I love a mystery.

Today’s mystery: what is the operating principle — the strategy — behind White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ multi-day freak-out?

“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”

The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”

Of those who complain that Obama caved to centrists on issues such as healthcare reform, Gibbs said: “They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.”

It’s a question that’s important for Gibbs’ resume, if nothing else. He’s done an adequate job so far. But a pilot who has a perfect safety record until he flies a jumbo jet into a mountain in a fit of pique will not be remembered as a good pilot.

Perhaps Gibbs has some elaborate cunning plan that will unfold over the next few news cycles. But he seems to be ignoring some fairly significant points:

First, you dance with the one what brung you, even if the one what brung you is a goddam dirty hippie.

Second, to the extent Gibbs believes he is shoring up support from moderates and the Right by executing a sort of Sister Souljah moment, he fails to grasp that (a) the Right scorns weakness and never responds helpfully to concessions, and (b) hardly anyone genuinely gave a shit about what Sister Soulah thought, but nobody — least of all moderates — gives a shit about what the “Professional Left” thinks.

Third, to the extent you’re going to get all indignant about being compared to Bush, you might want to evaluate whether you have, in fact, abandoned or reneged upon most of the ways you said you would do things differently than Bush.

The best case scenario is that Gibbs is amusing and emboldening the Right, offending the Left, and mystifying and concerning the middle, who will think “why is the White House getting all spittle-flecked about criticism from people I haven’t heard of and don’t care about?” The worst case scenario is that too many voters perceive, correctly, that the White House is saying that it is completely crazy to expect Barack Obama to abide by the principles he articulated as grounds to choose him. All politicians think that. But most are smart enough not to send their Mouth of Sauron out to say it.

Dateline: New York. The city sells advertising on its buses. Blogger Pamela Geller wants to buy space to run what, in the context of her, is a subtle and balanced advertisement in opposition to building the “Cordoba House” project a few blocks from Ground Zero:

Your coy point eludes me, Pamela.

According to Geller, the city’s advertising entity refused. According to the city, they just hadn’t gotten around to approving it yet. At any rate, Geller’s organization sued, and the City caved and allowed the advertisement. It is equally easy for me to imagine (1) that the city resisted an advertisement because it didn’t like the message, or (2) Geller filed the lawsuit for publicity before the ad was actually rejected.

Dateline: San Francisco. In a heroic and mostly successful attempt to one-up its prior insipid Nanny-Statery, the City of San Francisco creates a policy saying that the ads it sells on its buses and in its bus stations cannot “promote” weapons, by which it apparently means “depict” them. Hence, despite the fact that its stance is obviously unconstitutional, San Francisco requires horrible posters for horrible movies to be rendered even more horrible by replacing guns with pepper spray, at least in some bus-related venues. No word on whether Steven Spielberg was involved in the decision.

Dateline: Des Moines. The Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers buy advertising on the local transit authority’s buses to run the terrifying message “Don’t believe in God? You’re not alone.” Some people who are easily offended by the expression of views differing from theirs object to the message. The transit authority caves and pulls it, resorting to the standard bullshit excuse “it was never authorized in the first place.” Later, the transit authority caves again, restoring the ads, explaining that it realized that its ad policy was “outdated,” by which it perhaps meant “predating the incorporation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the passage of statutes entitling successful civil rights plaintiffs to payment of attorney fees.”

Dateline: Detroit. The city’s transit authority sells advertising on its buses. It accepts the “Don’t believe in God?” advertisement described above. However, when a buyer attempts to place an advertisement aimed at Muslims leaving their faith (“Fatwa on your head? Is your family or community threatening you? Leaving Islam? Got Questions? Get Answers!”) Detroit’s transit agency refuses to run the ad. The Thomas More Law Center sues.

Look: it’s simple. Don’t operate a business if you don’t know its fundamentals. If your business is throwing open a public forum for paid advertisement, then don’t get into it without knowing, and being committed to following, the relevant First Amendment jurisprudence guiding the legitimate grounds for taking or not taking an advertisement. Don’t hire people who are too stupid, or biased, or incompetent, to apply the rules.

