A Chicken Is Not Pillage

The Ideolgical Turing Test: A Weak First Attempt

Dave Budge has proposed a test/challenge/competition for Montana bloggers.  He calls it an ideological Turing test.  I'm going to state up front, just so that there is no illusion here, my participation in this effort will likely discourage some others from engaging.   And I don't really care.

Dave rather compassionately assumes that readers will know what a Turing test is.  I'm not so convinced.  A Turing test is one which challenges the individual based on how long it takes that one to realize that they are acting/reacting with an alien intelligence, one which does not share their sensibilities or sense of reason and logic.  Originally, it was meant to test how long one could converse with a machine before recognizing that that one was talking to a machine.  What Dave has proposed is this test:  how long before human argumentation across ideological divides breaks down.  My opinion, and it's only that, is not very long.  Still, I'm willing to give a go and what not ...

I recently wrote a post about unmanned drones.  My point was that despite the caterwaul from either side of ideological divide, drones are a technology removed from ideology that were logically foretold and here to stay.  They can be a good in that they eliminate enemies without the resultant loss of American lives.   They can be used to poison coca crops that would ultimately harm American citizens.  They can be used to patrol American borders against those who would infiltrate our country illegally.  They can be used to track illicit illegal activity in both cities and rural areas, as well as document for criminal evidence in legal issues.

They can also be used to spy on Americans going about their daily lives.  They can be used to track dissidents who feel the oppression of the government jackboot.  They can be used to track the sale of second amendment approved arms.  They can be used to destroy a legal gathering of American citizens just as they have been used to kill wedding parties in Whogivesafuckistan.  If the President has a kill list, those individuals will likely be trailed by a flying robot killer.  Drones can be used to perpetrate evil as well as good.  That the President controls their use, there can be no doubt.  We, the people, need to control the use of these devices, not the President.

Many arguments have been made from the 'rightward side' and the 'leftward side' that Obama should have no such power over drones.  I completely agree.  No President should have that kind of power.   We can take that power away, and it's really very simple.  We need a repeal of the Patriot Act (1 and 2) as well as the MCA. These are ideals that favor the public having control over the objects that can spy on or kill them.  One man from Montana has repeatedly voted to support the Patriot acts as well as voting to support the MCA.  His opponent, in this upcoming election, has repeatedly voted against continuing the Patriot act in any form.  So really, if you fear the Obama drones, shouldn't you be voting for Jon Tester, the one who would deny the President the right to bomb or spy on people from unmanned robots? 

The Montana Regulation Project

Dave Budge and Gregg Smith have launched a new project that needs to be paid due attention.  The Montana Regulation Project.  Their mission and background statement:

As the amount of local, county and state regulation increases, the ability of Montana citizens to exercise their rights under Montana’s Constitution Article II “of pursuing life’s basic necessities” has become increasingly difficult. While we understand the state’s interest in protecting the public through regulation, we also understand that the regulatory corpus becomes outdated, ineffective, and presents barriers to entry for people working in their own interest and it needs continual review for rationality, cost effectiveness and process efficiency in order to provide for the economically disadvantaged to rightfully earn a living in the economic pursuit of their choosing.

We are convinced that the regulatory burden falls disproportionately hard on individuals who hope to create and trade products and services who are in the initial start-up or early expansion phase of small business enterprises and that certain regulations are in place either from a poor understanding of the risks posed to the public or by regulatory capture of special interest who, under the banner of public interest, gain by limiting the entry of new competition and market participants. Additionally, over time the bureaucratic processes of regulation become equally prohibitive for new and growing market entrants and increases in perpetuity for the convenience of the regulators at the expense of the regulated.

Thus, the goal of The Montana Regulation Project (The Project) is to reduce the regulatory barriers to entry for first stage growth and other small enterprises to the greatest extent possible without damaging the public interest.

This is not a bad effort at all.  The socialist demon which possesses me tells me that they will likely not find the wealth of bad regulation that they hope.  But there certainly is some out there, and it needs to be exposed, discussed and changed if possible.  That is the point of advocacy, and kudos to Dave and Gregg for taking this beast to task.

Blue Oyster Cult - The Siege and Investiture of Baron von Frankenstein's Castle at Weisseria

Just because I can.

Blue Oyster Cult - The Siege and Investiture of Baron von Frankenstein's Castle at Weisseria

Big Time

I always knew that a member of my family would make the top story headline in a newspaper someday.  Of course, I always thought that story would involve orange jumpsuits and legal actions (I keed, I keed!)  Well it happened.  Front and center in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle this morning:

Dillon woman’s old-fashioned design wins Sweet Pea poster contest

I'm so happy for Mandy that I almost cried when I saw it.

Droning On

I felt compelled to create 2 new tags for this post.  It's been a while coming, nonetheless.  This will be mostly an opinion piece.  If you're expecting links or narcissistic mention then you will likely be disappointed.

One has not been able to read the blogs or the Twitters, or FaceofEvilBook for months now without encountering the dire stories of drone strikes, Kill Lists, the maniacal psychopath Obama and his blood lust or tales of innocence destroyed by the Skynet machines ... Drones!  The righteous wrath is coming from the right and the left, though I would be remiss in failing to point out that most of the outrage is coming from the left, and much of the 'America, FUCK YEAH!' is coming from the right.  To many on the left, unmanned drones are the horror that spies on us as we plot a new government, as well as the devices that kill entire wedding parties in WhoGivesAFuckistan.   To many on the right, drones are the crushing fist of Obama that will spy on our crops for the EPA, and force us into the FEMA camps.

