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Posts archived in Public and Private

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7:54 AM

July 29, 2010

Libertarian Indulgences

Following up from yesterday’s ruminations on the Libertarian fantasies of Rand Paul being nothing more than his own self-indulgence, a glorified Federalist scam with no regard for its own consequences, comes the proverbial icing on the cake.

In an upcoming issue of Detail magazine, Rand Paul is profiled. It starts off rather innocuously, with a bit of context-less ideology:

Less familiar, however, is the treatment Dr. Paul is prescribing. The federal government he envisions is a parched, skeletal—even dismembered—one: “A government that works under the enumerated powers of the Constitution,” he explains. “A government that balances its budget every year, whose primary function is national defense and the judiciary and the legislative branches, and regulating interstate commerce only so much to keep open borders between the states.” Details

At first, it is easy to imagine the lure of such a starved, stymied Federal Government, especially for our modern American conservatives (particularly those that gush over former half-term Governor Sarah Palin’s context-less ideological ramblings on her Facebook wall). But the stark consequences of such ideological fervency become clear the moment Paul ventures into what I’ll call private territory, that is, any issue regarding private property where a Libertarian imagines government is intruding on personal freedoms. The billboard-ready topic that Paul has already nationally and publicly embarrassed himself over in this category is his lamentable stance on the Civil Rights Act, which was flushed out after an interview with Rachel Maddow that I’m sure Paul will never forget. Paul has since backtracked, flip-flopped, and flat out abandoned his previously espoused view that a business owner’s freedoms to discriminate against anyone they so choose, as guaranteed by the Constitution and Bill of Rights (which, mind you, was written by white, elite, slave-owners), was infringed upon by the Civil Rights Act.

But that is old news. And really isn’t a relevant topic for political discourse as the racist-businessman-constituency isn’t raising this as an issue. Paul just indulges himself with these ideologically driven fantasies.

An topic like regulations on the coal industry and their practices, however, is very much an issue especially in Paul’s state of Kentucky. More specifically, mountain-top-removal mining will act as daylight in exposing the dark truth about when Libertarian zealots get taken seriously. Paul, in his own words, explains how he absolutely does not give a shit about consequences when it comes to guaranteeing total individual autonomy in private territory, even when those consequences are the irreversible environmental destruction that always comes with mountain-top-removal mining:

“I think they should name it something better,” he says. “The top ends up flatter, but we’re not talking about Mount Everest. We’re talking about these little knobby hills that are everywhere out here. And I’ve seen the reclaimed lands. One of them is 800 acres, with a sports complex on it, elk roaming, covered in grass.” Most people, he continues, “would say the land is of enhanced value, because now you can build on it.”"Let’s let you decide what to do with your land,” he says. “Really, it’s a private-property issue.” This is a gentler, more academic variation on a line he used the evening before, during his speech at the Harlan Center: “If you don’t live here, it’s none of your business.” Details

Even taking Paul’s logic at face value, his assertion that environmental regulation and regulation of industry is nothing more than a “private-property issue” conveniently ignores other property owners that unavoidably bear the consequences of mountain-top-removal mining. The pollution, run-off, carbon release, filling of valleys, disruption of scenic beauty, and destruction of sensitive habitats are all consequences that transcend political boundaries and property lines.

Paul, by making this about property-owner’s interests, is setting himself up to be caught in a lie. He is attempting to write mountain-top removal mining off as something that the locals don’t care about, nay, as something the locals actually want. He is deliberately framing this as an issue that was manufactured by distant elites and government bureaucrats, but the truth is that local populations are historically in conflict with the rampant desires of the coal industry. Any issue-ness or non-issueness of mountaintop removal mining is anything but revolving around the right of property owners to do whatever the hell they please because of a piece of paper labeled “Deed”.

