The linked article is amusing enough, although I have disagreements. But this FARK headline sent me into a minor fit of giggles, a not-fun predicament as I go through the coughing phase of a brief cold. It was worth it.
The US has 10 million vegetarians and 290 million normal people
In a bitter mood, I'd probably file this under Ranting and discuss the definition of "normal". I'm not in a bitter mood. You're welcome.
For a quick and funny summary of economics, read this at The One-Handed Economist.
Last week I wrote about baby tossing, making a comparison to infant male circumcision. Today, via Kevin, M.D., here's a story that includes a debate among doctors.
"Of course there is risk of injury in this practice. Missing the stretched cloth might be fatal and even landing on it wrong might cause a limb fracture," said Dr. Joseph R. Zanga, past president of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a professor at the Brody School of Medicine, Greenville, N.C.
Objectively identifiable risk for a subjective, perceived benefit. End of discussion. Yet:
"I would not suggest that we try it in the U.S., but if they have been doing it for 500 years without any injury I'd be wary of stopping them," Zanga said.
When faced with a tradition of stupidity, it's best to focus on the stupidity, not the tradition. Science over superstition.
Dr. Michael Wasserman, of the Ochsner Health System in New Orleans, felt the same pull toward cultural sensitivity. "It is hard for one to disagree with religious rituals, as they are private choices, at the same time, there is a real danger?" Wasserman said.
This is not about disagreeing with religious rituals. If people want to toss themselves over a building's edge in a "controlled" manner, have at it. This is not that. This is people intentionally endangering another person - a child - for no objective gain to the person being tossed. Jumping and being tossed are quite distinct. The former is a ritual. The latter is madness.
However, some doctors thought the health risks trumped cultural sensitivity in this case.
"The idea that parents would participate in such a harmful practice and that no one would point out the dangers to them seems inconceivable," said Dr. Astrid Heppenstall Heger, professor of clinical pediatrics and executive director of the Violence Intervention Program at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
While this sentiment is based in logic, it's not really inconceivable. American parents participate in a harmful practice that disregards risk in favor of cultural sensitivity more than one million times each year. The parents have "rights", you know. As long as the tosser¹ finds value in the act, the tossed is merely the necessary pawn assumed to value the subjective gain more than the objective risk. He or she² isn't completely worthy of individual protection because the group finds some benefit.
¹ No derogatory pun intended.
² Except for genital cutting, of course. There the comparison allegedly breaks down. Cutting healthy boys is valid tradition, but cutting healthy girls, that's barbaric, even when it's tradition. Half of that rationale is wrong. Would doctors suggest it's okay to toss only male children from a building?
Consider this:
Now consider this:
I can't believe smart people are implying that Republicans voting against Senator McCain in the ongoing primaries somehow spells specific, devastating trouble for McCain's chances in November. Yet, with Senator Obama's far lesser percentage support, the logic is somehow obvious that Democrats who voted for Senator Clinton will automatically back Obama in November. Of course they will, on both sides.
Being a partisan is generally the key point of someone's political identity. Whatever policy disagreements exist matter, but rarely enough to fracture support for the party in the short-term. Witness George W. Bush in 2004. But it does not rule out a desire and willingness to cast a meaningless protest vote that indicates support for whatever distinction another candidates has from the inevitable nominee.
For consideration: Are we to believe that, even if Clinton's supporters stay home, Obama will crush McCain because Obama's vote total outstrips the entire Republican turnout by a margin of almost 2-to-1?
Via Boing Boing, speed cameras in England are clearly not automated or tied to any sort of radar. Rather, the only conclusion is that someone receives a paycheck to observe every moment the camera captures. How else would it capture - much less alert authorities - a passenger in a car traveling within the speed limit mooning the camera? (mildly NSFW link)
Police may take action against the man for public order offences and not wearing a seat belt.
The police lineup should be interesting.
Jeremy Forsberg, of the Northumbria Safer Roads Initiative, said: "This behaviour is simply ridiculous - it's clear what he was thinking with what he had on show.
"Not only is it disrespectful, but distasteful and offensive, particularly to children who may have been exposed to this nonsense.
Of course the behavior is ridiculous. And as a driver, I'm sure it would've been distracting. But it takes a special kind of "liberty-minded" authoritarian mentality to express moral outrage at such an action by releasing a photo for broadcast all over the world - where our fragile children will see the offensive image - because children may have been exposed to the man's bum. They're certainly exposed now, genius. Although I suppose the government censor the BBC. For the children.
Post Script: Obvious title reference here.
I don't generally listen to what parents claim when they circumcise their sons. By nature of the act, they treat their son's body as their property. They would deny it if confronted with this logic, and most aren't willing to listen to even that. It's mostly fruitless fodder for philosophical discussions.
Sometimes, though, parents come out and make it nakedly obvious. From this thread on cloth diapering after a circumcision, which descended into defensiveness and ad hominem. (To be fair, the original question asked for an answer independent of whether to circumcise or not.) Select quotes:
# 10: first off, ignore any "hate responses" as you are the parent and it is YOUR choice. Don't listen to scare tactics. ...
YOUR choice. Also, only those opposed to circumcising non-consenting, healthy children can use scare tactics, of course. A focus on HIV, UTI, penile cancer, STDs, hygiene, and social rejection aren't fear-based tactics?
# 19: ... What ever choice you make mamma is the right one. It is your son and your choice [sic]
There can be no objective truth, as long parents wish hard enough with good intentions.
# 37: ... Dont [sic] worry about the anticirc posts, he's your baby, it's your decision. ...
She's your baby, it's your decision? Nope.
I expect every single mother quoted here would deny that their words mean they consider their sons their property. But the logic just doesn't hold up. It's always the self-absorbed obsession with how circumcising affects them, without consideration for the how it affects the boy negatively or what objections he might one day raise. It's their (capitalized for emphasis) decision.
