Wednesday, December 26, 2007

'Bourne Ultimatum' and the Rule of Law in a Republic

Just watched The Bourne Ultimatum with my sister and my bro-in-law. Cool movie, very well done! Of course, amidst the excellent action, its philosophical point wasn't wasted on me. I don't know if the original book was really about this, but it was a timely statement on the tension between security and liberty.

A Tale of Two Extremisms
One of the great challenges of our time is the defense of liberty against extremist threats, while balancing abuses resulting from too many resources and too little oversight in the instruments created or adapted for that fight. Or rather, the challenge is to defend liberty against multiple threats, multiple extremisms:
  1. extremism abroad (external risk) such as radical Islam that seeks to destroy our precious free institutions by means of terrorism and other subversive methods
  2. extremism at home (internal risk) in the form of overzealousness in battling the first form of extremism.

The Nature of the Evils of Internal and External Risks to Liberty
A useful assertion to make and then analyze is that likelihood or severity of external risks to liberty is inversely proportional to the amount of resources employed in their prevention and directly proportional to the amount of oversight committed to this resources. External risks are greatest when oversight is burdensome and resources are inadequate:



Likewise, the likelihood or severity of internal risks to liberty could be said to be directly proportional to the quantity of resources employed in prevention of external risks, and inversely proportional to the degree of oversight committed to those resources. Internal risks are greatest when too many resources are in the hands of people whose activities are insufficiently monitored:



Internal and external risks can be combined to create a hybrid pseudo-metric:



The obvious story of this chart is that too great of an imbalance of resources or oversight in either direction creates a risk that liberties will be lost. (Note that in all of these charts, the colored section is equal to log of the corresponding value in the non-colored scale. This was to make it easy to apply a color scheme.)

Summary
I'm in favor of normalizing the civil liberties regime during this conflict against external extremism. That means no holding of prisoners without trials. The key reason this is critical now when it wasn't necessarily so during the civil war, for example, is that terrorism will never go away. If we let it, it will become the perpetual wars from 1984 or the state of emergency of Caesar and Emperor Palpatine alike: a constant justification for shafting liberty.

We clearly can't abandon intelligence-gathering efforts. These must be effective. But at the moment our oversight of those efforts is probably too low. We need to devise a system by which a significant number of eyes outside of the intelligence community knows what those folks are up to and has a reasonable means of lodging complaints against abuses.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Faith in America

I just watched Mitt Romney's speech on "Faith in America" and was quite impressed. I was impressed how he framed his ideas in terms of the moral foundation of the Declaration of Independence - much as Lincoln framed his arguments against slavery not in any formalism in the Constitution, but on the Declaration. I was impressed by his bold declaration of belief in his Mormon faith, and his unwillingness to reduce that faith to mere "tradition." I was impressed by his articulation of religion as a dynamic force in American public life, his interpretation of constitutionally-established religious freedom as neither a religion of secularism nor an endorsement of any one particular religion. He did this in a manner much clearer and more inspiring than I've ever seen before. While I remain decidedly undecided as far as which candidate to support for president next year, I will certainly consider this.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Standing Against the Tide

[I'm not going to cite sources. I'm just going to give my thoughts.]

Many people believe that the United States should execute a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq. I disagree. Indeed, I think that's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard!

The Wrong Time to Withdraw
There's little debate about whether our reasons for going into Iraq were flawed. I agree, we shouldn't have gone in. But we're there, that decision was made years ago, and we need to find the best path forward from where we are. And now, right as Iraq is on the upswing, right as Sunnis in many provinces are joining the fight against extremists, right as Iraqi and U.S. casualties are doing a nose-dive, to withdraw in an instant and send Iraq back into the chaos they are just now escaping would be a crime, a sin.

The Wrong Reasons for Withdrawal
The chorus crying out for a quick and supposedly-painless withdrawal is simply the common position nowadays. I don't blame those who are part of that tide, as there largely appears to be no reasonable alternative. Once anti-war furor gets stoked, the rage of the populace is hard to resist. This isn't helped by the perceived and real incompetence of some who support the continuation of the war. The two sides of the false dichotomy seem to be 1) get out now, and 2) slog on eternally waging a war on behalf of sectarian parties. Most people don't know that in the year since the voters rebuked Republican leadership for its handling of the war, a third option has silently been made possible. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, competent handling of not just military but also social and economic issues by the likes of General Petraeus, in addition to the benefits of the force surge, have made plausible 3) a gradual withdrawal as Iraq stabilizes and progressively assumes more of its own affairs, until American military presence is either minimal or zero.This is clearly the ideal. For now we need to stay, but we need to be smart about what we do while we're there.

