Uncommon Priors

So, apparently, the Honduran military has shipped its president off to exile in Costa Rica. But this isn’t a normal military coup, for early reports indicate that the president was in the course of a bunch of illegality. He was limited to one term, but he was trying to institute an illegal referendum for a second, against the wishes of the legislature (which made the referendum illegal) and over the objections of the supreme court. He sacked the head of the military for refusing to help with the illegal referendum, and aforesaid head voluntarily stepped down … I understand that the military intervention only happened after the supreme court ordered either the reinstatement of the military head or the president’s actual removal.

On those facts (which are doubtless disputed, but let’s assume they’re true), is the global condemnation of the military’s action too hasty? (Let’s also assume here that the military hands over power to some civilian appointed by the legislature.) It seems to me that there’s a point at which it’s reasonable for the military of a country to intervene when the executive is acting completely illegally and when the other (equally democratically legitimate) branches of government have told him so.

Taking things into the U.S. context for a bit: suppose that Congress had impeached and convicted Nixon after Watergate, and he refused to step down — suppose further that he ran into court, and the Supreme Court told him to obey Congress. But he still refused to step down. How would he actually be removed? Would people just stop obeying him? Or would he actually be arrested? In the U.S. that might not be by the military, but it would be some wing of the executive branch (FBI? Secret Service?) — in countries with less of a strong posse comitatus tradition, it might well be the military.

There are interesting theoretical implications here for notions like constitutionalism and the rule of law. Is it about maintaining a certain kind of formal relationship between different parts of government, or about actually complying with the law? If the facts in Honduras are as they’ve been reported, the two need not go together, and rogue branches might have to be forcibly restrained sometimes.

(Also interesting: did the Costa Rican government — about the warmest and fuzziest government in the Americas — cooperate with this exile? If so, why? If not, how’d the Honduran military get him there? Did they violate Costa Rica’s sovereignty in the process? Cf. the previous post about Gitmo inmates.)

Obama is apparently kicking around the idea of reasserting executive power to indefinitely detain people on the grounds that it’s good for civil liberties groups if it comes from him rather than from Congress.

Despite the skepticism expressed at the link, I can come up with a conceivable legal/political justification for this move: if Obama actually thinks that Congress will pass a bill requiring people to be held indefinitely at Guantanamo unless he does it himself, then it makes sense for him to assert executive authority in order to hold open the possibility of changing the practice later when Congress is more complaisant. In political science terms, he doesn’t want legislation to shift the status quo (if I weren’t so lazy, this is where a bunch of spatial models explaining why would appear) in the wrong direction.

But that argument assumes that Congress would actually do so if Obama doesn’t act. And that has a bunch of really horrible implications: either Obama is a total coward who wouldn’t be willing to actually take this fight all the way with a fucking Democrat-controlled Congress — e.g. vetoing any such bill — or he’s so weak that he can’t even keep his own party’s Congress from overriding a veto on a bill that flies directly in the face of one of the major issues on which he was elected, and probably can’t even bring the public with him on pressuring Congress even with the aid of mass outrage over things like torture.

Here’s what I take to be the main argument of the pro-Gitmo camp, from the comments at the TPM:

I’m not happy about this either but what do you do with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? The guy should spend the rest of his life in the Colorado Supermax with his nephew, Ramzi Yousef. But how do put KSM on trial considering the fact that most of the info we got from him was obtained via torture. I mean, we waterboarded the guy 100 times. This is the legacy Bush handed down to Obama - but then the torture supporters don’t care if KSM rots in jail for life, uncharged and unconvicted. Frankly, I’d like him to rot in jail for the rest of his life, but you need to try him for what he did. Unfortunately, we can’t do that, thanks to Bush. That is, of course, absent new legislation that would come up with some sort of system to try folks like KSM.

I’ve heard this argument over and over and over. But I’m quite skeptical. First of all, KSM might well be convictable without evidence derived from torture, in a civilian court. This guy was about as big a player as they get, it ought to be possible to get all kinds of circumstantial evidence, testimony from non-tortured witnesses, etc. So don’t give me that “we’ll have to set Khalid Sheikh Mohammed loose on the world” bullshit.

Second, suppose that’s right — suppose for some bizarre reason they couldn’t convict Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. It would be great if he could be brought to justice, but, because of the torture, he can’t. So, why not release him? Because of the alleged threat?

