Accept No Substitutes

Indian consumerism

There's an interesting article in the New York Times about India's new consumerism. According to the article, the new affluent class in India is engaging in a disgusting orgy of consumerism, and are eager to buy big expensive cars to show off their wealth.

I think it's inherent in human nature to show off one's status, just as it's inherent in avian nature to have a pecking order.

Young woman files false rape charge?

Some bloggers are outraged over a story about a young woman from Oregon being convicted of filing a false police report in which she claimed she was raped by three young men. Bloggers falling into the outrage category include: Ezra Kleain, The Heretik, Seeing The Forest, Pandagon, Bark Bark Woof Woof, Shakespeare's Sister, Ampersand at Alas a blog, My vast right wing conspiracy, and Lauren at Feministe.

Of special note is Kevin Hayden's post becaue he writes that he knew the victim.

Bloggers trying to be more evenhanded include Jazz of Running Scared and Outside the Beltway.

I'm going to have to align myself with the smaller number of bloggers being more even handed about this. A false accusation of rape is serious and deserves to be punished. So the only issue here is whether she is guilty, and because I haven't heard any of the testimony in the case, or read any transcripts, I really have no way of personally knowing if she is guilty. So I don't understand the outrage based on no evidence.

Given that the prosecutors think she is guilty, and the judge thinks she is guilty, I would assume that she's actually guilty unless someone can back up the outrage with actual facts of the case.

The investor class?

Larry Kudlow is a "knee jerk conservative" who does nothing but parrot a standard conservative line and never has an original thought. This is what he says about the "investor class":

The investor class continues to expand, according a recent survey, with nearly 57 million U.S. families now invested in stocks. This is an incredibly powerful force for capital formation, economic growth, and pro-capitalism politics. Twenty years ago only one-fifth of families owned shares. Now it’s three-fifths.

Talk of the "investor class" is a devious invention of the wealthy to get the middle class to vote against their own interests. Their hope is that if the middle class owns some tiny and insignificant share of American corporations, they will think their interests are the same as the real owners of those corporations and be duped into voting against their own interests.

It looks like Kudlow has let the secret out in the quoted paragraph. But is anyone paying attention?

Bush's failed "private accounts" initiative was a prong in this diabolical plan.

The plan is working. People are easily brainwashed.

The right to make personal health decisions

Kathy says that Ayotte is about the right to make personal health decisions.

Unfortunately, if that right ever existed, it doesn't seem to exist any more. Let's say that I have an infection. Am I allowed to buy some antibiotics? No. First I have to find a doctor licensed by the state to write me a prescription for it, and then I have to find a pharmacist licensed by the state to dispense the prescription.

What about my right to make my own health decisions here? Only people appropriately licensed by the state are allowed to make health decisions for me.

Is this an anti-abortion post? No! It's a pro-choice post that's also in favor of allowing people to buy drugs as they see fit without having to go through doctors and pharmacists. If we are going to say that we have a right to do what we want with our bodies, and if that right is to mean anything, then it has to include more than just the right to have one particular medical procedure.

Say no to sham trials

Bryan of Why Now writes:

If you were paying attention you would note that Saddam is being tried for an atrocity unrelated to WMDs, so he will be convicted and executed to prevent any testimony about potentially embarrassing American complicity in the WMD programs.

I admit that I haven't been paying attention, partially because I think that "trials" for heads of countries that we take over is a bad idea.

When held outside the framework of an established system of justice, a "trial" is just a sham. If Saddam had captured George Bush, you can be sure that he could have made up some charges and had him convicted at a "trial."

Furthermore, what incentive do the dictators have to surrender if they will then have to face a trial and be sentenced to prison for the rest of their lives? Offering dictators exile to some country willing to accept them would save countless lives if they take up the offer and a war is avoided.

Alito and abortion

Chuck at Just a Bump in the Beltway is opposed to Alito because of a memo he wrote when he worked for the Reagan administration:

How many more "smoking guns" do we need before the Dems and anyone interested in protecting a right to privacy/choose stand up against this guy?

While I understand Chuck's concern that Alito may one day overturn Roe v. Wade, I'm not comfortable with the idea of opposing his nomination because of the memo. Lawyers are advocates for their clients, and Alito's client in 1985 was the anti-abortion Reagan adminstration. Alito was just doing his job, and that fact shouldn't be held against him. Similarly, if a lawyer defends a murderer, it doesn't mean he's in favor of murdering people.

I like Alito a lot more than Harriet Miers who was abysmally unqualified for the job. Bush picked her because she was an evangelical Christian and presumably supported all those far-right Christian views. Alito is less likely to overturn Roe v. Wade than Miers would have been.

If Alito's nomination were somehow stopped (not likely at this point), Bush would only nominate another anti-abortion "stealth" candidate, and I prefer Alito's long record of public service and his reputation for being very smart and conscientious over another unqualified stealth nominee.

Is NH run by Christian extremists?

Today the Supreme Court heard arguments in the Ayotte case (which I first discovered via feministing.com).

The issue is whether the Constitution allows the state of New Hampshire to require parental notification plus a 48 hour wait for minors seeking abortion, even if their health (but not life) is in danger.

Parental notification laws are sneaky attempts by anti-abortion Christian extremists to whittle away abortion rights. They know that most parents are authoritarian in their child rearing and desire complete control over their children. The children who would be harmed by the law don't get to vote. So most of the electorate likes these laws--at least the majority of New Hampshire voters seem to like it.

Constitutional issues aside, I don't understand why the New Hampshire legislature places Christian idiology above the health of children. I thought New Hamsphire was a libertarian state.

Student loans and social mobility

According to this article (via Suburban Guerrilla), the average college student graduates with $27,600 in debt.

This is a complicated issue, so I can't cover all facets of college education in one short post. So my thought for today is that college, instead of helping people from less affluent families rise in life, does just the opposite.

Rich kids graduate from college debt free, and then their parents help pay their rent to live where the good jobs are, such as in Manhattan. But the poor kids graduate with a huge debt burden that can't be discharged in bankruptcy; there's no chance they could ever afford to live in a place like Manhattan, even if they have a roommate.

College is now a factor in limiting social mobility.

The real reasons why Bush attacked Iraq

While most of the right wing bloggers have been blindly defending Bush, the free thinking right wing blogger Steve Sailer has some great analysis on why Bush attacked Iraq, and it has nothing to do with WMD. Here's part of it:

The idea of beating up on a sure loser like Saddam may have especially appealed to GWB because of the President's personal qualities. Bush sees himself not as a manager (which is certainly correct), but as a leader, one who makes tough decisions based on intuition where other men who worry about getting the facts first would suffer paralysis through analysis.

In other words, Bush doesn't particularly like to work hard, and he's not that interested in learning what it takes to administer the government. Spending eight grueling years on the blocking and tackling of effectively running the government like Dwight Eisenhower did is not for Bush. Instead, he's going to throw the Bomb, so he can then coast. And the Iraq Attaq sounded to him like a pushbutton war -- all Bush had to do was tell the Pentagon to go conquer Iraq and they'd go do it without bothering him with a lot of tiresome questions about minor details.

I recommend reading the whole thing.

Repeat abortions

Why are repeat abortions even an issue? We should all know that people's behavior doesn't change very much, so a woman who accidentally gets pregnant once is likely to repeat the same behavior and get pregnant again. Duh!!!

Much better she have two abortions than raise two unwanted children.