This is interesting to me since I've encountered the hysteria that arises the moment anyone hints at a comparison of performing genital surgery on female minors. No woman would want that done to her. Duh. But every boy will be perfectly content if it's done to him. He'll applaud his parents. Again, duh. Except I can't figure out how to get from "medically unnecessary" to "duh", intellectually or emotionally. It will never compute because it requires willful ignorance.
For fun, here are two comments in response to the links offering information against the circumcision of children:
# 15: ... she [sic] asked for ADVICE on CARING for an INFANT, not if you thought the reason behind that special care was/is warranted. ...
And:
# 27: And that pertains to cloth diapering after a circ how? ...
The links pertain to cloth diapering because, at its core, if you don't engage in a surgical violation of the healthy boy's body, the debate over what to do to protect his sensitive penis is moot because nature's already provided the protection. If you ask me what's the best way to diaper a girl whose parents surgically altered her healthy genitals, I'm going to question the validity of the action that makes the question allegedly defensible. There is no difference because the cutting occurs on a penis rather than labia or a clitoris. None.
Do unto others, or something like that:
During spring break, [University of Florida quarterback Tim] Tebow added a new facet to his fame. In an impoverished village outside General Santos City in the Philippines, Tebow helped circumcise impoverished children.
..."The first time, it was nerve-racking," he said. "Hands were shaking a little bit. I mean, I'm cutting somebody. You can't do those kinds of things in the United States. But those people really needed the surgeries. We needed to help them."
...Others saw [Richard] Moleno, who after a crash course from the Filipino professionals, circumcised 10 boys and removed six cysts, some the size of tennis balls. Tebow helped with the last few circumcisions, growing more comfortable with each one.
"I got a kick watching him," [Tim's father] Bob Tebow said. "He did a great job, and he didn't look really nervous. I wouldn't let him cut on me, but he did well and helped where there was a need."
Before I comment, circumcision in the Philippines is generally not like what we think of as circumcision. It is more an opening up of the foreskin through a dorsal slit than anything. It's also a ritualistic transition from childhood to manhood, although it's still forced on children. And the social pressure to circumcise is even more intense than it is in the United States.
Also, I have no idea if the boys in this story needed circumcision or not. I assume they didn't, but the conditions they live in don't exactly suggest that as an obvious assumption. The number of child circumcisions suggests, though, that there was more of a ritualistic "need" than a medical need. Obviously I oppose the former entirely, with condemnation for the latter only when less invasive treatments are ignored when treating a child.
To the story... This is something to joke about? "I wouldn't let him cut on me...", but it's acceptable to cut on a child? One doesn't have to grasp the ethical problem with the medically unnecessary circumcision of children to grasp that competence gained through extensive education should be a prerequisite for performing any surgery. There is a reason we won't allow it in the United States. There are actual human - with rights - beings involved. Complications occur. What would someone have said if Tebow had made a mistake? Not that this story implies Tebow performed flawlessly on these people, but would an accidental amputation of the glans earned anything more than an "oops"?
I like to run with my intellectual curiosity, like most people. Yet, I'm capable of understanding that getting my jollies should still recognize the rights of others.
I've encountered no comments from former Congressman, current (potential) Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr in response to Exxon Mobil's quarterly earnings statement last week, so I'll find something to praise about a Barr policy.
I approach Mr. Barr with a sufficient level of distrust because of his actions while in Congress. I didn't follow politics as closely during the mid-to-late '90s, so I'm working from my barely-informed position from those days. Mark from Publius Endures sums up much of what I remember in much greater detail when discussing both his qualms and potential for supporting a Barr candidacy. I'm not sold. I am intrigued.
Being a Libertarian Party candidate is no guarantee that I, as a libertarian, will be remotely interested. I wasn't interested for multiple reasons in 2004 when Michael Badnarik won the nomination. And I hadn't been interested this year before Barr joined the fun. Barr's insider knowledge and name-recognition might help. If it can help shake up Washington, we can certainly talk.
Obviously Barr will not win the presidency, if he runs. That's not the point. But I would be ecstatic with a president who believes this (under "Individual Liberty" in the Issues link):
he United States was created for the purpose of securing the liberties of its people. The colonists fled oppressive old world governments. The nation’s founders drafted the Constitution to sharply limit the federal government’s powers. The horrors perpetrated by the many collectivist tyrannies of the 20th Century demonstrate that the danger of government, any government, violating individual liberty is greater today than when America was founded.
That he's willing to say it is huge. We are citizens, not subjects. None of the other candidates remotely cares about this where it interferes with a favored constituent group's rent-seeking behavior. That's not to say Barr would implement this even if he could get Congressional cooperation. But I'd be satisfied with a government stalemate. No progress is better than further decline.
And this, titled "No Torture. No Exceptions.":
This administration has gone beyond even the Bizarro World standard of declaring up to be down or left to be right. Not only is torture not torture, but there exists insufficient clarity even to know what is torture so we can determine whether an interrogation technique is torture or not. While the extreme sophistry and word gamesmanship practiced to a fine art by this administration might make a high school debating coach proud, it does great disservice to the notion that we exist in a society in which there are rules and norms of behavior with clarity and definitiveness and in which government agents as well as the citizenry are held to standards of behavior. This is not something of which we as Americans should be proud, and the use of torture will come back to haunt us in ways this administration apparently either doesn't realize or simply doesn't care about.
Yes.
I found positions I (vehemently) don't like among Barr's positions. I'd also like details on what I like about his positions. I do not want to encounter another faux-libertarian who believes that liberty means accepting oppression locally as long as we remove the federal government from our lives. Another day.
I've encountered no comments from Senator McCain in response to Exxon Mobil's quarterly earnings statement last week, so I'll find something to praise about a McCain policy.
