Chinese viral strain raises concerns

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From the outset, let me disclose that I am not a microbiologist, but a geologist by training. My concern here however is not a question of knowledge, but a question of thought process, or specifically, an absence of critical thinking. An article in the Japan Times raises the prospects of an epidemic on the basis of new emergent strains in China. These developments strike me as reason for concern because they might point to a failure in government policy. This failure might be mirrored in other sectors analogous to this one. The intent here is not to 'argue from analogy', but rather to raise an analogy, since I'm not aware of the biological processes to really question their process. Biologists and policy makers can take what is useful with respect to this issue. 

Richard Webby, director of a World Health Organization flu center at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital: "The virus has genetic markers that would help it infect people, Webby said. That makes him worry about a pandemic slightly more than he does over other bird flu viruses, such as the H5N1 strain that emerged a decade ago".

My concern is that attempts to control the spread of the virus might actually be aiding the virility of the virus. One might question if the analogy of a bushfire has any application. When governments adopt fire prevention methods like backburning and firebreaks, they actually enhance the prospects of a threat by increasing the threat where they don't backburn. i.e. Backburning is used to prevent fires spreading. The problem is that the fuel remains on the ground so that the intensity of fires is even worse when they eventually occur. The problem is that there are people who are set on starting fires because that know this. Perhaps they are exponents of more regular backburning, or maybe they are just looking for cheap thrills.

The question is, does the attempts by governments to prevent the spread of the H5N1 virus diminish our risk, or might the government be creating a systematic risk. How many people have taken the vaccine for H5N1? My concern is that people who have not might confront a more sinister version because they have not been exposed to a more 'benign' strain by preventive public policy. 

The same issue arises with the global financial crisis, where politicians and the Federal Reserve ignored the indebtedness in the property market; and 'managed the issue' by artificially lowering interest rates. We might wonder if the Spanish flu on 1918 was any different. My understanding was that this epidemic occurred because of poor hygiene conditions in WWI trenches made the soldiers susceptible to disease. That might be considered a different context. More vulnerable than old people in any society? Well, the avian flu seems to strike the more healthy people, with healthier immune systems. i.e. You actually die of an excessive immune response, in the sense that your lungs fill up with mucus. 

Leave it to the professionals you say. I think not. But don't let me decide...I'm just some sucker who knows better than the government....or at least so it seems. I leave you with my first public warning (of many) about the risk posed by government set on deferring a financial crisis. I might add that I was far from the first or only person to anticipate a crisis. It was others warnings that alerted me. In this spirit, I alert you. You will have to apply your own 'critical' judgement. More importantly perhaps, you might spare a thought for the efficacy of political decision-making. 

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Author Andrew Sheldon| Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Libertarians need identity and support

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Around the world we are presented with a false dichotomy; a false choice between two parties - The Democrats and the Republicans, whilst in the process being denied 'real choice'. Consider the nature of the 'choice' you have:

1. A choice between giving your vote (aka 'power of attorney') to a Democratic vision of a slave state, or alternatively, the Republican vision of a slave state. Now, given that you did not frame the 'choice', and given that neither 'choice' entailed you determining the candidates, it was not really a 'choice'. It was just a bad joke. 

2. Systems which discount the value of certain choices. i.e. In the 1990s, Ross Perot won 17% of the popular vote in the USA presidential elections, yet his supporters were entitled to No Representation. The First Past the Post (FPP) voting system in the USA entrenches the two main parties. Ross Perot, a billionaire, could not even sustain that type of spending. It pays to have friends in the media right! Well, you might wonder why. 

The media largely determines the choices you are presented with, who simplifies the message you are presented with. Why? I would suggest that the media wants to retain a centralised division of decision-making. If politics was divided by different schools of thought, you would need different newspapers or media outlet right. More critically, you would need different content to appeal to those different schools of thought. By controlling the content, the media largely determine how you think. They are actually more important than the education system, because the media went through the same education system as you, and so its only the media and their own 'passive', bureaucratic minds which are going to challenge the system. Sorry, no, the media wants to preserve a concentrated market share, and they want a favourable government to preserve that position. They have that from the two major parties. So what if there was ever an alternative? Well, there are alternatives. The Green Movement is a grassroots movement canvassed by the media. The media has been very sympathetic to its cause. Why? Because it is a grassroots collective, so a powerful threat; they have many members, they are ideologically powerful, and thus they are dedicated to their cause. They are a market which is very appealing to media groups. One hook for one collective head.

