Monday, October 19, 2020

Amy Coney Barrett, the Supreme Court, Policy and the Constitution

Setup

Since the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the inevitable nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to replace her I've had a number of thoughts, reactions, and general feelings of dread. A few weeks have passed, and in that time I've seen the usual arguments raised when it comes to liberals' acceptance of conservative justices. Many of these positions simply don't make any sense to me. Real world experience and past history simply persuade me otherwise and I wanted to summarize my thoughts in a blogpost.

Now, I am not a lawyer, but I will try to lay out my understanding of these issues and explain why I think the positions maintained by the right are in bad faith. 

Finally, I want to make it absolutely clear that I rather like our common law system. I like the checks and balances, but if we're to have this system we have to maintain precedent and we have to maintain the original policy power of the judiciary. 
Balls and Strikes:

One of the chief accusations from the right against liberal justices is that of legislating from the bench. It's the notion that the court is there to interpret laws (to call balls and strikes) and never to make policy. Barrett herself said as much in her opening statement:

 

I believe Americans of all backgrounds deserve an independent Supreme Court that interprets our Constitution and laws as they are written.

This sounds straightforward, but the problem is that it's quite simply ahistorical. Our founding fathers absolutely thought the law evolved and did so because we come from a common law system. 

Common Law: one of several legal systems

Our American system is a common law system. Sweden, where I currently live, has a civil law system. There are other legal systems as well: religious law, pluralistic systems (hybrid I think), and probably more, but for much of the world the wide is divided between civil and common law systems. In 1787 when our constitution was ratified we were a country that had been ruled by england and english law systems: common law systems. The reigning jurisprudence was one based on precedent and the understanding of often unwritten common laws. Judges presided and ruled on these cases setting a precedent or **policy** if you will in terms of how these decisions should be decided. This was the most natural thing in the world: it was how legal systems as they knew it had always functioned. And when there were laws that covered matters judges were expected to interpret those laws and create precedent or new **policy**. It's this system of precedent or stare decisis that underpins everything from the very beginning and it was a principle legal premise of our founding fathers.


In civil law systems it's a bit different. Here in Sweden a judge cannot rule on a matter lacking explicit language in the law. It's this civil system where judges truly "call balls and strikes." Also of note here is precedent. Precedent plays a much smaller role in civil law systems where judges are encouraged to look for explicit language in the law and interpret accordingly.


So what?


This matters because given the rise of textualism and originalism we're seeing a surge of judges who intend to honor the original intentions and/or the plain reading of the text as written. The problem is that those same people wouldn't have expected this. Their whole understanding was one where legal systems evolved in this matter.

This doesn't mean that all policy should come from the bench. But we should stop pretending like this is anything other than a design feature well understood by the founding fathers. Sometimes precedent creates policy. That's how our legal system works. It's that simple.

 

Judicial Review

While the right seems very preoccupied with how judges might create whole new policies from the bench there's an equally powerful tool that has just as much influence on policy and that tool is judicial review. Judicial review is a process where the judiciary can invalidate laws, mandates, government actions, and, well, **policies** including those that come from congress that upon review they deem to be unconstitutional. This is "common" to all common law systems, but in the US the principle of Judicial Review comes from the 1803 case of Marbury vs Madison. I'm not going to go too deep into that case, but you can read more about it here. It was that case that decided that the US constitution is actual law. This should be obvious, but I'll point out that 1803 is not 1787. That is, it was not the expressed and original intent.
This is a precedent that's been viable for 217 years, but one which was never originally intended and one not explicitly spelled out in the constitution.
This is very powerful.
It means that if a judge interprets a law to be unconstitutional or as we'll later hear from the originalists *not explicitly referenced by the constitution* or by their originalist/textualist understanding of *the original intent of the constitution or amendment* they can just invalidate it. And poof ... Any rights enabled, protected, or crimes described are gone.
For some reason this very clear act of policy power is never disparaged by right.

 

Powers: good, bad, unintended

"The constituion never mentions abortion"
 
Um, okay. That's true. And?
 