By the way: in a perfect world, everyone would have the same stance on the right to run ALL of these advertisements, whatever their individual stance on atheism or Islam or guns. But it’s not a perfect world.

Dan Quayle’s son, Ben Quayle is running for Congress in Arizona. He is every bit the man his father was, as this awesome campaign commercial demonstrates. I love every wacky second. From the strong opening to the not at all stiff weird ducking move (was there a fly? Did they only have one take?)

My only question is where are his fake kids? Has he fake abandoned them?

I wrote last week about a fun little quiz the site RPGgeek was running. Since the quiz is now past, I thought I would post the questions (full credit to RPGgeek for coming up with these cool questions and giving me a fun bout of nostalgia.) It was actually pretty difficult. So, have at:

Continue Reading »

What happens when the surveillance/informant state clashes with the speech-regulating state?

Well, at least in the United Kingdom, it looks as if the speech-regulating state wins.

Via Thatcher, I saw this decision by the U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority, the U.K.’s advertising watchdog. The decision reviewed an advertisement with the following text:

A radio ad for the Anti-Terrorist Hotline stated “The following message is brought to you by Talk Sport and the Anti-Terrorist Hotline. The man at the end of the street doesn’t talk to his neighbours much, because he likes to keep himself to himself. He pays with cash because he doesn’t have a bank card, and he keeps his curtains closed because his house is on a bus route. This may mean nothing, but together it could all add up to you having suspicions. We all have a role to play in combating terrorism. If you see anything suspicious, call the confidential, Anti-Terrorist Hotline on 0800 XXXXXX. If you suspect it, report it”.

The Metropolitan Police and the Association of Chief Police Officers defended the ad as “raising awareness” and informing the public that a combination of factors might lead them to conclude that someone is up to something nefarious. The ASA ruled that the ad should not be broadcast again. The ASA did not so rule on the basis that the advertisement represents part of the U.K.’s abandonment of its remarkable common law heritage of liberty, and its steady march towards a freakishly regulated surveillance state that is obsessed with getting citizens, including children, to inform on each other for wildly speculative reasons.

No, the ASA found the ad violated the ultimate speech-regulating sin — it’s not that it promotes an authoritarian state that treads on all that makes England great, it’s far, far worse than that. Someone’s feelings might be hurt.

However, we considered that the ad could also describe the behaviour of a number of law-abiding people within a community and we considered that some listeners, who might identify with the behaviours referred to in the ad, could find the implication that their behaviour was suspicious, offensive. We also considered that some listeners might be offended by the suggestion that they report members of their community for acting in the way described. We therefore concluded that the ad could cause serious offence.

Now, the ASA is dead right that the advertisement is offensive. It’s horrifically offensive to suggest that if you mind your own damn business and keep your blinds closed and avoid getting into debt by eschewing credit cards, there’s any remotely rational basis to think you’re up to no good. It promotes governance according to the socially totalitarian fantasies of the Gladys Kravitzes of the world, and indulges our base tendencies to suspect and scorn the odd man out. But focusing on it being offensive is missing the point, like asking whether or not police officers said “please” and “thank you” when they conducted an illegal search on your house. It’s awful because it promotes the informant state and tightens the grasp of law enforcement over society, and encourages the view that everything, however mundane, is potentially deadly, so obey your local police officer! Only he can protect you!

If you’re going to give a quasi-government, quasi-private entity the authority to regulate advertising expression based on “offense”, why not give it authority to reject government advertising on the basis that it takes a shit on your cultural heritage and promotes totalitarian thinking?

Dear Unnamed Insurance Company:

I appreciate the two subrogation referrals you sent to me this month, in which you asked me to recover blood money from teens who had attempted suicide in other people’s homes.  Unfortunately, I must decline to represent you in these matters.  I shall return the files under separate cover.

My concerns are twofold, and fact-specific.  In claim #1, Tommy Tortfeasor came into possession of a pistol owned by your insured, from an unlocked cabinet.  While playing with the pistol, Tommy shot himself in the chest.  Fortunately Tommy’s shot did not strike the heart, but it appears he lost about five pints of blood before EMTs arrived.  Miraculously, Tommy is alive.

