To Nuke or Not to Nuke: Some Thoughts about MAD

During the Cold War the United States operated on what is generally referred to as MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). It was official US policy that if the Soviet Union took out a US city with a nuclear missile we would retaliate with nuclear missiles against Soviet cities. The idea behind this policy was that the leaders of the Soviet Union, as rational individuals, would not risk using nuclear weapons against us knowing that their actions would result in the annihilation of their own cities. Such a policy depended on our threat being believable. We were prepared to slaughter millions of Soviet civilians and the Soviets knew it. Dr. Strangelove aside, this policy worked. MAD created the circumstances in which no sane leader would ever resort to nuclear weapons.
I bring this topic up now as I wonder if the policy of MAD still applies today. If tomorrow New York City goes up in a mushroom cloud courtesy of Iran does that mean that we would nuke Tehran? What if Iran tried to use a nuclear weapon against us but failed; what then? What if a terrorist group set off a nuclear bomb on US soil. Would we retaliate with nuclear weapons against every single country who aided this effort? More importantly then what we might actually do in such a situation is what our enemies believe we would do.
One has to ask: is it moral to put MAD into actual practice? It is built around the concept of murdering millions of enemy civilians as an act of revenge. Nuking Iranian cities would not bring New York back. If we accept the logic of MAD then we should be consistent and apply it to other issues besides for nuclear weapons. If terrorists carry out attacks targeted against civilian populations then it should be morally acceptable to retaliate against the civilian population centers of the countries that aided the terrorists.
This would mean that we accept the notion that there is nothing inherently immoral about targeting civilians in war and that the only reason why one should not do so is that it would invite retaliations. I accept such a notion but I know that most people, even conservatives, do not.

Three Cheers For President Clinton

It has been a long time since I have had anything good to say about Bill Clinton. I got my first taste of politics back in the summer of '92 watching the news in my grandmother's kitchen. Back then I was a big follower of then Governor Clinton. What can I say, some kids get into rock stars and actors I got into politicians. My disenchantment from Clinton occurred over a long period of time. I don't think I can pin it down to any single moment. It was somewhere between my growing disenchantment with the Oslo Accords and Monica Lewinsky.
Now Clinton has gone on the attack against President Jimmy Carter, someone whom I had great respect for up until a few years ago. (link) For those of you who have really had their heads in the clouds Carter published an anti-Israel hate fest titled Peace Not Apartheid.
Thank You President Clinton for doing the right and moral thing (for once).

Interfaith Dialogue

Jim Nimmo, a gay rights activist from Oklahoma, wrote an interesting article in the American Chronicle, (link) in which he argues that the opposition to gay marriage is linked to religion and that all religion is based on bigotry.
I sent him the following email:
As someone who supports gay marriage, I question some of your arguments. You seem to operate on the assumption that any opposition to gay marriage or to gays in general is based on homophobia and is of a religious origin. The reason why I support gay marriage is that I look around and see gay couples who are married and function in the same way as heterosexual couples so it seems reasonable to me have our marriage laws reflect this reality. Someone could be a complete atheist and look around and say that gay couples have not reached that point so we should just leave the laws as they are for the moment. If we present the argument for gay marriage like I just did then I believe we could get most of the country and even a decent percentage of people on the right to go along with it. In general I fail to see how any religious ban on gay sex would be any different then bans on eating pork or eating meat during Lent. I see homosexuality as an action that should be defended upon libertarian grounds. Not as a state of being that should be defended as a civil right. If we assume that homosexuality is a state of being then the state has the right to start asking itself what sorts of beings it prefers. Your attacks on religion are not helpful. By attacking religion you are making this about religion. Many people on the right suspect that the gay marriage movement is a conspiracy to get the courts to say that anyone who does not support gay marriage is a bigot. Hence the court would be saying that any religion that does not support gay marriage is bigoted and is no different then say the KKK.
Benzion N. Chinn
P.S The term is Hasdic Judaism not Hasdism Judaism.

He responded to my email:
Mr. Chinn,> > Thanks for reading and also for your support of gay marriage.> I think we're on the same page in regard to a libertatrian POV about> two people of any gender combination and/or religious/non-religious> status being recognized first from the civil government for a valid> marriage license. Religious ceremonies can come later, if at all.> > I think the issue IS religion and the pernicious, parasitic way it> has of infecting our civil and social atmosphere.> > I do not wish any opponent harm: I want them to leave their> prejucide out of the public forum as it always brings harm to those> whose beliefs and education differ from the oppressors.> > Until our American First Amendment is formally repealed, instead of> being simply ignored by many, we should maintain a strict seperation> of religous views from being injected into our civil codes, be they> progressive or knee-jerk beliefs.> > As I stated in my essay, why should one denomination be allowed to> hold sway over another? Is the intent of such a practice to> reinforce the inculcated bigotry some people choose to use as a> smoke screen, a bigotry which we both want to suspend?> > Thanks for the terminology correction. I knew it didn't look right> but couldn't get my head around it. Living as a goy in Oklahoma> leaves me little exposure to non-xtian practices and language.> > Best wishes.> > Jim Nimmo

To which I responded:The issue of the more extreme factions of a group being able to hold> the more moderate factions hostage is an interesting issue that goes> beyond religion. I see it all over the place.> Particularly in the case of religion, the more extreme groups (in> the case of Judaism that would be Hasidic Jews and other types of> Haredim.) do not view the more moderate groups as having any sort of> legitimacy, while the moderates still view those on the extreme as> being legitimate. The reason for this is that the general perception> is that those on the extreme are the most religious, the "true> believers." This allows those on the extreme to ignore the moderates> while the moderates have to constantly pay attention to those on the> extreme.> At the end of the day it those who are on the extreme who manage to> dictate the agenda and everyone else is caught simply trying to> react.> One of the problems with how we currently put the first amendment> into practice is that it makes it very difficult to deal with> religion in a public context. Religion becomes something that only> goes on in private religious circles, where the extremes can> dominate the conversation.> Just as I have no problem with having government paid chaplains in> the armed forces and Congress opening sessions with a prayer. I have> no problem with there being government chaplains in public schools> and there being prayer in public schools. Just as long as it does> not cross the line into becoming an active campaign to create a> dominant religion.> As to my letter. You did not answer the question of what is the> difference between banning homosexual sex and banning any other> action? Religions usually have lots of taboos, why can't> homosexuality simply be one more of them? While this may put the> members of a given religion who are homosexuals in a really tough> position, it would not make the religion homophobic.
Benzion Chinn

I have never been given any sort of answer as to why homosexuality must be treated as a state of being instead of as an action that some people enjoy doing. Of course once we start treating homosexuality as an action then the notion of gay rights collapses.

Dancing at Two Weddings

An interesting article here from the NY Times dealing with a gathering of on the edge haredim.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/nyregion/thecity/18hasi.html?ex=1331956800&en=3be95d08f3129f34&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Medieval Aliens

In speaking to people about the Middle Ages I often have to disabuse them of the Whig narrative of history, which they may have imbibed. According to the Whig narrative, there was the golden era of Greece and Rome, filled with enlightenment and philosophy. This was followed by the dark Medieval age, which was dominated by intolerance and superstition. Mankind only awoke from its slumber after a thousand years, when it had the Renaissance. In dealing with the Jewish community, my cause is made particularly difficult because I have to contend with fake historians like Rabbi Berel Wein, who have hypocritically taken up this Whig narrative and used it when dealing with the Catholic church, but of course exempt Judaism from it. I recently read a novel titled Eifelheim by Michael Flynn. It is about a group of aliens known as the Krenken, who crash near a German village during the Black Death. What I really loved about this book was its ability to portray the villagers who come in contact with these aliens and in particular the priest, Father Dietrich, as being sophisticated individuals in their own uniquely medieval way. I find the author's comments in his historical notes to be particularly comforting. He writes: For one thing, they [people in the Middle Ages] took Christianity seriously; in many ways, more seriously than modern Bible-thumpers. At the same time, they took it more matter-of-factly. ... Philosophers studied nature with virtually no intrusions by theologians who were themselves natural philosophers. ... Never before or since has such a large proportion of a population been educated so exclusively in logic, reason, and science. "Key was the concept of secondary causation: God had endowed material bodies with the ability to act upon one another by their own natures. Hence, 'natural law.' If God made the entire world, then invoking God to explain the rainbow or magnetism or rectilinear motion added nothing to human understanding. Philosophers therefore sought natural explanations to natural phenomena. That a later century would invoke religion over a trivial matter of the earth's motion would likely have astonished them." I would like to thank you Mr. Flynn for doing so successfully what we historians try and usually fail to do.

