Psychopolitik 2.0

Looking over the unhinged rage over the immigration compromise bill, I can’t help but laugh.

The one part of the bill that makes any sense either way is the part being called “amnesty” — exactly what the wingers are whining about! Recent estimates place the illegal immigrant population in the US at 12 million, so realistically speaking you can’t deport every single one of them like the nativists are demanding; it’d be like deporting the entire population of Ohio. On the other hand, in the immediate term you have to figure out who is here, so you can’t just blanket legalize everyone. It makes sense to have some sort of process.

What REALLY needs to be screamed about is (inherently) more a job for the Left: our ridiculous labyrinth of regulations on legal immigration. Between the double standards & the mess with work visas, our legal immigration policy is a lump of bureaucratic, xenophobic, corporatist nonsense, and that lump needs to be cut out. In the long run, with the dismantling of the State, the concept of border security will fall from necessity; until then, it is obvious what the most sensible strategy is: make it so simple to come in legally that only threats would even bother to go the illegal route, where they can be treated accordingly. Yet because of the “Too Many Mexicans!!” chorus, resources that could’ve gone to actual security are destined to go towards hunting down poor people like dogs because of their skin tone.

Edit: When it comes to the discrepancy between how the Right sees foreigners who want to be Americans and foreigners who don’t, Ka1igu1a speaks the truth:

What the fuck, Newt? The Mexicans are nothing but a threat to suck off the tit of our welfare state while you see a potential Adam Smith wing of the Palestinian people?

Heh…

Saw something in Business Week (the article isn’t online) about the MPAA putting up anti-bootlegging ads in NYC.  The article had a picture of the ad, mock “ratings” of bootlegged movies pointing out the difference in quality between the average camcordered copy & “the real thing” — calling people “stupid” for buying the copies.

One thing they leave out: the lower cost.

Think about it for a second.  How much do movie tickets cost these days?  Matinee price around here is already 7 bucks, and that’s PER PERSON.  A family of four getting tickets & popcorn & drinks?  You better be loaded.  The pirate copy, in contrast, in exchange for the lower quality is MAYBE 5 dollars, everyone can watch it without paying any extra, and if you want popcorn you can get a box of the microwave kind for two dollars & know it’s fresh. 

See, just because you slap a price on something doesn’t mean that’s how much it’s worth to everyone, people regularly make conflicting value judgements; if they buy a bootleg copy, they’re in essence saying “this is how much I believe that movie is REALLY worth”.  If the movie industry had any brains about them, simultaneous release on DVD & in the theaters would be more common. 

The MPAA’s assumption seems to be that the people who get these streetcorner boots have no idea that there’d be a lower quality to them, as if they’d take it home, put it in, hit “play” and suddenly shriek in horror that their new copy of Spiderman 3 isn’t crystal clear.  Frankly, if you are the rare type that’d do that, then you shouldn’t buy ‘em — in fact, you shouldn’t leave your house, as I’m shocked you managed to get to the bootlegger considering you like to play in traffic.   

I dunno what’s worse: the assertion by net-neo-imps that having the slightest clue what Ron Paul meant by the term “blowback” in the debate marks you as a nutjob, or the fact that that link is nowhere near the worst of it as far as examples of such go.

Edit: case in point…

Edit2: I must be really bored, because I’ve been arguing at QandO again over non-intervention. Apparently some people believe that if it weren’t for US military power the entirety of US culture would cease to exist…

CentCom goes spammy.  It’d be funny if it weren’t so sad…

Props.

NationMaster sez: “Hey, americans!  STFU about gas prices!”

Click that link above, and you’ll get a graph showing the ratio of the average price of gas in each country to the global average.  Ours is 0.77, 23% less than average.

I’m sick of hearing people complain about the price at the pump, clamoring for some sort of government action as if cheap fuel is an entitlement.  There is something to complain about, but it is not gasoline, the prices we pay are artificially low to begin with.  The real issue is that the price is going up faster than wages — or more accurately, the dollar & gasoline are passing each other on opposite escalators.  If your pay goes up 20% but the gas you use to get to work requires triple the greenbacks, well, do the math…

Via Sullivan, found a rather illuminating poll: Gallup asked a sample of over 7000 americans if they thought the war in Iraq was a mistake, and broke the results down by age. Go have a looksee…

Notice that the one group where more believe invading Iraq wasn’t a mistake than believe it was is in the 30-39 age group. These people would’ve been born between 1968 & 1977. Hmm, what really important international incident was going on between those years? It’d have been in the American History books of the 18-29 group, it’s on the tip of my tongue, starts with a “V”…

Andrew Sullivan, re: Al Sharpton’s crack on Mitt Romney’s religion:

I agree that Sharpton’s tone and remarks were bigoted; I certainly defend the right of Mormons to run for any public office without their faith being used against them. But then I haven’t made religious faith a central tenet of my conservatism, unlike [Hugh] Hewitt and Romney. And Romney, for his part, has gone further in bigotry than Sharpton. Romney has stated that “we need to have a person of faith lead the country.” Atheists, in other words, should not apply. How is that different from Sharpton exactly? (emphasis mine)

I’ve long felt that atheists will be the last group remaining that it’ll be acceptable to direct unrestrained hate speech towards.  To a religious fundamentalist, the only thing worse than someone who rejects their interpretation of “god” is someone who rejects all of them.

