I’ve been pornblogged!! Check out ErosBlog Sex Blog’s response to my stance for sex and against porn.
Lots of folks have been discussing this, apparently, but I’ve been so freaking busy that I’ve just done some (at best) half-assed blogging and haven’t finished two important posts.

Coming up the 405 freeway on my motorcycle, I changed into the carpool lane at least 40 feet in front of the legal entrance (here in SoCal, we block most of the carpool lanes with double yellow lines); once in the carpool lane, I (along with the dozen or so cars in front and back of me) averaged about 80 – 85 for several miles, in an area where the legal speed limit is 55.
When I bought gas, I illegally held the vapor recover hood back, because the old-style hoods don’t work with motorcycle gas tanks.
Pulling out of the gas station, I had to cross a solid white line to exit the right turn lane that blocks the entire front of the driveway and continue straight on the road I was on.
Heading up Pacific Coast Highway toward Malibu, my cohort of vehicles averaged 65 in the marked 45 mile per hour zone. There was a Sheriff’s car in the pack, moving up and down and checking out the traffic. I was watching him as he fell in behind me, and slowed by 5 mph to show him I was paying attention.
…and so on.
What’s my point?
That we write laws that no one has any intention of obeying, and that it then becomes a kind of dance in which the legislators get political credit for ‘dealing’ with the problem, the various enforcers (police, zoning staff, etc.) get a lot of discretionary power … my Sheriff this morning has the absolute power to pull over any one of the ten or so cars in our little pod.
And, since the laws are seldom enforced, most of us don’t mind.
If speed laws were absolutely enforced…with GATSO’s (radar cameras), aggressive police enforcement etc.. how long do you think we’d tolerate them? How politically challenging would it be to pass them. But because most of these laws are of the ‘wink and a nudge’ variety, they meet with little opposition.
Here’s another example. In a neighborhood where I lived before moving to Southern Calfiornia’s Mayberry, we had a crazy neighbor. He used to get into fistfights with several of the neighbors, harass and threaten the neighborhood kids, and was subject to a bunch of restraining orders. Then he came up with a new plan. He got a copy of the zoning standards, and went on a campaign to get exact compliance on a house-by-house basis.
Much hilarity ensued, until I went over to his duplex with a copy of the zoning code, a building inspector, and the local city councilwoman, who on reviewing the voluminous file, told the city staff to just stop answering his mail.
In the case below, what’s happening isn’t concentrated enforcement against known gang members, parole violators, people under restraining orders, or in general people who have a high likelihood of committing one of the violent crimes that are the real subject of concern.
So here are two sets of facts:
I have a gun safe in my garage (which I do), and a neighbor looks in one day as I’m putting a gun in or taking it out, and sees an assault rifle (in reality I don’t own one; I’ve trained with them and they’re fun to shoot, but since I don’t have apocalyptic fantasies, I never saw the utility for a civilian…plus I have a bunch of LEO and firearms trainer friends who will let me shoot theirs if I want). On the other hand, my ex-crazy neighbor takes to parading up and down his driveway with a shotgun.
In the second case, there is a legitimate concern. I’m not so clear on what the legitimate concern is in the first, or that there is a legitimate concern that rises to the level of a policed sweep.
This goes to the core of the gun-management debate. On one hand, some people (including me) tend to believe that the issue is the people who commit the crimes; others see the tool used as the issue. To me, it’s a fruitless argument, since no one on either side is going to change sides anytime soon.
But this issue is one that we need to broaden as we talk about the bureaucratic state, and about expanding the power of that bureaucracy in response to 9/11.
And as we expand the scope of citizen paranoia (I know I was and am ambivalent about TIPS, I’ll explain more soon), we wind up with stories like this:

It was the most traumatic experience the Smoak family of North Carolina has ever had, and it happened yesterday afternoon as they traveled through Cookeville on their way home from a vacation in Nashville.
Before their ordeal was over, three members of the family had been yanked out of their car and handcuffed on the side of Interstate 40 in downtown Cookeville, and their beloved dog, Patton, had been shot to death by a police officer as they watched.
…
“A lady in Davidson County had seen that wallet fly off our car and had seen money coming out of it and going all over the road, and somehow that became a felony and they made a felony stop, but no robbery or felony had happened,” Pamela Smoak said.
“Apparently, they had listened to some citizen with a cell phone and let her play detective down there,” said James Smoak.
…

