Big Think Interview With Noam Chomsky
It’s always a good time to watch an interview with Noam. Check out his surprisingly moving answer to the question “What Is Love?”
Christopher Dorner VS The USA
So it appears that ex-LAPD cop Christopher Dorner bought the farm yesterday, either burned alive or shot dead (either at his own hand or at the hands of the cops), according to most media sources. What has fascinated me about this story are the parallels between Dorner’s actions and those of the United States as a nation.
From what I can tell, Dorner was the embodiment of US foreign policy. He killed innocent people? The USA does that almost every single day. Dorner did it as part of his campaign against corruption and violence in the LAPD. The USA does it as part of their campaign against people who don’t like America’s control of the Middle East.
Do we have one set of rules for the State and another for individuals within the State?
Of course we do – the State is allowed to own an army. Citizens are not. Unless, of course, you are Blackwater / Xe / Academi, then you can own a private army and lease it back to the State. But that’s another story.
However even in these scenarios, where we (the people) grant the State the ability to have means of violence that are withdrawn from citizens, we expect the State to obey certain precepts – process, morals, ethics and integrity with how they use the violent forces under their command.
The United States government, however, tends to be pretty loose with how it exercises it’s forces. Up until recently, for example, the Obama administration didn’t even admit to using drones to kill civilians, let alone provide any transparency with the legal framework supporting it.
Of course, the fact that the US kills innocent civilians with drones or troops or private contractors doesn’t make it right. It does, however, provide US citizens with a moral framework to operate from. If it is okay for Uncle Sam to treat civilians as collateral damage and ignore legal process, isn’t it justified for citizens to do the same?
If the USA can assassinate Osama bin Laden without trial or proof of his alleged crimes, is it wrong for a citizen to assassinate corrupt cops?
In a country where a large percentage of the population argues for the right for individuals to own weapons so they can protect themselves against tyranny, Dorner tested the model. Here’s a guy with weapons, with military and police training, who still lasted only a week against the forces of tyranny. I didn’t see his brothers-in-arms rising up to defend him, either. What’s the point of having the “right to bear arms” against the forces of tyranny when you don’t use them to defend someone who is fighting tyranny?
Which is why I think they folks who love their 2nd Amendment are mostly full of shit and cowards to boot.
The media’s treatment of Dorner is interesting, especially when compared to their treatment of US foreign policy. For example:
CNN: Public fascination with and endorsement of an anti-hero is common in history and the arts, especially when the figure advances a political message that resonates with people, experts said. “He’s been a real-life superhero to many people,” said Marc Lamont Hill, an associate professor of English education at Columbia University. “Don’t get me wrong. What he did was awful. Killing innocent people is bad.
Killing innocent people is bad… unless you are the President of the United States. Then it is justified.
Does Playing Violent Video Games Make Kids Violent?
In the wake of the Newtown shootings, a variety of people are trying to connect violent video games and mass murder. Like most 12 year old boys, my sons love playing FPS games on the Xbox. Their mother and step-mother aren’t big fans of allowing this, which means I’m out-voted, so I have limited what they can and can’t play over the last few years, much to their chagrin.
Like everyone else in my generation, i grew up watching violent films and playing video games. Obviously the technology has changes a lot over the last ten years, and playing Black Ops II is a world away from playing Frogger or Doom, Wolfenstein and Duke NukeEm which were available when we were in our 20s. But the same Chicken Little cries that video games are making kids violent is what we heard about Arnie movies and rap music in the 80s.
Now I love violent movies, the bloodier and gorier the better. I love rap music too, particularly of the NWA / Dr Dre / OG variety. Yet I don’t have a violent bone in my body. I also love classical music, art, poetry, philosophy, art-house films, Shakespeare and kittens. But perhaps I’m the anomaly?
So I keep an eye on the research every few years, looking to see if there is a conclusive link between violent movies and games and violence in real life.
I recently read a report on the Australian Government’s classification site called “Literature review on the impact of playing violent video games on aggression” from September 2010. I actually opened this report expecting it to be critical of video games, however it’s conclusion states:
Significant harmful effects from VVGs have not been persuasively proven or disproven.
There is some consensus that VVGs may be harmful to certain populations, such as people
with aggressive and psychotic personality traits. Overall, most studies have consistently
shown a small statistical effect of VVG exposure on aggressive behaviour, but there are
problems with these findings that reduce their policy relevance. Overall, as illustrated in this
review, research into the effects of VVGs on aggression is contested and inconclusive.
The report suggests that the evidence shows that kids with aggressive family situations or prior aggression of any kind may be more affected by VVGs than other kids, which makes sense.
If there was a correlation between video games and violence, we should see similar levels of violence in all countries where video games are popular – which is ALL of them. And that just isn’t the case. Levels of violence have been dropping in most countries over the last couple of decades – the United States being a major exception.
Dr Christopher Ferguson, associate professor of psychology and communication at the University of Texas,
“in fact, in most countries youth violence has reached 40 year lows during the video game epoch.”