So to those of you who wish us to get out of Iraq ASAP, be careful that you are not playing into the hands of leaders wishing to politicize our remaining involvement in Iraq for purposes of their own political power.

Precipitous withdrawal suffers from utter disregard for the value of the lives of Iraqis. In the name of saving American lives and treasure, some are willing to sacrifice the lives, treasure, and future of an entire people. And we a nation whose freedom was forged by "Lives, ... Fortunes, and ... sacred Honor" willingly spilt to gain it.

Is it honestly right to -- having barged in and stirred up all sorts of violence and bloodshed in Iraq -- simply take off while things are still in worse shape than we found them in? It's like crashing a party, throwing all of the pizza out the window and smashing all of the drinks onto the floor, then saying, "Hey guys, I just got a text saying I need to go home" and stepping out the front door with a smile and a wave, leaving devastation in your wake.

Do Unto Others...
I believe firmly that we as a people will be held accountable for how we treat other peoples. Fleeing Iraq because the only skin we're thinking about is our own would be heinous negligence. This is my opinion, and here I stand, against the tide.

A Return to Blogism

My good friend Michelle pointed out with disappointment that I hadn't posted anything to my blog for months. I made her what I hoped wouldn't become a hollow promise: to post, or, in other words, to return to blogism. Well, Michelle, here it is.

The Past
I've been spending a lot of time lately transcribing my journal from my freshman year here at BYU. Some people think it's depressing to read old journals, and I admit that from time to time I do find that to be the case, especially if I'm really dissatisfied with the now. But in recent weeks it's been a very positive experience. Check out this long sequence (with some editing):
Saturday, October 6, 2001

General Conference!

Ben and Brandon came to Utah this weekend for General Conference, among other things. They had an extra ticket for the afternoon session, and their uncle Harold had an extra standby ticket for Priesthood session. So we got to go to both!

Waiting in line before the afternoon session, we met a girl from Pleasant Grove named Charlotte.... Anyway, we talked and after the afternoon session we ate dinner at a little diner on North Temple called Dee's. We laughed, we had fun - those precious human interactions that are both impossible and meaningless to quantify. Charlotte summed it up when she said, “You know, it feels like I've known you guys for years.” It's a pretty cliché line, but I totally agreed with her – it seemed like we were already friends, even before we met.

Before Charlotte left and we went to priesthood meeting, I got her phone number and cellphone number. Here's the final twist to the story: ... five minutes after meeting Charlotte, I just had this feeling that I should ask her to the Homecoming dance.


Tuesday, October 16, 2001

Quick update:

I asked Charlotte to Homecoming, which will be Friday night. Very stressful figuring this all out, but it will be fun.

I've been running with Michelle on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Tonight we were running on the track by the stadium and she told me about this guy who Christie is interested in. He is 25 and he's moving way too fast with Christie....


Friday, October 19, 2001

Tonight I went to Homecoming with Charlotte. First, I had to get some things done at school and otherwise, though. This morning I woke up later than I had planned, but I still wanted to take my Physical Science test before the American Heritage lab.

Charlotte was supposed to pick me up at 6:30, and Dan and Michelle, too. (On my recommendation, Dan asked Michelle to go to the dance with him.)

Charlotte ended up being about an hour late because I gave her 1460 N as our street instead of 1430 N. By the time we got to Macaroni Grill for dinner our reservations were long overdue, so we had about a 40 minute wait to be seated. In the meantime, the four of us walked around a little shopping center outdoors. Charlotte graciously blocked my view of “Victoria's Secret” as we walked past it. We meandered around Border's (a bookstore) for a while, then headed back to the restaurant just in time to be seated.

Our table was near a gas fireplace that was burning just enough to keep gas from building up around it. We could still smell the burner gas though.

On our paper table covering I drew in crayon a picture of a sun rising against a bold blue sky. In the bottom I wrote “Charlotte is my sunshine!” Of course, Charlotte had already written my full name in beautiful lettering on her portion of the paper. We cut our respective works of art out with my picket knife scissors and gave them to each other. (I left mine in the car though. I'll have to get that for her....)

After a delicious dinner, on, on to the dance! A crazy trip south on I-15 brought us to the Chillon Reception Center in Spanish Fork. We escorted our dates in the cool, gusty night to a large stone or brick building.

OK, pause. One thing I really noticed tonight was that because it was cold, when Charlotte hooked her elbow in mine it was like she cuddled in for warmth. When girls do that, and they cling to your elbow like you're a protector of sorts, it makes me so excited! It's amazing how awesome it makes you feel!

