loudmouth on a roll

Some Facebook Posts, for the non-Facebooked:

2010-03-23T18:42:00.002-04:00

This is for those of you who don't follow my short rants on Facebook.

1. On Entitlement Spending: "In 1960, 3/5ths of the entire US government's spending was dedicated to Defense, a fifth to entitlement/welfare spending (mostly Social Security, as Medicare/Medicaid didn't exist then), and a fifth to everything else (including infrastructure). Today, its 3/5ths entitlement spending (and rising!), about a quarter to Defense, and the rest to everything else. Does anyone else find this ridiculous?" What this means is that the government cannot maintain infrastructure, defense, and the current bloated entitlement spending simultaneously without cripplingly high taxes (supposedly Social Security and Medicare have separate sources of income, but there surpluses have been raided for general revenue for decades).

2, On Entitlement in General: " It seems to me that nearly everyone - or so politicians believe - expects "all the freedom and none of the responsibility for me, none of the freedom and all the responsibility for you". How else does one explain many of Obama's (and Bush's, and Congressional leaders from both parties') policies?

Entitlement spending is ballooning, bailouts and corporate welfare are in vogue. Tax cuts are popular, as are tax increases on "the other guy". Its nearly impossible to implement drastic cuts in spending or major tax reforms, but the tax code contains ever more loopholes. There's going to be a nearly $2 trillion deficit this year - and while a surplus wouldn't be a good idea in a recession, that's an enormous burden on top of a national debt of $10 trillion." I wonder if this is a wider symptom of the American people as a whole or merely the rotting of the political class. I suspect it is a little of both.

3. In response to Google dropping its Google.cn site and the end of self-censorship in the PRC: "For the record, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Plurk, Picasa, Tumblr, Blogspot/Blogger, Technorati, and the Chinese-language version of Wikipedia are among the sites blocked by the "People's" "Republic" of China. (Not to mention sites like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Reporters without Borders, and WikiLeaks). Google may join them in the future."

For the record, YouTube and Picasa are owned by Google; English-language Wikipedia is usually accessible in China but individual pages relating to topics like Tienanmen Square, Tibet, Taiwan, or the Falun Gong are blocked; Blogspot/Blogger (this very site!) and Technorati are blog hosts which often include political blogs; Twitter and Plurk are "microblogs" which have proven subversive to dictatorial regimes (notably Twitter's #iranelection channel, which was used by students protesting the Iranian government's sham "elections" and subsequent crackdown on dissent).

The Civil War

2010-03-11T19:20:00.002-05:00

Yeah yeah, I can count the number of people who read this with the fingers of one hand, no thumb, including me. And I haven't posted in weeks. And I already posted this on Facebook - I'm putting it here because I know at least one person who isn't on Facebook (and you know who you are, probably). So here goes:

The whole "States Rights" argument for the Civil War is balderdash, it was almost entirely about slavery, as pretty much stated by Confederate leaders themselves.

An example, possibly the most egregious:

“(Jefferson's) ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error.... Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery... See More– subordination to the superior race– is his natural and normal condition.” - Alexander Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy, spoken in Savannah, GA, CSA on March 21, 1861. (And Stephens was considered one of the more moderate members of the Confederate government!!!).

And for more evidence, look right at the Confederate Constitution, which otherwise looks like a near-duplicate to the US Constitution:

"No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed." - Confederate Constitution, Article I, Section 9, Clause 4.

"....In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States." - Confederate Constitution, part of Article IV, Section 3, Clause 3. Basically, any newly formed state (from a territory) MUST be a slave state.

"The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired." - Confederate Constitution, Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1. Basically, even a hypothetical free Confederate state could not stop a slaveowner from another state moving in with his slaves and keeping them.

The Confederate Constitution did not actually forbid free states, on the theory that one or more free US states might join in, but it effectively meant that they would not stay free states for very long, nor that new states formed from territories (the Confederates at one point held parts of Indian Territory - now Oklahoma, and New Mexico Territory - now Arizona/New Mexico, and may have considered annexing Cuba or parts of Central America) could be free.

All-in-all, that pretty much shoots the whole "states-rights" argument right out of the water. The Civil War was primarily, if not solely, about slavery and racism. Not only that, but I think these comments show how little the Confederate leaders really believed in what might be called fundamental American values. Think about it: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." (Declaration of Independence) is rejected by Stephens. And the Confederate Constitution pretty much enshrines slavery.

Need I add that I hold the Confederacy in utter contempt, despite the failings of many Union leaders?

Oh, and as bonus material I'll throw in one more quote, this time from pro-Confederate "social theorist" George Fitzhugh:

"Liberty, infidelity, and abolition, are three words conveying but one idea. Infidels who dispute the authority of God will not respect or obey the government of man. Abolitionists, who make war upon slavery, instituted by God and approved by Holy Writ, are in a fair way to denounce the Bible that stands in the way of the attainment of their purpose." - Fitzhugh, "Sociology For The South Or The Failure of Free Society" (1854), p.205.

In his works, he basically argued in favor of enslaving white northern workers, as a "humane" alternative to the conditions of 19th-century sweatshops! He emphatically rejected Classical Liberalism and and even considered slavery to be a form of socialism (hoo boy, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck will want to take that as fact!), in addition to arguing its biblical justification and claiming the immorality of northern abolitionists (I might add that many northern abolitionists were ministers or priests themselves, and Fitzhugh was not). Fitzhugh wasn't all bad, he wanted to give women the vote for one thing, but generally his philosophy was contrary to the values of what I consider a just society... and he was quite popular in the 1850s South.

I'm tempted to write a research paper, if I ever get the energy/time, on the fundamental values of the Enlightenment (which are essentially and how the Confederacy contradicts them.

Frustration and the National Debt

2010-02-17T21:58:00.000-05:00

One of the biggest issues facing the United States - and indeed, most Western and even some non-Western nations - today is debt. Everyone has a big load (I am no exception, being fresh from college), but the biggest single debtor in the world is the US Government, with the current national debt at $10 trillion and growing. To put that into perspective, the entire GDP is only about $14 trillion and Obama's proposed federal government budget for this year is $3.8 trillion. In 2009, the Deficit was $1.6 trillion, caused by a combination of a slow economy and high spending. While running a deficit during a recession isn't necessarily a bad thing (properly applied government spending does generate a stimulus, and under normal circumstances its a bad time to cut), we have not had a surplus in over a decade, and even the brief 1999-era surplus was fleeting and possibly a result of accounting trickery. Aside from that brief period, the US has been in the red since our current President was in grade school, through both good years and bad. And things will get worse as Baby Boomers reach retirement age, stop paying income tax and start drawing from Social Security and Medicare.

This is worrying because debt breeds debt - interest payments take up an increasing part of the budget, making it more difficult to get a surplus in future years. High debt means a lower bond rating, therefore new loans have higher interest rates and thus, more debt. At some point, the only way to pay past debts is to inflate the currency - at which point, nobody will want to loan more money to you (and get back paper), and imported goods will become more expensive. There are many more negative effects that I, not being an economist, don't even know about.

It doesn't help matters that one of the largest foreign holders of government debt is the People's Republic of China - to a tune of $800 billion and rising. Do we really want to owe the world's largest and most powerful dictatorship that much money, giving them leverage over the US economy even beyond that of the trade deficit?

The problem is very simple: taxes aren't bringing in enough to cover spending. Either tax revenue must be increased, spending must be cut, or both. There's a big problem: the government is currently spending far, FAR more than it brings in. Note that the 2009 Deficit I mentioned above is $1.6 trillion. ALL US Military appropriations, including supplemental funds for Iraq/Afghanistan, Veteran's Affairs, etc. total a bit over $1 trillion, and cutting all of it would be impossible (we need at least a minimal armed force for defense). Of the rest of the budget, more than 60% is taken up by entitlement programs - Medicare and Social Security, mostly. They have their own taxes associated with them and sometimes make money, but this is fleeting as the government has been "borrowing" from them for years to pay other expenses. Less than a fifth of the budget is non-defense discretionary spending - and though that includes hundreds of billions of dollars each year of pure pork, there's also essential infrastructure and governance spending as well.

Politicians also refuse to see changes: Democrats won't consider large cuts to social programs, Republicans would not accept raising taxes to any significant degree, and neither would even consider refusing to cater to their preferred special interests (big corporations, big unions, etc). A lot of this is because politicians are, by and large, evil bastards, but there's another part to it: Bread and Circuses. Nobody wants to pay taxes and everyone wants the government services they think benefit them. We elect politicians who promise to keep our taxes low and spending on our plot high... and any recognition of the need for fiscal responsibility is justified with a simple "raise the other guy's taxes and cut the other guy's spending". The problem: out of 535 members of Congress, the vast majority view this for their constituents. In order to get things passed, they roll every spending package and tax credit together and pass budgets that are way out of line with revenues. A high-tax/low-spend candidate would never get elected - most are either low-tax/high-spend (generally Republican), or high-tax-on-other-guy/even-higher-spend (generally Democrat).