I haven't thought too deeply on the Second Amendment and all the implications. It just isn't an issue I'm inclined to obsess over as a personal interest. Emotionally, I'm inclined to take a hard anti-libertarian position but that would be based outside of the fact pattern, as well as a dismissal of common sense and personal responsibility. I also understand more now about how a citizenry defends itself against tyranny from government or fellow men. The property right to one's life is enough. So, I generally respect McCain's position on the Second Amendment.
For example:
Gun Manufacturer Liability
John McCain opposes backdoor attempts to restrict Second Amendment rights by holding gun manufacturers liable for crimes committed by third parties using a firearm, and has voted to protect gun manufacturers from such inappropriate liability aimed at bankrupting the entire gun industry.
I don't know enough about the legal details to have a position on how he proposes to achieve this. Still, when a business sells a legal, constitutionally-protected product in accordance that works correctly, what the buyer does with that product is the sole point for discussion. Gun manufacturers don't kill people any more than Volkswagen kills someone when a drunk Passat owner gets behind the wheel and drives on the sidewalk. The product works as intended. End of discussion.
Also, this:
DC Personal Protection
As part of John McCain's defense of Second Amendment rights, he cosponsored legislation to lift a ban on the law abiding citizens of the District of Columbia from exercising their Constitutional right to bear arms.
Once again, the legal questions are beyond my scope. But unlike D.C. voting rights, I can find no distinction within the Constitution that denies the protection of Second Amendment rights to residents of D.C. Any such argument essentially says that D.C. residents lose all Constitutional protection of their natural rights. That can't be right.
I'm calling a technicality on this one because it doesn't specifically refer to the release of Exxon Mobil's quarterly earnings. Still, Sen. Obama is currently airing this ad in Indiana in anticipation of the coming primary. It has all the hot button issues: windfall profits, energy independence, foreign oil, and high gas prices. And there's a belief that more money "invested" by the government will bring about a solution. That's enough for a disqualification.
Via Boing Boing, I thought baby dropping had to be a hoax.
Muslims in western India have been observing a bizarre ritual - they've been throwing their young children off a tall building to improve their health.
The faithful have been observing the ritual at a shrine in Solapur, in western India's Maharastra, for more than five hundred years.
They believe it will make their children strong and say no accidents have ever happened.
The video accompanying the article suggests it is not a hoax, although I remain skeptical. But it does raise an obvious question. Is this a parental right similar to the claimed right to circumcise male - and only - male children? The child doesn't need to be tossed from a building. There is an objectively identifiable, if hard to quantify, risk of injury, both minor and severe. There are benefits stated by parents that are subjectively identifiable, objectively unprovable for the child being tossed, and hardly guaranteed to be preferred by the child as an adult. Would he or she choose, as an adult, to be dropped from a building into a sheet below? (Note: The one child whose face we see closely in the video appears to be rather not enjoying the process.)
Compared to infant (male) circumcision, should baby dropping be treated ethically and legally different?
It's pretty pathetic when Conservapedia is more accurate on female genital mutilation (link) than most other Internet debate on the topic.
The procedure may range from a simple cut in the pubic region to the complete removal of parts of the female reproductive organs.
There's very little else there, and there's no source for the specific claim. (That could be here, as an example.) But it's accurate, in a simplistic way that's almost always missed.
Unfortunately, that sentence follows a statement that's inaccurate because it's partially refuted by the statement above.
Female circumcision, practiced in parts of Africa, is a much different procedure that can have lasting effects on a girl's health.
That's all there is. It's not possible to argue the accurate claim that a form of FGM involves only a simple cut and still adhere to a claim that male genital mutilation is a "much different procedure". I'm sure many would defend this by going into intent. I don't accept that because the claim that FGM is strictly imposed to eliminate the ability to feel sexual pleasure is often wrong. There's also the core human right to remain free from harm. Genital cutting on a healthy individual without the individual's consent is wrong. It's ethically and legally incorrect to discriminate in judgment against this practice based on gender.
Not that the UN and World Health Organization understand this core stance. WHO defines gender discrimination in its glossary:
Gender discrimination refers to any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of socially constructed gender roles and norms which prevents a person from enjoying full human rights.
There's the irrelevant claim that women prefer circumcised partners. There's the more vehement dismissal of any (equally irrelevant) claim that men in certain cultures prefer women with surgically altered genitals. Etc. etc. (c.f. this entry.)
Lest you think I give any actual credibility to Conservapedia, I quote this statement from the circumcision entry:
The procedure lasts only ten minutes and ...
No source supports that statement in the entry's footnotes. If, as the site's About page suggests, this is the sort of thinking meant "to educate advanced, college-bound homeschoolers", my low opinion of the site should be obvious.
We do not have a winner in the race for an entry of praise. But I don't think anyone will be surprised to learn the identity of the first candidate to drop out. You're going to be so not surprised, although much Hillarity (pun intended) and ignorance ensues.
"There is something seriously wrong with our economy when Exxon's record $11 billion in quarterly profits are seen as a disappointment by Wall Street. This is truly Dick Cheney's wonderland.
"But on Main Street, middle class families are facing devastating choices every day between buying groceries and filling up their gas tanks to get to work. They are being squeezed by a vice grip of record high gas prices, record declines in housing values and an economy that is shedding jobs and tumbling into recession."
"I believe these families need immediate relief. That's why I have called for making Exxon and other oil companies with record profits pay the federal gas tax this summer. Now, Senator Obama doesn't believe in any kind of gas tax holiday. And Senator McCain doesn't want to pay for one. I believe we should impose a windfall profits tax on big oil companies and use that money to suspend the gas tax and give families relief at the pump. They typical family could get $70 in relief, and families that drive more for work could get even more. Truckers will get a $50 break every time they fill up their tanks.
"At the same time, we need to set a new course for our long term energy strategy, and move away from oil and towards new sources of clean energy. That's why I have proposed a $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund that will invest that money in clean energy sources like wind and solar."
I try not to deploy this term, but it's the only description that fits here: hack. Unfortunately, this is probably the only race she'll drop out of any time soon.