So what about individualists like me? Well, we are marginalised by several factors. Whilst collectivist do everything in their capacity to convey a sense of belonging to the collective; individualists like myself tend to differentiate or personalise any issue, so if we are not disagreeing, and even emphasising our point of differentiation, our line of thinking is destined to find a personal context in any such conception. We are notoriously difficult to organise, because we are self-assertive, critical, and running our own agenda. Not the mettle of a person who will proscribe to a single newspaper. We are more likely to critique it for its imperfections. We are often anti-institution. We project a pride in our own mental efficacy. You can therefore understand why a media group is likely to marginalise any such individualist. They are divisive. So when Ross Perot was able to get 17% of the popular election, he was able to win a lot of popular support from business, people who support entrepreneurism. Not the media; and most particularly any journalist who is going to fight to change the system to give the Libertarians the political identity they deserve. 

In terms of political identity however, libertarians are their own worst enemy. Consider New Zealand, where there are 3 libertarian groups - there is the campus based Libertarianz (mostly university students), and then there is the Christian dominated ACT Party (with one seat) and the Christian-led Conservative Party. That's right, you have two parties and another splitting their political identity, and thus their capacity to gain profile and extortion-power in our political system. The problem of course is that:

1. It is silly to have 2 Christian parties when there is no separate representation for atheist libertarians

2. It is silly for libertarians to sanction a political system that demands that they spurn their personal identity or political sovereignty to a collective identity which alienates their minds. It is most particularly senseless for atheist libertarians to surrender their personal identity to Christians who are as mindless as their political counterparts. They should instead forge their own political identity, and renounce the system which is destined to marginalise them. 

Here is a video which captures a 5-minute speech by former Supreme Court judge and media commentator Judge Napolitano. He lost his job from his Fox Cable TV show for this speech; in which he is critical of the media groups, and their coverage of Ron Paul in the last election. Hopefully, his Supreme Court buddies respond to his case. He was sacked for supporting Ron Paul; and criticising the mainstream media for not giving him air time. In case you are questioning the partisan support of the media groups, let's switch to New Zealand again. In NZ, the ACT Party holds the balance of power with the National Party. There parliament has just ended an inquiry into the curtailment of the MMP electoral system which favoured minor parties, i.e. The ACT Party. But more critically, the media showed a great deal of bias in this election on a number of occasions:

1. It was contemptuous and disrespectful of the former ACT Party leader - hounding him over non-issues, in order to take a political scalp.

2. It blew up the leader John Banks over a 'Tea gate' scandal which was not misconduct; scathing of him for doing what other MPs do all the time.

3. It dropped a case of Green supporters defacing electoral posters for the National Party.

There seems to be a complete over-statement of the ACT issues; but a dismissal of the issues of vandalism by supporters of the Green Party. Why is this important? Well, the Sea Shepherd incident, a litany of vandalism, break & enter cases by the Greens Movement are a reflection upon their lack of respect for human rights and due process. This perspective is of course sanctioned by the liberal media. 

You might wonder why. The reason is most poignantly conveyed in this series of interviews by a libertarian at a Democratic Party convention. He interviews democrats on the question of choice. Expect no better from Republicans. If libertarianism is going to advance, a number of things need to happen:

1. Atheist libertarians/individualists who possess a sense of mental efficacy or critical thinking skills need to distance themselves from Christian libertarians. The reason is that they are engendering moral ambivalence in their thinking. Christianity is incompatible with individualism or freedom. Causeless values are a contradiction in terms. Society is shifting towards collectivism by default. As long as true individualists don't have a legitimate political identity and 'organise' they will continue to be undermined. 

2. Libertarians need to highlight the ploy of the media and governments to marginalise them in order to preserve the two party system, or more importantly two-party coalitions. The left-right dichotomy is a false dichotomy. The media wants collective vs collective. It wants individualists out of the equation. 

If you short rights for minorities - support the rights of the smallest minority - the individual. There is no notion of personal sovereignty when the mind is subordinated to the collective, however that is a topic for another blog article.

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Author Andrew Sheldon| Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Divide and destroy?

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Ever wondered how the world in future will be divided? The old paradigm was 'divide and conqueror'. The new paradigm is 'divide and destroy'. The fact is that life has gotten complicated. We were blissfully ignorant centuries ago; and now we think we are start. In this game its not a question of smart or dumb, its moral relativism. But here is the thing, aside from the absoluteness of truth, there is actually a context in which events occur. This is not a paradox, its a perspective. Conscious interprets a real world; but it does so from a particular context. This is true of facts and values. 