The puerile argument here is that because it's not explicitly listed in the constitution it's not a right that should be governed by the constitution. But this is a patently ridiculous assertion. Marriage is never listed in the constitution, nor the use of deadly force to defend your home, nor the police (NOTE: there was no concept of police known to our founding fathers at all. There were night watchmen and the like, but the first Police department organized and granted with authority and power we recognize was first instituted in New York City in the 1840s). There's also no explicit declaration of how congress would ever govern on such matters directly. The legislative authority comes from Article 1 section 8. I've included that text here:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;—And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

That's it.
A couple of things worth mentioning directly.
  1. Note the militia parts. And consider the 2nd amendment. And think about the right to self defense. Do we *STILL* think that Scalia's reading of the rendering of the 2nd amendment in DC vs Heller  is a fair and originalist interpretation. After all, the bill of rights came afterwards, uses the same language, involved many of the same founding fathers and clearly has different understood bounds here. It's almost as if the originalism and textualism only matters if they get the outcome they want.
  2. Look at the army piece above and how money is appropriated and for how long: 2 years. That's obviously something we're not honoring at all anymore. And, btw, our founding fathers had a deep seated fear of standing armies. Armies were to be raised when needed and disbanded when that need had passed.

    Some things clearly change over time. And that's actually a good thing.

  3. Note the commerce clause (the 3rd one). It's that clause that gives congress all it's real power. This was not a power originally intended or understood by our founders. Following the civil war this clause was used to empower congress to become the law creating and legislative body we think of them today. This interpretation was upheld by the Supreme Court (it's that judicial review bit from above. They reviewed, interpreted and confirmed these powers and others according to their charge of the law).

    These are powers we fundamentally take for granted now.

  4. Finally, all these policies that we seem to think should be coming from Congress aren't supposed to come from congress anyway. That we take this for granted now is because of precedent which is itself a policy decision made by SCOTUS. None of those enumerated powers indicate any kind of direct way that congress can decide on any hot-button issue



Our whole body of over 200 years of JurisPrudence is predicated on this idea that we take these first principles and apply them as best as possible. It's what common law systems do and it's even what Barret herself said during her hearing when asked about the 4th amendment.
 

Applying the powers

Now let's talk about some rights, powers, and defense of those rights. For all of the hubbub around right wing justices not wanting to create policy from the bench they seem to make a whole lot of policy changing decisions from that hallowed pulpit. To illustrate this point I've chosen two well known cases (one of them includes the court's decision to not hear a case on gerrymandering as well) because these effectively created brand new policy with wide implications.
 
Obviously there are cases that show liberal justices effectively doing the same but for cases with which I fundamentally and ideologically agree. The essential difference here being that I'm not denying this happens. It's a regular and expected part of our system of government.
 
So, just two examples to make the point.

 

The Voting Rights Act and partisan gerrymandering

In 2013 the Supreme Court ruled that Section 4(b) was unconstitutional because 40 year old data is old. This strikes me as odd coming from originalists who seem to have no issues at all with relying on their own assumptions and interpretation of what the founding fathers meant when they wrote and opined on matters in their own time. Also, while originalists like Barrett will point out that the 4th amendment needs to be interpreted and applied to modern cases, like all originalists they're perfectly happy to completely ignore that notion in cases like this one.
 
Furthermore, SCOTUS chose not to rule in partisan gerrymandering cases concluding that those are political issues beyond the scope of the court. 
 
So lets review. Disassembling the legislation and protections accorded by the Voting Rights Act is absolutely part of the purview of the court, but deciding on partisan gerrymandering isn't. Oh, and for the former they actively overturned existing law.

 

Citizens United

In 2010 the court held that the free speech clause prohibits the government from restricting how companies spend money on politics. This decision is important because it did several things all at once.

  1. Overturned the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act with regard to issue advocacy ads

  2. Overturned Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce

  3. Overturned part of McConnell v. FEC

I'm not going to go through all of politics here. If you're conservative you like this ruling. If you're liberal you don't. What I will bring up is the salient fact that this set new policy and it was done by a conservative court. It set said policy by overruling two previously decided court decisions and by overruling congress with regard to the issuing of advocacy ads.

 

And this was done by a very powerful court and executed along ideological lines. If that's not political and not policy then I don't know what is.

 

A bit more on Originalism and judges of this jurisprudence persuasion

I have already laid out the differences between our legal system (a common law system) vs a civil law system and how I think originalism would seem to pine for the latter. But it strikes me there's another couple of issues that deserve their own time in court (double entendre intended).

Who made the judges experts on the original intents of everyone who came before them?

Well, the short answer is no one. The supreme court justices are brilliant legal scholars, even the ones I disagree with, but they're definitely not linguistic scholars. I'm not suggesting that they have no idea what the original intention was behind laws, but read about Scalia opining on "cruel and unusual punishment." He wants to get into the head of Madison in 1789 and so takes the most restrictive reading possible and finds:

  1. That this only applies as punishment and so torture isn't illegal by this amendment

  2. In Harmelin v. Michigan he argues against any proportionality and tries to leverage the meaning of the words at the time.