In claim #2, Bill Badboyfriend got into an argument with your insured’s daughter, his girlfriend, on prom night.  Bill (who carried a knife) slashed his wrists in the home, and while he didn’t lose as much blood as Tommy, he was hospitalized for several days and then transferred to what I’ll call, in my callousness, a mental institution.

In each of these claims, you wish me to recover moneys spent on replacement of carpets, drywall, and subflooring, as each of these young men managed, somehow, to turn himself into a geyser of blood.

I appreciate that times are tight, that your policyholders are counting on you to recover funds needlessly spent, and believe me I could use the money too.  Both kids have insured parents, and their insurance companies would be liable to pay for any negligently caused property damage, such as blood fountains.  Both boys were probably old enough to know that suicide is not reasonable, yet they attempted it anyway.

And yet, my first concern remains a strong one:  ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND?  You want to sue a kid who tried to kill himself, and it wasn’t of the “cry for help – give me attention!” variety, but the OCEANS OF BLOOD SPRAYED ALL OVER THE HOUSE variety.  Don’t you think he might try to kill himself again, when he gets sued for spewing blood all over your policyholder’s house?  I know your policyholder doesn’t want you to sue him.  It says so in the file.

My second concern is less strong, but still pertinent:  What do you think is going to happen when this gets out on the web, or a newspaper picks it up?  Do you think the damage to your company’s good name, and its slogan [NOT REVEALED HERE BUT IT IMPLIES RELIABILITY AND KINDNESS] is worth five grand spent on a floor scrubber?  Sure, there’s probably only a 10% chance of that happening, as the defense attorney won’t want to publicize his young client’s attempted suicide, but you never know.

On a personal note, I won’t be the lawyer who has “no comment” when asked about this suit.

Please feel free to call me should you have questions or wish to discuss these matters further.  Again, I appreciate your referral, and regret that I will be unable to assist you with these claims.

Sincerely,

Me

Today I encountered a web site ostensibly operated by the entity opening the “Cordoba House” facility a few blocks from Ground Zero. Perhaps you’ve heard of the project; I understand that a couple of people have commented on it. I will refer to it as “The Project” to avoid tiresome disputes about other names.

Anyway, I also noted that multiple people were engaged in a “dialogue” — to the extent the word applies in the medium — on Twitter with a @Park51 Twitter feed, purportedly authored and operated by the organizers of The Project.

Count me as skeptical. The incident in which Patrick panicked hapless Norweigians into thinking that North Korea was declaring war on Cyrpus via Twitter still weighs heavily on my conscience. The @Park51 twitter feed strikes me as off in some way, and I suspect it may be a hoax or political satire or public relations sabotage. If so, it’s fairly well executed.

But if it’s real, it suggests that the leaders of The Project are hypocritical twits with a tin ear. Those promoting the Project have asserted that its purpose is to promote interfaith dialogue and dialogue between Americans and the Muslim community, and that therefore the public should not focus on whether its location is an affront to some.

Recently a number of commentators, including Greg Gutfield, began promoting the concept that someone should open a gay bar catering to Muslims next to The Project, in order to test their tolerance for the concept that people ought to be able to open what they want where they want even if others are offended. Some deride this as juvenile baiting, but I think it’s a useful rhetorical device to tease out whether and when we should actually care about opening facilities that give offense.

Gutfield pursued the @Park51 Twitter author, seeking their position on the hypothetical Muslim gay bar. @Park51 eventually responded with this:

.@greggutfeld You’re free to open whatever you like. If you won’t consider the sensibilities of Muslims, you’re not going to build dialog

That was the point at which the needle on my skepticism gauge twitched a bit more towards “hoax.” It’s just too perfectly hypocritical, clueless, and tone-deaf. Of course it makes no sense whatsoever for the organizers of The Project to say (1) we want to open a dialogue, but need not be sensitive to sensibilities of other Americans, but (2) if you want to open a dialogue with Muslims, you need to consider their sensibilities. It’s just a little too breathtakingly contradictory to be really credible to me. If it’s not a hoax, then someone over there is talking out of his or her ass.