Post Script: Per Mark's comment to yesterday's entry, I'm including Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr in the race. The LP nomination is far from certain, although I suspect Barr will win it. And I've already discussed my concerns with the other leading candidate for the LP nomination, Wayne Allen Root. I'll also set a deadline of Monday. (This story doesn't have legs.) Any candidate who shows restraint will receive an entry of praise about some policy position.
Post Post Script: Here's an excellent essay on the actual issues involved in oil and profits.
Both candidates for the presidency, and most certainly the lone straggler in the race, will focus only on $10.9 billion in profit, ignoring the full story:
Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded oil company, said Thursday record crude prices helped its net income grow 17 percent in the first quarter, but the results came in below Wall Street forecasts.
...As expected, margins at the company's refining operations dragged heavily on the bottom line as the big jump in prices on refined products such as gasoline, while a menace to consumers, failed to keep pace with the rapid increase in crude prices.
Still, queue the countdown clock to when Exxon Mobil will be once again demonized by politicians. Forget that the price increases at the pump are based in market dynamics and not just arbitrarily set to claim more windfall profits so that the CEO can make more money for himself. The correct answer will be ignored because the ignorant fairy tale purchases votes.
I wish to make a pledge. I will write a nice entry praising a policy position of whichever presidential candidate waits the longest to cite Exxon Mobil as an example of rising gas prices and why government needs to step in.
I still have no intention of voting for him, but Senator McCain makes the most sense offers the least bad suggestion on health insurance reform:
In a speech at a cancer research center here, McCain dismissed his rivals' proposals for universal health care as riddled with "inefficiency, irrationality and uncontrolled costs." He said the 47 million uninsured Americans will get coverage only when they are freed from the shackles of the current employer-dominated system.
McCain's prescription would seek to lure workers away from their company health plans with a $5,000 family tax credit and a promise that, left to their own devices, they would be able to find cheaper insurance that is more tailored to their health-care needs and not tied to a particular job.
Under McCain's plan, $3.6 trillion worth of tax breaks over a decade that would have gone to businesses for coverage of their employees would be redirected to individuals, regardless of whether they are covered by a company plan.
"Insurance companies could no longer take your business for granted, offering narrow plans with escalating costs," McCain said. "It would help change the whole dynamic of the current system, putting individuals and families back in charge, and forcing companies to respond with better service at lower cost."
Unfortunately the inaccurate 47 million uninsured number seems to now be accepted as fact. Moving on.
The details will be important. If he's proposing that Congress remove the tax incentive from employers to provide health insurance, then he's possibly on solid ground. I disagree with filling the tax code with incentives. The current employer-provided health insurance should be ample proof that this distorts markets. But we're dealing with least bad, not optimal. Even though people can be expected to protect themselves when they must shoulder the risk by purchasing insurance on their own, without incentive, if there must be an incentive until some foggy date in the future when we figure out the foolishness of the political game, offer it to individuals.
If he's proposing additional tax breaks without removing the employer incentive, I don't see how his plan succeeds unless the individual incentive gives more free money than the employer incentive. Such a free money scheme would be stupid, but with equal competing incentives, employed individuals will be likely to let their employer's HR department handle the task of securing an insurance plan. Nothing changes.
This calls for a little bit of research. And the answer is:
John McCain Will Reform The Tax Code To Offer More Choices Beyond Employer-Based Health Insurance Coverage. While still having the option of employer-based coverage, every family will also have the option of receiving a direct refundable tax credit - effectively cash - of $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families to offset the cost of insurance. Families will be able to choose the insurance provider that suits them best and the money would be sent directly to the insurance provider. Those obtaining innovative insurance that costs less than the credit can deposit the remainder in expanded Health Savings Accounts.
The devil really is in the details, no? The employer-based incentive stays in place, which I assume means the incentive. If we take away the incentive, maybe employers will still offer insurance instead of cash. I doubt it, but let them if they want and employees agree. But to subsidize it is stupid, because then it requires "effectively cash" (i.e. free money). Behold the power of the government.
I realize this has a lower chance of becoming law than the plan proposed by Senator Obama. And that doesn't factor the likely difference in electoral chances between Senators McCain and Obama in November once Senator Clinton gets pushed over the Party cliff figures out she has no chance.
President Bush talks about the economy, a topic he has proven himself qualified to discuss on par with his podium's ability to explain game theory. Not that it matters, of course, because the best a president can do is get in the way. Talk of helping is politics, not economics. As it was today:
President Bush today blamed Congress for many of the nation's economic woes, charging that lawmakers have blocked his proposals for dealing with problems ranging from soaring gasoline prices to the increasing cost of food.
Wasn't the Free Money economic stimulus package the solution? That hasn't even gone out yet, so it's advertised benefits are unproven. I did get the letter telling me I might be getting the Free Money. I won't, but why let that save me the cost of the postage and paper?
And he charged that instead of dealing with rising food prices, lawmakers are "considering a massive, bloated farm bill that would do little to solve the problem" and would not "eliminate subsidy payments to multimillionaire farmers." Describing the U.S. farm economy as "thriving," Bush said now is the "right time to reform our nation's farm policies by reducing unnecessary subsidies."
When he vetoes one of these massive, bloated farm bills, maybe I'll think he's serious.
I'm not an attorney, so I can't get completely into the questions of what Congress has restricted explicitly versus what leeway is authorized. But the Department of Justice has an insightful, albeit obviously broken, theory of how a liberty-minded society should fight an open-ended, poorly-defined war:
The Justice Department has told Congress that American intelligence operatives attempting to thwart terrorist attacks can legally use interrogation methods that might otherwise be prohibited under international law.
The legal interpretation, outlined in recent letters, sheds new light on the still-secret rules for interrogations by the Central Intelligence Agency. It shows that the administration is arguing that the boundaries for interrogations should be subject to some latitude, even under an executive order issued last summer that President Bush said meant that the C.I.A. would comply with international strictures against harsh treatment of detainees.