But a handful of individuals are just not that threatening. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, qua individual, is not a serious threat to the U.S.. He’s one guy. His last name is neither Caesar nor Bonaparte. Al-Qaeda has a shitload of guys who are on the loose. Why should one more be some kind of massive national security problem? What is the marginal threat per terrorist? Does he have magic ninja terrorist powers? Will he singlehandedly knock down the Statue of Liberty? I dare say KSM is less of a threat than other Al Qaeda members, because we know who he is. We can watch him, we can keep him out of the U.S., we can shoot him on sight if he shows up with a gun anywhere near a U.S. Embassy or troop, etc.

He obviously shouldn’t be allowed onto U.S. soil. So don’t allow him on U.S. soul. Is it that difficult?

“But,” the pro-Gitmo crowd will interject, “no other country will take him.”

This is a worrying claim, but is it ultimately convincing? The off-the-cuff answer is “why should they be given any choice?” Particularly, why shouldn’t the countries of which these people are citizens be dealing with them? For those Gitmo inmates who are citizens of countries the U.S. is occupying, like Afghanistan and Iraq, it would require a pretty good argument to convince me that we ought not to just take them to those countries and open the handcuffs in the airport. And something similar might be done with other countries — what on earth are they going to do? File a diplomatic protest because we gave them their own damn citizens back? Seriously?

I’d really like to know more about the whole “they won’t take them” business, actually. Is there any precedent for this? Suppose an international criminal from, say, France shows up in the U.S., we catch him at the border and decide to deport him. What does the U.S. government do if France says “we don’t want him?” Would they just tell the French to go fuck off and bundle him back onto a plane?

Unilateralism has its uses…

I just discovered this old (1998-9) list of the 100 greatest novels of all time, also 100 greatest nonfiction books. Apparently some gang of literati made their own list, and then they opened up a version for the public.

The gang of literati list is fairly predictable, though disputable. But the public are evidently complete raving lunatics, as both lists are dominated by Ayn Rand and Scientology books in a dead heat, followed closely by libertarian and science fiction crap.

400,000 votes. There are 400,000 maniac objectivists and scientologists in the English-speaking world, and they vote. Run. Run fast.

here. Perhaps www.executedbyreligiouscourt.com?

We rang for the editor
but the switchboard clamped him off.
Get a lawyer, I said. These swine have gone
far enough.
But the lawyers were all in bed
Finally we found one, limp from an orgy and
too much sleep
Eating cheese blintzes with sour cream and gin
on a redwood balcony with a
fine exposure.
Get your ass up, I said. It’s Sunday and
the folks are in church. Now is the time to
lay a writ on them,
Cease and Desist
Specifically Luboff and the big mongers,
the slumfeeders, the perverts
and the pious.

The legal man agreed
We had a case and indeed a duty to
Right these Wrongs, as it were
The Price would be four thousand in front and
ten for the nut.
I wrote him a check on the Sawtooth
National Bank,
but he hooted at it
While rubbing a special oil on
his palms
To keep the chancres from itching
beyond endurance
On this Sabbath.
. . .

Excerpt from Hunter S. Thompson, Collect Telegram from a Mad Dog.

There have been several demonstrations around Palo Alto, and presumably elsewhere in the U.S., Europe, etc., in support of the Iranian demonstrators.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. On the plus side, anything that gets people thinking about politics and believing in a good cause and experiencing other people believing in a good cause and, you know, acting in concert with others is a good thing.

On the other hand, this shit is completely useless for the actual Iranians. In fact, it might even be counterproductive to the extent the government and the “death to America” crowd can use it as “look, this movement is really driven by foreigners” propaganda. It would be different if we were talking about sympathy protests in Muslim countries. But we’re not. We’re talking about a bunch of Americans (and some Persian emigrants) publicly declaring the shocking, shocking, position that they’re in favor of clean elections and against the rogue theocracy that runs the Iranian government.

And it also gives people the illusion of making a contribution to good in the world without, you know, actually having to make a contribution. If people have a limited budget for political activism, they ought not to be spending it on empty sympathy protests.

So I’m cautiously against, but willing to be convinced otherwise.

If you want to read what happens when an “evolutionary psychologist,” complete with the fullest measure of the bizarre misuses of evolutionary theory that that term entails, starts a blog, go here, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Worst post ever: “Men sexually harass women because they are not sexist,” which manages both to have a bad argument for the position it does defend (sexual harassment is just a mating strategy), but also no argument at all for the deliberately inflammatory position asserted in the title (sexual harassment is not only a mating strategy, but one that results from the absence of sexism).