But the problem is that Madison was also using these words to communicate to others. It wasn't until 1791 that the bill of rights was finally ratified by all states. Had they discussed this along the way? Could there have been additional meaning and context developed through the course of debating these topics back in the late 1700s? Is this the point of language? And finally, isn't this what Madison expected?


When do you apply originalism?

For my part this is the most frustrating. Sometimes the justices will look for original meaning and intent and Judges like Gorsuch will look to read and interpret based on the plain reading of the text if there is no original intent possible. But other times they'll just ignore those principles and properly apply stare decisis. I'm not sure what the reasoning is other than an outcome that they want.

 

Still other times you'll find these principles completely misapplied. I just mentioned Scalia's coverage of the 8th amendment in Harmelin v. Michigan. He dismisses the proportionality principle noting that Madison easily could have used those words and that these concepts were certainly well known. But then in DC v. Heller he decides on his own that this same system need not at all apply to the 2nd amendment. Claiming originalism he creates a whole new meaning out of it and then claims it incorporated by the 14th amendment.

 

No one is claiming that there wasn't a broad understanding of self defense, but just as with the 8th amendment Madison was certainly capable of wording the 2nd amendment differently but chose not to. Isn't this a policy change?  

 

Why I'm afraid of Amy Coney Barrett

In fact I'm not afraid of Barrett. I'm afraid of the majority her membership brings to the court. She's promised to interpret laws as they're written. She's told us not to expect the court to solve all of our problems. We know her feelings about LGBTQ+ referring as recently as last week to "sexual preference" with regard to sexual orientation. We know her stance on abortion because she's told us so over and over again in her publications.
 
I'm afraid that like many other originalist justices she'll apply it for outcomes she wants and skip that application when it doesn't.
 
I'm afraid that she'll lean on the notion the court isn't the place to decide an issue like gay marriage and then when a case comes to challenge it she'll rule with the other conservative justices to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges. Obergefell overturned the Defense of Marriage Act. Look back at the history of laws, marriage, and the Supreme Court and you'll find loads of precedent for SCOTUS effectively creating precedent with regards to marriage and fundamental rights. This is now policy.
 
Likewise I think she'll ignore precedent and rule to invalidate the ACA effectively removing protections for preexisting conditions and during a pandemic. She's publicly criticized Roberts in the past and refused to give any honest answers to how she'll regard the ACA in a future case.
 
I don't think Barrett is evil, in fact I'm quite sure that as a proud and deeply religious woman she must find Trump truly repellent. That said I'm quite sure that as a deeply religious and conservative justice she'll rule against progressive outcomes claiming that it's not the role of the judiciary to create policy. Similarly, I'm quite certain she'll have no compunction at all to use that same judicial power to overturn existing policy: from previous cases, and actual laws created by congress. 
 
I simply don't trust Barrett or any of the justices when they claim to be against legislating from the bench. Nothing could be more in their interest.

Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Why don't you believe in God?

A day or two ago I received the following message on facebook from one of my cousins. Far from offended or put off I was delighted with the opportunity to really put my thoughts down somewhere ... Maybe I can refer people here in the future if questions arise regarding what exactly I believe.

** Just did a once over and there is so much more I could go into .. I never touched on why I think agnosticism and atheism are in fact the same thing, for example....

We can see this as a conversation ... but it's now so freaking long that I feel I have to end it at this point. I'm not after all trying to write a book :) And I've now managed to have a lot of beer ;) **

Anyway .. here's what she sent me


Hey Geir,
How are you and the family doing? From pictures it looks like you all stay pretty busy. 🙂 I'm not sure if you are aware or not, but I recently moved to Dallas, Texas to attend seminary. It's crazy how warm it still is in November....I didn't realize how different it was going to be from Georgia. Although I'm sure it's already pretty cold where you are. 🙂
I realize that this message is coming out of the blue, so please don't feel obligated to respond. However, I would love to get your opinion on something if you felt comfortable. As you can imagine in my seminary classes I have begun doing a more in-depth study of various topics. However, if I'm honest, I am very curious as to the opinions of people from all viewpoints as it relates to God. I am not one who is afraid to learn why people believe differently than myself.
In a completely non-confrontational sense, I would love to know what your view is on God and how you came to that belief. Also I would love to know what your biggest frustration is with Christians in general.
Like I said, please don't feel obligated to respond; however, I am truly curious and would love to know your response if you felt comfortable to share. I hate the idea of making assumptions, so I see this as a way for me to learn from you.
Well, I hope you and your family are doing well! Take care!