At the dance, Charlotte and I tried competing in the swing dance competition. We began dancing (quite well, in my opinion) but when the DJ started calling out couples' numbers we got confused as we didn't have one. So we weren't really that much in contention, but we had a great time – the swing music was very refreshing.

One time while we were dancing, I told Charlotte about my fears that she'd think I was stalking her when I called to ask her to Homecoming after just meeting her. She responded by saying that she didn't have to give me her phone number – that was optional. Good point!

After that dance – and some many great slow dances along with it – we rode home and said goodbye. Goodbye hug. Now a few hours later here I am.

I had an awesome night! I'm pretty sure Charlotte did too! Yeah! Woohoo! Victory! She had fun!


Saturday, October 20, 2001

Due to going to bed very late lats night, I didn't wake up until 11:30. That left me and everyone else in our apartment 2.5 hours to get ready for cleaning inspection. I was quite surprised how clean this place can really be if we work at it a little bit!

OK, the real exciting part of my evening was when I got home at around 9 o'clock I quickly got a message saying that Charlotte called. I called Charlotte and, after “Hello, how're you doing?” etc. she told me that the reason she called was to say “thanks” for last night. I said, “Oh, it was totally my pleasure. I'm glad to hear you had a good time!”

I also told Charlotte that I left the paper she gave me at the restaurant in her car and would like to get it from her – a convenient excuse for us to have to get together sometime, I say!

I really enjoyed talking to Charlotte tonight and look forward to seeing her again.

On the other hand, I need to be particularly careful not to get too serious with any girls before my mission.

Well, I'm off to bed!

Wow, I was bold! Nowadays I'm waaaay more hesitant to do crazy things like ask girls in lines on dates. Darn hard life experience has lowered my expectations for such craziness, which is a shame, as it seems like we really had a great time.

The Present
I recently started a poem that I want to share:
Dialectic
Behold the brilliant vista,
A world before us lays
Enswirled all by mist, a-
wash with golden rays.

Why weep ye now upon this sight?
You can't believe what see your eyes?
But it's here, it's real, it's true, it's bright!

I see naught but clouds below.
There is sunshine, but as well there's rain.
It's not that I refuse to know
The good; but that I've seen much pain.

But in spite of having seen much more,
Now I see much less than I could see before
And it chills me to the very core.

Light and dark:
They call, they know our names.
We cannot only to one hark
For our path will lead both ways.

Ah but what a sin you've found,
Such gloominess as you think on!
Turn your head up. Do not look down,
And soon your gloom will all be gone.

Think not of evil -- it is wrong.
Think not sad thoughts -- life's a song!
Think not -- or hearts will ache too long.

Naive - you don't understand.
In fact, I would say you're slightly blind,
You insolent, odious man,
For you think not of the mind!

It has full well the pow'r to crush you.
When you need to speak, it can quickly hush you.
To fight it is to watch it mush you.

To the friends at bitter odds
Then came another soul
Though by which lonely path he trod
We do not - cannot? - know.

He brought goodness, he spoke peace,
(Somehow knowing what our friends did seek,
But of which they never did speak),

saying

Peace is truth, goodness is real,
Not naively, but in actual fact.
It's obscured by the things that you feel,
'Times obstructed by the way that you act.

Thus you wander about in a cloud
Through your life as with a burial shroud,
But your goal will never be found.
Obviously the discussion amongst the friends and the inexplicably wise stranger is not complete, because the stranger has only barely introduced some of the themes of his position without really explaining it. There would have to be some exchange between him and the other two before a resolution could be brought about. Sadly, knowing my tendencies of starting and then abandoning poems, I don't really expect to see that happen. But the poem has already served its purpose of helping me to think through conflicting views of life -- both of which I have subscribed to at various points in my life, and both of which are clearly not optimal: the blindly optimistic view because it can't help anybody, the more pessimistic because it ignores great joy that really is to be found.

Oh, my sister recently introduced me to something that should be indispensable for anybody somewhat inclined to bookishness like myself: Shelfari.

The Future
I have one more month of school before graduating with a B.A. in Linguistics, and I'm terrified of facing The Real World once more.

Terrified? Not so much, actually. I was terrified. That was before I "just happened" to get some interesting ideas. They could be summarized as code, quill, and casa.

Code
Google recently announced the Android Developer Challenge, a contest for good new applications developed for their Android mobile phone platform. Entries for the first round are accepted from January 2 to March 3, 2008, which is right when I start to have nothing to do because of graduating and as yet having no job. It also so happens that the work I've been doing for Dr. Ringger in the NLP Lab for the past several months has almost all been in Java -- the primary language for Android development. Thus the relevant skills are very fresh at the top of my toolkit. And, once more, it just so happens that I've had an idea for a feature for mobile phones bouncing around in my head for almost the past year. Hmm....