While the Geneva Conventions prohibit “outrages upon personal dignity,” a letter sent by the Justice Department to Congress on March 5 makes clear that the administration has not drawn a precise line in deciding which interrogation methods would violate that standard, and is reserving the right to make case-by-case judgments.
“The fact that an act is undertaken to prevent a threatened terrorist attack, rather than for the purpose of humiliation or abuse, would be relevant to a reasonable observer in measuring the outrageousness of the act,” said Brian A. Benczkowski, a deputy assistant attorney general, in the letter, which had not previously been made public.
This administration can't be trusted. We knew that already, so this is just another example. I'm more amazed at my capacity to be surprised by this egregious implication.
Forget the injured and dead prisoners, I suppose. The former will heal, unless they won't, in which case we'll classify them with the latter, who deserved it. I do sometimes forget that our government only incarcerates terrorists, not accused terrorists. As long as the intent of the I'm so tired of the argument that intent matters more than the act, that it should be enshrined as a rule. Beyond the obvious fault that the potential for abuse dictates clear rules limiting government, it's impossible to completely legislate a competent determination of the subjective distinction between good and bad intent. The mere potential for an exception where a vile, illegal act can be excused becomes the rule. That is not a sane path. Prosecute the act; acquit the legitimate exceptions. Don't worry, though. Our government still cares a little. “The fact that you are doing something for a legitimate security purpose would be relevant, but there are things that a reasonable observer would deem to be outrageous,” [a senior Justice Department official] said. Who determines what is a "legitimate security purpose"? Congress? The president? What if the reasoning is classified, as it most certainly would be, an assumption the administration demonstrates¹ repeatedly? Are members of the administration who authorize such measures the reasonable observers who decide? The answers are important, since they speak to the continued development of what is supposed to be an open and free society. ¹ To be fair, the Bush administration is not alone in this inclination, nor is it unique to a party.
A common defense used to justify continued legal indifference to the clear rights violation of male child circumcision in the United States is tradition. The sometimes-blurry distinction between ritual and social tradition is mostly irrelevant. The argument is that humans have been circumcising male children for thousands of years. In the United States, the tradition approaches 150 years. Tradition relies on "if it ain't broke" without questioning whether or not it's broken. I reject this, obviously, but I'd like to offer a hypothetical scenario:
A family gathers every Thanksgiving at the home of the family matriarch. This has continued for decades, and now includes children, grandchildren and a few great-grandchildren. Every year, the menu remains constant. The festivities start at the same time. Afterwards, there's football in the yard before watching football on television.
One family member does not participate because he chooses to spend the holiday at with his wife's family.
Those who defend tradition seem to argue that an opposition to male child circumcision rejects this. Reject tradition-inspired circumcision and you reject a family's ability to decide. This is not the case, because the correct equivalent includes one additional piece of information not yet expressed in the hypothetical.
The man who chooses not to participate is physically forced by his blood relatives and barred from leaving the family's holiday celebration. When he objects, he is restrained. At the end of the festivities each year, he is permitted to leave.
If he sought state intervention, would he have a valid claim of false imprisonment? Does the family's claim of tradition supersede his right to be free in his movements and activities? The answers are undeniably "yes" and "no", respectively.
Obviously the age of the individuals is an essential variant in the discussion. Let's consider it. If the family refused to circumcise a son in childhood, when do they lose the right to circumcise him? At age 18? If at 18, is it not contradictory to permit them to circumcise him without need before that age? In doing so, they are effectively granted the right to choose circumcision for him at 18, 28, 38, 48, etc. He can't unchoose what they've imposed. The permanence of the decision separates it from every other parental responsibility claimed as an equivalent. Those alternate claims involve life-sustaining needs (food) and/or objective benefits (education). Circumcision fits neither category, while also lacking the affected individual's ability to overcome poor choices by his parents contained in legitimate choices based in parental responsibility.
That returns the defense to tradition. Children may be forced to attend the family gathering for Thanksgiving. Conceded. But the logic - defined loosely - needed for forced circumcision of minors based on tradition requires a familial right to override an adult's liberty to refuse attendance at all present and future gatherings. No such right exists. There can be no consistent rule based on tradition. Thus, tradition can't be an acceptable defense for a permanent reduction of another's future bodily choice, barring objective medical need. We must rely on principles rather than tradition. Principles center exclusively on the individual and his natural rights.
One more for today (and one more for tomorrow, then there will likely be a lull in the circumcision posts). In a comment to this anti-circumcision essay, commenter "MizMoxie" wrote this:
... I would have sex with anyone with one not "cut". [sic somewhere in there, as you'll see] Too much waste and bacteria and gunk. Yuck. Besides, women have to go through a bunch just because we are women. I personally think that a male child should have to suffer a little. I've never heard a grown man say he remembers the pain of his circumcision! ...
I hope that's meant as a lame effort at humor. I've encountered that argument in the past, so I don't think it is. I assume it's real, if only for my purpose here. When dismissing principle in favor of subjective defenses like tradition and fear, this will occur. The law currently permits this justification as much as any other, even though the intent is clearly harm (among multiple poor excuses) to the child.
Is permitting harm to male children to balance the harm females suffer a legitimate trade-off to protect the perceived rights of parents to decide what is anatomically in the best interest of their children sons? If not, what is the consistent, objective rule of law to prevent this harm that doesn't also prevent "good" reasons (that still lack medical need)?
A few days ago, in the context of the current FLDS story, Timothy Sandefur posted a principled defense of children and their rights against the (religious) claims of their parents. It's very similar to what I've written about circumcision generally, and ritual circumcision specifically. The parents' religion is not enough to justify the objective harm under civil law, regardless of the sanctity and tradition of the action. Still, Mr. Sandefur's wonderfully stated words are worth posting here. (Note: I have no idea whether he would apply this to the medically unnecessary circumcision of minors. I suspect he does, but I do not know.)