~Yawn~

Where the hell have these people been for the last 20 years?  Or more to the point, where have they been for the last century?  For over a hundred years science fiction writers have been scribbling about unmanned war machines.  If one needs to go further than that, then the jewish tale of the Golem is about the good and evil of an inhuman killer controlled by those with agenda.  These dread devices are not a new outrage; they were fricking inevitable.   It was going to happen, people.  The only question was "when".  'Walky-talky' wristwatches?  Inevitable.  Social networks based on world-wide communication?  Yes, actually inevitable.  Unmanned machines that fly through the air?  Yep, you got it.  Inevitable.  These are machines, devices.  They have no moral will.  The question concerning those has never been whether we would have them, but how we would use them.  Based on that alone, I find most of the outrage silly.

Every new technology faces opposition based on moral value.  Some passed that test, like cel-phones.  Some fail that test,  like Nukes.  Consider how long it took us to get over that fear ... Oh wait, we haven''t yet.  Drones are no different than cel-phones.  We see the bad use they can be turned to, but fail to recognize that these technologies exist, and there isn't a damned thing we can do to stop their use.

But wait!  Obama has a kill list!  Obama wants to spy on farmers!  Obama, blah blah, blah.  Every President since Clinton has had this technology at his disposal.  I grew up in the Bitterroot valley, where the fly over of SR-71s was frequent.  Screw black helicopters.  Anything that needed to be seen could be from those.  It was the technology of the time.  Drones have replaced the SR-71.  Just as we needed to learn how to deal with ultimate spy plane, we need to learn how to deal with the next ultimate spy plane, which doesn't have a human on board.   And it really doesn't matter which man sits in the White House; the technology will be used.  I'm kinda thinken' that we have a job to make certain that the man (or woman) in the White House uses this technology for good.

Drones aren't going away, anymore than nuclear weapons did back when this same argument was being made about them.  They're not going anywhere.  The choice in every election going forward from this has nothing to do with whether this technological clock can be turned back.  It obviously can't.  It's time to buck up and admit.  Who do you want to use it?  Mitt Rmoney?  The future Mitt Rmoney?  It's time to adapt, people.

Wuthering Heights

Unlike my beloved who thinks highly of Jane Austin, my Victorian faves are the Bronte sisters.   While tasking back to music from the eighties, I find this.  Two things I love.  Brontes and Benatar.

 

 

Labor and the Left

I've posted comments at least a dozen times that the left has abandoned labor to it's own detriment.  I've been vocal that that schism has affected communities in Montana harshly, most notably Missoula.  As Union labor found itself increasingly silenced, and unemployed,  workers have flocked to the false "your own bootstraps" philosophy of the right.  People who were raised to believe in gainful employment have found themselves cast aside in political will in favor of Reagan's treasured 'welfare queens', or the habitat of the lop-eared spotted jackalope.  And those people got pissed off.  Meanwhile, the Left, now deep believers in Gaia mysticism, social safety nets for those who agreed with 'the agenda', freedom and safety for the folks in Whogivesafuckistan and the evils of the rapacious corporations who used to employ union labor, have lost sight of the political will that actually scared their enemies.  They have no governor on self-desire, and then wonder why they find themselves alone amidst a sea of people who really don't like their agenda much.

Almost every time I've written such blasphemy (the Left can do no wrong, you know), I have been dismissed, poo-pooed, told I'm not worth responding to.  Of course I'm wrong.  The left loves them some labor ... except they don't.  They haven't for some time.  I've meant to write more on this but really haven't cared enough to do so.  The Left is welcome to it's fantasies, but will rarely understand political will.  My sympathies are with people who want better lives, not ideologues.  Fortunately, others write about what I haven't, like Mark Ames at naked capitalism:

Aryeh Neier, founder of Human Rights Watch and its executive director for 12 years, doesn’t hide his contempt for the idea of economic equality as one of the key human rights. Neier is so opposed to the idea of economic equality that he even equates the very idea of economic equality and justice with oppression—economic rights to him are a violation of human rights, rather than essential human rights, thereby completely inverting traditional left thinking.

...

And that brings me to the ACLU today—the most depressing part of this story. I had an inkling that the ACLU had abandoned labor before my simple exercise check of their website. Mike Elk has shared with me some of his research into this subject. And it’s well known that the ACLU vigorously supported the disastrous Citizens United decision; the ACLU also took $20 million dollars from the Koch brothers, whose libertarian outfits have played a major role in making Citizens United a reality. Supposedly that money was meant to “fight the Patriot Act”—which is odd, considering that the director of the Koch brothers’ Center for Constitutional Studies at Cato and Vice President for Legal Affairs at Cato, Roger Pilon, explicitly supported the Patriot Act from 2002 through 2008, and that the Kochs’ Cato Institute hired John Yoo to serve on their editorial advisory board for the Cato Supreme Court Review. One should be skeptical when it comes to Koch “donations” sold to the public as charity work in the service of human rights.

By all means, read the whole thing.

At no point whatsoever am I arguing or advocating for support of the right.  Yet many on the left are, because they don't understand what being 'the left' really means.  It doesn't mean wailing about climate change while helping those who profit from climate change get elected.  Being "Left" doesn't give one an insight into the secret life of trees that some brute will cut down for a paycheck.  The LEFT won't get anything if they don't have the will of those who work behind them.  The 'left' should be all about labor, but strangely thinks that Lynx habitat is more important than clean drinking water.  The left really should consider that the ACA might be a good thing, if one could support the good without insulting those who actually have the political will to make it happen.