I answered that I would love to answer and asked here if it would be okay with her for me to answer in the form of a blog post... She agreed and here we are:

From her message I divined the following questions which i've outlined here (I've interpreted a bit here and there):

  1. What is God? Are you an atheist or agnostic is kinda how I see this.
  2. How did you come to believe this .. pretty straightforward really.
  3. What is it about christians that you find so darn frustrating
I think I'll try to address these all in a series of reflections which I'll flesh out below...

The God of Abraham: In the beginning I was a christian and then after some rumination it made no sense anymore

Like most Americans in my general age group I attended church regularly, and moreover, I attended a parochial school, Good Shepherd Lutheran in Irving, TX ... and look they even have a website now: http://www.gslcirving.com/,  until the 4th grade where religious instruction was a regular part of the curriculum. I constructed "I love Jesus" crafts (something Ann Sofie loves to bring up every now and then), attended church on Sundays (mostly .. I can't remember exactly how often we went, but I know that my mom is a believer and at that time I think we attended quite regularly), and even constructed my own weapons for apostle action figures (we had some kind of arts and crafts assignment in 2nd or 3rd grade where we used popsicle sticks, glue, and construction paper to make our own apostles ... probably we did more than this but this is what I can remember). 

I realize that this is crazy, but it's an indelible memory of mine. I remember combining toothpicks with tiny red straws to create what were would be swords and even constructed tiny bow and arrows for the dozen popsicle stick men I had created. I even had a running narrative where the apostles become blessed with super powers and used their weaponry to exact revenge on Pontius Pilate and his gang of rapscallions (they might've been reading Twain aloud to us around that time as well ...) I also have clear memories of Mr. Lions informing me that this vengence filled indulgence was not only wrong (and probably a bit disturbing .. but I was an eight year old boy interested in ninjas) but was really missing the point. There was a story here that had a message and altering it was not only revisionist (of course he didn't use these words to explain it to me ... but it's the general message I remember coming away with) but derided the very sacrifice that was made. Jesus died without a blood thirsty gang of ninja apostles to swoop in and defend his honor. He died alone. He suffered for my sins. Was tried for my sins. And I needed to be thankful for this.

For my sins. My sins as an eight year old.

And god was omnipotent (and omniscient) 

This whole ninja thing was actually pretty important. I mean I gave up ninjas almost immediately, but the interest in stories and fiction was fierce. I loved it. I loved reading stories and I began to read a lot and in particular I had a penchant for fantasy novels. My father's interest in the natural sciences and let's face it the fact that he was running a nuclear pharmacy also had their impact. At home we watched Star Trek and discussed simple physics and the world seemed amazing ... Even if at the time I thought the christian god was the one behind it all.

Somewhere around this time I also had a sort of puerile philosophical monologue in my head about the nature of god's omnipotence. I remember wondering if God was so powerful that he could somehow be better at being "me" than I was. What kind of sense did it make for God to be more capable of acting out the flawed thinking and actions of an eight year old than that eight year old himself. This is hardly an argument that would convince me of anything today and i'm not sure that this line of thinking is really and truly defensible (I mean I'm not sure omnipotence needs/must be inclusive of such a definition... It's like being tolerant of intolerance ... what kinda sense does that make), but it's part of what ultimately led me to dump faith altogether.

We moved to Houston in 1984. This move meant that we lost the connection we had with our former church and were forced to build a new life in League City. We never found another church to attend really though we did try at least one if memory serves (A presbyterian church). I learned that my father in fact was an atheist (something I remember feeling a special kind of dread about). My interests in science, science fiction, and fantasy were emerging and growing... At the same time I was hearing from my another friend of mine, a baptist, that these interests of mine were injurious and that I should cease with this dalliance immediately. He was a good friend of mine for a time, Darren Strunk, and I even attended lock-ins with him at his baptist church (Lock-ins btw are creepy as fuck.... try explaining this concept to a swede ... It hadn't really occurred to me how bizarre a concept they were until I tried explaining them to people here).