Speaker For the Dead

In Orson Scott Card’s Ender series, the main character Andrew Wiggin serves as a Speaker for the Dead. He tells over the life stories of those who had died not to praise or condemn the dead but simply so that those hearing could understand what the deceased stood for and how they understood themselves. The motive of the speaker is that he believes that there is an inherent value to human existence and that by honestly seeking to come to an understanding of an individual one can come to a greater understanding of humanity as a whole. I see the historian as serving a similar function for modern-day society. 

We are the stewards of the knowledge of societies and worlds that are dead and buried. Their values and all that they stood for are gone and there are few who would even understand them. (Just as our society will one day pass from this earth to be inherited by people who are incapable of even understanding our values and what we stood for.) The historian’s task is to serve as a speaker for those who can no longer speak for themselves. Not out of any present-day agenda, but simply because he believes that human beings have intrinsic value and that by honestly coming to terms with human beings, even those no longer here, we can come to a greater understanding of present-day humanity. This is not to say that the past repeats itself, but simply that it gives a context with which to place ourselves. The historian studies the past, but more than that he lives in the past. If the past is like a foreign country then the historian is like the intelligence officer who has spent decades living in the country he studies and has more of this country within him than that of his native land. While this intelligence officer may never become a native of the country he studies, he will never again be able to truly be a native of the country of his origin either. Not that I believe that historians are infallible oracles from whom the past radiates through. Just as a person today cannot embody anything more than just a perspective of this world so to the historian is simply an expression of one amongst many legitimate perspectives on the past. 

My goal in teaching history is to challenge students by forcing them to come to terms with the fact that there were sane, moral people who thought in ways that go against everything my students have been taught to believe. For example, most societies in history have tended toward hierarchy in their structure and in particular they have been patriarchal. I take it for granted that all of my students believe in equality and in women’s rights in one form or another. I would want to bring about just a glimmer of a crisis of faith; that just for a moment my students should wonder whether it is we who are wrong and Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and Maimonides who are right. Not that I want my students to stop believing in equality. On the contrary, I want to make them stronger believers. I would want them to go from simply spouting dogma about equality to actively accepting it, fully aware of the price they pay in doing so. 

Ultimately being a historian involves being both a liberal and a conservative. The historian is a liberal in that he actively seeks to challenge the status quo. He lives with an open mind and with the possibility of other ways of living one's life. On the other hand the field of history, unlike any other field of study besides for religion, is built around defending tradition, the conservative action par excellence. Not to say that the historian necessarily wants to replicate past ways of living in the present. That being said, if the historian did not believe that there was some real value to traditional ways of life he would have chosen a different field. 

 Postscript: Those who know me well would realize that my way of thinking is ultimately rooted within this contradiction.

The Potter Prophecy

An idea recently occurred to me about the prophecy in Harry Potter. We know that the cause of Voldemort coming after the Potters, when Harry was a baby, was that Snape overheard part of the prophecy and told Voldemort. Could it be that Snape, at this point, was already working for Dumbledore and that Dumbledore told Snape to tell Voldemort about it. Dumbledore's purpose would have been to bait Voldemort into coming after Harry, thus causing the prophecy to come true and bringing about the initial downfall of Voldemort. This would mean that Dumbledore had lied to Harry in order to cover up the fact that he bore a responsibility for the death of Harry's parents. We know that Dumbledore wanted to be the Potters' secret keeper. Could it be that Dumbledore intended to somehow give Voldemort the secret himself in order that Voldemort would be able to go after the Potters. We already know that Dumbledore had refrained from telling Harry the full truth about things in the past in order to protect him. Could it also be that Dumbledore did not told Harry the full prophecy, particularly the part that was fulfilled by Snape killing Dumbledore?
This may or may not be what will happen. It would make for a really cool plot twist. It would not make Dumbledore a bad person. It would just make him someone who made some impossible moral choices.