So the adage of 'divide and conqueror' is a little tired when the absolute state has already essentially won the game. There is just a few rogue states to rein in, but otherwise statehood is well-entrenched. The Wild West these days is one of the few places where you can actually have the freedom you might like, aside from Pakistan and those other rogue states. 

So its interesting that Julian Assange and others are controlling this space. Interesting however is that a group, claiming to be opposed to Wikileaks, has actually sought to 'destroy' his website. These people claim to be defending our state...defending justice. This organisation claims to be independent, but I would argue that this is an organisation set up and sponsored by the US government in order to attack Wikileaks. Why? Well, its a rationalisation for war isn't it. 

Justice is whatever the US wants it to be? They don't want to wait for a trial. They claim to be defenders of justice. But if that was the case, where is the moral principle directing their actions. There is none. This is a testament to the emptiness of the US Constitution. Yes, a framework of concrete law that makes no provisions for a moral context, unless they are talking about a vacuous, context-dropping, dogmatic religious 10 Commandments. This might well be the philosophical basis upon which the Anti-Leaks - the self-proclaimed defenders of justice was formed. I thought the US Constitution enacted a police and military force to defend ourselves from vigilantes. Well, this one seeks moral rectitude, not in legal means, but the anonymity of the internet. 

The practices of the government do not bother them because they are paid stooges of the US government seeking to avoid accountability. They are the terrorists. Does not the US government hunt down organisations that break into its 'secure' sites? Well, that is what Anti-Leaks claims to have done. They are not anarchists - they are politically-aligned bureaucratic despots.

There is no question in my mind that Julian Assange does not represent the best values in the world. There is no question that he is not a moral agent open to accountability. But by that standard of value, neither is the US government. It is even worse. In this context, I would far prefer to see the existence of WikiLeaks, than I would prefer to see their destruction. So I celebrate the disclosure of public information which would never see the light of day under Freedom of Information requests. Where is the evidence that any information released by WikiLeaks has done any damage to the US? 

In this context, I would prefer to see the retention of Cuba, North Korea, China, Russia and Syria, rather than see these states subordinate themselves to US values. To be sure these states do not represent the best of values, but for the mere sake of competition, I would prefer to preserve their existence - at least as some form of opposition to US complicity or moral relativism. For I know without any standard of comparison, we will surely face tyranny from the United States. Representative democracy, as we have discussed elsewhere, is a form of tyranny. It is the subjugation of freedom-loving people to the collective. You will derive no objective notion of rights from it. See Wikileaks here.

Andrew Sheldon: "AntiLeaks are either severely misguided people, or they are working for the US govt. Since when was US govt justice objective? Since when was justice the providence of internet vigilante groups? I thought hacking into web servers was a crime? Well, the US govt thought so, until they needed to stop some embarrassing press releases".

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Author Andrew Sheldon| Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

America - the great and free-ain't

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Here is a well-articulated speech about the legacy of US greatness. The problem is that it wreaks of moral relativism. All those other countries are not too much greater than the USA now; as much as we might condemn the USA for collapsing.

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Author Andrew Sheldon| Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Kim Dotcom - making a case for political reform

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Judging by Kim Dotcom's creation of the Mr President website, Kim Dotcom is attempting to gain some popular support with a campaign to attack the US for attempting to control internet content. His argument is that knowledge should be free; if the video is to be believed. The implication is that he opposes intellectual property. The problem with this position is that he needs to defend it; and it also implies that his intent was always to break the spirit of the law, and that his position is not an accidental 'legalistic' position. i.e. The law says this, so I did this. His position is apparently, I don't believe in intellectual property, so screw the law. That much I got from the website lyrics and footage. Ultimately it will be a court determination. But to me, he seems to be contradicting his 'legalistic' position with a moral condemnation of IP. 

Refer also to this story in the NZ Herald.

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Author Andrew Sheldon| Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

The right to bear arms - an American legacy

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Over the years I have posted a number of articles on gun ownership - probably the best one was in June 2008. Hard to believe I wrote it in a single sitting in about 15 minutes. I am neither a liberal, nor a Conservative, and I dare say I do not fit conveniently into most people's political categorisations. My views most closely reflect an intellectual libertarian perspective. I tend to view most libertarians as anti-intellectual or economic rationalists lacking philosophical roots.