The only way we'll get a balanced budget is through hard cuts in services. Raise the Social Security and Medicare retirement ages and cut Medicare benefits while raising the payment caps, maybe partial privatization as well. Get a real hold on pork spending. No more $800 billion stimulus monkeys for big corporations that made bad decisions. Reform Defense appropriations and get rid of inefficiencies (actually, do that in all departments). Don't pass a Health-care bill unless it has clear funding and long-term cost savings. And a dozen other things. Consider carefully planning remaining spending in areas that will improve the economy, either short-term (much smaller and more targeted stimulus packages) or longer-term (such as removing dependency on foreign oil). Definitely get rid of spending that actually does the nation harm (corn subsidies. Oh god, corn subsidies).

And after you cut spending greatly, its time to consider getting those revenues UP. I'd prefer a much simpler tax system (I used to support a flat income tax; now I support a sort-of progressive national sales tax, which I might detail in another rant), and one of the first things is to get rid of most of the thousands of exemptions. However, taxes on many if not most people will need to go up (and I include both the middle class and the wealthy here), regardless of what type of tax system we have, progressive or flat income tax, sales tax, VAT, or all tariffs/user fees.

Guess what? I doubt it will happen. Politicians would never try such a thing and any who would dare would get voted out of office in a second, with most of the establishment against them. The political establishment is basically ossified.

Half-Serious Political Platform

2010-02-07T18:53:00.002-05:00

I'm not up to making a full length essay rant, so I'll just dredge up something I did about two years ago; a platform for a joke political party on an online roll-playing election game. Its intended to be humorous and tongue-in-cheek (and a vast oversimplification, and missing a few things like a balanced budget that don't make nice pithy p, but still sums up quite a bit of my political beliefs. Some positions now have notes to indicate any changes in my opinion over the last few years, or general comments on them:

The platform of the Party Like A Politician! (PLAP!) party:
- The right to bear arms (and arm bears - our army needs more bears!)
- The right to smoke pot, as little or as much as you please
- Foreign Policy: Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb bomb, and bomb 'em some more. (Note: riding the bomb like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove is optional, but encouraged)
- Cut sugar tariffs, to do otherwise would be corny (Note: serious issue. Sugar tariffs and corn subsidies together are the main reason most products in the US are sweetened with corn syrup, not sugar)
- Tax cuts for everyone! (Note: now, I'd say: "Tax Simplification for Everyone" more than tax cuts per se, especially as the budget is becoming more and more unbalanced)
- Brains are good, but not to eat - no zombies, please (Note: on the Internet, your position on the zombie issue is important! ;-) )
- Edumacation is important
- Nuclear power is good.... we need more mutants with superpowers!
- Don't buy oil from sheiks, terrorists, or strongmen (Note: come to think of it, don't buy it from commissars, either. Actually, its probably for the best if you bought electricity produced from nuclear, natural gas, or renewable power instead of oil, if possible).
- Pay for your own damn healthcare (Note: not my belief exactly, but I dislike mandatory-insurance schemes and hate single-payer)
- Let gays get married, they shouldn't have to live in sin (Note: they should also be allowed the opportunity to shoot straight)
- No abortions, give the mothers little American flags instead
- More space exploration!
- Hang corrupt politicians (Note: this seems even more relevant now than it did a couple years ago!!!)
- Young ladies are wonderful and to be encouraged (Note: by far the most important part of my platform. :-) )

Of course, this platform misses several important points, like the importance of avoiding doing business with governments run by James Bond villains or lunatic madmen (or both! See North Korea or Libya), or the importance of balancing the damn budget, or at least keeping it from going completely out of control like it is now (the government's deficit in 2009 was $1.8 trillion. For comparison, every single Defense-related dollar in the budget, including supplemental war appropriations and Veteran's Affairs, totals $1 trillion. The entire government budget was a bit over $4 trillion). But you get the idea...

Gays in the Military

2010-02-02T21:11:00.002-05:00

Just today, Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced that he personally supported the removal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and allowing gays, lesbians, and presumably bisexuals to serve in the military, at the same time Rep. Patrick Murphy is sponsoring a bill to accomplish the same, while encouraged by President Obama.

