Post-Bundy Standoff

The Clive Bundy standoff has receded from the headlines, which is a shame, because the smoldering embers of it are worth watching -- and should dispel any notion that the militia movement is our best champion of liberty, even apart from the issue of race.

The local Congressman, Steven Horsford (both black and a Democrat), has alleged that militia members had established an intimidating presence on the highways and were setting up checkpoints and checking ID's.  Hotel keepers have complained about threatening phone calls, bomb threats, and even in-person threats.  David Neiwart (no fan of the militia movement), says that journalists in the area have found no evidence of roadblocks or checkpoints.  He has found ample evidence of factional disputes among the armed men, with a most interesting video they have released.  Apparently the Oath Keepers heard a rumor that there would be a drone strike on the camp and withdrew, the the great anger of the other groups present.  Listening to the video, several things about it are striking:

1. The primary speaker talks very much in military terms, speaking of "the enemy," the chain of command, and war.  He clearly sees this as war.
2. All important decisions are put up for a vote.  This certainly gives the organization a democratic (and, in that sense, decidedly un-military) appearance.  But the votes tend strongly toward unanimity, since all people present are essentially in consensus, and what would happen if there was serious dissent is an interesting question.
3. One of the women present (the group is predominantly male, but has women as well), mentioned cancelling a Republican caucus meeting to attend.  This is, once again, evidence that the distinction between these fringe groups and the mainstream is not as clear-cut as one  might wish.
4. They attribute the dispute to provocateurs.  This is not entirely paranoia.  It is my understanding that the militia movement really is riddled with FBI provocateurs, and members legitimately have grounds to be wary of them.  But it can easily turn into paranoia, and an assumption that any difference of opinion is the work of provocateurs, and that anyone who disagrees is necessarily a traitor.  

Neiwart also displays a video from the Oath Keepers (real military types and probably better disciplined) describing the two sides as breaking into fist fights and threatening to shoot each other. They are generally contemptuous of the militia types for having weak military discipline and regard them as amateurs.

Clive Bundy and the Mainstream

With the Cliven Bundy standoff retreating from the headlines, it is time to return to my ongoing series on guns, the Second Amendment, and armed rebellion.  What is remarkable and disturbing about this latest incident is not that there was an armed standoff between the federal government and the militia movement, or that the government backed down without bloodshed, but the amount of mainstream support the militia types received during the ongoing showdown.  This is something new.

Consider:

At Ruby Ridge, the FBI and ATF were shocked at the amount of support a white supremacist facing firearms charges received, and the extent of a nascent militia movement supporting him.  But mainstream conservatives stayed well away.  When the FBI and ATF first began besieging the Branch Davidians, talk was becoming popular in some circles about the Second Amendment guaranteeing the right to stockpile a large private arsenal to wage war on the federal government, and quite probably to start shooting if they tried to shut it down.  But when such a thing happened, there was no initial outburst of support from gun culture. Only later did the "Patriot" movement adopt the Branch Davidians as their own.

When Republicans took control of Congress in 1995, they began an investigation of both incidents and found much, quite legitimately, to criticize.  They found many ways that the FBI and ATF could have handled both sieges better and without bloodshed.  But what they did not find was that law-abiding citizens were being unfairly persecuted just for exercising their rights to wage war on the Federal Government.  In fact, they ultimately decided that, although they had many tactical criticisms, they supported the ultimate decision to shut both groups down since they were, after all, preparing to wage war on the Federal Government.

The Montana Freemen in 1996 were a different story.  In this case, the FBI had learned its (tactical) lessons from the previous experiences and avoided a shootout.  Instead they backed off, but pinned the Freemen in and eventually negotiated their surrender.  Once again, there was no great outpouring of mainstream support. Militia-type Bo Gritz attempted to negotiate an end to the siege but ended up giving up, saying that the Freemen were too nutty for him.  And if they were too nutty for Bo Gritz, we may safety assume they were too nutty for Rush Limbaugh and Republican politicians.  (Fox New had not yet begun broadcasting).

In 2000, of course, a Republican was elected President, and in 2001 Islamists destroyed the World Trade Center, and suddenly waging war on the Federal Government stopped looking patriotic.

