Requiem for the Fifth Amendment–Magna Carta to the Rescue (?)

England to the rescueShow of hands…how many of you know that the President of the United States has the legal authority to detain you without a trial? What about the Fifth Amendment you say? Well, you better take the time to read up. No, not an Amendment to the Constitution. No, not a highly publicized, debated and vetted new law. No…the Defense Authorization Act of 2012, Title 10, subtitle D, subsection 1021 and 1022. Death of your 1,000 year old rights by bespectacled bureaucrat and college intern. And nary a peep.

Of course, upon signing the law which was passed by a Republican House and a Democrat Senate, President Obama promised (in a suspiciously Gertrudian betrayal of his protesting too much) not to invoke this provision, but apparently his lawyers didn’t get the memo. They are arguing in federal court that the President indeed has this authority and can wield it at will. Setting aside why one would find it necessary to defend an authority one has no intention of using, and setting aside the pathetic fact that it took a citizen of the UK to defend the US Constitution, the Administration refused to certify that they have never and would never use it. In attempting to persuade Judge Forrest to stay her injunction, the Administration refused to concede that unlimited detention without trial is not within Presidential authority, and even went on to suggest that it was within its legal authority to ignore the court. Please read that again–ignore the court.

In more learned times, what would have been a Constitutional crisis doesn’t even make the pages of any media outlet.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/10/ndaa-lawsuit-struggle-us-constitution

http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2012/08/10/ndaa-the-most-important-lawsuit-in-american-history-that-no-one-is-talking-about/

American news

Has Chris Rock been brainwashed?

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New daddies for everyone?

It seems that comedian Chris Rock found a new daddy. In fact, he found one for about 300 million people.

“The President and the First Lady are kind of like the mom and the dad of the country,” Rock said at a press conference. “And when your dad says something, you listen. And when you don’t, it usually bites you in the ass later on. So I’m here to support the president.”

Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t long before people presented their counter-points to that argument.

Now, as silly as this might seem, Rock’s devotional raises an interesting question: “If I am actually brainwashed, how would I know it?”

Here are a few signs that you (and Chris Rock) might want to consider:

1) Are you able to imagine anything negative about the person or idea you support? No one loves us as much as our (real) parents. But we fight with our parents all of the time. We have no trouble finding faults with the people we marry either. If we are able to love our parents and spouses, and still find faults with them, what does it suggest if you can’t find any faults with Dear Leader, Dear Reverend, or Dear ______________?

2) Are you able to spend any time around people with different points of view? If you can’t, it could mean that you so passionately feel something, that you become terrified when faced with those who threaten to take your “warm blanket” away – even if that blanket isn’t real.

3) Do you reduce people you disagree with down to caricatures? (Those damn ____________. They’re all the same.) What if someone said that of you? Would you lump yourself into one of those groups, or are you the rare exception who is more complex than that? And if you can’t be lumped into a group, why are you lumping others?

Those are a few ways to test yourself. Are there others? I wonder.

Darth O

Always the bridesmaid, Dalai Lama

Love never stood a chance.

Sure, love sounds great. It’s all warm and fuzzy. It’s puppy dogs and LOL kittays. But it will never, ever be able to compete with it’s hulking twin brother, fear. And we can blame our biology for that.

Consider this: when we need to prioritize decisions, which tendency would lead to a better chance of survival? Responding immediately to fear or responding immediately to promises of love? It’s not a no brainer. It’s a reptilian brainer. It’s easy to see how natural selection favored the survival of primates (and plenty of other organisms) that ran first and asked questions later.

Which brings us to where we are today. Atheists, agnostics, pacifists, Jainists  and any other “new age” spiritualists trying to win over theists by preaching peace, love and balancing your chakras are on the wrong side of evolution. Yes, love should be our primary motivator. And hate should make you break out in boils. But until our peace activists start realizing the nature of their enemy, they’re going to keep losing.

The only way to beat fear is to replace it with a bigger one. Religions have done this masterfully. At first, we humans witnessed death. And that was scary. “Oh, crap. So we just turn off? Man, that sucks.” And for tens of thousands of years, that was as scary as it got. But then along came religion, which made that old fear sound like paradise. “Turn off? Oh, no, my brother. Your entrails are ripped from your flesh every day and gnawed on by syphilitic demons with bad breath. For e-fucking-ternity.”

Old fear loses to new-and-improved fear. Religion wins.

Today, the best ammunition that nontheists have is social fear – the fear that, if I happen to say something ridiculous, I will become a social outcast. It’s a good tool, and it helps shut people up about saying all sorts of things out of fear of losing their jobs, friends, spouses, etc. But the fear of becoming a pariah may not be strong enough to fight the fear of eternal torment.

The Dalai Lama is going to have to do more than be the Richard Simmons of the peace movement to overcome the power of fear. He, and those who admire him, are going to have to find another rose with sharper thorns.

The Intruder in the Closet

There's a monster in my closetIt’s 10 pm. You’re watching TV. You’re alone in the house.

At a commercial break, you push the mute button on the remote. Then you hear it. A rhythmic sound is coming from the closet door behind you.

“Thump, thump. Thump, thump.”