For some context as to just how maligned Paul’s stance is, his statements included above were made in Harlan County, Kentucky:

Harlan County, Kentucky…is famous…for its violent coal battles. Nicknamed Bloody Harlan, and the subject of countless folk ballads (including “Which Side Are You On?”) and several books and movies (the Oscar-winning 1976 documentary Harlan County USA and the 2000 film Harlan County War, starring Holly Hunter), the county was the site of some of the most explosive labor battles of the early 20th century. The bloodiest clashes occurred in 1931, when miners, working 12-to-16-hour days without any safety or wage regulations, tried to unionize. Beatings, shootings, bombings, and tear-gas attacks followed, much of the violence perpetrated by the local sheriff’s department, which was controlled by the coal companies. Eventually, after four people died in one gun battle, federal troops were brought in to keep the peace. Bloody Harlan has been cited as a major reason for the passage of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which gave the federal government the power to regulate labor contracts and is anathema to everything Rand Paul stands for. Details

Seems like the locals care about things other than unabridged property-rights. The problem is that the locals aren’t going to be wielding a vote in the Senate come November. They’ll continue to have war waged upon them by the powerful coal industry, with the help of ideologues like Rand Paul. But remember, politics isn’t about people or policy, its about philosophy.

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9:32 PM

May 9, 2010

Whose interests will the government be protecting today?

Have you ever heard of hydraulic fracturing?

It remains a bit in the shadow of the big ass (continuing) oil spill that has now reached the shores of Louisiana and Alabama, rightly so perchance.

But it fits within a expertly crafted narrative forming of late, that of Big Oil/Big Gas v. The People of the United States. At least it appears that way, or so the facts say. For some background on the larger context surrounding the explosion and the failed technologies to follow, like roles of Federal Agencies in regulating safety concerns, follow here. But in the meantime, just a peek at the meat of the story:

The spill occurred when a safety device called a blowout preventer failed to stop the flow of oil from the well. The Wall Street Journal, which has had great coverage of the disaster, reported that federal regulators had questioned in 2004 [7] whether an “integral” part of the blowout preventer—a piece of equipment known as shear rams—would work in deep-water conditions. The Deepwater Horizon rig was drilling in about 5,000 feet of water, and the device obviously did not do the job.

Despite their concerns about the shear rams, regulators from the Minerals Management Service–the agency that regulates offshore drilling—did not issue new regulations to strengthen industry requirements, according to the Journal.

The Journal also reported that another device–one that the BP’s rig lacked–was a backup shutoff device called an acoustic switch [8] that is used by some other oil-producing countries. MMS regulators had once considered requiring the acoustic switch [9]. But after the industry spoke out against it, MMS backed down and simply recommended that the matter be studied. (ProPublica 5/6/10)

While I have your attention, let me remind you about hydraulic fracturing. It is a means through which energy companies obtain natural gas, which they then sell. A neat diagram explaining how this happens follows…

The EPA wants to conduct a new study on the potential effects on drinking water of all stages of the hydraulic fracturing process, as opposed to examining solely the effect of a fracturing fluid as they did in 2004.

“The “lifecycle” approach will allow the agency to take into account hundreds of reports of water contamination in gas drilling fields across the country. Although the agency hasn’t settled on the exact details, researchers could examine both underground and surface water supplies, gas well construction errors, liquid waste disposal issues and chemical storage plans as part of its assessment.” (ProPublica 4/7/10)

…cue the collective shitting-of-the-pants by the Natural Gas Industry:

“…[Lee Fuller, vice president of government affairs for the Independent Petroleum Association of America] said that the study shouldn’t focus on the harm fracturing could inflict on water supplies, but rather on whether current environmental regulations “effectively manage the environmental risks of the fracturing process.”"If these risks are well managed, the other questions are meaningless,” he wrote. “The Scoping Materials Document fails to reflect this reality.” (emphasis added)

…Ben Wallace, chief operating officer of Penneco Oil Co., wrote: “The clear historical record shows that hydraulic fracturing has been employed for decades successfully without incident. We are concerned that bureaucratic machinations have caused the EPA to hypothesize a problem and that EPA is now seeking research to justify a solution to a nonexistent problem.” (emphasis added)

This is the same knee-jerk reaction that has come to define the relationship of the Oil/Gas/Coal industries to the Federal Government. Whats worse about it is that these self-absorbed industries even have a sizable portion of the Congress on their side, fighting for their interests, not to mention media outlets who treat industry reps as equals in the debate over whether the government has the right to protect the general well-being of its citizens and residents or whether this infringes upon the industry executive’s right to unlimited property.

For some reason though, despite the inherent risks to our well-being in their pursuit of property, we continually legislate and regulate to their favor, and at their convenience. I don’t have lobbyists, neither do any of my neighbors. We can’t just get ourselves national news coverage, there aren’t anchors waiting to interview us. Why don’t we have that sort of power in our pursuit of property (or happiness)?  Would our selfish demands for such power ever be excused or justified, let alone given a platform upon which they could be aired?