Happy Birthday to Me

Today I have reached level 24 of glorious singlehood. I am still trying to figure out what special codes and powers I now get. I am already licensed to drive and drink, just not at the same time.
I would like to thank my best friend Ariel for the book he gave me. And for calling me a "terrorist." (When my great-aunt misread the note, which said Averroeist, she did not realize that an Averroeist is a terrorist who sneaks into innocent frum populations and spreads esoteric heresy. This is of course why you need gedolim. Only gedolim can be smart enough to understand the complex natures of our heresies.)
What did I do today? Mainly I fasted. I met with a professor who seemed to like my proposed thesis for a seminar paper. After breakfast, I celebrated over beer and Haagen-Dazs.
To an exciting action-packed year of wine, women, and papers.

Of King Solomon and Rabbinic Child Molesters

“And it was in Shlomo’s old age and his wives turned his heart after foreign gods and his heart was not completely with the Lord his God like the heart of David his father.” (Kings I 11:4)

What does it mean when the T’nach talks about Shlomo worshipping idols? In the rabbinic tradition, it is taken to mean that he allowed his wives to worship idols and he did nothing to stop it so it is therefore considered, in some sense, as if he himself worshipped idols. Shlomo was not just a wise but fallible old man, he was a monarch with absolute authority. With absolute authority comes absolute responsibility. Because Shlomo was in such a position of power it was perfectly justifiable for T’nach to place absolute blame upon him and view him as an idolater.

As any thinking person should have realized by now, the real issue at stake in the Yehuda Kolko case is not Yehuda Kolko. Kolko by himself is simply a child molester no more no less. This case is really about the Haredi rabbinate, otherwise known as the gedolim, who allowed Kolko to teach at Torah Temimah and work at summer camps for thirty years. This case raises some interesting questions about the concept of daat Torah. The Haredim of course view their gedolim as absolute infallible authorities and as such not subject to challenge by mere mortals such as you or me. This being the case then how does one understand the fact that these gedolim failed to catch Kolko? If one believes that the Haredi gedolim are simply wise but fallible old men then, in theory at least, it is possible to simply say they failed in this instance and that in the future better safeguards are needed. This sort of position is perfectly viable for someone in my situation. Just as I could care less what these people think about science and evolution so to I could care less what these people think are the best ways to protect children from child molesters. But for anyone who believes that the gedolim must be viewed as having absolute authority then the Kolko case raises some serious problems. If the gedolim have absolute authority then, as Shlomo was viewed as an idolater by T’nach, the gedolim themselves must be viewed as being child molesters. They allowed it to happen so therefore they must bear absolute blame for it. So when Kolko pulled down the pants of children and touched them it was not he who did it; it was every single one of the gedolim.

The Multiculturalist Argument For God

“If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth. When I was an atheist I had to try to persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most; when I became a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view.” (C.S Lewis Mere Christianity pg. 43.)

This is one of the most devastating arguments I know of against either atheism or religious fundamentalism. Every single human society, up until modern times, has not only believed in the existence of some sort of supernatural being (or beings), that takes an interest in human affairs and has definite ideas about what humans should or should not do, but has built their civilization around this premise. It was not just that these societies had large amounts of religious people, religion was the society. If you are an atheist then you have to believe therefore that human civilization has been built around one giant lie. I do not see how you can accept such a view of humanity and still have the faith in human reason and human ability that modernity requires in order to justify itself. Similarly if you are a religious fundamentalist, someone who believes that his religious texts and doctrines are by definition the Truth and the standard by which everything else must be judged, then you must admit that the vast majority of humanity, those who do not share your beliefs, has walked completely in darkness. How can anyone trust such a God, who has lead humanity into darkness, to reveal any Truths?
One of the problems with how history gets taught, and I see this with the students I teach, is that, because we are not a civilization built around religion, we have rewritten the past in our own image and have downplayed the central role played by religion in past civilizations. All of my students, to one degree or another, believe that religion should be separated from government to such an extent that they do not understand how any reasonable person could have thought differently. Aided by the textbooks they have read, which have no desire to challenge their assumptions, unless they are religious ones, my students have not truly been forced to face the fact that every civilization they have studied has been built around religion and in most cases religions vastly different then theirs. This is true of my secular students and of my religious ones, who simply are unable to internalize the idea that there were Greek and Roman pagans, who honestly believed in the gods and who had the morals and piety to match that of any Christian.
It is not for nothing that recent trends in education have strengthened the hands of both atheists and fundamentalist.