Well, once again, a Democrat is in the White House, and armed rebellion against the federal government is once again patriotic. Clive Bundy had been grazing his cattle on federal land for 20 years without paying grazing fees, and when the Bureau of Land Management came to confiscate them, he called out the militia movement to resist.  And this, time, mainstream conservatives, including five members of the Arizona legislature, Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval and Senator Dean Heller, and, of course, Sean Hannity on Fox News.  Of course, all of these deserted him when Bundy began making racially questionable remarks. And attempts to give these remarks more "context" are unlikely to make much difference -- our sensitivity on race is such that anything that might be perceived as insensitive is deadly.

But then again, as this segment points out, it was an open secret that Clive Bundy and his friends had some very radical views even apart from their views on race -- such as the view that the Federal Government was barred by the Constitution from holding any land at all except for military bases, that it had no legitimate law enforcement powers and, indeed, that the Federal Government could not legitimately exist at all!  It is possible, I suppose, that Fox News types and some of our more libertarian Republican politicians believe that it is illegitimate for the Federal Government to hold land, that our National Parks should be turned over to the states to manage, and other federal land auctioned off to ranchers, timber companies, and mining companies.  But I doubt that any of them would deny the Federal Government law enforcement powers (what, no one to hunt down terrorists!), much less deny its legitimacy altogether, even if a Democrat is in the White House.

Confronted with Bundy's radical views, the usual response on the mainstream right has been that of course, they do not agree with them, but they are concerned about the heavy-handed, "paramilitary" approach of the BLM.  They have a legitimate point there.  The militarization of our police forces is, indeed, worrisome. Opposing it with private paramilitaries is also worrisome.  But surely it is no coincidence that the right wing did not get seriously worked up about this militarization until one of their own was the target.  Consider the appalling militarization of the police that has taken place in the context of the War on Drugs.  I am not aware of Fox News being one of its leading critics.  But even assuming it has, suppose some drug dealer adopted the theory, not only that federal bans on drugs are unconstitutional (some libertarians hold that view, but that the Federal Government has no law enforcement powers whatever, that its existence is illegitimate and, that if it tries to flex its muscle, he has the constitutional right to offer it armed resistance and possibly start a violent revolution against it -- wouldn't such a view be seen as alarming to most mainstream conservatives, even ones who are pretty hard core?  And wouldn't they, after all, be right to be alarmed?

Julius Caesar, Starring Marlon Brando

Our reading of Julius Caesar is now over.  But we did see a movie of it, not one of these modern, "innovative" interpretations of Shakespeare that are all the rage, but but a fine, traditional version, the 1953 version, starring Marlon Brando as Mark Antony.  My comments on the movie:

Crowds are bigger in movies than they ever could be on stage.  The opening sequence, in which a cobbler jokes with two tribunes, punning on cobbler as meaning either bungler or shoemaker is cut short, and rightly so.  The pun just doesn't hold up so well.  When the tribunes go to take the crowning off Caesar's statues, his soldiers stop them and march them off to an unknown fate.  It works well, much better than the play in which it is simply said later that they were "put to silence."  In fact, Caesar's soldiers seem to be all over and it is not safe to speak too freely in public.  Very effective, both in creating an atmosphere and playing to the anxieties of a mid-20th century audience.  (And to us today, as well).

Brutus' wife, Portia, begs him to tell her what is going on, but does not reveal that she stabbed herself to test her tolerance for pain, nor do we see her totally freaking out the next day.

The movie does not mind men declaring their "love" for each other, but scrupulously avoids any use of the term "lover" to mean friend.  (And no matter how often the play used the expression, or how close together, my book  felt the need to explain the proper meaning of "lover" every goddam time it was used!)  When Artimedorus gives Caesar the letter warning of the conspiracy he simply signs it "Artimedorus," while in the play he signed it "Thy lover, Artimedorus."  Brutus simply addresses the crowd as "Romans, countrymen," instead of "Romans, countrymen, and lovers."  Instead of saying, "I slew my best lover," he says, "I slew Caesar."

The actual assassination is powerful.  As the conspirators attack Caesar, Brutus stands aside, some distance off and takes no part.  Caesar puts up a ferocious struggle and manages to break free and make his way over to Brutus, his best friend, seeking his protection.  And Brutus pulls his knife and finishes him off.  The emotional impact, the horror of the scene is intense.  It makes you understand why Dante put Brutus in the bottom ring of Hell, chewed on by Satan for all eternity.

