Whiskey Fire on the Connection Between Troops and Liberty

Hint: There is none, crazed howls from my gun-toting extended cousins notwithstanding.

Nothing the American military is currently doing abroad has any bearing whatsoever upon the degree of liberty enjoyed by any American citizen. To suggest otherwise is absurd. Had we not invaded Iraq, would any American be any less "free," any less capable of dissent, free expression, the vote, fucking around on YouTube, whatever?

No.

And it is no insult to the troops to suggest this. American liberty does not, practically, theoretically, or philosophically, depend upon American armed force. There are no foreign powers capable of threatening essential American liberties -- yes, there are assorted maniacs and thugs, but, well, we are under no threat of invasion.

To be blunt. I owe to no member of the American armed forces any gratitude for the exercise of my liberties as an American citizen. I respect their service but I am not in their debt in any regard. In particular, this exercise of American armed intervention in Iraq is in fact anti-democratic and injurious to American liberty, and for that reason should never have been undertaken, and needs to end.

Mmm.... the sweet smell of angry blogger in the morning. It's one I am quite familiar with.

Oh, Hasso. Even When You're Right You Manage to be Wrong.

Hering editorializes on President candidate Mitt Romney's recent speech on religion:

Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor seeking the Republican presidential nomination, restated an important American principle Thursday.

The principle is that public affairs be governed by notions of the public interest, not by the tenets of any particular religion.

Yay! (Yay?) Romney apparently believes in the separation of church and state. Who would have... wait a minute. Can we get an excerpt of what Romney actually said?

“Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.

Oh.

That's a bit different.

In fact, that is, as Pam at Pandagon pointed out, "pious bullsh*t."

I agree with Pam. The implication of Romney's statement - that "freedom requires religion" - seems clear: The only source of morality, or ethics, in the world is religion.. and take in the context of a Republican primary, that's code for Christianity. Sorry, Eastern Hemisphere - you're all immoral.

As someone who a) is not religious and b) has a BA in Philosophy (which includes multiple classes on ethics), I am more than a little annoyed. The statement is simply historically and factually inaccurate, as well as insulting to anyone whose sense of right and wrong comes from anything other than religion. Like me.

How Hering got it wrong - that Romney supposedly believes in the separation of church and state in any meaningful way - is beyond me. (Well, that's not true: He misrepresents the truth all time.) Given Romney's well discussed and maligned statement, I don't see how one can conclude that Romney believes the State has a basis in anything other than religion. After all, what is the state if not the arbiter of official morality?

Robots Are Taking Over The Web

Not the best-made video I've ever seen, but I think it gets the point across quite well.

More Bruce Schneier

I like this paragraph, I think, even if I end up disagreeing with it. At the least, it's a useful way to think about the issue:

Too many wrongly characterize the debate as "security versus privacy." The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide.