the state of nature

I'm nasty, brutish, and short.

[heerzaneyedea-blog]

The Torture Blame Game

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s so-called torture report was a failure. By dodging fundamental questions about the proper balance between values and security, its authors wasted a rare opportunity to fill the vacuum that allowed torture to occur in the first place.

“...preventing torture from happening again would require a much less blinkered examination of the facts, a far deeper national consensus about the possible tradeoffs between rights and security, and a clearer understanding of what U.S. and international law permits and forbids. Does the United States need new laws, an executive branch that interprets them differently, or stronger punishments for offenders? The majority report doesn’t just fail to offer clear answers; it doesn’t even help Americans think more deeply about the questions themselves.”

[obamawhitehouse]

“If our society really wanted to solve the problem, we could; it’s just that it would require everybody saying, ‘this is important; this is significant.’ And, that we don’t just pay attention to these communities when a CVS burns, and we don’t just pay attention when a young man gets shot or has his spine snapped, but we’re paying attention all the time because we consider those kids our kids.” —President Obama on the situation in Baltimore

[heerzaneyedea-blog]

...none of this can mean that rioting or violence is "correct" or "wise," any more than a forest fire can be "correct" or "wise." Wisdom isn't the point tonight. Disrespect is. In this case, disrespect for the hollow law and failed order that so regularly disrespects the community.

TA-NEHISI COATES

[heerzaneyedea-blog]

Great Moments in Peaceful Protest History

The revolution WILL be given permission

[usatoday]

Proof that Stephen Hawking is the coolest. Ever.

http://usat.ly/1Owd0Jj

[heerzaneyedea-blog]

After 9/11, many within the U.S. national security establishment worried that, following decades of preparation for confronting conventional enemies, Washington was unready for the challenge posed by an unconventional adversary such as al Qaeda.

[heerzaneyedea-blog]

Last summer, the killings of two unarmed African American men—Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York, and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri—by white police officers reignited the national conversation about racial inequality in the United States. In both cases, grand juries declined to indict the officers involved.

[heerzaneyedea-blog]

Hillary Clinton’s nomination would end long Cabinet drought

If she wins the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, she will be the first current or former Cabinet secretary nominated by a major party since 1928.

[heerzaneyedea-blog]

Abortion

Throughout the first half of nineteenth century, American states deferred to English precedent regarding legal questions about abortion. English common law held that abortion was permissible so long as it occurred before the "quickening" or the first 13-16 weeks from the start of the woman's last period. Whether a woman was pre- or post- quickening was at this time determined by a physician and because no precise way of marking its beginning existed in the nineteenth century, abortion might be considered to have been simply legal in a de facto way. 

In the wake of sexual radicalism which took the form of free love communes, zany developments in contraception, and abortion by “poisoning” or “abortifacients” ("that which will cause a miscarriage" from Latin abortus "miscarriage" and faciens "making"), interest groups like the American Medical Association (AMA) jockeyed to have abortion criminalized except in cases where the pregnancy threatened the life of the mother. Abortion, claimed the AMA in the late 1850s, was "far more dangerous to life than natural labor at the full period of gestation" because of issues like infection that would not be avoidable until physicians adopted the regular use of antiseptic in the late nineteenth century. 

Licensing was also on the rise in the mid- to late-nineteenth century, gaining greater momentum after the many botched surgeries of the Civil War revealed the danger posed by unskilled (and unsatisfactorily accredited) country physicians. In a new environment of medical licensing, AMA pronounced on the issue of abortion and recommended that only properly licensed physicians should hold the duty of determining whether or not a pregnancy posed a danger to a mother's health. This didn't wholly criminalize abortion as much as it granted a monopoly to a new tide of licensed, late-nineteenth century doctors who became the sole authority on who did and did not require the procedure. Inspired by this line of thinking and fired by anti-obscenity zeal, many states followed the urging of groups like the AMA  and criminalized abortion. 

Despite advances in medicine that might have undermined the AMA’s reasoning, abortion remained criminalized until 1973 when Justice Blackmun argued in Roe v. Wade that the (implicitly) constitutionally-granted right of privacy was "broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy."

Bottom line: the rationale on which much early, American discussion about abortion sat concerned the state’s responsibility to protect citizens/mothers from the danger posed by risky but avoidable medical procedures. The constraint imposed by the state was a necessary intrusion, which took its justification from the need to protect citizens. Though it might have been secular in law but moral in fact, it was possible to justify the criminalization of abortion in a way at least ostensibly consistent with the principles of American government. Is that still possible?

Questions:

->Individual freedom v. state power: Would requiring a woman to bear a child now represent an over-extension of state control or a necessary protection for its citizens (both mother and child)?

->Individual freedom v. political representation: Should federal funds be used to support abortion clinics though many taxpayers (Gallup 2010: 47% Pro-Choice, 46% Pro-Life) morally oppose its practice?

->Positive law v. Personal will: Would criminalization increase the likelihood of women seeking unqualified medical assistance or practicing abortion on themselves despite prohibitions? Would criminalization actually stop abortions or would it simply create a black market?

Candidate Positions

Democratic Candidates

Vice President Joe Biden (DE) Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (NY) Governor Andrew Cuomo (NY) Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (IL) Governor Martin O`Malley (MD) Governor Deval Patrick (MA) Senator Elizabeth Warren (MA)

Republican Candidates

Former Ambassador John Bolton (MD) Former Governor Jeb Bush (FL) Dr. Ben Carson (MD) Governor Chris Cristie (NJ) Senator Ted Cruz (TX) Former Governor Bob Ehrlich (MD) CEO Carly Fiorina (CA) Sen. Lindsey Graham (SC) Former Governor Jim Gilmore (VA) Governor Nikki Haley (SC) Former Governor Mike Huckabee (AR) Former Governor Jon Huntsman (UT) Governor Bobby Jindal (LA) Former Governor John Kasich (OH) Rep. Peter King (NY) Former Governor Sarah Palin(AK) Senator Rand Paul (KY) Governor Rick Perry (TX) Senator Rob Portman (OH) Former Secretary of State Condi Rice Governor Mitt Romney (MA) Senator Marco Rubio (FL) Representative Paul Ryan (WI) Senator Rick Santorum (PA) Donald Trump (NY) Scott Walker (WI)

Third Party Candidates

Former Governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson (L,NM) NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg (I,NY) Green Party nominee Jill Stein (G,MA) Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura (I,MN)

[heerzaneyedea-blog]

The world’s poor, whether they live in dangerous urban slums or in the remote countryside, are often in dire need of food, clean water, and basic medications. So it might appear misguided to argue that mental health should be a primary rather than secondary concern in developing countries.

[heerzaneyedea-blog]

On June 29, 2014, the Islamic State (also called ISIS) declared the “State of the Islamic Caliphate,” which adherents and supporters regard as nothing less than a restoration of the earliest model of the caliphate.

[heerzaneyedea-blog]

Megaupload Canada Servers Battle Reignites | TorrentFreak

When Megaupload was raided in 2012, more than 1,100 servers were seized in the United States. However, an additional 32 were also locked down in Canada, the contents of which still remain a mystery. More than three years on and the U.S. government is again trying to get its hands on this hardware.

[historyatstate]

April 1865 was an extraordinary month in the history of the Civil War. On the 9th, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the war. Just days later, the nation was rocked by the news that President...

[heerzaneyedea-blog]

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave - Alex Gendler

Twenty four hundred years ago, Plato, one of history’s most famous thinkers, said life is like being chained up in a cave forced to watch shadows flitting across a stone wall. Beyond sounding quite morbid, what exactly did he mean? Alex Gendler unravels Plato's Allegory of the Cave, found in Book VII of The Republic.

[heerzaneyedea-blog]

Unprecedented Music Piracy Collapse Fails to Boost Revenues | TorrentFreak

A survey carried out by music industry group IFPI has revealed that just 4% of Norwegians under 30 are now using illegal file-sharing platforms to obtain music, down from 70% in 2009. But while that achievement is unprecedented, overall music industry revenues have remained static.

[heerzaneyedea-blog]

Facebook exhibits many paradoxes. It isolates at the same time as it exposes: it liberates users from the constraints of distance, yet confines them to a screen. Facebook facilitates effortless instant communication across a vast number of locations, whilst sustaining the experience that we are localized. It offers a sense of increased control and oversight over social connections, while it simultaneously curtails privacy. It has the allure of being completely open, accessible and democratic – its mission statement being “Giving people the power to share and make the world more open and connected” – yet in effect it constitutes a gated community, with invisible moderators in possession of total control. That is to say, in order to prevent the sharing of ‘inappropriate’ content violating Facebook’s terms, all activity is monitored. One is essentially relieved of claims to Facebook property. These paradoxes are interesting since they may be why so many users (and non-users) feel so ambivalent about Facebook.

...I miss the things that are withering--perhaps the excess or remainder of performance...manners, courtesy, attention span, depth?

[usatoday]

Too real.