Quill
I love to write. I think writing should be a part of my future. I've been getting lots of practice in the past year, and I'm getting to the point where I really just want to sit down and write a novel. You know, put in a couple of hours a day brainstorming, outlining, writing, revising. When will there be a better time in my life? I have no dependents, I have the luxury of doing so, why don't I just give it a shot?

Casa (Or maybe a better word is pueblo?)
I feel like I need to go home. This feeling came shortly before my older sister offered to let me stay at her house in Washington. So starting sometime after my rental agreement ends at the end of April, I'm going to do just that. I don't know if I'll ever return to Provo. I mean, I might, but I just as likely might not. Yikes! I've been living here for six years and have come to be very comfortable. But, at the very least for a few months, it's time to be home. And I'm such a romantic with regards to patria, my homeland. I really, really love it there -- there's something in me that only feels whole at home. I miss the wind, the smells, just those indescribable things that you would only fall in love with if you lived the first 18 years of your life there.

The End
No, not of my life, just of this post :-) It's been quite a grab-bag, eh? And there's so much more to think and write and say and do!

My life is quite good right now, and I can only say that it is such only as I really seek to do what I know the Lord would have me do. It's the seeming paradox of obedience: that as we voluntarily shift our activities from what we are naturally inclined to do, to what God wants us to do, we seem to be more able than ever to do the things that we really want to do. No, it's not always simple; but in being real the gospel of Christ naturally exhibits all of the complexities of the real world, and likewise turns out to have overriding patterns and principles that are very powerful.

'Tis true.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Followup Links

These links seem relevant to my previous post:

Ron Paul: From Terrible Ideas to Bad Ideas AND Searching for a Philosopher King?

VS? VS?

After last night reading two disheartening Washington Post articles about the Vice President's twisted policies, I was interested to learn about Ron Paul. I thought I remembered someone I know mentioning him as a favorite when he watched the debates, so could Mr. Paul be the Messiah candidate who will come to save the Republican party?

Sadly...
I'm afraid the answer is no. At least, that's my view. As we know from the New Testament, one person's expectations of a Messiah can be quite different from someone else's. But to me, he would represent a step backward from the ideal. In some ways, maybe not as far backward as currently, but in other ways certainly more so.

Here's a summary of his platform from his most recent blog post on the official Ron Paul website:
I talked about all our ideas: marching out of Iraq just as we marched in; no more meddling in the Middle East; bringing the troops home, from hundreds of expensive bases all over the world, so that we could have the money we need for the transition to freedom in social programs, and to abolish the personal income tax and the IRS. They are not compatible with a free society.

In a Ron Paul administration, we would also repeal the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act, restore habeas corpus and stop the spying on Americans. No more eavesdropping on our emails and bank accounts, our phone calls, home and businesses. No national ID—just the bracing freedom of the Constitution.

We must have sound money, and not a giant counterfeiting machine called the Federal Reserve that causes recessions and inflation. We must have private property rights, with no pollution or other attacks on property. We should enforce the Second Amendment, and all the Bill of Rights. We can have privacy for us, not secrecy for a corrupt bureaucracy.

It is all within our grasp, the restoration of the republic and our sovereignty—no UN, no North American Union, no Nafta, no WTO, no World Bank, no IMF. Just federalism, free enterprise, peace, prosperity, and the kind of future we all want for our families, ourselves, and our fellow Americans.

The dream can be a reality. You can help make it so. ... Instead of wars and inflation and spying and poverty, we can have peace and freedom and the blessings for our children and grandchildren of doing better than we have, of secure retirements and childhoods. No more theft—of our savings or our liberty.
A Tiny Parcel of Common Ground and The Death of Free Trade
Some of these things sound great. I'm all for privacy. After learning enough about the abuses of various totalitarian governments, it's clear that the dangers of not protecting the privacy of individuals are quite substantial. I'm all for treating prisoners in accordance with the Geneva Convention -- that means the CIA must come into line as well as the military. I'm a "no entangling alliances" kind of guy in many ways, but frankly the congressman's desire for free enterprise and prosperity is in some ways at odds with his will to abandon the WTO.

And, bailing out on the IMF surely won't bring financial solvency to the Third World nations that are helped back onto their feet through its loan program. Of course these organizations suffer from corruption and mismanagement, but they also seem to have some legitimate functions such as reducing trade barriers and enabling governments to move their populations out of poverty. Perhaps we should reform rather than abolish.

