Browsing PBH By Articles

The Pot’s Still Brewing For The Tea Party

The Article: The Tea Party Movement: Still Brewing in The Economist.

The Text: UNLIKE colleagues such as Bob Bennett, a senator from Utah unceremoniously dumped by the Republican Party in 2010, Dick Lugar was not caught off guard. He had known for well over a year that he would face a strong, tea-party backed rival in the primary for the Senate seat he has held for the past 35 years. He planned accordingly, voting more conservatively, amassing a large war-chest and cranking up his get-out-the-vote operation. Nonetheless, yesterday Mr Lugar lost the primary by a whopping 20-point margin, to Richard Mourdock, Indiana’s state treasurer and a hero to many tea-partiers.

Politicians from both parties had described the race as a test of the tea party’s strength. As the candidate himself puts it, “Rumours of the death of the tea party have been exaggerated.” Jackie Bodnar, of Freedom Works, a campaign outfit that supports tea-party groups, says his victory will give impetus to tea-party candidates seeking the Republican nomination for Senate seats in Florida, Texas and Utah, among other races. Moreover, Mr Lugar’s defeat, says Theda Skocpol, of Harvard, “will send another shudder through the Republican ranks in Congress”.

Those who thought the tea-party movement was wilting after helping to propel Republicans to a thumping victory in the mid-term elections of 2010, Mr Mourdock argues, were simply mistaking evolution for disillusion. Randy Harrison, the founder of the Hancock County tea party, bears this narrative out. At first, he says, “we were just a bunch of people getting together and griping.” Over time, his group began to engage more formally in local politics. They have familiarised themselves with—and objected to—the county government’s scheme for local improvements. They have invited Republican and Democratic candidates to speak at their meetings (no Democrats have ever accepted), and endorsed some of them, including Mr Mourdock. Several members are now running for local office.

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The Absence Of Humility Regarding Syria

The Article: The Absence Of Humility In Our Thoughts On Syria by Adam Gallagher in The Speckled Axe.

The Text: For over a year, the people of Syria have called for the downfall of the Assad regime. The United Nations estimates that nearly 10,000 Syrians have been killed, with thousands more injured or detained. With this brutality in mind, calls for “humanitarian intervention” in Syria have become increasingly vociferous. Proponents of such an intervention frequently point to the long-term benefits of ousting the Assad regime along with the egregious human violations taking place.

The purported hope is that the fall of the regime will manifest a new democratic reality in Syria and remove a key regional ally to Iran. Many details of such an intervention remain, as usual, disturbingly opaque, as do the potential consequences – beyond the assumed humanitarian and geopolitical triumphs. This deserves closer attention. In addition, the Syria case provides an opportunity to probe the concepts that often underlay arguments for this type of military action.

I would posit that, as human beings, one general point of agreement (that still somehow all too frequently seems to get lost) is that we should not revoke another human beings’ right to life. Philosophers have long argued about what exceptions may be applied to this, and the concept of self-defense is usually granted one. What naturally follows from this is whether humans have the right to kill someone who is threatening the life of another? Arguments usually suggest that person A should try to prevent person B from killing person C, but should first and foremost try to incapacitate B and only kill B as a last resort. If B must be killed to save the life of C or the lives of many people, then the loss of B’s life can be justified.

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Surveillance State Of Democracy

The Article: Surveillance State Democracy by Glenn Greenwald in Salon.

The Text: CNET‘s excellent technology reporter, Declan McCullagh, reports on ongoing efforts by the Obama administration to force the Internet industry to provide the U.S. Government with “backdoor” access to all forms of Internet communication:

The FBI is asking Internet companies not to oppose a controversial proposal that would require firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, to build in backdoors for government surveillance. . . . That included a scheduled trip this month to the West Coast — which was subsequently postponed — to meet with Internet companies’ CEOs and top lawyers. . . .

The FBI general counsel’s office has drafted a proposed law that the bureau claims is the best solution: requiring that social-networking Web sites and providers of VoIP, instant messaging, and Web e-mail alter their code to ensure their products are wiretap-friendly.

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The Illusion Of Free Choice

Both lead to the same miserable end.

A Hunter S. Thompson Classic: The Derby

The Article: Hunter S. Thompson’s ‘The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved’ by Michael MacCambridge on Grantland.

The Text: The telephone rang at Warren Hinckle’s San Francisco home at about 3:30 in the morning on Wednesday, April 29, 1970. When Hinckle picked up the receiver, he heard the unmistakable voice of Hunter S. Thompson, calling from Aspen, proclaiming, “Goddammit, Scanlan’s has to cover the Derby. It’s important.”

The pitch, even at the late hour and the late date (barely 72 hours before the race itself), was fairly irresistible.1 Send Thompson, still finding his distinctive voice in countercultural journalism, to his hometown of Louisville to cover the drunken, debauched scene at Churchill Downs for Scanlan’s, the anti-establishment (some would say subversive) monthly magazine for which Hinckle was co-editor.

Hinckle agreed on the spot, booked Thompson a ticket, wired him expense money, and then set about finding an artist to provide illustrations for the story. Originally, he had hoped to send a photographer to shoot the event, but after haggling with Thompson, he instead hired the English illustrator Ralph Steadman.

It would prove to be a memorable, historic weekend. And it began, as so many of Thompson’s adventures would, with drinks at a bar.

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