The starting point of the analysis must be the principle that children have rights valid against parents, including the right not to be raised in an abusive or neglectful environment. The state has the legitimate authority to enforce these rights against parents. The state obviously has the legitimate power to take a child away from parents who beat him, or from a family of homeless alcoholics who neglect him. The fact that parents act abusively or negligently because they believe that God wants them to does not change the analysis. It cannot change the analysis, because it would, of course, create an easy route around laws that validly protect the rights of children: just assert that abuse is part of your religion. Heaven knows that’s been tried many, many times.
We do not allow parents to beat their children, yet that almost always leaves no permanent physical damage, unlike circumcision. Of course the psychological damage of physical abuse is undeniable. But is parental intent really enough, which is what seemingly allows circumcision while prohibiting other abuse? (cf. this post) Since one excuse used in favor of infant circumcision is that the boy won't remember it, I say no. If a parent punches an infant, the infant will not remember it. But the act itself, separate from other considerations, is antithetical to the child's individual rights. The motivating intent we assume (or discover) of the parent is irrelevant. As Mr. Sandefur's statement declares, we shouldn't excuse abuse just because parents claim God made them do it.
Mr. Sandefur continues:
... —and the state has the legitimate authority to defend that right [not to be imprisoned in an asylum], again, within certain (often vague) boundaries set by a parent’s right to direct the upbringing of a child. The latter right, however, must yield to a child’s objective welfare. In other words, while a parent has broad discretion to direct the education and upbringing of a child, that discretion exists within boundaries which the state may police, and keeping children away from education, medicine, &c., are things which—at least at some level—exceed those boundaries. ...
The surgical alteration of a healthy child's genitals exceeds those boundaries. We already recognize this for female minors. The Female Genital Mutilation Act explicitly denies parents the option to cut their daughters for non-medical reasons. The 14th Amendment, among other Constitutional claims, implicitly requires us to prohibit genital mutilation of male minors.
Perhaps more succinctly, Mr. Sandefur clarifies his point in a follow-up to his original post. Discussing the implications of two court cases, Yoder and Pierce, and the constitutional limits imposed on parents, he writes:
... The fact that some communities claim that God wants them to abuse or neglect children is just not a good reason for allowing them to do so, and the state is and ought to be more concerned with ensuring that children’s rights are protected than with whatever excuses parents give—mystical or otherwise—for violating those rights or for neglecting those children. ...
I can make no comment on the validity of his legal analysis; I am not an attorney. But his reasoning is logical and based in individual liberty. The family is not society's building block, with parents acting as property holders of their (male) children until the children reach the age of majority. What's in the best interest of the family is collectivist, anti-liberty nonsense. Cutting is objective harm. The absence of medical need demonstrates that there is no corresponding objective benefit to be gained that would permit a discussion of parental proxy after applying the child's individual rights. So, while I certainly adhere to a libertarian deference to parents and a suspicion of extraneous laws, legislatively prohibiting medically unnecessary genital surgery on minors is well within a libertarian framework of appropriate and necessary state use of power.
It would be nice if we didn't have to do this. Maybe we can even justify not having a specific law prior to the beginning of child circumcision, if we lived in an alternate world without the historical tradition preceding the United States. (Assault laws would still be applicable, I think.) But approximately 3,000 male minors have their healthy genitals surgically altered every day in America. Rights are being violated. Not only may the state intervene, the state must intervene.
Caveat: I am not claiming that religious circumcision of minors proves the religion is harmful. I am claiming that religious circumcision of minors is a blind spot against individual rights that can't be overcome through claims of parental "rights". This must be prohibited in civil law. Civil law applied to the individual must trump any and all concerns of religion, particularly since the to-be-circumcised individual retains his own freedom of - and from - religion. He alone must decide if he wishes to express his faith in this manner.
Via A Stitch in Haste, ABC News ran a social experiment in two cities, Verona, N.J. and Birmingham, Ala.
Two years ago, ABC News hired two actors, a man and a woman, to publicly display their affection for each other by kissing in public at a restaurant. Reactions from other restaurant-goers varied; some onlookers enjoyed the sight of young love, while others lost their appetite.
This year, we once again decided to explore how the public responds to public displays of affection -- but this time, our couples were gay.
911 "hilarity" ensued in Birmingham, as Kip highlighted. Shameful, but not my point here. Instead, this:
... A topic that did come up repeatedly was children. "I don't really find it inappropriate, especially during the day when schoolchildren aren't running around. They might get confused and want an answer for what's going on," bystander Mary-Kate told us. The majority of the people who spoke about children seemed to echo Mary-Kate's feelings. They are indifferent to gay PDA but did not want to, or know how to, address homosexuality with children.
People wilt under the pressure of addressing "tough" issues with children. (Some to a greater extent than others.) But when children get confused and want an answer for what's going on in the world, the proper response is to treat them like human beings who deserve respect. Adults must apply tests to decide what information is appropriate to censor or finesse, but shielding children from information solely because the question makes the adult uncomfortable is not a rational response to reality.
Obviously I'm drawing a comparison to circumcision, so I'm not going to dance around the topic. When I've protested on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol against infant male circumcision¹, children approach to discuss the topic. I discriminate based on age. Without a good qualifier, it's best to let the child ask. This generally leads to self-selection among the children who are capable of understanding and discussing. The youngest child I've spoken to is probably 10 or 11. And I still limit the discussion away from the anatomical function of the foreskin during intercourse and masturbation. However, those children are capable of understanding the core of the issue. They know when they're being lied to. I've witnessed parents offering excuses to children while shielding them from any consideration. The children rejected these excuses by asking further questions.
I'm dismayed at how many people, even when not rejecting that same-sex relationships exist, fear that children can't understand love if it's not packaged in a specific, safe manner. Safe, of course, refers to the perceptions of the adult, not the child.
¹ Here's a writing tip for you. The first edit of the footnoted sentence read: When I've protested against infant male circumcision on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol ...