It's about time. Sen. Barry Goldwater, one of the early leaders of the modern conservative movement, and (in my humble opinion) a far better man than most of his successors, once said "You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight." Of course, being in the military requires more than that - love of country (to the point of being willing to fight, kill, and die for it), hard discipline built by hellish training, decent or better physical health, the ability to make think quickly and make snap decisions, etc. What your sexual preference is has nothing to do with it. Gays and lesbians openly serve in the armies of many of our allies - Britain, Canada, Australia among them. If I'm not mistaken, the same is true of Israel: a religious state! And of course, thousands of them already serve in the military, they just keep quiet about their lifestyle and hope no third party reveals it (so worrying about the issue is pointless - "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was really a rather ridiculous compromise to begin with).

And yet, looking around, there's a ton of vitriol. Quite a few see this as the big sign that the socialists taking over America (no, the biggest sign is the fact that both parties seem to have budgetary incontinence), or as a betrayal of core values, etc. I have no love lost for Obama or the Democrats in Congress, but on this issue its the GOP contingent that's acting like the jackasses.

A note

2010-01-31T20:00:00.002-05:00

Since I haven't said so earlier: I welcome comments, including critical ones. Think I'm wrong? The worst I can do is call you stupid, unless you violate Blogger's policies. Of course, I prefer constructive criticism, indicating any flaws in my rants, so future rants can be better rants.

Internet Freedom

2010-01-31T18:42:00.002-05:00

As a first posting, I'm going to rant about Internet Freedom and Censorship. In short, I'm for the former and, in nearly all circumstances, hate the latter. I can't cover the whole thing in one post, so I'm mostly restricting this rant to the idea of mandatory filtering, though I'll meander a bit into other areas.

The primary context most people will think of under these circumstances would be related to the recent issues regarding Chinese censorship of portal sites, including Google.cn as well as native search engines like Baidu and AliBaba. Its been in the news lately, as Google doesn't want to adhere to the Chinese government's official censorship policies. I'm not going to discuss the other issues around that now (such as whether or not Google's stance is altruistic or not), I am just going to focus on the general issue.

To me, just about any kind of censorship, particularly that of political speech, by governments is disgusting. The Chinese government, who filter out content regarding almost any political view they deem "dangerous" (which principally means anything about Tibet, Taiwan, or Tiananmien Square), and arrests those in-country who post potentially seditious material, is committing a monstrous crime against humanity (though they have done, and are doing, far worse things to their own people - why do the free(r) nations even have diplomatic relations with them, let alone have a massive trade dependency?). But they are far from the only ones, though they are among the worst - even some "western" countries have censorship, which I'll detail here:
- France, Germany, and Israel all censor neo-Nazi material, which is illegal under their laws. Given their history with Nazism, this is perhaps understandable, but bears the potential for abuse.
- Australia is in the process of implementing a mandatory net filter, ostensibly to block child pornography. This is an utter nonsense, in my opinion; I've even heard that the filter blocks some sites which criticize the censorship regime. Which makes me wonder if Australia is a free country at all...
- in the US, there isn't much censorship, although "obscene" pornography (as opposed to merely "indecent" pornography, which is constitutionally protected), methods to get around the Digital Millenium Copyright Act-approved DRM, and some material related to ongoing criminal trials are all illegal and could be subject to censorship (although not via filtering, I don't think the US Government can do anything about sites located in nations without extradition treaties - don't take that as fact, mind you). However, Internet Service Providers may filter (they're private companies).