No, we have to go through the machinations of democracy, while the Oil/Gas/Coal industry executives continue to enjoy the splendors of corporatism.

Pardon me if I don’t view the fear of an increase in the cost of energy as weighing more than ensuring clean drinking water, nor preventing catastrophic oil spills. When energy prices rise, people get smart. Suddenly we have an incentive to get more out of less, rather than an incentive to perpetuate the status quo.

Overheard anything about people wanting this “clean energy economy”? Or “energy independence”?  I’m surprised these people haven’t come clean about the cost of energy and its effects on our use patterns, building conventions, manufacturing techniques and economy of choice. And I’m really surprised so many people take the word of Oil/Coal/Gas industry executives so seriously – we’re at the point where every energy controversy can be reduced to one simple question:

Whose interests will the government be protecting today?

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11:01 AM

April 23, 2010

CACAH (ca-ca)

Oh the humanity! If ever there was a threat to one’s sanity it is the hyperbolic world in which the mere mention of a name, and the audacity to pair that name with some image, some representation, spurns death threats.

If I were to have been on some other planet for the last decade and encountered the (islamo-manufactured) controversy surrounding the creators of South Park for airing this episode (that as far as I can tell will never be shown again), I would think it was a joke. I would think first to check my calender and make sure it wasn’t the first of April. I would check the news to see if some coup d’etat has unseated our Constitutional government and replaced it with some sort of theocracy. In fact, if I had viewed the episode un-edited (which now seems like it will never ever happen), not having known about what happened in Denmark and the ill-fated winds that swept into that country, I never would have considered it to be edgy, controversial or even pointed. I mean the cartoon featured a u-haul, a bear suit and the eight letter word Muhammad. Meanwhile, Krishna is railing lines of coke and Moses is portrayed as a sci-fi fetish, a disembodied voice and a floating head.

To quote the dastardly duo behind what is becoming one of the most dangerous ways to express a Constitutionally enshrined right, “I mean really, come on.”

So, the only option becomes either acquiesce (like Comedy Central has) to the demands of would-be terrorists, or to push back on the inanity of this bullshit controversy and refuse to allow the conversation to be control by an irrational few. Religious freedom is not the freedom in which one can impress their beliefs on another, nor the freedom to demand by threat of force to be respected in those beliefs, it is the freedom to know that your beliefs will not bring down any wrath from the authorities above you (governments, not gods). The freedom to practice, not the right to force your beliefs into another person’s life.

Indeed, the only reason freedom of religion is relevant in this world today is because it falls gracefully under the umbrella of rights provided by the enlightenment notion of freedom of expression. We, in America, have that freedom (at least on paper), though it is becoming painfully clear that said freedom of expression does not go hand-in-hand with a freedom of movement. Protesters are being relegated to pre-approved “protest zones”; street performers, artists and musicians are being forced off public grounds and forced to find and compete for areas that actually allow for their freedom of expression; Universities are silencing free speech on campuses, in favor of free speech contained to one demarcated zone; and now religions of old are being used to justify the basic renunciation of a word within our consciousness, saying that that word cannot be paired with an image. Lo and behold, people’s first reaction to this is to shit their pants. If not the police attempting to coerce using force, asking for permits to protest, relocating homeless people, telling others that their particular form of self-expression does not belong here, then it is these psuedo-authoritarians who think that just because they subscribe to something’s sacred value, that the entire fucking world must abide lest they feel the wrath of a self-conscious, radicalized few.

Above all, the difference is that this is America, and we take our personal/individual freedoms very seriously. But that does not mean that every individual expression, in public, on the street corner, or on TV, is serious. It is because it is. We express because we can, and this tendency comes to define our very humanity.

What follows is another completely legal, completely constitutional and completely human form of expression. It encourages expression. It does not stifle it. And the (grossly mis-) perceived danger of such a free expression is not owned solely by the fundamentalists who would threaten violence on cartoonists, but it is also endorsed by those who urge the censoring of our airwaves, those who burn books and ban books, those who snicker and ridicule and castigate at the mere sight of difference, and ultimately by those governments (local, state and federal) who put up barriers to free citizen’s self-expression.