Yeah, it’s an NYT link, couldn’t find it elsewhere:

After months of conflicting signals on abortion, Rudolph W. Giuliani is planning to offer a forthright affirmation of his support for abortion rights in public forums, television appearances and interviews in the coming days, despite the potential for bad consequences among some conservative voters already wary of his views, aides said yesterday. […]

The shift in emphasis comes as the Giuliani campaign has struggled to deal with the fallout from the first Republican presidential candidate debate, in which he gave halting and apparently contradictory responses to questions about his support for abortion rights.

Mr. Giuliani’s aides were concerned both because the responses opened him up to a new round of criticism from abortion critics, who have never been happy with the prospect of a Republican presidential candidate who supports abortion rights, while threatening to undercut his image as a tough-talking iconoclast who does not equivocate on tough issues. […]

Mr. Giuliani hinted at what aides said would be his uncompromising position on abortion rights yesterday in Huntsville, Ala., where he was besieged with questions about abortion and his donations to Planned Parenthood. “Ultimately, there has to be a right to choose,” he said.

Asked if Republicans would accept that, he said, “I guess we are going to find out.”

It’s already been acknowledged that Guliani is going to try to make up for his lack of credentials with the bible-thumpers with appeals to the war-monger & panic jockey faction. There is some overlap between the two, but with his decision to openly support abortion he’ll be an unintentional measuring stick as to how much, and what takes priority. If he wins the nomination anyway, or at least makes a relatively strong showing, then it will be because the base sees killing random swarthy-looking foreigners as more important than “saving” a lump of cells. This would prove the takeover of the party by neo-imperialists once and for all, and probably transform the Religious Right into an indie block overnight.

Hear me out on this: politically, I could care less. Both groups are the enemy anyway, and when the returns come in on Election Night I’ll probably be drunk, sitting at my desk playing Guild Wars. But morally, I can’t help but feel that this would be the ideal outcome. Their beliefs may be outright nuts, but I’ve always been a sucker for strong convictions, so I can grudgingly respect it if the thumpers divorce themselves from partisan politics over their view on abortion. It’s definitely not where I’d draw the line, but at least they draw one.

(* - In case it needs explanation, my use of the term refers to his enthusiastic support for a foreign policy that results in the death of people who are unarguably viable human beings, and the irony that he may be rejected for a more ambiguous reason. I would argue that the true “pro-choice” position would be to both support legal abortion AND a foreign policy of non-interference, while the true “pro-life” position would be that of Ron Paul.)

Edit: I realize though I’ve explained my view elsewhere, I haven’t clarified it on this site, and this post may confuse people, so here it is: I’m mostly pro-choice.  I feel it is a life, but up until the moment when it can live outside of the womb, it is also a parasite, and to put it bluntly, parasites are not morally equal to you & me.  Partial-birth abortion specifically is barbaric IMO, as the difference between a normal medical procedure and murder is a matter of inches, but in the early stages I see no problem.  As much as I’d like for immature people to simply not have unprotected sex, or for every unwanted child to be adopted, the world just does not work that way.  I ask that any comments on abortion specifically, and not on the overall subject of this post (the dueling influences on the right-wing and/or the 2008 election) be emailed to me (address here) rather than posted here, so as to not clutter it.

Russia deserves criticism for the re-centralization of power in Putin’s hands, that much is obvious. What is also obvious is that such criticism should be delivered by people that actually have a leg to stand on:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking before a visit to Moscow, said on Thursday she was troubled by the concentration of power in the Kremlin and said U.S.-Russia relations were in a “difficult period.”

“As with any relationship it is complicated, as with any big relationship,” Rice, who leaves for her trip on Sunday, told the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on foreign operations.

The United States is at loggerheads with Russia over a host of issues, including U.S. plans for a European-based missile defense system, which Moscow says is a return to the Cold War period, the future of Kosovo and human rights. […]

Rice did not mention tensions over the missile shield, which will likely be raised in her meetings with Moscow next week, but she criticized Russia for a backsliding in reforms.

“Everybody around the world, in Europe and the United States, is very concerned about the internal course that Russia has taken in recent years,” said Rice, referring to an erosion of press and other freedoms.

“The concentration of power in the Kremlin has been troubling,” she added. (emphasis mine)

“Psst…kettle. You know you’re black, right?” “Eh, shut up, pot…”

Found this amusing:

A fistfight in the balcony stopped the music on opening night at the Boston Pops, drawing gasps from hundreds of well-heeled guests at one of the country’s oldest and best-known city orchestras.

Famous for light classical music and family pop tunes from decades past, the orchestra briefly halted its performance on Wednesday evening as two men wrestled in the side balcony of the 107-year-old Symphony Hall.

Concert-goers looked up after a woman’s scream interrupted a rendition of the Hollywood musical “Gigi” about 20 minutes into the performance.

Shortly afterward, conductor Keith Lockhart stopped the orchestra with a motion of his hand as the murmuring crowd turned to watch the scuffle, apparently caused after one man told another guest to be quiet.

Methinks instead of stopping the music entirely, they should’ve launched into an impromptu orchestral rendition of “Tear tha club up”…