Why is there net filtering, or any kind of censorship for that matter? Simple: politicians like controlling people, and many people want to protect themselves and/or their children from damaging (or supposedly damaging) influences (which feeds into politicians, as the ones in democratic and semi-democratic states use this sentiment to help themselves get elected). The former is, well, typical (Its a good idea, on general principles, to think the worst of politicians). The latter is more understandable, the Internet is full of things which disturb me, and other things which I wouldn't want my (as yet hypothetical) children to see. There are several problems with this, however:
- Where do you draw the line? What limits do you want to put on the internet to protect children and others?
- What use is the filtering, anyway? Much material, once outed online, is already compromised and will never be the same again. Anything which relies on secrecy - be it a method to overcome DRM, or classified material - would be useless to censor, as by the time someone notices the cat is already out of the bag.
- Isn't free speech important, too? This is especially true for anything political (like this very blog!). Yes, some sites are hate sites, including neo-Nazis, Islamic nutjobs, Christian fundies, Communist whackoes, shills for authoritarian governments or immoral corporations, what-have-you. But shouldn't people have a right to have an opinion? And shouldn't people have the option of exposing themselves to other opinions, even hateful ones? Now, the Chinese government is not going to concern itself with free speech (they never have), but other governments do so as well.
- Don't people have different views about what they want to expose their children to? And doesn't the job of keeping them safe from predators, or from viewing nasty things, ultimately fall to their parents or guardians? You should keep tabs on your kids' online activities and there is publicly available net-filtering software like DansGuardian which you can install on your own machine.
- Don't keyword-based filters have lots of false positives? They often block unrelated sites like Mars Explorer, Any site which uses the quote "The pen is mightier than the sword", or anything to do with the town of Scunthorpe. You can imagine the problems with this approach.
- Couldn't governments just monitor public sites with some types of material, and shut the site down and/or arrest those involved if its truly illegal? They can. Most of the Internet, except for darknets, is public. If you can get to it without bending over in contortions, so can the FBI. They don't need to filter at all. Of course, when should they do this? I think its only justifiable when there's something like a terrorist plot or something truly abusive like a video of a child being molested (not the same as "child pornography", a term which sometimes includes material that is obscene but not abusive, such as animation. It only counts if an actual child is being hurt. I have no sympathy for child molesters, they can get the death penalty and burn in Hell, but there's a difference between a depiction of an act and the act itself).
- Are filters ultimately any good? Not so much. It will just drive individuals to use encryption, VPNs, onion routing and darknets, or other methods to get around it. Indeed, both the privacy-consious and criminals are using such methods right now. At best, they block the average person from viewing things. In some cases, I suspect that is the point; politicians either don't want the average person to know about things, or feel that their election depends on the average person feeling "protected", regardless if this is actually the case.
- Isn't much of the uniqueness of the internet related to its openness? Yes and yes. Its a place for polite discourse and for angry rants. Its a place for both thoughtful media and for the most depraved, simplistic crap. Its a place for material that's G-rated or X-rated. You can be a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green, Independent, Socialist, Fascist, Communist, Anarchist, Populist, or all of the above. You can be a religious fundamentalist or a dogmatic atheist. Every other kind of media - newspapers, television, books, radio, magazines, comics - has their equivalent on the web, plus unique combinations and even new types of expression are available. Its not a completely corporate, academic, or government experience, but has elements of all three. The very essence of the internet is its openness.
- Which nations have the most extensive filtering setups, established them first, and what are their characteristics? China, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc. All are authoritarian nations, and are either dictatorships or de facto dictatorships. They see net filtering as just another tool in the box to suppress free speech, including arresting and abusing dissidents, shutting down opposition newspapers, restricting or outlawing foreign media, and any other method of restricting their citizen's ability to obtain information from independent sources.

In sum? Net filtering is wrong, and isn't even always effective. Its at best a tool used in a misguided attempt at preventing abuse of individuals, and at worst used by oppressive regimes to attempt to control their citizens.

First Post

2010-01-31T18:14:00.003-05:00

Hello,
I'm Daniel B., just another loudmouth on a roll. This blog is dedicated to my rants.

First off, who am I? I'm a 23 year old single straight male, living in the DC area. I have a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, I'm a card carrying nerd, and I work for Uncle Sam. I spend most of my free time either online or reading sci-fi/fantasy books, I don't have a TV, I dislike Microsoft as a rule, and my politics can be roughly summed up as "hates nearly everyone", though I have a vague libertarian lean.

Next, a disclaimer: As noted above, I am an employee of the US Government. None of my rants, political or otherwise, are in any way sponsored or endorsed by the US Government as a whole or any individual employee therein, be they my supervisor or the President. Nor is my opinion on any issue necessarily the same as that of the US Government; in fact at times I may indicate that I think they're doing something very wrong. I do not intend to discuss my work except perhaps in the vaguest generalities (i.e. "we use Windows" or "the offices are in Northern Virginia"), and even in the incredibly unlikely event I would consider revealing anything sensitive (i.e. an abusive situation where official channels have been exhausted) this blog isn't the place for it. In fact I don't want to talk about my job at all here, except perhaps in very vague terms related to the topic I'm ranting about (let's say I want to rant about Microsoft: I might say "we use Windows at work, and I'm not happy", but that's about it).

In sum, even if I say something like "the sun rises in the East", that's only my opinion. Don't assume that its the opinion of anyone else, especially that of the Government. My next post may indicate why, as I plan on doing a rant on internet freedom.