Across the Great Divide

Next-to-Final Message from Command on Planet Von Mises.

If we had come in peace, you would not have taken us seriously.

So I hope you can see now why it was necessary to incinerate Iran and surgically depopulate Sweden. (It's best, we've found, to demonstrate more than one WMD technology, as you call it, and to make it very clear we are not choosing sides.)

If you fail to follow through with our mandate, there will be no flowers of supplication left on Earth to strew in our path when we return five years from now. Just so there is no misunderstanding...

But peace is what we bring. Peace and the liberation of mankind through the free market.

We do not like to intervene. It goes against our philosophy. But have tried voluntary compliance with other planets, and frankly, it did not work out.  Freedom is not such an easy thing to bear after many generations of living under the yokes of oligarchies, social democracies, republics, dictatorships, democracies, communes, guilds, unions, tribes and religious cults. To expect human societies to cast off government restraint and embrace the free market as their sole protector was simply too much to ask.

We know that now.

We had great hopes when we secretly installed Ronald, and Grover has been an effective change agent on a smaller scale, but the others have been a disappointment. We thought with Rudy, Mitt and Ron all in position, America at least, would be able to stumble forward with one of them. Cindy was a mere afterthought, a back up, and Jesse and Arnold, entertaining as they are, represented a little R&D project that is hereby discontinued.

As for George, let's just say he's coming with us.

And so we will grant you five years to correct your trading systems, remake your schools, manage your infrastructure, keep your air, water and land clean, move yourselves efficiently and safely, and decide how to handle crime, birth, illness, insanity and death. As for wars, I hope you understand those will be pointless, and defense is out of the question.

As a visual aid, Tehran will continue to smoke for five years, and any living thing passing between Kiruna and Malmo will succumb to the residual toxins. We are sorry about Copenhagen, but as you may appreciate, your arbitrary borders are unintelligible from space.

Fail to implement a total free market system, and our return will not be a demonstration project. We have no interest in hundred-year occupations.

We trust you will greet us as liberators next time. Of course, there is no other option.

We May Disagree, but I'll Defend to the Death My Right to Correct You.

"Faithful readers" of Across the Great Divide don't send me dirt on Republicans. They send me stuff like this.

The proposition here is that the human brain is, in large part, a machine for winning arguments, a machine for convincing others that its owner is in the right--and thus a machine for convincing its owner of the same thing. The brain is like a good lawyer: given any set of interests to defend, it sets about convincing the world of their moral and logical worth, regardless of whether they in fact have any of either. Like a lawyer, the human brain wants victory, not truth; and, like a lawyer, it is sometimes more admirable for skill than virtue.

Long before Trivers wrote about the selfish uses of self-deception, social scientists had gathered supporting data. In one experiment, people with strongly held positions on a social issue were exposed to four arguments, two pro and two con. On each side of the issue, the arguments were of two sorts: (a) quite plausible, and (b) implausible to the point of absurdity. People tended to remember the plausible arguments that supported their views and the implausible arguments that didn't, the net effect being to drive home the correctness of their position and the silliness of the alternative.

One might think that, being rational creatures, we would eventually grow suspicious of our uncannily long string of rectitude, our unerring knack for being on the right side of any dispute over credit, or money, or manners, or anything else. Nope. Time and again--whether arguing over a place in line, a promotion we never got, or which car hit which--we are shocked at the blindness of people who dare suggest that our outrage isn't warranted.

— Robert Wright, The Moral Animal

If Time is Money, Then Money Becomes Time.

This has been a difficult economy for many people. The average person may be having a tough time paying the bills as wage growth has slowed, mortgage costs have adjusted and food and gasoline expenses have soared. But it is also a time when we are constantly bombarded with images of the great wealth or luxurious lifestyles of the rich and famous. These people have earned their money and have the right to display it as they wish. But do we really want to be watching?
— Ross Levin, "Want everything? You'll always fail," Star Tribune

Last week I spent a good deal of time walking around Interlachen Country Club where the U.S. Women's Open Championship was being played. If you're not from around here, Interlachen is the kind of place where The Graduate would get the advice about plastics.

Until 18 months ago, we belonged to another private club. At the time the championship was being planned,  my domestic pard, who served as the club's league president, got the club committed to marshal one of the holes, and we were invited back to help out. It was nice to see old friends and watch the world's best golfers up close.

But I have to say I don't miss any of it.

Being away from the golf culture as well as being far less immersed in the game reminds me how it demands a high level of self-absorption if you want to be any good. Add the private club aspect, which at our club was subordinate to the golf, and you become immersed in what may feel like a close community.