Anyway .. All this came to a head when I realized one day while eating lunch with Darren and McKee that I actually wasn't sure about this whole god thing at all. Darren had again begun to condemn the books we were reading "the Xanth series by Piers Anthony: Xanth) I had learned about the word "agnostic" from my dad.... He had explained that our Aunt Betty Ann was agnostic... To be honest I didn't really understand what it meant more than his simple explanation which was basically, "she wants to see to believe." As it turns out this is a terrible definition of agnostic, but it was enough of a working definition for me at the time ... So at the ripe age of 13 I decided I didn't believe this nonsense anymore.

** I gather she went back to Christianity long before she finally passed (which I'll never understand, btw)... but in the 80's she claimed to be agnostic and I kinda had a special relationship with her because of it. She and I had a number of endearing conversations throughout my adolescence through to adulthood... She was the first person to recommend me to read Hume and introduced me to the concept of empiricism when I was still in Junior High.

There was no God that was going to damn me for playing Dungeons and Dragons, reading fantasy, and enjoying the wonders of science above and beyond what was in the bible. If there was any accountability in the world to be had at all then surely actually committing bad deeds would weigh heavier than enjoying stories.

----
I know what you're thinking... You're thinking, "But Geir, God doesn't require that at all!!!!" I realize that of course, but you're fooling yourself if you think that many a pundit circa 1988 didn't espouse such things. This was the time where the world was imprisoning people who played role playing games... I was an AVID role player during this period... I only stopped playing really when we got children of our own and really couldn't find the time to do so anymore.

That whole RPG-scare has since died down, but it left its mark on society in general and on me specifically.
----

This led to a sort of freedom. It turns out my friend McKee didn't believe anyway. His parents were a part of some weird Indian sect that worshipped what they called "The Master." I never really figured out what the heck that was all about, but suffice it to say that he didn't really believe in anything anyway. We began to look at the world more skeptically.

Surely if there were a god there would be some sort of accountability.

What does it mean to live a "good" life?

How on earth could God punish people (depending on the branch of christianity you believe in) who never even knew anything about God or Jesus?

What kind of sense does it make to allow a serial-killer to repent on his deathbed but condemn an otherwise "good" (at least in a biblical sense of good works) person to hell or at least limbo (again depending on your flavor of christianity)`

**** This is really the biggen for me and always has been **** What kind of morality is derived from belief? Can we even control what we believe? Surely our actions and the intent behind them must weigh more heavily than what we believe.

None of this God-stuff made any sense any more. The moment I let go the moment the world started to fall into place ... And it landed in such a way that was far more parsimonious with regard to cause and effect than God ever was.

** A smallish afterword....  Look, this is just how I moved away from God. I'm not suggesting that these particular arguments are especially compelling, but this, I think, is a pretty good rundown of how I left faith behind me... 

College: Studying Philosophy and rewriting God as god

This whole question of god isn't something I've taken lightly... Honestly, this has become a lifelong interest and passion of mine. Why do people believe? And, more to the point, how can I help my peers move away from what is clearly flawed thinking ... How can we as humans move from God to god and thereafter do away with this altogether.

This interest grew so much that I opted to study philosophy in college. I should be clear here,  that it wasn't *only* this god question that caught my interest, rather, the philosophical interest in clear thinking and pursuit/love of wisdom intrigued me. Well, that, and I had a genuine interest in existentialism. My foray there, however, isn't really of any interest here.

I really began to cement my ideas on this god matter in college. There is no God, or at least no evidence of one... And this missing God certainly isn't worthy of a capital "G." We can absolutely refer to him/her with a 'g.'

It was during college when I realized that there really are two different types of arguments around "God" with the capital 'G.'
  • Is there any kind of God, or prime mover, or intelligent designer, or god of the deists, or Brahma, or any other kinda Upanishadic/vedic god that is sort of everywhere but without agency
  • Is there an [insert specificl religion here] god **OR** can we trust [insert religious text here]
The former is a harder question ... Is there a prime mover? How the hell should I know? How can anyone know? What caused the prime mover? Are there turtles the whole way down? Unmoved Mover

This concept comes up a number of times throughout the history of philosophy: Aristotle, Aquinas (really just expanding and trying to christianize Aristotle), Spinoza, and really all the way to the Big Bang. The definitions here are, in my humble opinion, nebulous... It's really just its own formulation of the cosmological argument... The problem is that it's so generic that it can't be answered really.