Ok, on the advice of the Citizens of Athens,* I actually watched The Incredibles.

And what do I think? Well. I didn’t hate it. I also didn’t love it.

I can see why Steve’s Nietzsche-loving friend liked this movie. It does have a very Genealogy of Morals kinda feel to it. What’s-his-name. The stupid robot-making villain. His whole make-everyone-special-so-nobody-is-special-at-all-yadda-yadda-reverse-Harrison-Bergeron-yadda-yadda-blah thing is very much like what some Disney exec would make out of ressentiment. Or, at least, we can imagine someone suffering from ressentiment doing that instead of, say, inventing a religion. Although, Nietzsche doesn’t really capture it. More like a do-gooder kind of John Galt. (Who is Mr. Incredible?) Perhaps a reverse John Galt, since it’s other people who want him to go on strike. Oh god. Ok, enough with the comparisons, elsewise I’ll have to pull a SEK and compare it to Joyce. And then I’ll have to kill myself. Do you want Your Blogger to suicide? No. No you don’t. Oh where is the Spirit of Dorothy Parker to save me now? Huh. Perhaps I don’t want the Spirit of Dorothy Parker to guide my reviewing hand when it’s gone suicidal already. Perhaps the SoDP is already guiding quite enough.

Right! Enough of that. As I was saying.

I am very pleased at the absence of talking animals. I am not, however, amused by the ass-kicking children. That’s really a crime of the whole Disney-esque mode of thinking. Every. Fucking. Movie/Book/Videogame/Play/InterpretiveDance/Whatever has to have something that in real life is weak and cute but in the m/b/v/p/id/w is still cute but in addition has super-badass powers and is absolutely certain to reach a global maxima of cuteness when exercising those powers on the helpless corse of some hapless baddie. Like the fucking plutonium devil-baby at the end. Uh. Whev. (Incidentally, on that, can you say deus ex machina? I suppose that’s only to be expected in a movie about a family of superheroes, though. ‘Scuse me. “Supers.”) I dare not call up the SoDP to comment on the cutsey ass-kickers. No Vicious Circle seances here. If Dorothy’s shade finds out about this she’ll visit Walt’s floor of their shared residence (Hell, obviously) with a matchet.

Pleased at the forays into darkness, not pleased at the big eyes.

Which brings me to the cartoon format in general. Ok, that was done pretty well. I might willingly watch other animated movies. Still, I can’t help but think how much better it would have been if they had used real actors. For one thing, real actors would have been able to express more than one emotion at a time. I suspect it’s impossible to have truly multidimensional characters in the animated format, because a rich character is so much the actor.

Pleased that the plot was not too predictable. Displeased at the zany Disneyishness of the whole thing (the willy-nilly violations of plausible physics, the LOUD EMOTING, etc.).

Not sure whether to be pleased qua homage or displeased qua ripoff at the blatant homageoff of the ewok forest speeder chasey thing from Star Wars.

Stuart was right: the scene with Edna and the capes? Fabulous. In fact, Edna in general? Fabulous. Although a little stereotyping.

Speaking of which.

Highly, highly, highly displeased at the racial stereotype scene toward the end. You know, the bit where the ice guy is looking for his suit, and he asks his wife, and his wife gives him a scolding that could have been ripped straight from the screenwriters of Martin. Because, black characters have to be feisty at one another! That’s how you know they’re black!

So, well, there it is. I don’t feel like my two hours were wasted, but I’d have rather watched a Bond flick. Except the new one.

—
* I’ve been reading way too much Plato lately. Also Lysias, Xenophon, sundry other Greekish things. Hence, I name my collective body of comment-givers.

Has anyone used HSBC Direct’s savings accounts? They seem to have a way higher interest rate than I’m getting at my credit union (waaay higher)… any problems?

Also, Ing Direct? I might prefer them, notwithstanding the marginally lower interest rate, just because HSBC fucked me a little bit on a credit card a few years ago.

Original post/comment/utterance:

Reasonable thing. Reasonable thing. Reasonable thing. Reasonable thing. Reasonable thing. Slightly ill-advised and inaccurate statement. Reasonable thing. Reasonable thing. Reasonable thing. Reasonable thing. Reasonable thing. Reasonable conclusion.

Comments 1-900,000:

You idiot/asshole/liar! You said “slightly ill-advised and inaccurate statement.” That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life! I hope your puppy gets run over by a steamroller!