I don’t completely trust Rev. Moon’s Washington Times, but this was making the rounds this weekend:

Montgomery County police said yesterday that they will use tens of thousands of tips from the October sniper hunt to track down those who violate Maryland gun laws.
“Our goal is to reduce illegal firearm possessions and violent crimes,” said Capt. Nancy Demme, spokeswoman for the Montgomery County Police Department. She also said the intensive crackdown would begin in the county in a few weeks.
…

I’ll talk a bit more about the nature of bureaucracy; but one problem is that it appears to be a one-way rachet. Given the information to combat a terrorist crisis, the managerial mindset can’t help but think of new ways to use the information.
In this case, they’re just gun owners…so I guess it’s OK.

From CNN:
Income Level: <$50K Tax Returns: 15.2 million Dividend Income: $26.9B Dividend $/Return: $1,769.74 Income Level: $50K - $100K Tax Returns: 10.0 million Dividend Income: $27.1B Dividend $/Return: $2,710.00 Income Level: $100K - $200K Tax Returns: 4.8 million Dividend Income: $23.8B Dividend $/Return: $4,958.33 Income Level: > $1 million
Tax Returns: 200,000
Dividend Income: $25.4B
Dividend $/Return: $127,000.00
Yup, that’s some stimulus alright. The politician-owning classes will be stimulated beyond all belief.
There will be trickle-down; perhaps I can get a job as a skipper on one of the new yachts.
And please spare me the ‘class warfare’ rhetoric. The proposal you see above is class warfare; by being so stupidly slanted, the GOP is opening the door to class warfare; their protests ring a bit hollow.
And for me, the biggest issue is that this takes a sharp serrated knife to the thin stands of legitimacy that most of us feel.

Go check out Penn Jillette’s account of dealing with airport security.
It’d be funny if it wasn’t for the fact that his celebrity status is what finally pulled the bureaucracy into check.
Somehow, I don’t think I’d be treated quite so well.
And aside from the overall question of whether x-raying my Bass Weejuns makes the flight any safer (it appears that in spite of the fact that Richard Ried was wearing Semtex hightops, people with sneakers are exempt from the shoe x-ray, but people with loafers aren’t), and of the overall rationality of the way we’re trying to do security…
…the bigger problem with this is the fact that for the average person, hiring a private jet in case they miss their flight, or taking two days out of their busy schedule to go to a court hearing that will probably end inconclusively isn’t an option. So you swallow your annoyance and just file on board.
Penn’s trying to figure out what to do. Go tell him…
[Update: DOOOH… a friend sent this over and I engaged in premature bloggage; didn’t check the date and see if there were followups, and haven’t been out on the blogs so didn’t realize the whole freakin’ world had dealt with this. The point is useful, but I still wasted bandwith and your time…sorry…]

Sorry for not responding to the comments below sooner; we went on a spontaneous (like 90 minute decision cycle spontaneous) weekend trip to the mountains with All Three Boys and Tenacious G. Much fun was had, I realized that I may or may not have succeeded in civilizing my sons, and we just got back late tonight.
I’ll present a more thoughtful response soon.
But a quick question for all the folks who I’ve pissed off…
…we all perform involuntary servitude for three or four months a year. We get a bundle of benefits for it. No one seems to be complaining about that…
We have, in order to meet crucial national goals, drafted young men and enforced draconian labor and consumption laws. It is questionable to me whether we would be here to have this discussion had we not.
So, to paraphrase Shaw, it’s a matter of price.
It’s often as amusing to me how many of my libertarian/anarchist friends have federally-insured home mortgages, and went to state universities, as it is how upset my Proudhon-spouting radical friends are when their stuff gets stolen or my socialist friends are when they run afoul of the zoning laws.
Our relationships with the state are and have been very complex here in America. They’re gonna get more so.

Kevin Drum whacks another one into the stands, as he talks about the draft:

…but I have a better (and more serious) idea: mandatory national service.
This is not a new idea, but it’s the kind of thing that we should be seriously discussing these days. Patriotism, after all, does not come from reciting the pledge of alliegance every day or flying an American flag in front of your home. It comes from a deep seated notion that you live in a great country and that you share some of this greatness with your fellow countrymen.
Mandatory national service would oblige everyone who lives here to give something back to their country. It would allow teenagers to see firsthand what other parts of America are like, and what their fellow Americans are like. It would allow blacks to work alongside whites, rich alongside poor, and natives alongside immigrants. It would provide a large workforce that could be deployed both domestically and internationally. It would provide manpower for our inner cities and ambassadors to the third world. Military service would count, of course, but no one would be forced to serve in the military, and the vast majority of teenagers would serve in non-military areas.

Add a few things to this proposal…those who graduate get means-tested subsidized basic health care a la the VA, and education and homebuying aid a la the GI bill, and you’re beginning to be on to something.
Poor kids could spend time in school, catching up. Affluent kids could spend some time doing service. Adventurous kids could go into the military. Disabled kids can contribute too.
All of them would probably benefit from a break between high school and college or work.
I’d steal management from the military for it, though. The military has done a superb job of taking in a random assortment of young kids and turning most of them into adults. This should be boot camp, not summer camp.

One of the cookies I’ve gotten for doing this is the opportunity to ‘meet’ (and sometimes even meet) some really amazing people. There was a flurry of well-wishing emails among bloggers on New Year’s, and one that I sent to Jeff Cooper started me thinking as I rode in this morning.
I told him what a pleasure it was to have made his acquaintance, and that I was impressed by his intelligence, knowledge, and most of all by the obvious decency that shines through everything he writes.
And I started realizing that decency is another of those undervalued traits; it is not unique to the Left or Right, or much appreciated by either. As Jimmy Carter showed, it alone is not enough for a leader. In fact it may be a value that is absent in most great leaders…Churchill, Roosevelt, Truman…hmmm I need to think about this…but it is a value I cherish in the people I choose to associate with and a value that is somehow demeaned in our culture.
We value honesty, passion, those who hew to absolute values. Simple decency isn’t enough.
That’s too bad. From the dictionary:
decent [di snt]
adj.
1. polite or respectable: a decent family.
2. proper and suitable; fitting: a decent burial.
3. conforming to conventions of sexual behaviour; not indecent.
4. free of oaths, blasphemy, etc.: decent language.
5. good or adequate: a decent wage.
6. Informal. kind; generous: he was pretty decent to me.
7. Informal. sufficiently clothed to be seen by other people: are you decent?
[from Latin decens suitable, from decree to be fitting]
We’re talking bourgeois values here. And one of the things that I’m muddling toward is an articulation and defense of those values.
Damn, even I can’t believe that I’m doing this…
(forgot a clause)

So I broke down (and broke the piggy bank) and bought an IBM T30, the full megillah, with a 1.8 Ghz Pentium 4M,built-in Wi-Fi, and a docking station. I may or may not replace the desktop; I may just use the laptop full-time.
Sigh. So much for college tuition for the Biggest Guy…actually not, I got an excellent deal from www.netliquidations.com.

I’ve been rereading the Federalist Papers; among other things they’re available online as a part of the Gutenberg Project.
The most relevant is #10: Here’s a long quote:

FEDERALIST No. 10
The Same Subject Continued
(The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection)
From the New York Packet.
Friday, November 23, 1787.
To the People of the State of New York:
AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations. The valuable improvements made by the American constitutions on the popular models, both ancient and modern, cannot certainly be too much admired; but it would be an unwarrantable partiality, to contend that they have as effectually obviated the danger on this side, as was wished and expected. Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true. It will be found, indeed, on a candid review of our situation, that some of the distresses under which we labor have been erroneously charged on the operation of our governments; but it will be found, at the same time, that other causes will not alone account for many of our heaviest misfortunes; and, particularly, for that prevailing and increasing distrust of public engagements, and alarm for private rights, which are echoed from one end of the continent to the other. These must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice with which a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations.
By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.
There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.
There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.
It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.
The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.

Read the whole thing and get reminded of what geniuses the Founders were.
I’m also rereading Thucydides, and the important point I’m taking from there is that it is not only the mechanics of governance, but the personalities, moment in history, and social structures that keep democracy alive as well.
Democracy in Athens collapsed shortly after the death of Pericles; somehow Turkey’s democracy survived Ataturk. Why?