Then there's the question of specific religious texts and the claims they're making based upon those texts. This second question is the far more polemical question, bizarrely. All of these religions and interpretations cannot all be simultaneously correct. As convinced as you may be of the veracity behind scripture christianity may in fact be declining. Many are speculating that populations demographics will drive more muslims into our global population and that within 100 (maybe even 50) muslims will outnumber christians. This is nothing new ... We've been aware of this development for quite some time.

But what does it mean that the definition of god will change proportionally on the globe? I dunno. Nothing?

For this we have to start comparing scripture. How do we rank scripture in terms of historical and or predictive veracity? That's one question. Another question may even be what their predictive power is for our practical world.

It's this latter argument that garnered my attention in college. Why should we ascribe any meaning and power to the bible if it provides nothing to help what really is our bottom line in this life. How long do we live? How can we mitigate suffering? How can we help people live more productive and meaningful lives?

The bible wants to answer these questions but it simply doesn't. Modern medicine saves lives. Go read up on humorism and decide for yourself if you think this is reasonable... And remember this was officially endorsed by the church: anything else was blasphemy.

Now, perhaps you're thinking ... "Yes, but that was a long time ago. There's nothing inherently incompatible with modern medicine and Christianity." Well, the problem is that this battle has been waged for more than a millennium now this way. With Christianity begging/demanding that research claims stop here or there until the evidence becomes so overwhelming that ignoring it begins to be deemed negligence.

The last 10 - 15 years:ish

The last decade or so has seen the rise of the "four horseman." I don't approve of or agree with everything that Dennet, Hitchens, Harris, or Dawkins have written/said but they certainly did a fantastic job of popularizing the movement. I can actually be a bit stronger than that and say that I find a lot of what Dawkins says on twitter to be repugnant. Not everything and I enjoy seeing him speak in public, but I do sort of wish he'd delete his twitter account.

My personal favorite of these is Hitchens... I can watch his debates on youtube for hours at a time and I've read a number of his books (he died 2011). All that said .. These are just debates and to be honest debates don't really prove anything at all; they tend to turn into a sort of smack-down fest which doesn't really lend itself to finding any truth about anything.

In 2004 or 2005 I read Angels and Demons and then The Da Vinci Code. At the time I had a colleague far more well read than I in patristics .. That's an exaggeration. I didn't know bupkiss about patristics at the time. Anyway, he and I were talking and he basically laughed at me for believing the nonsense written about in Dan Brown's novels. He suggested I read up more on the subject before I started believing this kind of pop-fiction... At this point I was blissfully unaware of the aforementioned four horseman, but they were becoming more and more popular at the time. I still think the reasons I had in college for leaving faith behind me were still more than valid, but the integrity of history is important and this kindled an interest in history that's still very much alive in me today...

So after that I started reading ... I read more and more of the bible. I read Eusebius, I read Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennet, and Harris. I read Josephus (well, if I'm honest I read the jesusy parts ... which is like almost nothing. I think I read a bit more than that but not much. It was like 10 years ago too so it's been a while)... Then I read Ignatius, Tertullian, and Ambrose. I read Ehrman. Actually, i've read several of Ehrman's books now. I read Robert Price (and btw ... I think the whole mythicism thing is a bit fringe. It's interesting, but I'm not ready to take that leap yet). Just a few months ago I read Trypho by Justin Martyr .. I also read the Koran and am currently in the middle of the Elder Edda.

Anyway ... This is hardly something i've discarded without thinking about it.

What I find frustrating with Christians

This one is a bit unfair. It's not so much that I have problems with Christians as much as I reject religions in general. I do have significant problems with Dominionism in the US, but that's really an intersection of christianity with US politics.

In the US I think christianity poses the greatest risk to a progressive society, but I'm not blind to the fact that Islam in fact poses the greatest risk globally. Having said that, we should remember that no one cared about Islam 30 years ago. This has become embroiled in its own political struggle

Really, I think I can list only three issues...

1) There seems to be some bizarre notion, among US christians at least, that I just need to have god explained to me again. This is ridiculous. I've given this WAY more thought than the vast majority of people ever will. I've considered this long and hard .. and I'm simply unconvinced. To be honest I think I never would have believed had I not been indoctrinated to do so from when I was young... Like all of us btw ... Or Like Muslims, or Hindus, or Sikhs, etc.

2) There's an assumed primacy among christians that I find annoying and some bizarre predilection to refer to the bible. Why on earth should I rely on the bible as authoritarian for anything at all? Christians should really read the bible more **AND** they should really read some textual criticism. It's ridiculous that most christians have never considered the differences in the accounts portrayed in the synoptic gospels .. that most christians are blissfully unaware that the adulterous woman from john 7:53 - 8:11 doesn't exist in *ANY* of our earliest manuscripts.... and so on .. and so on..