When Brutus addresses the crowd, they are portrayed as initially hostile, which is appropriate, artistically and historically.  He wins them over, although a woman in the crowd screams when Caesar's body is carried out. (There are women as well as men in the crowd).  As for Anthony -- well, when he says, "Bear with me/My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar/I must pause till it come back to me," he turns away from the crowd and pretends to cry, but is really listening for their reaction.  Yeah, that sounds about right, based on his later behavior.

The utterly baffling two announcements that Brutus' wife Portia is dead are cut down to one.  And, again, I think wisely so.  Unless you can somehow convey a good reason for the double announcement, leave it out. When Brutus sees Caesar's ghost, you get the distinct impression that his real fear is not that he will die in the upcoming battle than that he is losing his mind.  (Or does he, after all, hope that he is losing his mind because that means he might survive the upcoming battle?)

As for the final battles, they are much abbreviated and, I would say, wisely so.  The ebb and flow of it is simply confusing and reinforces the impression that the play is falling apart.  Instead, they show Antony's forces attack and the conspirators' forces defeated.  Various individuals dying, either in combat or by their own hand, is cut down, to just Cassius and Brutus.  I did miss Brutus' epitaph for the dead Cassius, "Friends, I owe more tears/To this dead man than you shall see me pay./I shall find time, Cassius, I shall find time."  I always thought this was a beautiful expression of intense emotion by restraint, as grief for a friend struggles against the urgency of the situation.

And at the very end, when they come across the body of Brutus, the speeches of Antony and Octavius are reversed.  In other words, in the original, Octavius (as the future Emperor Augustus) is given the privilege of speaking last.  Antony gives a eulogy of Brutus, followed by Octavius proposing that he receive an honorable funeral, which sounds cold and jarring immediately following Antony's moving epitaph.  So the movie puts the honorable funeral speech first and closes with the epitaph -- an improvement, I would say.

In short, I appear to regard this as a good adaptation.

Obamacare: A Personal Note

Well, I am now signed up for Obamacare, although I really can't afford it right now.  I must say it has been a frustrating experience.  I delayed a long time between initially starting my account and actually signing up because I did not know what my income would be.  Now I know, and I really can't afford, it but we will see what happens.

The website works better than it did in the beginning (less time staring at the green circle going round and round).  The the @#$%^&!!!! thing is still terribly designed!!  I show up and log in.  Good enough.  I am then presented with a screen that has several links that I can click.  First there is a label saying "View my current applications."  Below it is a box that says "2014 New Mexico application for Individual & Family Coverage," together with a status and application number.  To the right of the label is the option to apply for new coverage.  Below the box is a link allowing me to "Find my application."  "Apply for new coverage" leads me to a link below that says "Apply and shop for coverage for me and/or my family."  Well, I kept clicking on that link and it kept leading me into a closed loop that wouldn't let me @#$%^&! apply!  It got so frustrating that I finally called the help line, only to be told to click on the box that said, "2014 New Mexico application for Individual & Family Coverage," which led to the incomplete application.

Okay, it is a small thing, and easily resolved, and maybe it shows me as dense.  But it was really difficult for me to figure out and blocked my application for days!   How many other people have had similar frustrations just not knowing which link to click, I wonder.

View my current applications

Apply for new coverage

·         2014 New Mexico application for
Individual & Family Coverage

Status: Complete
ID#: 304730958 

Need to find your application? Take the next steps here if you applied with a paper application or the Marketplace Call Center, or you were referred by your appropriate state agency. Find my application. 

If you were referred here by your state agency and something's changed since you applied – like your income or family size – select "Apply for new coverage" instead.

---

Apply for new coverage

INDIVIDUALS & FAMILIES

·         Apply and shop for coverage for me and/or my family

If you believe you have a situation that may qualify you as exempt from the requirement to carry health insurance, you can get more information and download applications here.

SMALL BUSINESS EMPLOYERS

NOTE: This application is only for use by small business employers looking to provide coverage to their employees through the SHOP program.

Right-click the link to the PDF document and select “Save As.” After you have downloaded the PDF document to your computer, open it using Adobe Reader to complete the application. Adobe Reader is required to complete the application and is available as a free download.

