Port 80

Or, How to Write a Post Which Criticizes Two of the Most Powerful Special Interest Groups in Existence.

We have, without a doubt, all heard about the driver in California who has killed ten (at last count) people at a farmers market. Some of the data becoming available on this driver is extremely interesting, such as the fact that he hit a retaining wall outside a relative’s birthday party ten years ago and has been denting his car regularly ever since. The result of this, after the immediate tragedy is dealt with, is sure to be a cry for easier review and revocation of drivers licenses when there is suspicion that a currently licensed driver cannot safely control a vehicle. Any proposed measure will not mention any group in particular, but those among the elderly who can no longer drive safely will be one of the main, if unspoken, targets of this change.

This will, of course, probably go over like a lead balloon with the AARP. In no particular order, I expect to see cries of ageism, videos of mournful grandmothers who are afraid that they won’t be able to drive to see their grandchildren, videos of grandfathers who are afraid that they won’t be able to drive to buy food or medicine, and at least one accusation that the proponents of the change are trying to kill or starve seniors. What the AARP will not mention is the fact that driving is a privilege, not a right; the fact that any driver takes the lives of all those on the road into his or her hands; and that by taking upon itself the task of licensing drivers, the state has accepted some responsibility to ensure that those drivers licensed by the state are capable of controlling a motor vehicle safely. These are the same basic tactics that have led Congress to enact a prescription drug plan that will have the federal government paying Bill Gates when he reaches retirement age. They work, and we will see them trotted out again.

Why do I suspect that this will happen? This sort of approach fits the pattern of behaviour of the AARP — gross overreaction to any appearance of threat to the AARP’s constituency, even when the good of society at large may suffer as a result of their overreaction. However, it’s not just the AARP that is guilty of this. Here in Dayton, the NAACP is up in arms over a Dayton Daily News article that noted that the chairwoman of the RTA had spent upwards of 250 days on taxpayer-funded travel over the last several years. The Dayton Daily News article was remarkably generous considering the nature of the evidence — one of the chairwoman’s trips was to Brazil, ostensibly for the purpose of examining local public transportation systems. Combine that with news of a planned $500,000 RTA boardroom, and I smell the sweet scent of waste, fraud, and abuse. The NAACP, however, ignored all this, noted that the chairwoman was black, and declared that the article was the result of racial bias. To their credit, they did suggest a way to avoid bias - simply audit nearly every major public organization in the city, rather than narrowly focusing on those organizations which happen to appear massively corrupt. How efficient.

Why do some organizations exhibit this virulent zeal? My initial suspicion is based on the nature of these organizations - both the AARP and the NAACP (not to mention the NEA) are designed to “defend” groups of people, rather than promoting particular issues. Declaring the welfare of a particular group of people as one’s paramount interest is always a dangerous thing, as the natural consequence of that action is an indifference to the welfare of other groups of people. To some degree, this philosophy can be extended beyond groups of people — some of the more extreme environmentalist groups have taken a distinct “Earth First (Humanity Second)” approach to the issues they address.

However, this explanation appears to be missing some details. All human beings have a paramount interest of some sort. Are there certain paramount interests – the welfare of humanity, for example – that are acceptable? Alternately, is it possible that not all human beings have a single overriding interest that will trump all others? Could the difference simply be one of degree of devotion to an issue rather than the nature of an issue? In other words, is it possible to retain all the principles and values of an organization such as the AARP while introducing a degree of reasonability into the pursuit of the goals dictated by those values? I’m still working this one over myself – I may post more on this topic later if I come up with anything interesting. In the meanwhile, I am open to suggestions if anyone has any insights on the matter that they would like to throw out. (Don’t worry about the “polish” of the idea or any other such issues — I will not post or paraphrase anything sent without getting explicit permission.)

I think it is necessary to say a little more on one of the points raised by Tony Blair’s speech, which I mentioned and linked to previously. One of the points Blair noted was the possibility of the convergence of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. In effect, the idea of such a convergence is the idea that warfighting capabilities that were previously the domain of nation-states are approaching the domain of individuals or small groups. This is not a new event in history. The closest parallel that I can call to mind is the development of the English longbow and gunpowder, and their rivalry of the sword as chosen weapons of war.

Maintaining a swordsman – or a mounted knight – was not a cheap affair. There is a reason that the European feudal system was arranged in such a way as to support the knights of the day — it took the work of a lot of peasants to generate enough wealth to provide for one knight. In other words, serious warfighting power was reserved to relatively large groups of people.

With the development of firearms and the longbow, this ceased to be the case. (I ask the forgiveness of any students of military history — I know that I am drastically simplifying the development of these weapons, but I am trying to make a point about the core effect they had.) With these weapons, serious warfighting power was made available to much smaller groups of people and even to individuals. Two of the societies that confronted this change – Europe and Japan – dealt with the problem in very different ways. Europe embraced firearms, and feudal society gradually collapsed as its rationale for being was removed. Japan, one of the few nations in history to voluntarily reject new technology, gradually eliminated all firearms from the islands, put the manufacturers of firearms out of business, and remained a nation of feudal swordsmen.

The Japanese decision to preserve their society rather than face the consequences of new technology cost them greatly when the gates to Japan were thrown open by Admiral Perry and a fleet of cannon-armed warships. Lacking any effective means to use against these warships, Japan’s isolationist foreign policy was literally ended at gunpoint.