Of course, American principles of free speech, free exercise, and limited government protect everyone — even hypocrites, even people who would not extend the same benefits to others if they had their way. Let people build their gay bars and their Cordoba Houses where they will, and let opponents exercise their free speech to object, and let critics critique those objections, and so on to eternity. But if The Project does start whining about people building a bar or a pork products palace or something, they better be ready to be ridiculed.

This week I watched, with some amusement, as an associate navigated an encounter with the media. No clients were harmed, but she emerged indignant.

Some criminal defense attorneys believe that media relations is essential to an effective defense. I’m a skeptic. I think that very, very few clients are helped by engagement with the media. I think that in most cases, the putative benefits or media engagement (getting your message out, or driving the narrative) are substantially outweighed by the risks. Those risks include (1) increasing negative attention to your client, (2) accidentally saying something stupid or harmful to your client, and (3) being misquoted, or quoted out of context, by journalists with a tenuous grasp of law who don’t care about due process and favor drama over precision.

Eric Lipman at Legal Blog Watch offers a prime example of why I feel this way. When his client Marc Payen was accused of immigration fraud in connection with allegedly taking money based on false promises to file requests for asylum, attorney D. Andrew Marshall tried, and failed miserably, to engage the press to make things better:

“This is a nonviolent felony offense. If certain services were supposedly rendered that were not rendered, then the individuals who paid for the services may very well be entitled to their money back. Whether a crime was committed is another story,” said Payen’s attorney D. Andrew Marshall.

Perhaps D. Andrew Marshall was disastrously misquoted, which is why he emerges sounding incoherent. That’s completely foreseeable in dealing with the press. Or maybe he really just did say something that sounds, depending on how you read it, like he’s suggesting his client committed a felony.

Rule One applies to lawyers as well as clients: the best course is to shut up.

Judge Robert Bork recognized that the Framers intended the rule of law to protect rights at the core of governance, like political speech and suing the bastards when you tumble from a podium. That important limit applies to free speech, as well. “The First Amendment is about how we govern ourselves – not about how we titillate ourselves sexually,” he said, deeply confusing people who masturbate to C-SPAN.

Given Rand Paul’s devotion to original intent, it should be no surprise that he agrees with Judge Bork. So when GQ — which, contrary to my prior impression, apparently is actually read by some heterosexuals — ran an article claiming that Dr. Paul acted like a college student when he was a college student, his campaign immediately issued threats reflecting his approach to First Amendment jurisprudence:

“We are investigating all our options — including legal ones,” Rand Paul spokesman Jesse Benton emails me. “We will not tolerate drive by Journalism by a writer with a leftist agenda.”

Now, if you relied solely on the activist precedent by the liberal-dominated judiciary, you might conclude that the relevant question before pursuing legal options is whether the GQ article contains false statements, and secondarily whether those false statements were uttered with knowledge of their falsity or reckless disregard to their falsity (inasmuch as Dr. Paul is, technically, a public figure). Dr. Paul rejects that activist interpretation. The original intent of the Framers was that the First Amendment would not represent an impediment to suing anyone for anything in state court, let alone suing for defamation by leftists or drive-by journalists (which were, in Revolutionary times, called ride-by journalists) or people with an agenda, which the Framers intended to be recognized exceptions to free speech protection.

[Note: to the extent that Jesse Benton's statement becomes non-operational, it will be because he was not authorized to issue it, and Dr. Paul did not know that he would be issuing it, and it is entirely unreasonable to attribute it to Dr. Paul. Failure to supervise statements made in your name is a genetic condition, and under the Americans with Disabilities Act we need to accommodate him.]

I get to visit some pretty fun nooks and crannies of the internet, and I find some super amusing comments along the way. Today I share with you a great moment in rhetoric:

“I am not partisan either, however, most of the time I will vote republican, and would NEVER vote democrat.”