Can people not understand that the lowering of trade barriers as enshrined in the WTO is one of the great sources of our present prosperity? Yes, even globalization (the 'g' word, I know) is part of our current success. Not only that, but it helps bring greater prosperity to people around the world.

Other Bad Ideas: The Gold Standard?
Additional atrocities of policy include abandoning Iraq all at once. Throw in the closure of other bases around the world and all of a sudden a picture of self-centered isolationism emerges. Let's just enjoy our prosperity, keep it all to ourselves. Another component seems to be the dismantling of the federal reserve. WHY? Should people barter in goods and services when there's no longer anybody regulating the value of the dollar? Are we going to switch back to the gold standard? Check this from The Daily Paul:
Question: You support returning the country’s currency back to the gold standard. Is that correct?
Ron Paul: Not exactly. I’m for supporting the Constitution, and the Constitution still says only gold and silver can be legal tender. … The reasons I don’t like to say "go back" is because there were shortcomings in the original gold standard. What I reject, and the founders totally rejected, was a paper standard - creating money out of thin air. Spending money you don’t have. Printing it up. Causing inflation. Causing bubbles. Causing recessions. And wiping out the middle class. The middle class is getting poorer as the wealthy class is getting wealthier. [The advertisement for "The Federal Reserve: Fraud of the Century" at the top of the page sort of scares me. Upon the back of this "fraud" is built an innovative, lively economy. Dear Google, your 172 billion dollars of market capitalization are "fraudulent," so look out!]
Okay buddy, you go find the political will and the budget to purchase 600 or 700 billion dollars worth of gold to back the currency. Please, could every politician and presidential candidate take Economics 110 from Dr. Kearl? Some things, like gold, have inherent value due to their scarcity. Other things, like the dollar, have a value because society has agreed that it can be used in exchange. Really, in some ways it's more secure to let the value of the dollar float. What if it was pinned to the value of gold, and suddenly a vast gold deposit was discovered in the middle of, say, Oklahoma? The value of gold would drop in proportion to the size of the deposit, causing a sudden inflation of the dollar as its purchasing power diminishes. And, wiping out the middle class? I don't know about you, but I'm still feeling pretty alive. Yes, the rich get richer, but in addition, the middle class are very often becoming part of the rich. I guess if you wipe out the middle class by making it too prosperous that's not terrible.

Mr. Paul should also remember that price fluctuations and economic bubbles were definitely a reality of the American economy under the gold standard. Here's a friendly chart from Wikipedia.

Please Don't Go Down That Road
The man's interpretation of the constitution is simply too strict. If he wishes to restrict our currency to gold and silver, then I suppose debit cards and checks won't do? Most of the "money" in circulation in the country, perhaps even in the world, is not cash or even necessarily linked to cash. Loans from the federal reserve and between banks, personal checks, etc., allow our economy have a 6 trillion dollar volume when we actually have less than one trillion dollars in physical currency circulating. I'm glad that our economy is flexible enough to prosper! I suppose I put a little bit too much confidence and trust in our economy. The other evil is failing to understand it, trying to fix what "ain't broke," and thus seeking salvation from an unknown danger (is our economy faltering?) by means that will likely cause serious damage.

Abolition of personal income tax and the IRS: How will the activities of the government be financed? Who will collect taxes? Besides, the constitution as currently amended specifically authorizes Congress to levy an income tax. How is this incompatible with a free society? Of course, I do think some radical reform of tax laws might be in order. But we still need to have tax laws. As much as people despise paying taxes, it seems to keep the lights on, the universities funded, and the troops more or less equipped. I'm okay with that.

That Lot of Clowns, That Menagerie...
So I've ripped into Ron Paul pretty heavily here. I'm sorry for the violence, but it helps me to see where I stand with regards to at least one member of the coming wave of presidential contenders. You know, maybe I'll make a series of it. I'll do an analysis of all of the candidates one by one, so that by November 2008 I'll know whose policies I can find enough agreement with to vote for. So far, I'm seeing nobody that I could really feel 100% or even 90% good about. But, maybe I just don't know their platforms well enough. So maybe I'll get up the energy to write similar reviews (critiques?) in the future.

I hope that this hasn't been offensive if any of you are committed Ron Paul fans. I also hope that through all of the scathing words you've been able to find something insightful. This post also gives a bit of a feel for my frustrations as far as politics. My lament could be summed up in one line, which some of you should connect with Plato's The Republic:

Where, oh where, is our Philosopher King?

Join me in my search.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

What the Blog?!?