The Japanese example suggests that avoiding the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction may be a mistake. To truly prevent the spread of these weapons, public research into diseases, immunology, toxicology, and nuclear physics may need to be sharply curtailed. Certainly nuclear power will not be allowed to spread beyond a few heavily-guarded plants. The long-term costs of abandoning these avenues of inquiry are incalculable. How are we supposed to cure disease if investigations into the the spread of disease may aid the construction of biological weapons?

The other example, that of Europe, hardly has better consequences. If the nation-state ceases to be an effective method of collective defense – an unlikely, but possible, result of increasing WMD proliferation – who knows what turns society may take. At the very least, the concept of a nation will be weakened, if not destroyed outright. The widespread advent of firearms destroyed the fiefdom — will the widespread advent of WMDs destroy the state?

Beyond mere societal consequences, the nature of the weapons we are dealing with makes passive acceptance of widespread proliferation an untenable position. An intelligent crackpot armed with a rifle can kill dozens, the same crackpot armed with smallpox can kill thousands. With biological and chemical weapons especially, the cost of a weapon of mass destruction is not influenced by materials, but by technology and expertise. History shows that prices based on technology and expertise rather than raw materials and labor tend to decline rapidly. (If you don’t believe me, consider the falling price/power ration of the computer.)

What is the solution? If we suppress those things which are needed for the manufacture of WMDs, we risk crippling science, and thus society. However, if we don’t suppress these materials and pieces of information, we risk either radically disrupting or possibly destroying society. This is not a minor dilemma we face.

The long-term solution undoubtably lies somewhere in the middle ground between two extremes. Although some technological progress will surely be made that can limit the impact of WMDs, our long-term goal must be the construction of a world where, although weapons of mass destruction are available, they are not used. Bear in mind, however, that MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction, for those who are not students of the Cold War) is useless against lunatics, and that even one use of WMDs may constitute an unacceptable loss. The process of creating such a world may begin with the removal of dictatorships such as that of Saddam Hussein, but it cannot stop with mere removal. It will be necessary to stabilize many troubled regions of the world — Palestine and the Middle East, Kashmir, the Koreas, the Balkans, Africa. Providing the details and methodology of this stabilization is left as a trivial exercise for the reader.

Since I have moved from NeoPages to Blogsome, the NeoPages links in this post will no longer work.

Thanks to the extreme generosity of Roy and the entire community at Neopages, this site will soon be moving to a new location: port80.neominds.net. There’s nothing there now, I’m afraid, but I hope to move the site within the next few weeks. Until then, Port 80 will still live right here, but I intend to move as soon as possible. (It’s not a straight copy-and-paste operation — since I now have access to CGI scripts, I am taking this opportunity to upgrade the backend of the site. Among other things, I hope to add better archives and a combined comment and Trackback system.)

Last night, I got the chance to watch Tony Blair’s speech to Congress. (Dialup users may prefer to read Blair’s remarks.) As you watch, bear in mind that Blair is a member of the Labour party, a remarkable fact given his tendency to sound like Paul Wolfowitz in his statements on foreign policy. Beyond mere curiosity, it is worth a little time to see the advice of a British prime minister regarding the proper actions of a major world power.

The other reason to watch this speech is that the ritual quoting out of context has already begun less than twenty-four hours later.

Tony Blair last night used the rare opportunity of a historic address to the US Congress to declare that history would “forgive” him even if no weapons of mass destruction are uncovered in Iraq.

In a significant softening of Downing Street’s stance on Iraq’s banned weapons, the prime minister stood before hundreds of members of Congress to admit that he may eventually be proved wrong.

As Britain knows, all predominant power seems for a time invincible, but, in fact, it is transient. The question is: What do you leave behind?

I haven’t abandoned the blog, and I have several posts in the works. However, as a resident of Dayton, I thought that I should at least post a few quick snippets on Inventing Flight while I’m working on more involved posts.

Opening

UFOs: I know that Inventing Flight is trying to be as inclusive as possible, hence the use of breakdancing in the opening ceremony. But I really wouldn’t have picked the Raelians as consultants for depicting the future of flight.

Somber: I’m not a doctor, but it sure looked like Neil Armstrong was suffering from Parkinson’s disease during the opening ceremony. It is entirely possible that in not too long a time, we will no longer have the lunar astronauts among us. Does it disturb anyone else that human interplanetary exploration may soon be an experience only remembered in books and films? If and when we go back, what will we have to relearn along the way?

Bush’s Speech

Numbers: I was lucky to be one of the twenty-five thousand people who got tickets to see Bush speak at Wright-Patterson AFB. I saw exactly five protestors outside the gates. And I’m counting the two-year olds in strollers.

Introductions: One of the worst possible introductions was invented for a congressman this morning: “This man has brought a lot to us here at Wright-Patterson. In other states, we call this ‘pork’, but in Ohio, we call this ‘economic stimulus.’ Please welcome …” And so ends the career of a promising master of ceremonies.

Security: Without going into detail, let me just say that when the Secret Service decides to secure a facility from outside threats, they do not joke around. Thus, I very much suspect that the low-and-slow Air Force One flyover of the crowd was done over the objections of more than one security agent.

Image: If you decide to drive across the grass to get ahead in line, partially block off paths that are being used by ambulances, and then expect other drivers to let you back into traffic, you really shouldn’t do it in a black Chevy Blazer with a WHIO-1290 logo on the side door. That’s just asking for trouble.

Miscellaneous

France: The Dayton Airshow this year is set to be the largest in the world. This must really peeve the French: Paris has been beaten out by a city which isn’t even large enough to have a major league baseball, basketball, football, or soccer franchise.

CityFolk: Rosie Ledet and the Zydeco Playboys rock. ‘Nuff said.