For some time, I’ve been thinking about a post about revolutionary rhetoric from certain limited elements of the modern American Right. It’s a big topic, and I’m having trouble getting my arms around it. Revolutionary rhetoric has become more common and mainstream since Ezra touched on it last year.

I think revolutionary rhetoric from those limited elements of the Right falls into five general categories:

1. People using images of revolution purely metaphorically to refer to voter movements or changes in political stance;
2. People using revolutionary rhetoric to refer to substantial changes in the structure of American government achieved through political means;
3. People using revolutionary rhetoric to rope-a-dope the Left and the media by using language reasonably interpreted as calling for violent uprising, waiting for the media or the Left to call it out, and then playing the misunderstood victim and using the incident to argue that the media and the Left are irretrievably biased. Trolls, in other words;
4. People using calls to revolution as dog-whistle signals to their base, and maintaining coy plausible deniability over whether they mean to call for violence or not;
5. People genuinely and openly calling for violent revolution.

Some of those overlap, as you might notice.

I’ve been trying to frame a post that asks this question to the people advocating violent revolution: who lives and who dies, and who decides? Is it all politicians, or just politicians who have voted a particular way? Is it all judges, or just judges deemed unacceptable by some revolutionary tribunal? (Does Scalia live for U.S. v. Lopez, or die for Texas v. Johnson?) When do we get free elections again, and when we get them, do candidates have to be approved by some revolutionary tribunal? Do people speaking or writing in opposition to the revolution get killed? Is your position “in a revolution all sorts of people get killed, nobody decides, it’s the luck of the bullet, so you’d better do what we say first?”

I’ve asked those questions elsewhere, and I think the chances of getting an answer from anyone in category 3 or 4 is very low. I might get an answer from someone in category 5. Maybe Mark Epstein or Texas Fred will answer me.

But that’s all for a much longer post, that’s time-consuming and difficult to write. Today I want to make a much more limited observation: it’s amazing how much modern revolutionary rhetoric from the Right resembles rhetoric from classic Leftist revolutionaries: the Marxists, the Maoists, the Khmerists.

First consider the issue of voting. The central and necessary premise of the modern Rightist revolutionary is that the right to vote, as it exists in America, is insufficient, even useless. There’s much complaining about Motor Voter laws and voting fraud and a handful of black guys in berets parading outside of polling places that were already going 95% to Obama, but I’ve not seen any facts (as opposed to Truther-esque supposition) supporting the notion that on any widespread or routine basis the American people are voting for candidate X but getting candidate Y. Rather, the central complaint of the Rightist revolutionaries appears to be stupid people don’t know the right way to vote — the way we think they should — and are too easily misled or distracted.

That, of course, is classic Marxist thought. The modern Right doesn’t use the term false consciousness, but they might as well. Their complaint that the modern voting system necessarily protects and promotes the interests of an enemy elite is also classic Marxist-Leninist rhetoric.

Second, consider the modern Right’s identification of an enemy class. Angelo M. Codevilla is the darling of the revolutionary Right these days based on his American Spectator essay describing an American elite ruling class and how it makes revolution more necessary (or even, he implies, justifiable). Codevilla’s ruling elite is defined by education and the language and culture that flows from it, and by hostility to faith. Leave aside, for now, the other echoes one might hear in a description of a narrow and clannish cultural elite selfishly devoted to its own good at the expense of the decent common people and hostile to the correct faith. For now, consider how much Codevilla’s definition of the enemy class along educational lines makes him echo the Khmer Rouge. The leaders of the Khmer Rouge were themselves well-educated, but tried to form a society premised upon the notion that educated people, including but not limited to “intellectuals” or “professionals,” were inherently made class enemies by their education. No, I’m not saying that Codevilla or most of his fans want to shoot everyone wearing glasses. But the concept of education transforming people from one social and political class (normal people with acceptable values) to another (selfish ruling elites) finds historical precedent in the ideas of multiple radical Leftist movements.