I'm sure ten million blog posts around the English-speaking world have started with that title, and that rightfully so. I'm in sort of a silly mood. I was going to set my status on Facebook as "Josh is... aspiring?" But it didn't quite sum up all of the weird nuances of goofiness. But if I could have an unlimited number of status messages at once, thus more accurately reflecting the convoluted complexity of human emotion, they might go something like this....

Josh is... aspiring?
Okay, you already knew about this one. But, what the blog could it mean?? Such a riddle I will now propound for you: Josh is aspiring to do something downright excellent with his life. Yes indeed, he's aspiring to awesomeness. Josh is aspiring to be some sort of freelance open-source software dude. Or, to be a non-freelance, Google-employed open-source software dude. To finish his rapidly developing program that facilitates merging of family history records. Along with that, he's aspiring to be an author. Of what? Well, what does an author auth? Poems, Short stories, Commentary. Novels. Screenplays. Treatises. Blog entries. Cryptic things in French that people will later quote but not understand.

One who aspires is an aspirant. What is the thing aspired to? Ah yes, an aspiration.

Josh is... chronicling his life.
There's a program on my computer called F-Spot. Anybody fortunate enough to be running any vaguely modern version of Ubuntu will have it, too. In F-Spot I can see all of my photos like you can in Picasa, but I can also add tags to them. Tags are just a label. It can be anything, from the names of the people in the picture, to an event that it was connected with, or whatever. I want to record the who and what of my photos while I still remember it.

I've also been typing up my journals onto the computer. This is a massive project. In the past 12 or 13 years I've amassed many hundreds of pages. Someday I want to assemble these and other random tidbits such as emails and chats into a compendium, an enormous volume documenting my life experiences. And it shall be called something strange such as Monstropoliton or Confessio Iosi or even Master of Hipness: 100 Classic Blasts from the Past. Yes, my own 10 volume chronicle of life, but even better than the chronicles of old, for mine shall be illustrated, or at least sprinkled with color images from the golden days of digital photography.

Josh is... transfixed by the awesomeness of cool music, old and new.
It's impossible to really describe the excitement, the elation, of discovering a bit of music that -- simply put -- does something for you. Music has been an important part of my life ever since I first greased up the slide of my trombone 12 or so years ago (seems to be about when my journal writing started.) Sadly, since high school my love affair with music has suffered some tragic relational neglect. Not only have I ceased to play in any performing groups, but I've largely ceased to discover anything new to listen to, to receive inspiration and ideas from. As awesome as Fresh Aire VI is, it can only get you so far beyond the first decade of frequent listening.

But, in the last year or two there has been a bit of a reawakening within me as I've picked up the guitar a bit and found some new sources like Buena Vista Social Club -- truly the first jazz or jazz-esque music I've found so supremely worth listening to since I first became acquainted with both Chuck Mangione and the legends of big band an entire age ago -- or from the most recent wave of Amazon gift certificate purchases, La Oreja de Van Gogh and The Decembrists.

Josh is... going to work!

Yeah, better earn me some summertime moolah to keep food on the ol' table and prevent dog days boredom. So, I'm off to engineer language features and tweak statistical models! I'll have to report on my Independence Day activities later. Take care!

Saturday, June 16, 2007

We Are Children of God

What does this mean? Here are some ideas:

The all-consuming fire of God's love

There is simply no end to it. I don't claim to understand it because my imagination of love is generally limited by the degree to which I am able to love. But I can believe in the unendingness of his concern and his care.

Confidence in self and faith in the future

Father in Heaven plans and works continually for our good. It's difficult to fathom because we often assume he is subject to the same limitations that we are, but he comprehends in exquisite detail the consequences of the happenings in our lives. He knows what he wants us to be. Don't you suppose that each day angels are dispatched to set in motion the chains of events that ultimately bring great blessings into our lives?

You are never alone
Angels and the Holy Ghost are also sent to comfort us, to guide other people to help us, to helps us to live lives more fully and happily than we would on our own. Do you ever get the feeling that left up to your own devices things wouldn't be going so well? Well, that's because they wouldn't be, and you aren't left to your own devices!


No farewells
We will see our friends and family again when united before God's throne. Of course we will say 'goodbye' to people, and we will miss those who step from mortality to immortality before we do. But there will be reunion! The tears we shed upon parting in this life will be dried in the next as we renew the sweetest associations we enjoy here.


Life without an ending
We will, in our happiest state or better, exist continually from now onward into eternity; death need not destroy our relationships, our personality, our hopes, our selves; we ought to treat each other well, because we could influence the quality of other people's eternal existence by what we do and say; for those whose existence here makes them wish there was an end, there will come and end to their suffering.


