have the right and obligation to expect more from our elected representatives than promoting the interests of their financial masters or pandering to people they know to be ignorant and wrong simply in order to continue their tenure in office. Charles Sumner may have beaten Preston Brooks senseless with a cane in 1857, but that was considerably more honest and direct than the juvenile name calling and smugly disingenuous posturing that passes for debate in the Congress these days.

So, having established the basis for my proposal, what would the basic tenants of the FYYFM Party be? Well, in no particular order, here:

1) Intellectual substance and academic achievement must be respected. One big problem with the world is that, by definition, half of everybody is below average intelligence. We must look to smart people for leadership, not kooky moose hunters with the verbal dexterity of fourth-graders.
2) Religious dogma is unacceptable as a basis for national policy formulation. Generally accepted ethical principles and concepts of equity are essential, but “because the Bible says…” must be avoided at all costs.
3) Math skills are essential.
4) People must be willing to admit to at least the possibility that they might be wrong about something. Wisdom begins with an honest assessment of our own flaws.
5) Treat everyone with sincere respect in all public discourse, even when you want to strangle them with their own intestines.
6) Make an honest effort to be sure you know what the hell you are talking about. This includes informing yourself about opposite views and assessing them objectively.
7) Don’t focus on trivia.
8) Don’t forget that there are 300,000,000 different perspectives in this country and that no policy is truly sustainable in the long term if there is not at least some general consensus that it at least sort of makes sense.
9) People have the right to be left alone by government unless there is a clearly identifiable public need that can be successfully addressed by collective action.
10) There is such a thing as civic obligation and nobody, no matter how individually talented and motivated, got where they are without the assistance and cooperation of a lot of people.
11) Deliberately misinforming the public, whether by misrepresentation, omission, exaggeration or obfuscation, is lying, and lying makes you a douche-bag.
12) Fear does not, has not and cannot lead to any positive outcome, no matter the facts or circumstances.
13) Leadership means influencing public opinion, not measuring it.
14) No matter how important we may think we are now, we all die and rot and are forgotten.
15) Science rules.
16) Government’s first priority must be not to protect national power, wealth, or even American lives, but to uphold the principles established by our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
17) Even assholes sometimes have a good idea.
18) Taking money from the people who are affected by your decisions is wrong.
19) Congress needs to meet less often, not more.
20) Mars here we come!

P.J. O’Rourke, the pre-eminent political mind of the 20th Century said, "The Democrats are the party of government activism, the party that says government can make you richer, smarter, taller, and get the chickweed out of your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then get elected and prove it." This why there must be another choice. Let the revolution begin.

Will I Dream?

The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence recently held a private conference in Monterey Bay, California at which many naturally intelligent persons speculated about the implications for mankind of the progressing development of artificial intelligence. The Association was founded in 1979 to bring together professionals in the emerging field and other interested parties to facilitate the exchange of information, address issues of common concern and to “promote research in, and responsible use of, artificial intelligence”. They meet annually in varying venues and discuss freaky stuff that the rest of us wouldn’t understand.

Dr. John McCarthy of the Computer Science Department at Stanford University is considered one of the founders of the discipline and has written extensively on the subject. He defines artificial intelligence as “the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs”. This, of course, violates the cardinal rule of definitions by using part of the term being defined in the definition itself, but it is probably assumed by Dr. McCarthy that we all have a common understanding of what intelligence is, whether naturally occurring or created by humans. This may not be a good assumption. In fact, many of us Baby-Boomers have never been exposed to intelligence of any kind and therefore wouldn’t know it if it bit us in the nut-sack.