This conversation need not be dominated by those who manifest their will in the most extreme ways, but rather it needs to focus more upon the less noticed, more accepted abridgments of our freedom of expression. Our public schools, universities, media and municipalities have institutionalized the slow disintegration of true freedom of expression in favor of an engineered society that minimizes conflicts and accepts authority. So lets not succumb to the intimations of the least rational, most radical among us. Their impulses to silence and censor pervade many different aspects of our lives, with or without some cartoons depicting Muhammad to stir the controversy.

I recommend that we all start carrying legit, permanent markers around, the kind that KRINK makes, that will draw on literally every surface under the sun, rain or snow. And whenever any urge to express oneself comes to the surface, regardless of its controversy or propensity to offend, the marker will be ready to find the appropriate canvas. That simple adjustment to our considerations of how we are able to express ourselves, and when, would do more within this country than a sensationalized cartoon on cable TV ever could.

So lets drop that pretense that expression is for some, and take back what is fundamentally yours – your voice!

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7:52 AM

April 20, 2010

Security v. Zealotry

Ah, but a fine day to consider the naught but contentious issue of gun control/gun rights.

This topic arose for my consideration after my steadfast refusal to pay service to its controversy because of two recent stories that marked headlines. I have been obstinate in considering this issue in earnest primarily because every ounce of controversy leveled in regards to gun control/gun rights are grossly disproportionate to the effects in real life. When tea partiers and militia members become paranoid “black helicopter” fanatics, and espouse conspiracy theories as their “rational” basis for protest, I am not compelled. When progressive views on the matter, including specifically things like the former handgun bans in DC and Chicago, are painted in the media with broad strokes, I am not compelled. But often a dichotomy that exists on an issue will present itself and thus compels an answer, or at least an opinion.

The first story is not exactly a new one, but a new chapter (for that matter the second story isn’t a new one either). The BBC reports that Somali pirates have hijacked 3 Thai fishing vessels with 77 crew members aboard. In this new chapter, the pirates have pushed their operations farther east of Somalia than in recent history. Piracy on the open seas has a long and entrenched history in our world, so it isn’t like these Somalis are particularly inventive or original, and nor is it true that this threat is new. As such, it appears prudent that self-defense should be encouraged among those wishing to venture upon and make a living off of the sea.

As the hijacking involving US vessels last year highlighted, many of these vessels are sitting ducks (literally) for piracy. So the common sense answer should be one that encourages self-defense, in this case, vessels carrying valuable bounties should arm themselves so as to at the least discourage the act of and increase the dangers of piracy. I know I am not alone in this perception, and I know that this alone won’t make piracy vanish.

Nevertheless, we have to acknowledge the history of US military/naval interventions that were necessary results of piracy, with most recently the much publicized attack on the Maerck Alabama. Of the hundreds of military interventions that the US pursued before the 20th century, many were the result of American ships (aka American goods) being hijacked. Remember the whole “shores of Tripoli” line? That was piracy again, as the fledgling independent America endeavored to stave off the threat of piracy that was previously controlled through bribes to pirate states. To put it another way – we have a history with piracy.

Simply enough, considering the lawless nature of open sea travel even to this day, the right to defend oneself from pirates falls under the umbrella of causes for endorsing the second amendment.

Now onto the second story. This too has a history within America (albeit more contained within the landmass of our nation). And it similarly revolves around perceived threats and contrived scenarios which amplify those threats.

ABC News ran a story Saturday April 17th highlighting the fact that any schmuck can show up to a gun show, which infamously showcase every sort of mechanized assault weapon outside the military, and purchase their weapons of choice without being subject to a background check, permitting or any other public safety measures. This, mind you, was the precise route taken by the mentally ill Virginia Tech student who murdered his brethren in cold blood in 2007.

Without fail, every time a politician attempts to add a layer of control to the way people purchase arms or the amount of arms a person can purchase, gun rights fanatics portray it as an affront to the very foundation of our liberty. Undoubtedly, these folks conjure up images of federal agents barging in their door one day, and them left defenseless because of a liberal gun control law.

But that delusion is precisely that – delusional. Not one single person that I can recall in recent history, at least not a single person who actually has the means to do so (thus worth taking seriously), has ever proposed abolishing the second amendment. But based on the tone and incendiary rhetoric used by gun rights activists and militia members, you’d think that Barack Obama had proposed such action. But he hasn’t.