I will not redress what I wrote in that article; but will indeed update the article with an addendum which addresses the issues peculiar to this latest incident with James Holmes. I want to address some of the issues I saw on CNN with Michael Moore, who actually displayed sounder thinking than usual. Mention was made of an article by Max Fisher in The Atlantic, so I want to repudiate some of its arguments since I lived in Japan, and being from Australia, I want to make mention of that country as well.

It is indeed interesting (or paradoxical) that the US's framing of the Japanese Constitution in the wake of WWII was so different from that for the United States. In effect, both constitutions strike one as a 'reaction' to contemporary times, and not as a preamble to a coherent philosophical framework, as you might expect from a Constitution. More concerning than the pretext in which they were prepared is the nature of their content. Each constitution would strike one as 'very concrete'. The problem with concrete laws is that they derive from some flow of ideas; a line of argument, but in the case of a constitution, a Supreme Court judge is supposed to add an interpretation of the Founders ideas, as opposed to applying fundamental principles of  philosophy to practical circumstances. In this sense, constitutional law is highly twisted, and grossly in error. This is not how you frame a constitution, and the fact that the USA and Japanese constitutions are so divergent in their underlying values is a testament to that anti-intellectual rationalisation or contradiction. 

Fisher highlights the Japanese obsession with novelties such as 'guns', but Japan is just as crazed about a great many things. When Japan was hosting the World Cup soccer they were enthralled by 'soccer fever'; now I dare say they have forgotten how to get to the stadium. They have very fickle tastes which is the culmination of very superficial, materialistic values. So why would they display the American penchant for guns? Well, they will never grasp intellectually the significance of guns to Americans, and nor will many Americans I dare say. They mean different things to different people, and to differing degrees, but let's consider the main reasons:

1. Personal empowerment: A gun is a source of empowerment. Its a lot more concrete and tangible than an idea, or a political system which is supposed to protect, but which most Americans realise is inclined to violate you, and breach your deepest values. These are intellectual arguments. The problem is that many Americans don't have the intellectual skills to articulate those arguments, and to be sure they don't exactly convey the most coherent understanding, so a gun speaks louder than words. But there is no ambiguity about the power wielded by a gun. It would be nice to think that the American Rifle Association and affiliated organisations could actually articulate that argument on behalf of Americans, but I guess there are too many interest groups happy to keep Americans scared and anti-intellectual, rather than thinking about the deeper values which should underpin their Constitution and specifically gun ownership.

2. Self-defence: The US constitution means to Americans something important; the problem is that Americans don't get the deeper values inherent in their politics; and that is why their dogmatic deferment to the essentially arbitrary, context-dropping provisions of the Constitution are a source of moral confusion, rather than a source of guidance. Personally, without even thinking, I would not be given credence to a constitution which pre-dates the founder of psychology, Sigmund Freud; today mostly discredited. So, in this intellectual vacuum, Americans seize upon the Constitution as a source of wisdom, taking 'bite size' chunks they can understand, and drop all context or justification for that assertion, which served as a justification for a very specific problem hundreds of years ago. I would argue that there is probably a tendency to personalise that state-independence rationalisation as an arbitrary personal 'right to bear arms'. The problem is not our notion of rights; but ultimately how they are defined. Objective principle vs reactionary fears.

3. Allegiance: The ownership is a concrete issue upon which patriotic Americans can agree. If they reflected on the ideas underpinning their political allegiances, they would find a great deal of moral apprehension and confusion. There is no debate about concrete issues like guns. A gun speaks loudly for the unthinking. The faster the rounds, the higher the gauge, the louder a gun speaks....and they all pretty well have the same implications. It conveys what it means to the other gun owners 'Don't mess with me'. 

Fisher's article highlights in fact that Japanese people can be equally fascinated by guns; if only they were not oppressed, as they are in Japan. This is what some liberals would have us do. Outlaw everything which they find distasteful. This is the flipside of anti-intellectual American politics. We are really between a rock and a hard place, because we are given the anti-intellectualism of the Conservatives vs the anti-intellectualism of the liberals....and yes, America, like other Western democracies has been getting the same 'reactionary' thinking since the formation of the US Constitution. You will get the same on gun control at some point; just not prior to an election, and it will come from Democrats. 

No; Americans should not look to oppressed or repressed Japanese people for political guidance. They are deeply unhappy with their lot in life. I've had to perk up a few depressed Japanese people over the years. Its a very sick society. I might add that American could have learned something from the Japanese financial crisis, and recognise that Japan has an atrocious suicide rate. They don't shoot themselves; they jump in front of trains until they started fining their families. Now they just repress their happiness or live abroad. Or die shamelessly in their community. So the fact that Japan is a more peaceful place is telling. 