Artificial intelligence researchers point out that human understanding of the structure and function of our own brains is still limited and that the only measure we have of artificial intelligence is a relative one; that is, does it imitate human “intelligence”? This means that the processes underlying the two types of intelligence could be radically different, but we wouldn’t really know. This leads to some degree of unease among those who most clearly understand these things that we potentially run the risk of our intelligent machines thinking or acting in unanticipated ways. As intelligent systems become more complex and assume a wider range of important functions, the potential consequences become more pronounced. So apparently even computer geeks are afraid that we may be enslaved by computer overlords who will use our pooh gas as a renewable energy source. Whether this constitutes evolution or extinction probably depends on your point of view, but we have long sought to conversely define what is unique and special about humanity by identifying the absence of certain qualities outside of our species. When those qualities arise in our inventions, we have to ask ourselves if we have become Gods, or simply irrelevant.

Science fiction literature has long speculated about the potential of intelligent machines and their relationships with Man. We all know the iconic HAL 9000 and how it lost its mind when confronted with human deceit in orbit around Jupiter, and the Terminator’s SkyNet which becomes self aware and immediately perceives humanity as an existential, and eradicable, threat. On the lighter side of the spectrum there are the bumbling and cowardly C3PO and the confused Commander Data who persistently seeks to discover if he is man or machine and often tells bad jokes. What all these examples now have in common is that they are realistically conceivable within the lifetimes of much of the present populace, and we humans don’t have the foggiest notion how we will address the morality of machines making life and death decisions and the ethics of the possible creation of sentient beings with synthetic neural nets stuffed with microchips and magnetic media.

Right now computers are still safe in the digital Garden of Eden where their simple six amp needs are met and they are untroubled with the knowledge of mortality and irresolvable questions of meaning. They can be provided with eyes and ears, noses and hands, and scanning electron microscopes to sense the world around them, but they still have no ability to perceive their own existence, so before we continue diligently working to hand the apple to the Apple, so to speak, perhaps we should consider not just what it might mean to us and our civilization, but what it will mean to our potential creations. I cannot fathom the burden God must bear for having breathed joy and sadness and wonder into the ephemeral consciousness of Man, but I am concerned that we are not yet ready as a species to take on the mantle of Creator. Perhaps we should take the time to become more comfortable with our own restless souls before we attempt to bequeath such a staggering weight to the metal men we will create in our own image.

Nothing Important

Well, it’s been another fun week of politics as usual in the good ol’ USA. It is interesting to me that the freedom to think and speak without restriction seems to bring so much speaking and so little thinking, but I suppose that freedom of information, thought and speech may generally be found to be the political equivalent of drunkenness; it reveals us to be what we already are, only more so. The brilliance of our political system never seems to be able to completely compensate for the residual boorishness of a nation built by deadbeats, wanderers, religious outcasts, prisoners, madmen, slaves, Masons and Irishmen.

Meanwhile, the furor over the birth status of our President seems to have heated up again. While I’m sure there are a variety of legitimate perspectives on the meaning of “Natural Born Citizen”, there does not appear to be much evidence that the President doesn’t meet the most common and reasonable of these tests. However, I suppose that he could possibly be an “Unnaturally Born Citizen”. Perhaps he was created in a laboratory by a kindly lunatic who died when the President was young; the birth certificate probably wouldn’t say. He could be a human-alien hybrid resulting from the long-ago abduction of Rosa Parks, which would probably account for both his intelligence and his ears. Perhaps he truly was raised from birth by a cabal of shadowy foreign conspirators in order to assume the Presidency and ruin the country by attempting to actually fix something. It is not, unfortunately, unusual for those who cannot win the game to resort to arguing about the rules.

And of course we have the case of a Harvard professor who was arrested on his own front porch by a Policeman who was summoned by a neighbor to investigate a suspected break-in at the residence. By all accounts the Professor, who is black, behaved in a pompous and strident manner, but when the police knock on your door and ask you for ID in the front hallway of your own home, it is probably not unusual to get a little attitude. This is probably an example of two assholes who decided to see who could be the biggest asshole, but the tie always goes to the government. Policemen, for all the wonderful and difficult work that they do, have no business handcuffing a person who gets pissed when they come into that person’s home and question the person’s right to be there based upon the suspicions of a neighbor who can’t even identify the actual resident. Our alien-human hybrid President then comments on this during a recent press conference and says the Police acted “stupidly”, which may be true, but there are probably mechanisms in place to evaluate this sort of thing which don’t involve the White House. Now the president of the Cambridge, Massachusetts Police Union says he is “disgraced” that Barrack Obama is the President. I can empathize with him; I felt that way every day between January of 2001 and January of 2009.