More to the point though, legislating things like background checks, permitting processes and other public safety measures before one can legally own a firearm does not preclude one from being able to defend themselves or engage in the sport as they so chose. Legislating things like an assault weapons ban does not preclude one from being able to defend themselves, it just precludes them from engaging in the delusion that they are a one-man army.

From a March 26, 2010 federal court ruling on the matter of public safety measures for gun ownership, District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina opined:

“While the (Supreme) Court recognized that the Second Amendment protects a natural right of an individual to keep and bear arms in the home in defense of self, family and property, it cautioned that that right is not unlimited,”

But as is typical in our self-interested lawsuit frivolous nation, the plaintiffs who brought this case before Judge Urbina will continue to tie up the appeals system and will continue to argue that the city of Washington DC requiring permitting, fingerprinting and background checks prior to gun ownership is “too burdensome”.

So we’re talking about deadly weapons here. Things that when one is not careful can take another life. A gun weighs a few pounds, made of metal, relies upon a combustion mechanism to make it effective and many people consider it essential to their concept of freedom. Let me make an analogy here, because this isn’t frontier world where savage natives attack and the redcoats are coming, this is 2010 and societies rely upon an indispensable amount of social cohesion and order for them to function.

Many Americans live in an area where they cannot walk or bike or take a bus to accomplish all of the day’s necessary tasks. Thus, they drive. A car for many is an undeniable source of freedom, and in our government’s tacit acknowledgment of this, they even built roads for us to drive on! Without a car, many would be stuck within a small radius of their domicile and their lives would not function precisely the same as they did before. But the right to drive a car is not featured in the bill of rights, one may say, so how does this relate to gun ownership? Good question.

The car weighs hundreds if not thousands of pounds, made of metal mostly, relies upon a combustion mechanism to make it effective and many people consider it essential to their concept of freedom. A car is a deadly weapon, it speeds along a narrow passage at high speeds, and if one is not careful when operating it it can take another life. Thus, there are necessary procedures put in place to ensure that proper use of this dangerous product of modern technology is at least put in check. We have to go through a permitting process, take tests, exhibit our ability to safely operate the machine under the keen eye of a government employee, and in adopting/accepting this as necessary to overall public safety we enter our names, pictures, addresses, mother’s maiden name and identifying information into a government database.

But in doing so are we abrogating our freedom?

Hardly, and any who wish to argue so would quickly realize the foolishness of their logic.

Yet somehow, this common sense logic applied to motor vehicles (in acknowledgment of their propensity to cause great injury, death, havoc and prdoperty damage), does not translate to armed weaponry? Somehow the government’s attempts to privilege public safety over a fool’s right to an unlimited supply of weaponry is endangering our freedom?

Thus the distinction is made, between the zealous pursuits of gun rights fundamentalists and those who earnestly recognize the role of arms within our modern society. As such, it is appalling to see the casual disregard for other people’s sense of safety wielded by those paranoid sorts who form militias, stockpile arms and attempt to subvert the government. Whose interests are really being protected by the media fight to insure that unabated gun ownership and freedom are synonymous? Whose interests are at stake if gun dealers were required to adhere to the same laws that govern the rest of the deadly weapon market? Whose freedoms are abridged when one has to substantiate their identity and prove that they can safely brandish a weapon before purchasing one? Whose fundamental freedoms are in danger when unlimited pursuit of more, bigger, faster, better weapons is not part of our Second Amendment vocabulary?

What is that old saying – follow the money?

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8:38 AM

April 6, 2010

Judicial Activism : Net Neutrality

The latest activity regarding Net Neutrality comes in the form of a court ruling, one that sides with the business interests who oppose Net Neutrality in their quest for power in determining what internet users should not do.

Namely, Comcast Corporation is behind this latest lawsuit. Their target? The FCC.

Normally I would welcome a broadcaster/service provider challenging an FCC policy, as the many frivolous fees basically equating themselves to censorship don’t curry many people’s good graces. This however, is much different.

