Don't let the accent (which isn't a particularly educated accent, by the way) fool you; he's a British tabloid hound, through and through, and hopes that Americans are so impressed by a British accent they won't notice that he's a carnival barker.

Below, Morgan does his Geraldo Act with Alex Jones. Jones makes a few good points, misses some others, and then offers up tangential bits of paranoia about psychiatrists and their Suicide Pills, sounding a bit like Tom Cruise or L. Ron Hubbard. (I always notice that the fanciful mindset tends to be indiscriminate about its phantoms; a conspiracist will believe in seven conspiracies, not one, and someone who believes in ghosts will almost certainly also believe in two or more of the following: UFOs, Atlantis, faeries in the garden, astral projection, pyramid power, Rosecrucianism, psychic abilities, Shadow People, and/or Bigfoot.)

Two points: Piers Morgan thinks of himself as a Thinker, I guess, but he doesn't think much about the long view of history. And yes, Jones is right, that in the long view of history, most governments do wind up becoming tyrannical. One could take the short view, as he prefers, and say "our government isn't totalitarian now," but that's just avoiding the evidence.

It is a sad fact -- sad, but still a fact -- that governments do tend to become tyrannical. Political scientists often wonder what it is about America, specifically, that permits it to function as a democracy under its Constitution, whereas a dozen other nations that have implemented a version of America's charter wound up being tyrannies, military juntas, within five or ten years.

So anyone who is even slightly informed about governments and history realizes that America is pretty special for having resisted this horrible trend for so long; and anyone who thinks about the question looks to find particular reasons why American so resisted. Was it the legacy of English non-governmental culture, such as capitalism, banking, property law, and so on? Was it just simple prosperity, and that a rich country doesn't experience the same tumults, revolutions, and counter-revolutions that poorer countries do?

(One may ask if it's religion, but then, Latin America is very religious and constantly repeats the cycle of constitution-leftist revolution-authoritarian counter-revolution.)

Point is, there is something that makes America different (or different, at least, until recently), and one should therefore be very cautious about changing parts of the American culture. One or more of the cultural traditions of America have kept it from taking the same path as Venezuela, or Germany, or Italy, or Vietnam, or France. We might not know which (or at least we, as a group, may argue about which), but it takes a very thick-headed person to consider this and then decide to start changing America to be more like every other country, every other country, that is, which has experienced totalitarianism, fascism, revolution, and general social catastrophe.

Morgan's -- and most other's -- empty-headedness on this point recalls Chesterton's paradox of the wall:

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense. The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable.

And that's precisely the other point in my mind. Consider Sergent Hack:

Word has it that the White House, Democrats, and gun control advocates are planning to try to “overwhelm” the National Rifle Association when the battle over guns heats up this month. Along these lines, perhaps the most important news of the morning is that Gabrielle Giffords is unveiling a new national effort to push for sensible gun reforms in the wake of the Newtown shooting, with the explicit purpose of counterbalancing the NRA’s influence over Congress.

Or this, from Piers Morgan:

"That kind of vitriol, hatred, and zealotry is really quite scary. I didn't feel threatened by him, but I'm concerned that someone like him has that level of influence," Morgan said. "There's got to be a level of discourse that can rise above what happened last night. It was undignified, unedifying."

You deliberately staged a Geraldo-with-Nazis-style heated confrontation with someone, took part in it, promoted it for ratings, and now you want to claim that the discussion that ensued was of an "undignified, unedifying" level of discourse?

Both Greg Sergent smuggle a lot of not-quite-hidden assumptions into words like "sensible" and "dignified, edifying." What they do not say, but which is readily apparent, is that a sensible, dignified, edifying conversation can only be had with someone who accepts nearly all of their baseline assumptions and policy preferences ab initio. That's not a discussion -- that's a group hug. But only people who begin with these assumptions, they claim, can take useful role in the "discussion," which means the discussion, from the start, isn't a discussion at all.

But tying this into Chesterton's wall: My problem with Morgan and Sergent is their ignorance. They cannot tell me why the wall exists -- or, here, they cannot tell me the benefits of fairly free gun ownership. Obviously, there must be some, or the nation would not have had fairly-free gun ownership for 240 years, and the NRA would not have a 59% approval rating, and 100 million Americans would not own guns, otherwise.