Kopel-Griffiths in this article suggests that gun control allowed Robert Mugabe and Adolf Hitler to perpetrate their heinous acts against their people. Well, that is true, but if one's country is destined to reach that point, is it not better to immigrate than buy a gun? As so many Germans did. I might add that both of these leaders came to power in democracies - Mugabe's party with a 71% majority, Hitler with just 38%, which from memory he raised to 43%. Irrespective, it is the dumbing down effective of democracy which leads to dictatorship - the practicality of guns is well-understood, but only pertinent after the population have spurned the application of their minds. If you think you are in a free country today, that is the rhetoric you have accepted. Read my other articles on democracy. 

In conclusion, the US needs to drop the US constitution, develop a new political system to replace its dysfunctional system in favour of a meritocracy with reason as the standard of value. How do you convince Americans to do that? You don't. You convince New Zealanders to do it. There are only 4mil idiots in that country, and after they have realised the benefits of a sound framework for political discourse, then the world notes the practical consequences of rationality, and they follow suit. Only then will you see anti-intellectual Americans embrace change. An idea is just way to nebulous for most voters at this time.

More specifically; there is really nothing the American government can do to prevent the use or misuse of guns. It would however be sensible to outlaw automatic and semi-automatic weapons. There really is no reason for people to hold such weapons. That ship has sailed as well I suspect, given that everyone probably has one buried under the house in case of war. That is not necessarily a bad thing. The fundamental problem is not a gun crisis; its an intellectual crisis. The fact that everyone focuses on 'guns' and not intellectual ideas is a testament to that. Deal with political reform, and you will help a great many Americans feel a little less disempowered or angry with their political system. Deal with the education system and you will also stop a great many personal killings as well. Yes, massacres are not personal; they are political. People loath the system. Change it! Protest about political reform - not inanimate guns. 

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Author Andrew Sheldon| Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

The responsibility of judges - they don't understand

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District Court Judge David Harvey: “New Zealanders need to involve themselves in a forthcoming review of copyright law or they will "suffer what the conglomerates and corporates" hand to them”. (1)

I have a huge problem with a judge telling me that my way of protecting myself from unfair laws is to participate in a process in which reason is not the standard of value; whether at the point of enacting legislation (because people are not participating in the process) or at the point of judicial consideration (because the judge seems impervious to the deeper philosophy of law). 

“Judge David Harvey said copyright concerned everybody and urged people to become interested”.  (2)

I wonder if it occurred to this judge that people are ‘not interested’ in the law, least of all copyright violation (when it’s so easy to transgress) because the political process does not reward participants. For anyone who has gone to the trouble of writing a submission, talking to a parliamentarian, etc, you are engaging in a process which offers no validation, no constructive engagement, no assurance that anyone has even bothered to read your submission, and no opportunity to challenge the law – except if you break it. Even then, you have little reason to have confidence in your legal counsels understanding of the law. Why? Because reason is not the standard. This is because judges have dispensed with the ‘spirit of the law’, which was supposed to protect people. Now it protects Conservative or liberal interests, and that ultimately depends on who controls the judiciary ‘majority’ and when. i.e. It’s another extortion racket our legislature. 

"We have to be interested in this, because if we aren't then we'll be told what will happen by the big, vested interests”.  (3)

This is an interesting statement because it conveys a liberal-Conservative dichotomy; that corporations are able to use the law to injury you; that the judiciary has no interest in protecting you (i.e. in accordance with some objective standard of law), and that you should fantasifully participate in a process which offers scant justification for thinking you will be protected, because at the end of the day, the politicians vetting your submissions will have the discretion (with their unlimited ‘power of attorney’ you have given them by voting) to decide your fate. I am personally more worried about the arbitrary powers that the legislature has – the arbitrary power to coerce, rather than the discretionary power any corporation has to impose its will upon me; yet this judge seems to be oblivious to his role as a ‘protector of the people’. He utterly conveys no respect for the facts of reality, or objectivity.

References

1.  “Judge tells Kiwis to speak up on copyright” by Hamish Fletcher, NZ Herald, website, Jul 12, 2012.

2.  “Judge tells Kiwis to speak up on copyright” by Hamish Fletcher, NZ Herald, website, Jul 12, 2012.

3.  “Judge tells Kiwis to speak up on copyright” by Hamish Fletcher, NZ Herald, website, Jul 12, 2012.

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Author Andrew Sheldon| Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com