A Curious Little Blog

A friend posted this image on Facebook yesterday.  On the surface, it seems obvious:  voting actually does something; arguing is just exchanging words.  Upon further consideration, though, I think this t-shirt has it exactly backwards. I believe that voting is important.  Realistically, though, the odds that your vote is going to change the outcome of an election is pretty close to zero.  Obviously, if enough people follow that logic, it could change the outcome; but we're just talking about the marginal value of your single vote. On the other hand, arguing has the chance to convince other people.  Granted, "arguing" implies contentious discussion, which rarely changes any minds.  But "arguing" can also mean presenting a case and reasoning through it, and certainly some people do become convinced by such arguments. The way that people come to their political beliefs is very interesting and, I believe, worthy of more study than it has recei...

I've always been a little ambivalent about the push to convince Americans to vote in every election.  In principle, I agree that having more people vote is good; on the other hand, it seems kind of overbearing, in the way that the anti-smoking campaign seemed well-intentioned but became overbearing.  I will not wear the "I voted" stickers, for instance, because it seems infantile.  Then again, maybe it's just because I'm so contrary. In either case, I thought it would be a good idea to consider the other side of getting more people to vote.  Thinking of it in economic terms, we can consider the marginal voters -- the ones who don't vote now but will be the next ones to be convinced to do so.  It seems logical that people who are motivated to vote are also the ones who are motivated to research the issues, and that people who haven't thought much about the issues will be the ones who care the least and are least likely to vote.  Therefore, by convincing m...

(This is inspired by an article by James Taranto called "What Went Wrong With Human Rights?"   The original Wall Street Journal article is paywalled, but it isn't too hard to find the full text of the article elsewhere.) Conservatives generally are big believers in natural law.  It was a given for most of the founders, and it serves to underpin the fact that people have rights ("natural rights") that are prior to government.  These rights aren't granted by government, and therefore can't be taken away from them.  All the government can do is to secure the rights, or, as the case sometimes is, not secure them. The idea of natural law is a very old one and is based on the principle that reason dictates certain rules -- for example, that one person may not harm another without cause.  On the other side is "positive law," which consists of agreements made by people, such as laws passed by a legislature or a treaty agreed between nations.  Most ...

In a recent piece in his journal " Current Affairs ," Nathan Robinson shows that he is a talented writer and debater. He also shows that he is willing to employ his talents to be deceptive; in this case, to claim that Brett Kavanaugh is a "serial liar." Since he makes the argument in such depth and with such a superficial air of plausibility, it is worth spending some time showing why it is wrong. To set up his case, Robinson admits that there is no evidence other than Ford's word to support her case. "S omeone strongly committed to due process," he writes, "might think the allegation extremely weak." But, he continues, prosecuting sexual assault would be almost impossible if we used this standard of evidence; therefore, we have to consider the case based solely on the testimony provided by Ford and Kavanaugh. Robinson has apparently attended law school, so one would expect him to know that rape rarely comes down to a simple ...

According to Elizabether Warren, “It is not enough to have a good heart … we are called to act,” Warren said. ”We are on the moral side of history.”  And Cory Booker is even more emphatic:  “I’m here to call on folks to understand that in a moral moment, there is no neutral. In a moral moment, there is no bystanders,” he said. “You are either complicit in the evil, you are either contributing to the wrong, or you are fighting against it.”  (Quotations cited in The Hill .) What is this great evil?  Genocide?  Slavery?  No, it is the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Are they angry because of the sexual assault that Christine Ford accuses Kavanaugh of?  No, these quotations are from July, long before anyone (other than Dianne Feinstein) was aware of those accusations. Democrats often complain that Republicans inject religion into politics, but if you listen to their language, they are the ones speaking in terms of religion....

I am always willing to have an argument with someone where there is a reasonable point to debate.  However, sometimes a point is so blatantly self-interested that there is no point in discussing it -- it is clearly being made purely for political purposes and not to advance a better understanding.  This happens on both sides, of course.  What astonishes me is how otherwise intelligent people seem to be so unaware of their own biases; how they, in other words, take a completely unreasonable point that their side is making for political purposes and treat it, like everything else coming from their side, as gospel truth to be defended. Perhaps I will soon find a good example among Republicans, but for today I want to discuss a post I read relating to Christine Blasey Ford and her accusations against Brett Kavanaugh.  I'll just put the image here rather than retype the text: Let's start with the details of this assertion and work our way back to the broader point....

I don't go to see many movies, but "Peppermint" is definitely a kind I enjoy.  I would have appreciated a lot more backstory such as "Man on Fire" had.  Even the line from the trailer, which explains the film's title, is missing from the final cut.  I definitely see the limitations of this movie, but the reaction among the literati has been predictably misguided.  According to the New York Times review , "the film plays dangerously into violent Latino stereotypes. One blood bath takes place in a piñata warehouse, where Riley mows down Diego’s unsuspecting gang one by one...All of the dead appear to be Latinos (save for a couple of Korean mob allies), but she leaves the sole white guy working there alive in order to interrogate him." (The following may contain spoilers.)  Let's start with the obvious problem:  all the dead are Latinos except the ones that aren't?  It wouldn't be credible to attack the idea of a Latino drug gang in ...