My Government is Licensed to Kill

A lot has been made about Israel’s inability to make its case in liberal circles. Israel gets caught up in the cycle of violence argument and cannot escape the moral equivalency that goes with it. One may wish to simply pass this off as anti-Semitism and anti-Semitism may play a role, but I think that there is more to it than that. As I see it, one of the major issues here is that the modern left does not see an inherent difference between the actions of governments and the actions of individual human beings.

While I believe in having a limited government, this government has an important role to play in society and in carrying out its mission it has the moral license to take actions beyond the normal scope of human beings. If someone were to shoot my friend or relative and I was to hunt that person down and kill him in cold blood then I would be engaging in vengeance and would be nothing more than a common murderer. If the government were to track down this same person and execute him they would be performing justice. Governments have the right to wage wars against other countries even though such actions are bound to cost innocent lives. The reason for this is that governments exist in order to protect the Lives, Liberties, and Properties of those who live under it and in order to protect these things governments have to have the ability to violate the rights of specific individuals. The government can force me to pay taxes I do not support and make me obey laws I do not support. The government can even draft me into the army, hand me a gun and send me up a hill into certain death. The justification for this is that it is only by having such a government that the rights of the populace as a whole can be maintained. Make no mistake about it, government is a Faustian bargain in which one barters away a large portion of one's freedoms.

Because of this, I have no moral objection to Israel bombing targets in civilian areas even though such actions cost innocent Palestinian lives. A Palestinian suicide bomber, on the other hand, is not acting on behalf of a government and for this reason, is simply a murderer. Most of those on the Left today do not see any moral difference. When an Israeli soldier kills a Palestinian he is a murderer and when a Palestinian kills an Israeli he is a murderer. This turns into a cycle of violence; Israel kills in order to avenge the murders of Israelis and Palestinians kill in order to avenge themselves upon Israel.

Full Frontal Potter

The media have been all over it, squeezing the story for every bit of shock value it is worth. Oh my God, Daniel Radcliffe, the boy who plays Harry Potter, goes completely naked in a theater production of Equus. Parents are horrified. What should they do with their children.
My thoughts on the matter.
What is Danial Radcliffe doing that is harmful to children? I say this is a wonderful opportunity for parents to talk to their children about making moral choices and how moral choices can be complicated. Here are some starter questions to get the ball rolling. Is Dan doing anything wrong by running around on stage naked, if so what? Does it change things considering the fact that he is doing art and not simply porn? Considering the nature of the acting profession, should actors be expected to live by the same sexual code as other people? I say we all owe Daniel a debt of gratitude. If his actions spark these kinds of conversations then it is worth every stitch of clothing not on his naked body.

Izgad and the Deathly Hollows

Its Official, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows is coming out July 21, 2007. I have already ordered myself a copy so to all the 3.14159... admirers of mine, if you wish to give me something for my birthday, you will have to think of something else. I don't think Harry is going to die. If I were going to kill him here is how I would do it. (I thought of this idea back in 2000, when I was reading Goblet of Fire.) What Avada Kedavra does is suck the lifeforce out of the person, causing them to drop dead, and into the one who says the curse. When Voldemort used the spell on Harry, all those years ago, he killed Harry. Except that, because Harry was protected by his mother's sacrifice, the spell rebounded back on Voldemort, taking his lifeforce and placing it within Harry. Harry had died. The reason why he is still alive is that he possesses Voldemort's lifeforce, which is why he has Voldemort's abilities. Because Harry lives on Voldemort's lifeforce, his life depends on Voldemort's continued existence. By destroying Voldemort, Harry will, in essence be sacrificing himself to save his friends.