What are we to conclude from all this?
1. There is no conclusive evidence that violent video games lead to aggression or violence.
2. People suggesting that they do are either a) ill-informed or b) trying to distract people from the real issues driving mass shootings in the USA – easy access to semi-automatic weapons and ammunition and lack of access to mental health treatment.
Which Is Safer? Iraq, Iran or USA?
Based on this data from The University of Sydney, you are safer living in Iran or Iraq than in the USA.
By the way, I included France because one justification I’ve heard for America’s gun obsession lately is that they fought a revolution and a civil war, so, you know, they, like, need guns.
Yeah well France had a revolution, too. Oh and they were fucking INVADED BY THE NAZIS. Was America invaded by the Nazis? No? Then shut up. The French actually have a very high rate of gun ownership. In a comparison of the rate of private gun ownership in 179 countries, France ranked at No. 12. However their access to handguns, semi-automatics and full automatics is highly restricted.
Here is how France’s gun homicide ranks against the USA:
The Facts About Guns In Australia
It's funny the kinds of bullshit you hear from people when they are trying to justify their ideology.
I got into a Facebook discussion today with Rob McNealy, my guest on a recent podcast about gun control in the USA. Rob posted comparing gun laws in Mexico to America, suggesting that tighter gun laws in Mexico haven't made it safer. I pointed out that Mexico's GDP is about one fifth that of the United States and he should really compare the USA to a country with similar economics – like Australia.
Rob replied “You are trying to deny the fact that gun control don't stop murder from happening. You are a typical anti-liberty liberal that wants to create MORE murder victims.”
I explained that in the years after the Port Arthur massacre, the risk of dying by gunshot in Australia fell by more than 50% — and stayed there, quoting an article from CNN.
He then replied with this post, claiming that “the percent of murders committed with a firearm (in Australia) was the highest it had ever been in 2006″. His source even claimed this data was from “Australian Bureau of Criminology”.
Oh really? I googled “Australian Bureau of Criminology” and I came up blank. There is an “Australian INSTITUTE of Criminology” but Rob's source doesn't reference any particular report or website, so I don't know where they got their data from. In fact, it is likely they pulled it out of their asses.
This information about the high rate of 2006 gun murders is totally at odds with data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which shows that in 2006, gun homicides in Australia were at an all time LOW.
Here is a graph from UTS. See that huge drop after 1996? That's when Johnny Howard introduced the National Firearm Agreement and the buy-back scheme that aimed to eliminate semi-automatic firearms in Australia. It appears that our gun homicide rate fell by 50% immediately and has continued to drop.
Tell me again how “gun control don't stop murder from happening”?
This second graph is from the ABS and shows the falling rates of guns homicides as a percentage of all homicides. Again – a big drop off after 1996. Although this chart stops at 2003, the ABS site for 2006 confirms that the percentage of homicides from firearms in 2006 was an all-time low.
Unfortunately, Rob's source was the “National Center For Policy Analysis” which, according to SourceWatch, is funded by conservative billionaires like the Koch brothers. You can tell people are desperate when they resort to making up bullshit to support their arguments. Of course, most of their readers are not likely to do their own research, much like Fox News viewers, and will just regurgitate the NCPA's claims.
The real question is whether or not the NFA had much of an impact on overall homicides or if they were already dropping due to other factors. What we *do* know for certain is that there hasn't been another mass shooting in Australia since 1996. However homicides have only demonstrated a slight decrease since then. The rise in sexual assault is thought to be an increase in reporting of sexual assault, not an actual increase in incidents.
By the way, here is a chart of America's gun homicides since 1998:
So, the next time you hear someone tell you that gun control didn't work in Australia, you can just send them to this post and facepalm.
Rigging Elections
I’ve been reading some fascinating posts lately on the attempts – past and present – to rig U.S. elections. As with all theories that don’t have sufficient supporting evidence, these need to be read with caution. However, there seem to be enough circumstantial evidence to suggest there might be some element of truth in these stories.
If you haven’t been following the story, just after the U.S. election, Anonymous claimed they prevented Karl Rove from hacking the result in Ohio – which is why, they say, he was so convinced the result was going to go in Romney’s favour. A number of people claim that Rove pulled this trick back in 2004 – that is, he used electronic vote counting services which were linked to the GOP to alter the result of the election in Ohio in Bush’s favour. Adding concern to the story, there were “last-minute, uncertified” software patches made on the Ohio voting machines just days before the election. Sounds dodgy to me.
Of course, there are plenty of stories of the GOP “stealing” or “rigging” elections as far back as Nixon that are also worth reading.
In fact, this article in Harper’s, published weeks before the election and worrying about election rigging in 2012, has stories about elections being rigged in the U.S. as far back as 1932. This same article also explains the connections between the two companies that dominate the electronic voting machine market in the U.S. and their connections to the GOP and the Romney family.
Unfortunately, Australia is also moving towards electronic voting systems. Will we see the same kinds of scurrilous behaviour in future elections too?