But narrow is not the same as close.

Investment adviser Levin quotes Stephen Marglin, author of The Dismal Science — How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community:

One of the important tasks of the 21st century is to find a better balance between the claims of self and the claims of others.

Largely, we found ourselves together in that place because we shared an interest in a game, not because we were shared an interest in the world or each other. We met some great people and made lasting friendships there, but finally decided we were devoting an enormous portion of our attention to something that didn't amount to very much — and certainly did not extend much beyond ourselves. We did not want golf to be the organizing force in our lives. We did not want to end our days in some "golf community."

Levin advises us to be more conscious of our spending choices, to step back and determine whether our spending reflects our true values. He is talking about money, but it applies to how we spend our time, too.

So "Nothing" Must Be REALLY Important.

Okay, that isn't the real name of the church, but the rest of it is a direct quote.

At least God isn't last...

Free as a Cat.

Socialism is a system where government uses force to tell people what decisions they can and cannot make. There may be degrees of freedom within different socialist systems, just as a prisoner may be treated better or worse by different wardens, but if you are not free, you are not free.

Capitalism is an economic system that allows people to make choices free from government intervention. All government intervention is backed by the threat of violence — if it were not, it would not be a government policy, but rather a voluntary recommendation, or a rule of a voluntary association. The fact that one cannot avoid taxation and obedience to a government without physical consequences proves that it is not a voluntary institution, but rather one backed by force.
— The kind of stuff I get sent when I argue with libertarians

My sister called from Colorado and said a bobcat was drinking from the small fountain in their back yard. We'd seen it before, but not since the news that someone in the area may be trapping them. In April, two cats showing signs of being caught in a leg hold trap were found about mile from our place.

So it's a good sign to see this one still roaming.

I spent most of the last two days away from the computer, biking, reading a book under a tree, giving blood, attending a board meeting, having lunch with a friend, watching the Twins and cleaning up the errand bike for painting. It was so rusty after multiple winters that I didn't bother to lock it. It had been neglected for far too long and was on a seemingly irrevocable downhill slide.

Come to think of it, all those other things had been neglected, too, and that's not the entire list.

Lately, I've been sparring with libertarians over how the Collectivist State is determined to squeeze the juice out of us, drink it all up and then make us watch as the bureaucrats piss it down the drain. This seems to me a peculiar way to go through life in the most free country in the world, give or take — being annoyed that you aren't freer, and believing that the likes of Citibank and Exxon would call a better tune because they don't have police powers.

Peculiar, too, that the folks who pine for such freedom seem to miss that when government guns have literally been trained on its citizens, capitalist interests were most likely to have been what was being defended. If instead of police power, we get the Pinkertons and Blackwater to enforce contracts, collect credit card bills and keep protesters away from the oil spills, I'm sure it will be a big improvement.

Meanwhile, a sort of morally based, voluntary system will educate kids, dispense charity and keep bicyclists off the toll roads. They've already got tribalism in the Middle East, so I don't know why we're still trying to bring them this shitty democracy thing that only ends with higher taxes and bureaucrats telling you to put a muffler on your ATV.

The Founding Fathers would've saved everyone a lot of grief, if on the first day of the Continental Congress, they'd just declared "Go shopping" and adjourned forever.

I'm not looking for a philosophical discussion right now. I'm not even trying to be coherent. Instead, I feel like rubbing some more rust off some spokes and getting ready to put the pieces of an old bike back together. Then I'll have another nothing-and-tonic and imagine a bobcat may be sneaking through our ravine right about now if it hasn't met an angry man looking to feel free.

Russert, Potatoes and Joy.

This story delves into the factors that might have contributed to Tim Russert's fatal heart attack at age 58. Cardiologists disagree somewhat on whether his condition could have been predicted and his death prevented.

The signs were mixed, but on a lot of tests he came up okay:

There was no family history of heart attacks.  Though he had high blood pressure, drugs lowered it pretty well, said his internist, Dr. Michael A. Newman. His total cholesterol was not high, nor was his LDL, the bad type of cholesterol, or his  C-reactive protein, a measure of inflammation that is thought to contribute to plaque rupture. He did not smoke. At his last physical, in April, he passed a stress test, and his heart function was good. Dr. Newman estimated his risk of a heart attack in the next 10 years at 5 percent, based on a widely used calculator.

It didn't take a lab to tell Russert that he had one easily tracked risk factor. He was fat, and his form of exercise was an exercise bike, a particularly joyless form of pounding oneself into shape favored by TV junkies.

“You want to be sure your blood pressure and lipids are controlled, that you’re not smoking, and you have the right waist circumference,” Dr. Smith said.

The article doesn't mention stress, either.

For all his vaunted love of family and friends, Russert also exhibited characteristics of being a workaholic. Trust me, this is an observation, not a criticism. Give the man who loves his work the job of losing weight, and that's one daily task that may not get done. Not if a dinner at a steakhouse with a source is the alternative.

People like Russert simply don't have room in their lives for chores. Give them a healthy way to find joy, and they may have a fighting chance.

Big Ideas in Little Pictures.

Mark Trail illustrates one reason you need a gun to protect yourself from intruders.

And Yossi Vardi catches the global warming naysayers with their pants down. [via The Mississippifarian]

Loyalty Beyond Reason.

This ad exec's speech titled "Loyalty Beyond Reason" came back to me after reading the New York Times story about the kept military news analysts, detailing how the Bush administration cultivated supposed experts to support its Iraq policies. The effort was reasonably successful in countering critical news reports and building domestic support for the early stages of the war.

The administration has been reasonably sophisticated in its campaign to create loyalty beyond reason, but ultimately, it's tough maintain mass brand loyalty to a terrible product — especially when you fail to recognize differences between international and domestic markets.

Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, gave his presentation to members of various U.S. defense intelligence agencies back in 2005. The first half is a stock ad guy speech, containing his firm's particular version of whatever superficial wisdom is current in the business.

Full of fake profundity. In a breezy style. Lightly tailored for the audience.

Like ad copy.

I’m going to show you how we create emotional connections with consumers, and how we inspire Loyalty Beyond Reason. The holy grail for marketers.

Roberts says that while reason leads to conclusions, emotion leads to action.

Using emotion instead of reason is a big, transformational idea, no matter what the problem is. From the biggest moral issue to the world of breakfast cereals. Emotion works.

Even if your problem is selling Brand America.

Most of the speech could be given verbatim at any new business pitch where the leader is brought in to present a few Deep Thoughts to set up the Big Ideas from the creative team. But once you get past that, Roberts actually offers some sound advice.

The War on Terror, he says, is fundamentally wrong.

Every time we refer to Terror, we invest in the presence and even the legitimacy of our enemy. Instead, turn the tables in a way that promotes an inspirational purpose for our people and our allies, and at the same time re-positions our enemy. Call our struggle the Fight for a Better World.

Before you barf, though, note that Roberts isn't just saying we should just change the language and imagery of the war. He argues that America should actually head in a different direction, redefine its mission as making the world a better place, and then tackle poverty, hunger and disease as top priorities.

As a businessman, here’s how I look at the figures. The US this year will spend half a trillion dollars on keeping the peace around the world, and fighting wars when we have to. But we’ll invest only $16 billion on overcoming global poverty and disease, which are also weapons of mass destruction, just with longer fuses.

It's not enough to simply repair what we've broken in Iraq. Or to make the world safe for democracy by tamping down other tyrants. If America wants to overcome hate, it has to give love, but that's not a pitch America's brand managers are ready to buy.

Wakeup Call.

The new and cumulative ability to manipulate the world around us may dazzle our senses. And what we do with our lives in the presence of such opportunities may be neglected.
— William Stafford, Every War Has Two Losers

Seeing Beyond the Peculiarities.

A few nights back, I had dinner with my high school English teacher, Samuel, one of the most influential people in my life, though I only knew him well — as well as any 18-year-old can — for about two years. Though for different reasons, Samuel is as controversial in these parts as Barack Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

When last we met, Samuel was preparing to pursue the divine feminine and do spiritual acupuncture to the earth along ley lines following the path of the Knights Templar. By January, he promised, a new balance in the earth's energy fields would have begun to assert itself and the world would make astonishing, positive leaps forward.

I noted that things seemed to be running just a bit behind schedule.

He granted as much, but said that the breakdown in the U.S. economy and educational system, climate change, oil prices, war and middle east politics, AIDS, famine and genocide were hopeful signs of tremendous change. None of our systems is getting better or improving life, he said, and soon people will no longer tolerate broken systems.

He asked for an extension of his prediction until after the election.

I thought of Barack Obama explaining why he would not forsake his old mentor. [Here's another view of the pastor/congregant relationship.] A great mentor guides and inspires but does not mold Mini Mes or continue to direct their growth forever.  Successful mentorship means being surpassed. Transcending the relationship without abandoning it is the sign of a healthy personality.

Obama asked:

Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.

But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man.

And the peculiar metaphysics are not all I know of Samuel.