Comcast wishes to challenge the FCC’s ability to make official a working policy they’ve held for decades – that the internet, its content and its availability, should not be restricted (aka Net Neutrality). The ruling they’ve been granted asserts that the FCC does not have the authority to regulate the prohibitive activities of an internet service provider – that the FCC cannot tell these internet utilities what they cannot do.

This ruling came in response to a lawsuit levied against the FCC by Comcast after the FCC ordered Comcast that they cannot restrict access to BitTorrent servers. Comcast got pissed, and sued (how fucking American).

Now, we see another example of judicial activism in the appeals court’s decision to allow an ISP to dictate how its subscribers should/should not be using the internet. So to recap, this ruling provides a legal precedent upon which an ISP can exclude from their service access to certain areas of the internet. To put it in other terms, the ruling sides with Comcast’s wish to be the moral internet police, telling you what is right or wrong and then forcing you to abide by way of the utter lack of choice in broadband service. Comcast knows they have some of the best, most widely available broadband networks in the country and they aren’t afraid to leverage their near-monopoly control to retain their vision of an internet that serves their purposes first and foremost.

The implications of the ruling however, are not damning.

The obvious way forward for the FCC and proponents of Net Neutrality is to legislate. Not always the best way to solve problems in America, but often the only way to stop the empirical over-reach of big business, as this latest ruling provides naught but another example of how our court system leans to favor business interests over the common good.

As such, I’ll be keeping my eyes open and my ears up for word about how the FCC and Congress plan to instill Net Neutrality as national policy, and of course, how the internet works to support individual freedoms over moneyed interests as I’m sure I will not be the only internet entity who finds this as another reason to wholeheartedly support Net Neutrality and President Obama’s broadband plan.

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1:27 PM

March 7, 2010

Improving our Public Schools, a la Obama

As an indication of exactly where our government most wisely chooses to insert itself, the Obama administration announced this month 130$ million that will be made available to further research and implementation of energy-efficient retrofit technologies.

I recently worked on a design project through the University of Oregon School of Architecture & Allied Arts in collaboration with the Portland Public School district that sought to come up with energy-efficient design retrofits for existing elementary and middle schools based on school typology (courtyard, cluster, double-loaded corridor, finger, sprawling, etc.). The project was an offshoot of the 21st century schools initiative that was created as a product of the funding for new school construction and existing school repairs included in the Recovery & Reinvestment Act, and was based on the premise that our 30 billion+sq.ft of existing classrooms are in worse average condition and older than our nation’s prisons – and these are the places where we expect our children to learn!

The project was received warmly by the Portland Public School district, as our studio produced roughly 12 different retrofit designs for 4 different Portland schools (free of charge to the school district). In recent years, each of these schools had either added grade levels or was projected to continue to increase student population, which in turn created the need for these schools to be retro-fit and expanded. The design that I am currently still working on would provide nearly 20,000 sq. ft. of naturally ventilated, daylight filled, passively heated and cooled learning space as well as a new library and a nearly 15,000 sq. ft. learning courtyard.  While seeking to accomplish the same sustainable design standard in the existing 70,000 sq. ft school by focusing on retrofits that make the most out of simple changes to the roof structure (which is at the end of its life-cycle in this 70 year old school).

All the potential that our studio realized exists in these schools may be little more than lines on a page though. The school district is currently unable to make use of our thousands of hours of combined work because they have no money available for repairs beyond when plaster is falling off the walls or when a pipe bursts. This is compounded by, or potentially predicated by, the fact that the school district has not built a new school since the 80s and does not employ a design staff. Only a few veterans of the district have ever participated in or experience the construction of a new school or major renovation of an existing school. The obvious implications of this fact is that any design work, whether new school or renovation, will be done at a higher cost to the school district than with an in-house design staff.

I can hardly that imagine Portland Public Schools is the only district with this predicament. This issue becomes magnified when the public discourse surrounding our education system has more frequently been dominated by calls for voucher programs and charter school, and as the notion of abandoning the public school system is continually popular with American conservatives of late. The longer we wait to actually improve our existing schools, the easier it becomes to look at the system as failed, the easier the argument is to make for the wholesale abandoning of public schools.

That is not a course that I am comfortable with our country taking, the radical abandonment of public education, because it plainly neglects the role that such a free, public school system has played in our country’s rise toward the present. Back to objectivity though – here is a conservative education policy scholar and think-tanker that agrees on the utterly radical-nature of abandoning our public schools.