·         Apply for coverage for my employees (PDF, 2.1MB)

Julius Caesar, Continued

Julius Caesar readers are now moving on from the first three acts to Acts IV and V, which just aren't very satisfactory and have the feeling of the play falling apart.  (MacBeth has the same fault).  Acts I through III are neat and tightly plotted.  The conspirators conspire, Brutus is brought into the plot, Caesar is killed, Brutus tries to justify the assassination to the crowd, but Mark Antony fires them up with one a the greatest pieces of oratory ever written, and the mob goes on the rampage.  The characters have recognizable personalities. Caesar is the most pompous and arrogant embodiment of hubris and/or ego ever to walk the stage.* Cassius is simply Iago (we read Othello right before Julius Caesar).  Casca is a sneering cynic.  Antony is a rabble-rousing demagogue, who nonetheless seems deeply devoted to Caesar for some undefined reason.  And Brutus -- well Brutus is the perfect demonstration of why the man of flawless character and irreproachable integrity that conspirators want as their figurehead should not be involved in the sordid, squalid business of actually conspiring.  He makes consistently bad decisions while Cassius constantly gives him advice that, although often immoral, makes good tactical sense.

That last trait (Brutus has much worse judgment than Cassius but keeps overruling him) continues in the last two acts.  Otherwise, the play just loses steam.  The rival sides fight a civil war and also quarrel among themselves.  The conspirators lose and kill themselves.  The plot loses its focus, and the characters become less focused, as well.  Antony, whatever his faults, seemed deeply and genuinely devoted to Caesar.  He won over the crowd, in part, by showing that Caesar left his fortune to The People.  He then starts meeting with his allies, Octavius and Lepidus and trying to figure out how to avoid actually having to pay, to say nothing of drawing up hit lists and bartering over who is to be killed as calmly as over a sack of flour. Meanwhile, Brutus and Cassius get into a quarrel with all the emotion maturity of a couple of toddlers, then kiss and make up and decide they need a drink.  And Brutus makes yet another decision so stupid that even his enemies can't believe he was that dumb.  And Cassius keeps going along with it, out of devotion that overrides common sense.  I suppose you could call this character development.  Mark Antony is a cold-blooded cynic who was apparently just putting on an act before.  The noble Brutus is not above childish tantrums.  And Cassius is not, after all, Iago, but has a real devotion to the man he so cynically manipulated in the first act.  (They are brothers-in-law, and address each other as brother).  But as anyone who reads me knows, I make a sharp distinction between character development and character violation.  What Shakespeare does to his characters in the second half of the play borders on character violation, especially for Cassius.  In the early part of the play, Cassius is shown as intensely resentful of Caesar being top dog. That is his real motive for the assassination, plain, pure and simple.  So why is he so submissive to Brutus as top dog, even when Brutus proves time and again that he is completely unqualified for the job?  I think it would be possible to give Cassius better character development, somehow, but Shakespeare signally fails.

_________________________________________
*We had a sort of debate what is the difference between these two types of arrogance.

Bitcoins and The Free Banking Era

I do not claim any special expertise on Bitcoin, but because it is in the news, I will weigh in.  As I understand it, Bitcoin is a digital currency that exists only as electronic ledger entries.  It is "mined" by doing complex mathematical equations to qualify for a bitcoin.  The makers of Bitcoin have put a ceiling on the number of bitcoins that will be released.  It is beginning to spawn on-line imitators.  Oh, yes, and its biggest fans tend to be libertarians who hate central banks.

In some ways, this is downright amusing.  After all, one of the big complaints Austrian-style libertarians have about central banks is that they reject the intrinsic value of gold and instead issue fiat money that is just so much designer toilet paper.  But really gold is fiat money too.  You can't eat it, burn it, wear it or build with it, and it is too heavy and too soft to make good tools.  It is useful to plate against corrosion, conduct electricity, and various purposes that call for a highly malleable and ductile metal.  And bitcoins are the ultimate fiat money, not even useful as designer toilet paper.  Granted, bitcoins have two other properties Austrian (or Austrian-esque) libertarians value.  They will be released in a limited supply, which will protect them against inflation.  And they are not controlled by any government.  I suspect that libertarians may be in for a lesson in why these can be problems.

