Archives for December 2002

S&M inspector update

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Wear your seatbelt!Slate’s Chatterbox has an awkward little soul-searching story about the UN inspector who The Washington Post indicted as unfit because he is into S&M in his own private time. The good news is that the guy tried to resign after the story hit, but the UN rejected the resignation saying his sex life was none of their business. Good for them. And kudos to Slate for continuing to hammer at this story.

But Chatterbox also musingly and inadvertently belies what’s wrong with liberals today. As far leftward as I’m pushed by the Bush administration, I make a ready U-turn when I read things like this:

This is shaky ground for liberals (like Chatterbox), who on the one hand strongly advocate mandatory seat belts and steep cigarette taxes and on the other hand don’t want to interfere with even the most rococo pursuit of happiness. As that pursuit drifts into the realm of actual violence, though, the whole notion of “consent” fuzzes up.

“Holy crap! I’m inconsistent!” he seems to be saying. But rather than conclude that freedom means the right to do what you want in bed as well as the right to smoke as much as you want, no, “the whole notion of ‘consent’ fuzzes up.” Just like their conservative nemeses, liberals will use force to make people behave how they think is right.

And the distinctions between the two camps (not to mention the two parties) are getting sparser and sparser. Just look at what he’s saying. Maybe people don’t have a right to do whatever they want in bed after all. Political correctness infected American liberalism like the Christian fundamentalism did the conservatives. Slowly they’ll drive us towards Pleasantville.

Dec 4, 2002 | 1 Comment

TIPS is toast, hope springs eternal

Woo-hoo! Mark one down for the home team! Wired News reports on the quiet demise of the Justice Department’s TIPS program (BushAshcroft’s version of something like Cuban Revolutionary Defense Committees–one on every block). After becoming almost completely resigned to an Orwellian, globalized, post-apocalyptic future, it’s little victories like this that give one hope. Perhaps resistance does work, if only to slow things down. The Total Information Awareness project also seems to be standing on one leg. I commend those who’re trying to push it to the ground.

Dec 4, 2002 | Comment

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