There are no circumcisions occurring on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol, to my knowledge. Clarity demands that the writer group "on the lawn" with what occurred on the lawn.
In the course of providing an enjoyable three-part-and-counting narrative of a recent trip to New York City with his wife, Wil Wheaton wrote this, in part three:
It was getting late, and though our bodies thought it was three hours earlier, we'd still been up for about 14 hours on less than five hours of quality sleep. All of a sudden, we were exhausted, and ready to collapse like the Mets down the stretch.
I laughed out loud, enough to scare Emmett, who is sleeping at my feet. I love that both for the beauty of an excellent simile and the mocking poke at the Mets. (Go Phillies!) Bravo, Mr. Wheaton.
Here's an interview (part 2 of 3) with Stephen Lewis¹, a former diplomat now involved in HIV/AIDS issues. Here are a few curious excerpts (italics added):
What do you think should be done [to fix PEPFAR]?
People should demand more – much more. No one denies that when you pump several billion dollars into a response it will mean something. Of course it will; millions of people will be treated. That's terribly important.
But that's what we deserve to expect from the United States. You don't kneel down before a country because it's doing… something that the world has a right to receive. The American administration is so discredited, George Bush is such a lamentable president, that when anything of a positive kind happens people are prostrate at the unlikelihood of it and they shouldn't be.
It gets worse from there, but it's most important to focus on the key assumption. The world has a right to receive American funding for its problems. I'd like to know the socialist theory Lewis is using to arrive at the conclusion. Presumably we're only allowed to call our giving "charity" if we need to feed our American egos. The world will acquiesce with that concession, but the dollars must continue to roll in to satisfy the world's right to receive.
I don't have anything else nice to say about that, so I'll move on to the next interesting bit. (Again, italics added.)
How about the response of the United Nations to HIV/Aids in Africa?
There is just so much more to be done. Frankly, one of the things that is inadequate is the United Nations agencies. Some of it is bewildering.
For example, you get the Minister of Health in South Africa (Dr. Manto Tshababala-Msimang [sic]) attacking and dismissing circumcision as a preventive technology. Here you have three determinative studies, definitive studies, we have UNAIDS and WHO encouraging male circumcision as a way of reducing transmission and you get an attack on it by the minister of health in South Africa. Where is the United Nations' voice? Why haven't they taken on the minister? Why haven't they said what should be said, which is that she's effectively dooming people to death and it need not be done? You have to have a much stronger voice of advocacy from the United Nations in dealing with disease and related matters.
Dr. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is nuts is HIV, yes, but Lewis' rant against the United Nations is bizarre. Whether it's pushing circumcision through UNAIDS with breathless calls-to-action, issuing press releases touting the latest hype on the original story from WHO, or endorsing gender-based human rights violations through its remaining organizational reach, I'm not sure it's possible to do more for the organization to insert its reach any further into this debate on the wrong side of human rights. But that's defensible. Instead, let's complain that they never criticized Dr. Tshabalala-Msimang for being stupid and dangerous.
Except, they did.
The United Nations special envoy for Aids in Africa has closed a major conference on the disease with a sharp critique of South Africa's government.
Speaking at the end of the week-long gathering in Toronto, Canada, Stephen Lewis said South Africa promoted a "lunatic fringe" attitude to HIV/Aids.
Mr Lewis described the government as "obtuse, dilatory and negligent about rolling out treatment".
Hey, wait a minute. Stephen Lewis? Stephen Lewis, working as special envoy for AIDS in Africa, attacked Dr. Tshabalala-Msimang's comments in August 2006. Denouncing idiotic statements is necessary, but move on. Leave the grudge match to the WWE. Instead, every microphone is dead horse meets Stephen Lewis' stick.
I did thoroughly enjoy this, in an "I'm disgusted" way:
"It really is distressing when the coercive apparatus of the state is brought against the most principled members of society," he said.
Clearly Lewis is exhibiting a textbook case of Kip's Law. I would challenge Lewis' assertion that he is principled, since the UN's Declaration of the Rights of the Child clearly forbids medically unnecessary genital cutting, without exceptions for gender or potential disease prevention. Nor am I particularly moved by his claim of oppression. Are infants subjected a coercive apparatus when they are circumcised, in part based on the rantings of individuals like Stephen Lewis?
¹ The following biography accompanies the article: Formerly the special envoy for HIV/Aids in Africa for United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, [Stephen Lewis] is now chairman of the board of the Canada-based Stephen Lewis Foundation, which endeavors to ease the pain of HIV/Aids in Africa by funding grassroots projects. Lewis is also co-director of Aids-Free World, a new international Aids advocacy organization based in the United States.
This will be important later in the entry.
... dedicated to creating programs and advocating for policies that help young people make informed and responsible decisions about their reproductive and sexual health. Advocates provides information, training, and strategic assistance to youth-serving organizations, policy makers, youth activists, and the media in the United States and the developing world.
Helping young people make informed and responsible decisions about their reproductive and sexual health is a noble goal. This is not that:
- Human rights—Planners must take an approach to offering male circumcision that acknowledges the human rights of the client:
- Every adult male who is considering circumcision for himself should be able to give informed consent.[1]
- Where a minor is the prospective client, counselors must take extra time to ensure that the minor and his parents understand the procedure and that the young male consents to it.[1]
- When an infant is to undergo the procedure, his parents must be fully informed.
If he is an adult, the male must consent. If he is young, the male must consent. If he is an infant, no human rights principles apply to him. That is a pathetic view of human rights. Anyone who accepts that view is not an advocate. At best, he is a propagandist who does not believe in principles, only principals who may act on another according to an undefined criterion.