Certainly, Austrian-esque libertarians have an extreme aversion to inflation, which they see as an immoral confiscation of people's savings.  They see opposition to inflation in absolutist terms, not as part of a complex framework of tradeoffs.  (See here for a most amusing discussion of why prioritizing zero inflation above all else makes no sense at all).  And they are not sensitive to the hazards of deflation.  If bitcoin works as it is supposed to, it will constantly increase in value, which sounds like a good thing until one realizes that this means it will experience constant deflation.  And libertarians may learn the nature of a deflationary spiral -- as a currency's value rises, people will be reluctant to spend it and its circulation will decline, causing its value to rise more until it becomes hoarded and ceases to circulate altogether.  Fortunately, there will still be old-fashioned national currencies around, so the deflation of Bitcoin won't actually harm anything.

As for keeping the government out, Bitcoin appears to be going to the opposite end of anti-central bank libertarianism from the one that wants to rely on gold -- the one that wants to return to the free banking era. In the free banking era, there were government issued gold and silver coins, and sometimes even government bank notes.  But these were not the only currencies.  Each bank issued its own.  If your primary goal is keeping government from having a monopoly on money because you think this gives government too much power, then I suppose free banking is an excellent system.  If your goal is much of anything else, then the advantages of free banking are less clear.  It turns out that private banks, if allowed to issue their own currency, are prey to the same temptation as central banks -- to issue too much.  And private banks did, quite regularly, issue too much currency with all the evils that Austrian types warn about -- inflation, speculative bubbles, and a boom-and-bust cycle.  In addition, bank failures were common, so that people who put their money in the wrong bank could lose their entire savings.  People who accepted notes from the wrong bank might see them turn into designer toilet paper if it failed.  Also, exchange rates between the currencies of different banks fluctuated wildly, so people never knew how much the money in their pockets would buy at any given time.  (Financial newspapers posted exchange rates daily).  Oh yes, and the system was rife with fraud.  Otherwise, it worked very well.

My guess is that if Bitcoin succeeds and inspires imitators, we will see something similar happen with digital currencies.  Many will succumb to the temptation to issue too much and see their digital currency endlessly depreciate.  Others will resist the temptation and fall victim to Gresham's law; their currencies will be hoarded instead of circulating.  Weaker currencies will fail and cost people their savings and not even leave them designer toilet paper.  Exchange rates will fluctuate wildly.  (They already do).  And the system will be rife with fraud. A lot of people will learn the hard way why the free banking era wasn't so great.

One Last Question Before I Take a Break

I should make one last comment on my proposed series on how democracies fail before leaving it for the time being.  My preliminary hypothesis that the danger generally lies on the Right.  My point is not to deny the very real horrors of violent revolution from the Left, simply to say that those horrors do not seem to occur in democratic countries; that violent revolution from the Left only occurs against authoritarian regimes.

But in modern times, the leap has not generally been from one to the other.  At least some interim period of democratic rule usually intervenes.  Just how long does it have to be to count?  The case of Russia may seem straightforward.  Revolution against the Czar erupted in the end of February (old calendar; mid-March by the new calendar).  The Bolsheviks took over in late October (old calendar; early November by the new calendar). The interim provisional government was wracked by chaos and turmoil.  Nothing like a functioning government, let along a recognizable democracy existed.  Compare that to Weimar which, however turbulent its birth and and troubled its adolescence, at least drew up a constitution and functioning government and held numerous, regular elections.  Weimar endured only fourteen years and was never a mature or healthy democracy, but it was hardly comparable to Russia during those few chaotic months.

But what of, say, the French Revolution?  It took several years to swing badly out of control and managed to hold elections and write a constitution.  Even if one dismisses the several years of chaos, ultimately France did establish an elective Directory that managed to run a functioning government until Napoleon overthrew it. Why not include it?  I do intend to include the subversion by Communists of nascent democracy in Eastern Europe after WWII, which took about three years.  Why not the French First or Second Republic?  In other words, how long does a democratically elective government have to endure to say that it failed, rather than that it just never succeeded?

My answer has to be, I don't know.  Maybe I will include some of these other examples later one; who knows.  But I do intend at least one rule -- that a failed democracy must last at least long enough to but up and running and then fail in order to count.

And now I mean to drop the subject for a while until I have learned something about the Greeks.