It would be fatuous to suggest that people on the Right who favor armed revolution are secretly socialists. In fact, they often cite descent into socialism as grounds for revolution. My point is that they have adopted classic socialist revolutionary tropes. Question: is that inevitable? Given that revolutionaries must justify social change through violence despite the existence of a right to vote, will they necessarily resort to classic Leftist revolutionary rhetoric that focuses upon class divisions and treats the populace at large as incapable of deciding its own governance for itself?

Also, does asking the question mean that I ought to be put up against the wall when the revolution comes?

Edit: Note Patrick’s disagreement with my observation, set forth in the comments.

if this had happened on an American flight.

Unfortunately for the French, German, and Israeli passengers aboard this June Lufthansa flight from Tel Aviv to Frankfurt, they seem not to appreciate the dangers inherent in pillow fights. They’ll find out, one day, that air travel must be as unpleasant as possible, for everyone’s safety.

I’ve accused the government of habitually abusing categorical rhetoric — selling the populace on the concept that certain categories of things are uniquely dangerous and therefore outside our normal scheme of individual rights (child pornography, for instance, or anything related to the Great War on Terrorism), and then surreptitiously trying to cram as many disfavored things as possible into those no-longer-narrow categories, whether or not those things logically belong in those categories or not. Hence you get government officials explaining to you that anti-piracy efforts calculated to protect Shrek from illegal downloads belong in the terrorism “box”, with all the additional government powers and limits on citizen rights that implies. This approach eases the government’s persuasive burden: leaders only need to keep the populace convinced of the legitimacy of the pure category (e.g., terrorism is very scary, and the government should have more powers to deal with it), and then smuggle stuff into the category under the noses of an inattentive citizenry.

But it would be wrong to say that this rhetorical dishonesty is unique to government. Citizens are guilty of it, as well — citizens employ categorical rhetoric, and therefore encourage our government to use it. Take, for instance, the trend of citizens advocating limits on free exercise of religion. Diana Serafin of ACT! For America, who protested to oppose the right of Muslims in Temecula, California to build a mosque, executes a picture-perfect abuse of the categorical worthy of any bureaucrat defending the scope of his power:

“As a mother and a grandmother, I worry,” Ms. Serafin said. “I learned that in 20 years with the rate of the birth population, we will be overtaken by Islam, and their goal is to get people in Congress and the Supreme Court to see that Shariah is implemented. My children and grandchildren will have to live under that.”

“I do believe everybody has a right to freedom of religion,” she said. “But Islam is not about a religion. It’s a political government, and it’s 100 percent against our Constitution.”

It’s hard to argue for exceptions to rights or interpretations of rights. It’s much easier to just argue about boxes. Thus Ms. Serafn and ACT! For America tries to sell us on the concept that Islam belongs not in the “First Amendment right to free exercise of religion” box, but in the “enemy government” box. Ms. Serafin’s rhetorical move is rather reminiscent of that employed by the advocates of campaign donation restrictions who were infuriated by SCOTUS’ recent decision in Citizens United v. FEC, who argue that donations to support desired candidates and measures don’t belong in the speech box, and ought to go in the “interfering with elections” box instead.

In a world governed by karma, Ms. Serafin would find her preferred religious denomination reclassified and placed firmly in the Political Action Committee box rather than the free exercise box. But as watching the news for ten minutes will tell you, most karmic rewards must be awaiting wrongdoers in the next life, because they aren’t getting them here. Besides, despite the temptation to respond to rhetorical abuse with rhetorical abuse, disingenuous categorical thinking about rights is self-perpetuating and threatens everyone’s rights.

Gennady Osipovich was most upset to hear that he would die in prison.  So he attacked the gypsy fortune teller who’d foretold his fate, and killed two innocent bystanders in the process.

Osipovich was sentenced to 22 years in maximum security prison this week.

Fortunately, the fortune teller escaped serious injury.  We should give this woman a visa and put her in charge of something important, today.

Via the Twitter feed of the Browser, a site you should visit often.

I think I’ve got everyone here covered except Ezra. Shhhhhh! Don’t tell them, it will ruin the surprise.

I hope they have enough for all of my friends.