But can they actually explain the other side of the argument? As they say, a good lawyer, one who really understands the issues of the case, can argue either side of it effectively. He may favor one side over the other, but he knows enough of both to make a strong case for either.

Sergent and Morgan couldn't do that. They have a simple-minded understanding that Guns are Bad and do not have the intellectual curiosity to discover, even though it's actually part of their jobs to do so, in what ways Guns May Be Good, or, at least, the reasons people might think Guns May Be Good.

The case for prohibition is always the same: Those advocating for prohibition always claim there is nothing good in the thing they would prohibit, and that anyone who claims or believes otherwise is somehow corrupted, morally or just mentally, and simply wrong.

But we know that's almost never been the case in any single case of prohibition: Wine and liquor are not without value; obviously millions of people value them. Why?, the prohibitionists should have asked. And they should have further have asked, Is it civil to use the law to push our own limited, provincial view of things on millions of others?

Same with marijuana, frankly. Most of us (including me) don't like pot, don't like most people who use pot (or at least don't like the pot-headed sort of culture that goes with it), and so ourselves find no value in it. But obviously millions of other people do find value in it-- are we really acting in a civil fashion to use political power to essentially make our own preferences the controlling law which binds everyone?

Same with homosexuality, once upon a time, 30 or 40 years ago, when anti-homosexuality laws were occasionally enforced -- it is trivially easy for heterosexuals to find no value in homosexual sex, given that we don't like it (and in fact are repelled at the idea of taking part in it ourselves); thus it's also quite easy to support a regime of official prohibition. After all, we find no value in it. So why not ban it? Of course, gays and lesbians might find more value in it than we are willing to credit it for.

People generally have a built-in bias in favor of the prohibition of things they themselves don't like. From SUVs to Big Gulps, people will gladly -- enthusiastically -- impose prohibitions on any product they themselves don't use or any action they don't themselves partake in.

This is a very bad habit of people, and illiberal (in the old sense of "illiberal"), and people should be keenly aware of this bias that lurks within them, the bias in favor of government action to compel the "victory" of one cultural preference over another.

Morgan, Sergent, and the rest of the liberal blockheads all have this simple-minded and ugly belief that their culture -- urban, liberal, wealthy (or at least mixing in the circles of those who may become wealthy in their later years) -- is not merely a culture, with its own mix of arbitrary class prejudices and class beliefs, but the culture, the plainly superior one, the one that is so demonstrably correct that one should have no trepidation whatsoever about attempting the mobilize the coercive powers of the government to make their culture the legally mandated one.

And at no point in this process do they ever find within themselves the intellectual curiosity, or simple humility, to ask: Why do some people disagree so sharply, and is there any truth in their arguments?

We know their claims front-and-back, and they could only guess at ours (or offer poorly-informed parodies of them). But they're the smart ones, the intellectuals, the thinkers. Right?

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:08 PM | Comments (475)
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This is actually news, if you can believe it. I had written this, then thought better of it, and decided not to publish it, until I saw it was on Drudge.

The hashtag #Cut4Bieber began trending, suggesting that dedicated Beliebers engage in self-harm through cutting themselves in order to get Justin's attention in response to his recent alleged bad boy behavior.

"Lets start a cut yourself for bieber campaign," an anonymous user initially wrote before the thread was deleted, according to Billboard. "Tweet a bunch of pics of people cutting themselves and claim we did it because bieber was smoking weed. See if we can get some little girls to cut themselves."

Justin Bieber apparently got caught smoking weed, so 4chan created an astroturf prank wherein they claimed that girls were cutting themselves (CONTENT WARNING)in order to convince Bieber that weed is bad. The content warning is for imagery of cuts on girls' arms. Some of these pictures may be fake, but others, I'm guessing, are just lifted off the internet, and are thus real cutting pictures, but falsely claimed to be part of this #cutting4Bieber hoax.

I believe this one is transparently fake, though, so a lesser content warning on this one.

As a follow-up hoax, they then conspired to claim that their rivals "9gag" had actually started the hoax, and shame on them, because, they further claimed, an impressionable young girl had in fact attempted to cut herself in order to encourage Bieber to stop smoking so much weed, and had died as a result of this.