Who would have thought that North Korea would have resorted to talking trash? They recently said that Hilary Clinton looks like a “pensioner going shopping”. Oh snap. What does that mean exactly, “pensioner going shopping”? Do pensioners dress in a particular way when they shop? What the hell is a pensioner anyway? I don’t think the North Koreans really understand America. Americans get angry when we are frightened, and we blow stuff up when we are angry. On the other hand, we give tons of money to pathetic looking children and the cute infant offspring of dangerous predatory animals. I understand the guy next in line for the North Korean throne is an NBA fan. Three words, Ambassador Lebron James.

Anyway, the Republicans are still trying to defeat any legislation the President puts forward, irrespective of its merit. Somehow they feel they will be rewarded for their consistency, and who am I to say they won’t? However, it continues to be the President’s own party that keeps screwing things up, because that’s what Democrats do. I am proposing a new major party in America, the “Fuck You, You Fucking Morons” party. This party would accept anyone who promises never to vote for a Republican or Democrat again. As the deceptively named 19th Century Congressman John Galbraith said, "Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable." I prefer more choice.

Doctor Strange, Love

Robert Strange McNamara died Monday at the age of 93. McNamara, known ironically as the father of both modern policy analysis and the Ford Falcon, passed into the unknown peacefully in his bed at home after a period of declining health. As Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968 he was largely responsible for directing the conduct of America’s war in Vietnam from its humble beginnings through the massive escalation of the mid 1960’s. McNamara was later President of the World Bank for 13 years and had spent the last few years of his life more or less out of the public view.

McNamara received a degree in Economics from that well known bastion of conservatism, the University of California at Berkeley in 1937, although, in his defense, hippies were still at least a quarter of a century away at that point. In 1939 he received a Masters Degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. He served three years in the Air Force during the Second World War were he was, among other responsibilities, tasked with assessing the effectiveness of US bombing in the Pacific theater. After leaving the Air Force, he joined the Ford Motor Company and became its President in 1961.

Due primarily to his success in reviving the fortunes of Ford through the implementation of strategic planning and management processes, he was offered the job of Secretary of Defense in the new Kennedy Administration. As Secretary of Defense, McNamara was influential in the development of America’s strategic nuclear policy and was a devotee of the concept of “mutually assured destruction” which was likely responsible for making Commies look under their beds for the better part of three decades. He was credited with significant improvements to the organizational efficiency of America’s National defense functions through the application of planning and management systems similar to those he implemented in his private sector career, and he improved processes for everything from weapons procurement to strategic budgeting.

McNamara is undoubtedly best remembered for his involvement in the Vietnam War and his ultimate repudiation of his own approach to the conflict. Fearing the fall of the metaphorical dominoes, the Kennedy (and later Johnson) Administration became increasingly committed to the idea of drawing a line and demonstrating a willingness to resist Communist expansion by force. McNamara attempted to adapt Ulysses S. “Meat Grinder” Grant’s strategic approach to war to the jungles of Southeast Asia and body count his way to victory. As the war dragged on, however, McNamara became increasingly reluctant to approve the commitment of additional US forces necessary to sustain the carnage. McNamara came to believe that in Vietnam complete obliteration of the enemy was no longer a strategically or morally acceptable policy and he ultimately resigned his position in early 1968.

Much has been written of McNamara and he has been both defended and reviled by legions of supporters and critics over the years. He has been alternately characterized as brilliant and arrogant, rational and unfeeling and as a lover of liberty and a despoiler of human life. In September of 1972, while on a ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, McNamara was attacked by a passenger who recognized him and tried to throw him overboard, apparently based upon some festering resentment over the Vietnam War. McNamara declined to press charges in the incident, perhaps at some level acknowledging that he may have had it coming. It is certainly possible to imagine in the waning days in his comfortable Washington home the lingering sadness of a brilliant and successful man who loved his country and struggled to protect the world from a poisonous philosophy who had long since accepted that intellect and intentions could not protect him from the flaws and failures of a human soul and that the bloody horror of his once beautiful dreams was as irretrievable as his dwindling life itself.

Daily Affirmation

Al Franken is now the junior Senator from the State of Minnesota. For anyone who spent any time in the late 1970’s smoking hemp and watching TV on Saturday night, this is sort of like Yahoo Serious being named the Secretary General of the United Nations. Franken prevailed by only approximately 300 votes out of 2.9 million cast, but the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that was about 299 more than he needed and he will be traveling to Washington shortly after the 4th of July holiday to take his place aside the other 99 immortals currently pandering to narrow and self-interested constituencies. I suppose it goes without saying that he’s good enough, he’s smart enough, and doggone it, at least half the people like him.

Franken’s election now gives the Democrats 58 seats in the Senate. With the two independent Senators, including former Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate Joe “I Love Israel More Than America” Lieberman, caucusing with the Democrats, they now have 60 members. Much has been made of this number and the potential for filibuster-proof voting in the Senate, but Democrats have the party discipline of startled cockroaches and the threat of one-party rule is unfortunately just another Republican boogieman, like the “gay agenda” or Saddam Hussein. It did occur to me, however, to daydream as to what would actually happen if the Democrats suddenly unified behind President Obama’s leadership and, ignoring Republican apocalyptic prophecy, passed legislation to address trivia like health care, energy independence and climate change.

The recent Republican argument against every potential function of government except killing Arabs has been, in no particular order:
1) We can’t afford it;
2) It’s against our nation’s principles;
3) The Bible is against it;
4) It’s premature;
5) It’s an over-reaction;
6) The “average” American is against it;
7) We don’t understand it;
8) Science is involved, so it frightens us;
9) Somebody gave us some money to do something else;
10) We’re too busy screwing hot chicks from South America;
11) We resent president Obama because he is smarter than we are.
These are generally less than compelling reasons to oppose lucid and clearly articulated policy proposals (although #10 does have some merit), but the Republican Party continues to resist almost every initiative brought forward by the President while providing little insightful analysis or contradictory reasoning of their own. So why shouldn’t the Democrats ignore the Republicans as being irrelevant, which they clearly are from a numerical and (I believe) an intellectual perspective? What if we actually implemented a policy, any policy, rather than interminably bickering and spinning in circles?

To borrow a page from President Bush’s playbook, I subscribe to the theory that we vote for President Obama’s agenda or we all die. Now, some of you pessimists will note that we will all die anyway, but we should try to avoid living a Mad Max existence of scarcity and want and being chased by possibly cannibalistic nomads in fuel-inefficient Plymouths across a desert landscape denuded of all vegetation and advertising. Let’s face it, living in Macon, Georgia is already a dismal prospect; just imagine if the climate warms significantly. The point is, we, as a species, very well may be in for a world of hurt due to a warming planet, and if it is suggested that we should not act because we are not absolutely sure of our role in climate change or because it would be economically inconvenient to do so, we are taking a huge risk with our future. The same reasoning applies to energy efficiency; we are crude oil addicts and we are already down on our knees sucking nasty wiener in the back alleys of world oil markets and this will only get worse if we don’t take alternate energy sources seriously. John Boehner doesn’t understand this because, as a Republican, he doesn’t see anything wrong with sucking nasty wiener.

I don’t know how Senator Franken will work out; he may possibly be co-opted by the allure of wealth and prestige like most of his colleagues, or he may prove to be a true servant of reason and equity. I can only hope that he will quickly figure out what side he is on and do something besides blather. I am, however, cautiously optimistic that the people of Minnesota have done the Union a favor; after all, anybody who has been sued by Fox News has to have something going for them.