What is the delimiter indicating when a male ages out of "pre-young" and into young, conferring a human rights requirement for consent before his healthy genitals may be surgically altered? I reject the answer in advance for reasons I've explained in detail. Still, I want to know because I do not understand the magical powers wrapped around the penis that reduces mankind's ability to think when applying principles to its anatomical sanctity. So, advocates of the "pre-young" qualifier within human rights, when do "pre-young" males get the (ahem) equal right to consent - or refuse consent - to the surgical alteration of their healthy genitals that young and adult males possess?
Post Script: The footnote attached to the young and adult requirements points to an excuse from the usual suspects in infant male genital cutting advocacy. I will not provide a link to that report here.
Post Post Script: I addressed a similar, gender-based ethical lapse in a previous entry challenging nonsense from UNAIDS.
Let's all show our surprise that abstinence education doesn't work.
Programs teaching U.S. schoolchildren to abstain from sex have not cut teen pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases or delayed the age at which sex begins, health groups told Congress on Wednesday.
Teens will have sex. Who knew? And they will make bad choices, as well as "bad" choices. Yet, if the information is structured with a "just say no" pretense, everything will be okay. People who believe that should not be in charge of anyone else's money. They probably shouldn't operate heavy equipment, either.
More pathetic, though, is the resort to ad hominem from our culture warriors, aka politicians.
Rep. John Duncan, a Tennessee Republican, said that it seems "rather elitist" that people with academic degrees in health think they know better than parents what type of sex education is appropriate. "I don't think it's something we should abandon," he said of abstinence-only funding.
I guess "elitist" is the new "for the children." But about those parents providing preferred types of sex education, if they're the ones teaching their children abstinence, why is the federal government spending taxpayer money on something that parents know how to teach? Isn't there an implication that parents won't provide their children the appropriate type of sex education if it's not funded by taxpayers? I guess that doesn't qualify as "elitist".
Link via John Cole.
Congress, protecting you from the world they built:
Lawmakers have agreed to make it illegal for employers and insurance companies to deny applicants jobs and health care coverage because DNA tests show they are genetically disposed to a disease.
...It also makes clear that, while individuals are protected from discrimination based on genetic predisposition, insurance companies still have the right to base coverage and pricing on the actual presence of a disease.
Here's an idea: eliminate the favorable incentive that irrationally ties health insurance in America to employment. If employers are no longer in the insurance business, they'll have no opportunity to discriminate on the basis of future health care expense. Instead, Congress leaves the underlying problem that permits possible discrimination and codifies "discrimination is bad, mmmkay." Never mind that politicians discriminate against the unemployed, under-employed, and self-employed.
Naturally Congress misses the point that discrimination is not inherently evil. It is often used for reasons we don't like, so we've attached an exclusively pejorative interpretation to it. But I discriminate against meat when I choose vegetables instead. I discriminate against Ford when I drive a MINI. The Phillies discriminated against a local player when they traded him for a player they value more. Politicians discriminate against one expenditure when they vote for another. Sometimes, discrimination is just about making choices in a world with limitations.
I'm playing semantics right now. Conceded. But semantics matter, as this shows:
[Senator Olympia] Snowe noted that nearly 32 percent of women offered a genetic test for breast cancer risk by the National Institutes of Health declined because of concerns about health insurance discrimination.
I'm not advocating mandatory screening against a person's wishes. But I'm also against prohibiting insurance companies from pricing risk more precisely by requiring genetic information through the voluntary application process. (Is that the inevitable future from this legislation?) Yet, just as an insurance provider may require the test, no applicant is forced to accept that condition. Competition breeds options where it is permitted. To a significant extent, it is not permitted while insurance is tied to employment, so we get further legislation.
Although it's not explicit, I think the sponsors of this legislation are more content with the collective outcome of this. Insurance providers are good at knowing their business. They understand risk and how to price it based on statistics. Congress seems to be saying that pricing it better - to the individual, based on the individual - is discriminatory. Perhaps. But the risk will be priced. The only question for discussion is who pays. Is it shared across the insurance pool or paid by each according to his risk?
Legislation like this, as opposed to the more logical solution that removes the faulty incentive, clarifies the political mandate: genetic luck, just like financial "luck", increases one's responsibility to the unlucky.
This article on adult circumcision was the companion piece to the recent Los Angeles Times article on infant circumcision. It would've been easy and proper to focus on consent, here and in the article on infants, but instead it's mostly fluff seemingly intended to prove that men really, really like circumcision. The facts don't support the article's implications, although you have to know the facts because they weren't provided in the article. I suspect this is mostly because the reporter lazily relied on urologists, who will inevitably see only men with an issue. Healthy, happy intact men don't generally visit a doctor to say everything's fine.
Still, I found one useful nugget (emphasis added):
Dr. David Cornell, a urologist who runs the Circumcision Center in Atlanta, sees men who want a circumcision because they prefer the appearance and because they want to feel more comfortable socially.
"I hear a thousand times a year from men who don't feel that they look like most other men in the locker room. In our society, there's an overriding preference for circumcision," says Cornell, who performs 250 procedures a year on men who, for cosmetic reasons, want a circumcision or a revision to one they don't think looks right.
Even where the male eventually agrees with his parents and/or society's subjective judgment that circumcision is more aesthetically appealing, what is specifically appealing is also subjective. Dr. Cornell surgically alters (consenting¹) circumcised men toward the body they want. This part of his practice demonstrates that even when parents guess correctly, there is no guarantee that this will be sufficient.
Of course, men could also choose this if left intact, with a better chance of getting exactly what they want² because they have everything to work with, rather than the remnants of the original circumcision.
¹ Also from the article: Though frequently attacked by anti-circumcision activists, [Dr. Cornell] says, "I'm doing a cosmetic operation on a consenting adult. Why he's doing it is his business."
He's correct. Those activists damage the legitimacy in this debate. Circumcision is only the expression of the real issue, the lack of consent from healthy minors whose genitals are surgically altered.
² Or what they think they want. I know at least one man whose parents did not circumcise him. He chose it for himself as an adult to conform to societal expectations. He hates the results and regrets his action.
The New York Times editorial board has an