None of this is true, you understand: They're continuing to make things up. But they started a hashtag #rememberAddison (Addison supposedly being this Biebercidal girl's name) and a whole faked-up internet trail to give her existence credibility, like a YouTube channel and MySpace page and her "brother" starting a "Remember Addison" facebook page and so on.

I wasn't going to post this because it wound up occasioning Too Much Thinking about what is funny, and what other people find funny.

I find it darkly funny, rather than cruel, but only because I make the following assumptions:

1) They weren't really serious about trying to get girls to cut4Bieber.

2) The idea of someone actually cutting4Bieber is so outlandish, so absurd, and so unlikely to actually happen, that it seems harmless.

3) The actual object of the joke -- that is, the person you laugh at the end -- isn't girls who love Bieber (well, secondarily, maybe) but rather people generally, and their willingness to believe all sorts of things.

If you don't share those assumptions, then this will seem more sinister.

On 3, I thought about that some, and thought about the media and the public being part of an unwitting symbiotic relationship on things like this: The public wants to be distracted, and the media wants to write easy, distracting pieces.

I suppose I'm okay with all of this just because I don't think there was (much) evil intent beyond poking fun at people for being so gullible, and because I think it's unlikely someone would start cutting4Bieber just to let him know "Weed is bad 4 you," as one fake tweet explained. Some girls cut themselves, but... I doubt they cut themselves because they saw it on Twitter, or to let Justin Bieber know about the long-term consequences of marijuana use.

On the other hand, anyone with daughters, I imagine, will feel very protective about them, and will see very little humor in this.

See? That's why I didn't publish it. Because opinions will sharply vary depending on one's own situation and point-of-view, and it's hard to say that someone who feels a natural protectiveness about young girls is "just wrong!!!!" and should "lighten up!!!" I can't say that -- they're not "wrong." They just have a different background and situation which causes them, naturally, to react differently to the same stimulus. And that's why I wasn't going to post.

But it's on Drudge, so it's news, and I've now spent 30 minutes writing this crap, so I guess I have to publish it.

Thanks to @slublog.

Posted by: Ace at 10:21 AM | Comments (495)
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If someone isn't qualified to be Senator due to holding such a view...

He actually campaigned, initially, supporting the three typical exceptions (rape, incest, life of the mother), but then became -- as liberals and the media would say -- an "extremist."

Then Senate-candidate Hagel said that he "tightened" his position on abortion after he said he discovered that abortion in the case of rape and incest are "rare" according to multiple local press reports.

"As I looked at those numbers, if I want to prevent abortions, I don't think those two exceptions are relevant," Hagel said, according to the Omaha paper.

Posted by: Ace at 09:53 AM | Comments (227)
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Paleface-Indian speak with forked tongue.

Surprising no one, Senator Elizabeth Warren *spit* has refused to list herself as Massachusetts' first Native American™ senator.

Despite repeated claims she is “proud” of her Cherokee heritage, newly minted U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is keeping that pride under wraps and won’t be taking advantage of a chance to officially list herself as the Bay State’s first Native American U.S. senator.

Aides said Warren, who describes herself as part Cherokee and part Delaware Indian, wonÂ’t contact historians at the Senate Historical Office to tell them sheÂ’s Native American. The office lists minority senators in its official directory.

The benefits of the lie are all used up, so what's the point, right? Besides, the only tribe she belongs to is The Left.

Posted by: andy at 07:52 AM | Comments (295)
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• Top NJ Democrat Claims Christie Prayed For Hurricane Sandy To Hit, Or Something
  
• The Only Entertaining Part Of Last Night's Game
  
• Health Insurance Premiums Will Rise For Young Adults Under Obamacare
  
• People Like This Are Teaching Your Children
  
• How Austrian Economic Theory Explains The Lockout
  
• Fake Mission To Mars Leaves Astronauts Spaced Out
  
• Cameroon Acquits Two Men Sentenced For "Looking Gay"
  