We can be so much more
Let us lift our heads up to see a brighter vision, a nobler view of ourselves. In spite of our failings and deficiencies, in spite of the weaknesses that to us are blatant and inexcusable, because we are children of God we can be – we are – good. We can be kind, we can discover truth and fight to defend it, we can love fervently and endure hardship for the good of those we care for. [In Old English, God literally means good, after all. Children of good! How could we become something that our parent is not?]


We can choose to follow him
Because he is worthy of our trust and of being followed and emulated. Because there is no better companion for traveling the roads of our lives.

Friday, June 15, 2007

I Disapprove: English Immersion as Foolishness and Arrogance

See this link about English immersion education programs. English immersion sounds like something that foreigners do when they want to learn English fast. That's something such a system is good for. However, at least in California, English immersion is in essence a rejection of bilingual education. Now, maybe that's a good thing. Maybe California's bilingual education programs were sufficiently flawed as to be worse than English-only. But English immersion to me represents foolishness combined with arrogance.

Foolishness
A better system in many regards is two-way or bilingual immersion. In such a program, children from their youngest years are taught in both the dominant language (English) and a minority language (usually Spanish, though French, German, and Japanese are seen). They receive language instruction -- in other words, grammar, composition, literature, speaking and presentation skills -- in both languages. As the theory goes, this produces students competent in both languages.

English immersion, as I understand it, is essentially two-way immersion chopped in half, yielding -- okay, do the math -- one-way immersion! So it means "English only." The article I linked to above claims that this results in improved English proficiency (likely true) while usually still maintaining the minority language at home. This last point is the tricky one. Yes, many students will continue to communicate with their families in the minority language. But no, this is not equivalent to receiving an education in/on that language. As far as being useful in the workforce, it will suffice for blue collar jobs and nothing more. Do latino immigrants not deserve a chance at reaching higher than that? English immersion sacrifices rather than develops the native language of immigrant students. While English is arguably the most important language to have mastery over in this country, it is foolishness to cast aside easily-developed native-language resources. In refusing to educate elementary-age students in Spanish, we increase the amount of work required later on: ten years down the road they will have to learn a "foreign" language in high school and, instead of learning a third language, they will most likely spend time solidifying their command of their native language (easy A's). We could have taken care of that in elementary school!

Arrogance
There are many children who continue to be able to communicate at a rudimentary level in Spanish while primarily developing English skills. However, unless they begin learning English at a very young age it will never be like a native language to them. And so they have a complete, native mastery of no languages at all. How demeaning! Most native English speakers in the United States would never bother to imagine what it's like to primarily speak a marginalized tongue. Some students develop a sort of lingua-cultural self-loathing because they see that their language and culture are regarded as inferior. Now, maybe I'm leaning a little too much towards the fluffy "let's celebrate all cultures, flower power" philosophy... but, well, maybe a little of that would be appropriate. The greater crime is to raise generation after generation of immigrants with a notion that they must assimilate completely and pretend that their native culture doesn't exist. If that idea had prevailed during previous waves of immigration we might have lost such cultural gems as bagels, pizza, and polka ;-) And do we think that American culture is so all-encompassingly awesome that we have nothing to learn from those who come to our country? What if from the latinos we learned something about strength of family? What if from the asians something about hard work in school? Or from the polynesians how to relax a bit and roast pigs underground? Along with that, there are surely many things that immigrants can learn from our culture, and there are economic benefits not only for them but for their families back in Latin America, to whom they send substantial support money (aka remittances).

The end. Fin. Конец. Terminus.

Friday, May 25, 2007

En españa - totally soaked, newly conscious

I'm completely wet. Tonight we're going to see the new Pirates movie, Piratas del carribe 3: en el fin del mundo, as they call it here. So to accompany that, we're going to watch the first movie on a projector here at the school. Well, we were supposed to meet at 4pm, so I headed out into a nice thunderstorm to get there on time-ish. I had an umbrella, I had a sweatshirt, I rolled up the bottom of each pant leg, but to no avail. The front of me got soaked all the way to my hips, and my backpack was hit just as hard!

Well, it should be dry at least by the time we watch the new movie at 8:30 tonight. Meanwhile, I've had some interesting realizations about America and Europe. To summarize: I'm more grateful for my homeland than ever. There are certainly problems there, but in many ways it's like a fairy tale compared to the rest of the world. I didn't realize how much we have, materially, culturally, spiritually. Also, I'm more grateful for our friends here in Europe. While the United States made great sacrifices in the second World War and in providing an alternative to communism, we never had our country overcome by dictators or destroyed by nightly bombing raids. We never lived in the shadow of the Soviet Union or had to endure German occupation. In other words, many of our sacrifices were made from a safe distance. Theirs were made right at home. I've had conversations with people here in which I've been able to understand a little better their frustrations with our involvement in Iraq. They see the Iraq war as having been a misguided quest for petroleum. They also feel like the Iraq war has been the cause of the terror attacks in London and Madrid by radicalizing muslims into islamists. Europeans speek much of the fall of the American "empire," which has always confused me. But they (some of them, anyway) also realize that they themselves are part of that empire. The whole of the west enjoys the protection of American strength. Spanish and Dutch people I've talked to feel that America has gone in search of terrorists far away in Iraq, while we already know that such people can be found amongst our own populations, in terror cells in Spain, France, Holland, whatever.

