Election vs Appointment

During the most recent Canadian Federal election I was surprised that "reforming" the unelected Senate was controversial. But since none of the parties opposed to the notion were willing to articulate why, I assumed they just had a vested interest in protecting the status quo. (It turns out that the debaters at the all candidates meeting I attended were not entirely representative of their parties - the NDP for example is calling for the abolishment of the Senate, presumably because it would currently kill any revolutionary acts of parliament.)

However, I am coming to appreciate what an unelected Senate has to offer.

Normal politicians seem to be idiot savants - they are very capable at one very narrow task: getting elected. Unfortunately, they tend to be pretty lousy at pretty much everything else. I can only assume that most well rounded potential candidates are scared off by the meat grinder aspect of campaigning.

(Digression: In the US, some judges are elected. In Oregon at least, they seem to all run uncontested, suggesting that for positions that require significant technical knowledge the rules are somewhat different.)

So the main benefit of having appointed legislators is that it allows smart non-sociopaths to participate in the political process. You get to elect the most charismatic/coherent lunatic, and then they get to appoint their strongest backers to positions of even greater power.

There is something to be said however for changing the current structure of the Canadian Senate - extremely long appointments are pretty undemocratic, and lots of people are totally senile by the mandatory retirement age of 75. I like terms that are longer than that of the elected officials - 8 years ought to be enough to smooth out parliamentary mood swings. And then Senators can be reappointed if the current (or a future) power thinks they were doing a good job.

When Did Fairness Become Oppressive?

Steve Sailer makes an interesting point: Standardized tests were originally put in place to prevent racial discrimination, and yet now are being accused of holding back (non-Asian) minorities.

Affirmative action is a weird beast.

I wonder if Asians and whites who work jobs where their race is a disadvantage are more likely to try harder or just give up on being promoted based on merit?

The Fall of the Berlin Wall

Buckley's The Fall of the Berlin Wall is a short and powerful book.

Essentially an overview of the period between the end of WWII and when the Berlin wall came down, Buckley fills the pages with individual anecdotes that add color to the tale.

Most striking to me is how much less oppressive the world is now compared to, say, 1980. It's easy to get caught up in the Mid-East mess, but that region was probably just as bad off 30 years ago.

We're making positive progress!

Honduran Coup* Timeline

Based exclusively on the news citations provided in the comments of a previous post where I took a cheap shot at Obama, I now imagine the Honduran coup* taking place something like this:

President Zelaya: I really like being in charge. I think I'm going to stay in charge. Now what to do about that pesky constitutional presidential term limit? I know! Elections dudes - prepare a referendum to allow the people to express their overwhelming love for me!

Elections Dudes: Um, Supreme Court? This seems bad.

Supreme Court: Don't be a douche Mr. President. There will be no referendum.

President Zelaya: Screw you hippies. Army dudes - hold the referendum for me.

Chief Army Dude: No way you asshole.

President Zelaya: Fine - you're fired! I'll just have my buddy Hugo Chavez ship in some helpfully pre-completed ballots to get this show on the road.

Ex-Chief Army Dude: Wah! Wah! Supreme Court, the President fired me without just cause!

Supreme Court: As we've seen in the USA, there is no limit on court authority, so we hereby reinstate you and order you to arrest that asshole Zelaya for treason.

Chief Army Dude: "Arrest" my ass. Nobody gets a second chance to fire me. You're outta here President Lame-o. Wait, why did I bother going to the Supreme Court anyway? Doing things my way is a whole lot more efficient.

Congress: Wow, that saved us from a really tedious impeachment. Rather than worrying about the massive corruption in our political, military, and judicial systems, let's just rubber stamp the army's actions and just promote the next guy in line to President.

Obama: Somehow the thousands of morons employed by the State Department completely missed this. Um, hey you guys, take back your loser of a president. Or we'll kick you out of some union or another. Until you elect a new president at least, so really this threat is meaningless.

*May or may not be a coup, depending on your definition.

Anything But Wacko Jacko

I hope that Israel takes Biden's advice and bombs Iran today. Whatever it takes to stop me from being assaulted with minutia of that crazy pervert Jackson's funeral whenever I am within 30 feet of a TV.

Truly Permanent Legislation

While I don't understand why President Obama is so enamored with a would-be-dictator, the law that the ex-President of Honduras broke is pretty bizarre.

According to Half Sigma, the English translation is:

Article 239 — No citizen that has already served as head of the Executive Branch can be President or Vice-President.

Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform, as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years.

I have never heard of a law that makes itself immune to efforts to change it... hard, yes, but never impossible. Not exactly a sign of a healthy democracy.

Not Alone in My Outrage

The people who felt inspired to pen responses to the SkyTrain assault report were similarly offended.

One writer questioned whether the attack really happened, but it fits far too well into my stereotype of the SkyTrain for me to seriously doubt the first letter writer.

Also, a BC Transit rep confirms that no one even bothered to report the assault.

I thought it was interesting that the follow up writers tended to emphasize the racial aspect that, as far as I can tell, only existed in the mind of the person that witnessed the attack. Apparently if white guys are attacking a black guy it has to be racism? I wouldn't be surprised if that was the motive, but no evidence has been presented. One writer pointed that out as well.

A Sign of the Apocalypse

Michael Moore has said something that didn't make me role my eyes in disgust.



It's a miracle!

Generation Sheeple

This letter to the editor enrages me.

One of them stared at the young black man and in a threatening manner asked what he had said about him - even though the white male knew for a fact that the black male had said nothing and was just enjoying a conversation with his friend.

Then came the first punch - right at the black man's face.

Next, he was whisked up off of his seat. The look that the innocent victim had on his face, I will never forget - it was a mix of helplessness and despair.

More punches were thrown from the white male, hard enough that blood had spattered on the floor and around us, the bystanders who could do nothing. My grandma sitting next to me had a speck of blood on her face and on her suit. She was numb, not able to move.

I looked to my right and then to my left; the SkyTrain was filled with white, brown and yellow people, their eyes had a dazed look of bewilderment. Nobody could do anything -- it was obvious that most of the people wanted to save this poor victim; however, every one of us was in a paralyzed shock.

The black man tried to defend himself but to no avail. The assault continued outside the SkyTrain. Then I heard the white male say, "I'm going to stab you."

With that, the black man fled as fast as he could down the stairs and out of the station.

He literally ran for his life, all of our heads just followed him until he was out of our sight.

Meanwhile, the four white males were laughing and had the phone that belonged to the innocent victim in their hands. All that was left for the rest of us to see was the hat, sunglasses, and blood on the floor at our feet.

This is the result of teaching children that violence never solves anything, and equally punishing all children involved in conflict: an entire train car full of people so docile that they can't bring themselves to take action when confronted by someone who is comfortable using violence. The only time these people could bring themselves to fight would be if they were personally being attacked, but they would be so lousy at it that it wouldn't matter anyway.

This sad state of affairs is very similar to how gun ownership is stigmatized to an extent that most of the people you might want to be armed won't be for fear of the disapproval of society.

Given the lack of media coverage on this assault I have to assume that no one (including the victim?) could even bring themselves to press the panic strip in the SkyTrain, or make a police report. At least the author of the letter felt moved enough to try to raise some awareness, but that was in response to her own daughter being traumatized by seeing how little help you will receive if singled out for attack.

The level of reported violence on Vancouver's public transit significantly understates the problem. There are terrible things going on all the time on transit that don't result in violence only because the "good" people are willing to take almost any amount of abuse. Heaven help you if you are so bold as to ask someone to turn down their loud music or request one of the five seats some gang banger is slouched across.

I feel like I have seen an extraordinarily large number of bad things given how little I take transit:

• A guy pushing a stroller blocking the SkyTrain door try to pick fights with people for perceived slights against him.
• A guy who turned his gangsta rap up to 11 threaten someone who looked at him in response.
• A group of thugs miming pushing a particularly spaced out woman onto the Skytrain tracks. That one was really stressful for me - do I intervene before anything happens and almost certainly end up facing down 3 guys in a mostly deserted station or wait till they actually push her and then go charging in? (I chose to bide my time, and luckily all ended well.)
  
• A bunch of wannabe gangsters generally menacing everyone on the train, smoking, and prying open the doors to throw stuff out of the train.
• etc, etc.
  

In fact, it is probably my small number of SkyTrain trips that really reminded my how fragile society is, and got me working out to ensure I have more options when dealing with situations like those above.