Your throat tightens. Your heart skips a beat. You recognize the sound. Someone is inside the closet, rapping their hand on the closet door.

“Thump, thump.”

A hundred different scenes from late-night slasher films flash through your mind. Is it Jason hiding my closet? (No. That’s silly.) Is it a Ted Bundy wannabe?

“Thump, thump.”

With fear deep in your throat, you decide to confront the intruder. You throw open the closet door. And you see a small, wooden bar stool. It’s red, illuminated by a pale, red indicator light that sits atop the small seat. As your eyes adjust, you realize that the glowing, red dot is attached to the front of a  tape recorder. Now you can see the exact source of the sound.

“Thump, thump,” rings out from the tape recorder’s speaker. You click the off switch, shudder and close the door.

Up to this very moment – right before you flung open the closet door – you had a very different belief about the reality about to unfold. Your belief was that there was a person inside the closet. Was that a rational belief? Absolutely.

And at this very moment in time, this is a scene that millions of people are stuck in. People who believe in a god.

If you’re not convinced of the analogy, let’s take a closer look at the evidence theists cite:

  • Their religion has been embraced for thousands of years
  • Their parents, whom they love and trust, assures them of the truth
  • The physical universe, to their naked eye, seems as if it were created especially for them and other humans

The conclusion derived from these support points – there must be a god – is a completely rational position. Just like your belief in the intruder in the closet.

But what if you never opened that door? What if you ran out of the house as fast as you could? What if the initial evidence you experienced was so compelling that it felt like it would be irrational to ignore it?

This is the condition of the modern-day, Western-world theist. They are not, as atheists so often accuse, being irrational. Theists arrived at their conclusions using demonstrably strong support points. Their religion’s antiquity, ubiquity and authenticity, as shared by trusted friends and family members, are perfectly credible sources of evidence.

Was there better evidence that no one was hiding in the closet? Are there demonstrable, testable genetic and neurological dispositions that make humans susceptible to believing in detached consciousnesses?

Certainly. But those who understand that evidence must have dared to look inside to consider it.

The person who runs from the house, and the theists of the 21st century, are one in the same. They are not irrational.

They are scared.

Why same-sex marriage advocates leave a bad taste in your mouth

In my last post, I talked about the implications of ideas being physical objects – objects that are “consumed” by the human body.

Once we consider this premise – even at a metaphorical level – we realize that, like food, ideas must get past the body’s built-in sensory warning systems. When an idea seems sweet, we are more willing to ingest it. When an idea is laced with vinegar, it’s far less likely to be ingested, much less digested and absorbed by their intended host.

It’s in this regard that I turn to the folly of some people within the gay right’s movement and their ill-fated propaganda approach. Specifically, the emotional outpouring over the positions of Chick-Fil-A, an American fast-food restaurant.

As most reading this will know, the founder of Chick-Fil-A has cooked up a bit of controversy with his religious-based stance on what the legal definition of marriage should be. The reactions from both sides of the issue have been swift and dramatic, with the Mike Huckabee-inspired “munch in” bringing Chick-Fil-A its single most profitable day in its history.

But this article is not an admonition of a position for or against same-sex marriage. Let’s put that aside for one moment. Instead, let’s talk about strategy.

When ideas are embedded into someone’s very being, they become a part of who they are. To attack someone’s beliefs is to attack them physically. And it’s very easy to spot an attack. They are loud, aggressive, demeaning and threatening. They hit our ears like acid and our eyes like needles. And yet we somehow hold out the notion that these attacks will soften the opposition to our causes.

Not only do acerbic attacks diminish the wielders of the messages, they diminish the chances that the opposition will consider the logic behind the attackers’ message. Which begs the question, do the hate-headliners place the value of outrage at a higher premium than the achievement of the movement?

Scientists have a name for this phenomenon. It’s called the boomerang effect. And it’s something that social scientists have known about for a very long time. (This study back in 1966 links how insulting people exacerbates the boomerang effect.)

If the large gay-rights organizations are serious about changing hearts and minds, they’re going to need to exercise some leadership. They’re going to have to persuade their own membership that violent, aggressive messaging may be cathartic, but completely disruptive to any progress they can make as an organization.

This is a tall order in today’s world of public discourse – a world reduced to sound bites and nasty wit. Yes, a great “burn” on your enemies helps you win a larger late-night TV audience or gets you to the front page of Reddit. But if science has already demonstrated the effect of such causes, what is the value of the approach?

Clearly, the opposition to same-sex marraige knows how to fight a propaganda battle. Instead of enlisting their employees to sing “Bringing in the Sheaves” to celebrate the support is has received, the employees have remained humble and downright…nice. The motivation behind these nice deeds is not relevant to the advocates of same-sex marriage. It doesn’t matter why Chick-Fil-A managers bring cold lemonade out to the protesters. It only matters that the rest of the world sees it and says, “Wow. That’s sweet.”

It’s doubtful that the younger supporters of same-sex marriage rights will understand the value of suppressing their short-term desire to express outrage for their long-term desire of replacing an old idea with a new one. But until someone in the gay-rights movement shows some leadership, their army might just lose the war for them.