• Bank Of America Allegedly Freezes Gun Makers Accounts
  
• Diane Feinstein's Gun Control Alchemy
  
• Of Course Al Gore Didn't Show Up, He Has No Credibility
  
• CA School Slaying Suspect Found Unfit For Trial
  
• Gabby Giffords To Launch Gun Control Initiative
  
• More On The Trillion Dollar Coin Idea
  
• Politico Is Very Concerned About Whether Or Not Ted Cruz Is A Natural Born Citizen
  
• Hagel And The Jews
  
• Iran's Economy In Freefall As Oil Revenue Plummets
  
• ATF Seizes Homemade Firearms From Texas Man
  
• Prohibitions Don't Work And New Technology Makes That More Obvious
  
• War Drums In The Mountains Of Kashmir
  
• Eurozone Unemployment At Record High
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:09 AM | Comments (505)
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Happy Tuesday.

An Omaha, Nebraska Wendy's franchise is cutting its non-management employees back to 28 hours per week in response to Obamacare's mandate that it pay for health insurance for employees who work at least 32 hours. The owner says he can't afford to pay for the insurance.

Chuck Hagel now says he has "unequivocal, total support for Israel." Maybe the "Jewish lobby" finally got to him. /sarc

I guess this is the type of thing we should want from Hagel now. He's going to be confirmed (look no further than the conspicuous silence coming from AIPAC and Israel for confirmation of that) after he appears for hearings and the Democrats make a big production about saying they're satisfied with his answers. All that's left to do in the meantime is to get some public admissions from Hagel and try not to let Obama use the distraction to score other points.

Democratic commentators are now laying the groundwork for the platinum coin trick. In the past week, econ writers for the NYTimes, WaPo, and now Bloomberg News have been chattering about how its such a great idea and won't do anything bad to inflation or the markets. Uh huh. Jim Pethokoukis has more on the coin trick.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:52 AM | Comments (377)
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Super-Car Performance Over Time

A collection of charts from Car and Driver showing how top of the line cars have gotten better over the years.

Today you can walk in practically any dealership and (with enough money) pick up a car that would blow away almost racing car circa 1962 i.e. this Ferrari 250 GT.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:31 PM | Comments (523)
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The Hapifork, microprocessor equipped, USB and Bluetooth enabled.

For only $100 you can have your eating utensils spy on you. Such a deal. The Brits will probably make it mandatory, they love surveillance cameras, the TV police, etc.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:49 PM | Comments (75)
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Lemme tell you about Alabama and Notre Dame cheerleaders pics (the ones on the field I'll use, not those naughty things you go lookin after with Safe Search on the browser set to "get arrested").

They's pretty conservative. And they tend to cover the elbows. Don't mean the elbows aren't dangerous, any more than a holstered gun can't shoot ya once it's pulled.

That's about as stupid as I'd care to be I guess. My prediction, if Alabama scores 17 points, they keep scoring and win. Otherwise Notre Dame takes the title.

You know how good I am at this so don't put your money where my mouth is.

.jpg" src="http://ace.mu.nu/archives/110312_notredamemacomb08 (400x29 .jpg" width="400" height="298" border="0" />

I'll put up a post tomorrow with the College Pick Em results. Tomorrow.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 03:38 PM | Comments (533)
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Why, the very fact the big Jewish lobbying groups, like AIPAC and the ADF, are refusing to show themselves as part of a grand coordinated Jewish conspiracy only convinces me further of a grand Jewish conspiracy.

As, I think, Adam Baldwin some guy who is not Adam Baldwin said in Full Metal Jacket: The peasants who run from gunfire are Vietcong. The ones who don't run are well-trained Vietcong.

The National Jewish Democratic Council has even heartily congratulated Obama on the nomination:

President Barack ObamaÂ’s unprecedented pro-Israel credentials are unquestionable, and setting policy starts and stops with the President. While we have expressed concerns in the past, we trust that when confirmed, former Senator Chuck Hagel will follow the PresidentÂ’s lead of providing unrivaled support for Israel...

There is no international Jewish conspiracy, but there is an international leftist one -- or at least a a close alignment on the notion that the Great Leftist Project comes before all else. "No enemies to the left," Kerensky declared, and they've kept to that policy.

So now we're getting this left-leaning lightweight.

Posted by: Ace at 02:49 PM | Comments (193)
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