3) And this last point is for me the biggest one .. And it's one that's honestly been with me since I was a teenager. Morality is either a constant or it isn't **full stop**

As an atheist I live a moral life by example. I don't assume that a creator somewhere decrees things good and bad and nonetheless has wiped out entire civilizations multiple times (including children) capriciously. This is an act that if committed by anyone but god has precise wording: genocide. The bible is quite clear on slavery, on rape, and on worship. There are rules for each of these which imply an acceptance of them. Yet, to me these things are relegated to a barbaric past and hardly something I'd elevate according to today's stanards. I'm open to discussion on ethics and I admit that I'm not sure where on the consequentualism spectrum I land but I'm quite sure that you can't both allow that god did "good" by murdering children in the great flood and demand that killing children is bad. And depending on which ten commandments you choose ... why on earth should so many be devoted to how we worship god? Why aren't more people upset with this salient point? It's insane. Why isn't, "thou shalt not rape or enslave thy neighbor" in there at all? It's omission is egregious and historically obvious ... Our norms have changed.

Saturday, September 9, 2017

Rush and fleeing hurricane Irma

I want to address the media and reporting and our outrage and the throwing the baby out with the bathwater that i'm often complaining about with regard to the media... Yes, media doesn't get everything right, but that doesn't mean everything they report is wrong.
Anyway ..
I woke early today and read the news that Rush Limbaugh had fled after calling Irma a "liberal hoax." And so I thought i'd look into this. Looking up Rush Limbaugh and liberal hoax in google I found it widely reported.
And just a quick proviso. People who know me will remember that I think Rush Limbaugh is a dangerous conservative whack job... But I don't think he's actually evil, and I certainly want to defend in any case the principle of charity ...
After spending about 5 minutes I couldn't find that he had actually used the words "liberal hoax" anywhere. I did find this entry from his blog/website which I *think* is what all the hubub is about.

https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2017/09/05/my-analysis-of-the-hurricane-irma-panic/

And I gotta say I think that the liberal hoax narrative is lazy. I can't see that he's calling hurricane Irma a liberal hoax at all. What I see is a lengthy criticism (in editorial form) of how climate change is reported and he suggests that retailers, media, and the masses sort of feed off eachother in a vicious, hype circle. I do see that Rush Limbaugh took umbrage with the characterization and as I sort of agree with him if this is the real narrative.

Now... About that phrasing: "liberal hoax".... Let's look at how this was reported in some of the major papers.
  • FOX: couldn't find it there
  • NPR: couldn't find it there
  • Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/09/06/rush-limbaughs-dangerous-suggestion-that-hurricane-irma-is-fake-news/?utm_term=.868358e021f2
  • Nytimes: https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/09/08/us/ap-us-hurricane-irma-limbaugh.html?mcubz=1
  • cnn: http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/08/media/rush-limbaugh-evacuates-hurricane-irma/index.html
For FOX and NPR it's quite possible that it was reported, but after a few minutes of searching for it I gave up, but I really can't blame them, because I honestly don't think it's very interesting news. The Washington Post and Nytimes gave what I think were reasonable accounts. It's only CNN's headline which I think takes a lot of liberty but the article itself I think gives a reasonable rundown of Rush's rant with regard to hype and fear of hurricanes and climate change. But what about "liberal hoax?" Where is this coming up? Googling from my home in Sweden for "liberal hoax" and Rush Limbaugh does indeed return numerous results but none of these are journals any reasonable person would describe as trustworthy. My conclusion here is that it in fact was reported reasonably by the major media outlets when it was reported at all... Now ... What about his actual claims with regard to hurricane frequency and intensity. I do think this is important piece of this puzzle and so I looked up some real scientific analysis on the subject... This led me here: https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/

This is an excellent run down of the current conclusions. Note this quick rundown from that article:

  • It is premature to conclude that human activities–and particularly greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming–have already had a detectable impact on Atlantic hurricane or global tropical cyclone activity. That said, human activities may have already caused changes that are not yet detectable due to the small magnitude of the changes or observational limitations, or are not yet confidently modeled (e.g., aerosol effects on regional climate).
  • Anthropogenic warming by the end of the 21st century will likely cause tropical cyclones globally to be more intense on average (by 2 to 11% according to model projections for an IPCC A1B scenario). This change would imply an even larger percentage increase in the destructive potential per storm, assuming no reduction in storm size.
  • There are better than even odds that anthropogenic warming over the next century will lead to an increase in the occurrence of very intense tropical cyclone in some basins–an increase that would be substantially larger in percentage terms than the 2-11% increase in the average storm intensity. This increase in intense storm occurrence is projected despite a likely decrease (or little change) in the global numbers of all tropical cyclones.
  • Anthropogenic warming by the end of the 21st century will likely cause tropical cyclones to have substantially higher rainfall rates than present-day ones, with a model-projected increase of about 10-15% for rainfall rates averaged within about 100 km of the storm center.
So my conclusion here? Well, he's right actually with regard to the science. It's premature to conclude that climate change is causing either increased hurricane frequency or intensity. All that said, I think he goes way to far in describing what, yes, I think would amount to a conspiracy. Having said that I'm not sure why asking this question is itself worthy of criticism .. On the contrary, I looked into it and the science is focused on these questions. We shouldn't dismiss the science just because our politicians have misunderstood the conclusions from the data and current modelling ... And, honestly, i'd much rather have Bernie Sanders asking if there is a link between hurricanes and their intensity with climate change than pundits suggesting climate change is a political agenda...

I will continue to read the major media outlets... In my humble opinion they've reported this correctly.

Thursday, May 7, 2015

National day of prayer ...

Today is the National Day of prayer. A day I find misguided and utterly absurd in 2015 both in virtue of it's utter impotence and it's ridiculous exclusivity.

I don't disparage people who want to pray, but a national day of prayer does irk me nonetheless...

So first some history. This link gives a great rundown on a timeline behind the NDP:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/day_pray2.htm

I note that notable figures like Thomas Jefferson stood against the very notion .. But I won't linger on that point, because I want to be forward thinking and besides others will simply point to other notable figures in the US's venerable past who did.

I want to know what we're supposed to do with this day? What does it mean? Can we all sit together and pray away economic inequality? Crime? Dissenters on the 1st or 2nd amendment? How is this day not a national wishing day of individual vice and virtue... And by virtue here I mean the righteous virtue behind biblical sentencing...

I wonder what people pray for today. Too bad we have no statistics for prayer. Would probably be most enlightening.

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Be skeptical of hasty conclusions drawn from google search suggestions

There's a patheos article going around with an image of google searches beginning with "atheists should" .. I figured it must be grossly exaggerated so I decided to try it and received the same result. Shocking? I'm not surprised. See here below:



That said, it strikes me that these two words are clearly part of a negative statement and so google's algorithm is only returning those search phrases most in line with it ...

But what about other phrases?

Next I tried with Christianity:


And then Islam:


And then for good measure a couple more:





Note that neither children nor cute puppies resulted in any suggestion from google... My educated guess is that there simply aren't enough people inclined to form a negative search string for "children" and "cute puppies." But when I did it with spiders I think I received expected results... The bunnies list of suggestion was odd...

I am not claiming this to be a scientific study, in fact I'm suggesting that this shows that we should be far more skeptical of any data taken from this type of sample: people aiming to look for other negative postings.

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Je ne suis pas Charlie, mais je suis irritée

Several things bothering me at the moment regarding the world's reaction the #CharlieHebdo attacks in Paris.

1) Insisting that Muslims publicly, and formally denounce the Charlie Hebdo attacks.
What kind of since does this make? Where is the reciprocation here? Was the christian world called upon to renounce the views and actions of Westboro Baptist Church? How about the Army of God attacks on abortion clinics. What about the Lord's resistance Army

or...

How about Breivik following the Utøya massacre? He referred to himself as a Christian Crusader for Christ's sake ( pun intended ).

2) That we should respect all religions...
Nonsense.

I don't respect any religions at all and consider religion a net-negative in the world. I respect implicitly individual rights to practice religion, pray, and worship. That's very different from actually respecting the religious beliefs themselves. 

3) That the recent attacks have nothing to do with Islam
I think this one annoys me the most. When the perpetrators themselves claim religious justification for their actions then i'm inclined to listen. Any claim to the contrary requires an extraordinary explanation.

A better explanation would be to explain that they're part of a sect. That I can live with .. But even then it's a sect clearly justifying its actions based on the same book.

Is this unique to Islam? Not at all, and I mentioned a few of the others under point one at the top.

Followers