Most people acknowledge that we're seeing a clash of civilizations. The disagreement is really in the implementation details. The question we have to face is whether it's best to stay the course in Iraq. If so (and I think it probably is so) then we must decide how to best improve the situation there. If not, we have to find an exit strategy that is minimally harmful, though I don't know if we can hope to influence things too much as we're on our way out. Either way we need to keep the confidence of our allies in Europe. While in many ways western culture as embodied in western Europe is quite an embarassment in its abandonment of almost all forms of morality and in its paranoiac fear of armed conflict. But, western culture is my culture, one way or another. Here in Spain, there are so many similarities in thought and values to those I am accustomed to that it is clear that we and they have some common roots. We, meaning the United States, need to accept that and encourage solidarity amongst all of the West.

We also want to avoid self-fulfilling prophecies. I think there is truth to the observation that much of the conflict we see right now is a result of East-West culture differences. However, let's not let that observation guide our possibilities too much. We should do whatever we can do to encourage good relations and cultural and economic exchange with the Arab/Muslim/Eastern world. Let us fight the war on terror in the way it's being waged against us. This does not mean that we will adopt the tactics of fear and pointless destruction that we face. Instead, it means that we need to work smart. We've already given in to the temptation to try to bludgeon terrorism with the blunt end of our military might. Instead, we need a specialized intelligence corps - not the FBI, not the CIA, not Special Forces, but something different. Instead of "terror cells" we need antiterror cells. Instead of letting radical propoganda win on the Internet and in public forums, we need people to communicate our message. What is that message? That there is a better way. That America doesn't want to control your destiny. Here, it's yours, take it. Do something good with it. Strengthen your people. Build a beautiful culture. But don't resort to hate. Instead of a cry of jihad let us make a cry of libertad! Let's make Western culture something worth defending. We must not only be the guardians of democracy, but let us also be good people. So to libertad let's add bondad! The jihadists make some accusations against us, such as that we are immoral and materialistic. Let's make sure there's as little truth to those charges as possible. Just as NATO provided an alternative culture in contrast to the Soviet empire, the free world needs to provide if not an entire culture than at least cultural elements that members of the Arab world seeking an alternative can turn to instead of jihadism.

Anyway, I'm sort of rambling. I'll need to refine these thoughts a bit, but here are some kernels of my latest ideas. Take care!

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

See also / Vease también

http://spainstudy2007.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

España - 19 de mayo 2007 - Toledo


I quote from my journal with slight editing.


Trip to Toledo today. I was a bit upset by how things were run, and it represents a trend of neglect by the Mester language school that is ticking a few people off.

Usually we've had the culture teacher as our guide, so while at times a bit dry, she treated us well and we had enough time at each site to be able to learn quite a bit. Today, there was a different lady plus some unknown dude who acted as our guides.... First we went to El Museo de la Santa Cruz, which someone told me used to be a hospital. There was some Visigodo stuff and a neat courtyard; but, we walked through so fast and with so little context that I can tell you no more than that.


We saw a statue of Cervantes, blazed through a synagogue-turned-museum (too fast, once again), went to way too many stores, and saw the outside doors only of the cathedral. The only part I really enjoyed was when we had maybe two hours of free time and the weather turned just a tad rainy and I walked with some folks along the gorge cliff of the Río Tajo - pretty!

Overall, disappointed. How do you say that in Spanish?


The answer is estar desilusionado. Toledo is cool, we just had a sub-optimal experience there. Spain is super pretty! It reminds me a lot of eastern Washington, even down to the wind generator turbines up on the horizon. By the way, I picked up something for Mike there....

I'm giving you a picture of my roommate, Chris, as well. He's got a bit of "gangsta" blood in 'em, in case you can't tell in the photo.


This Sunday we went to the Salamanca branch's meetings. I was amazed by how few times I got lost paying attention to the talks and lessons.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

En españa - 12 de mayo de 2007


¡Hola todos! Today we went to Segovia and Ávila, two towns in provinces neighboring Salamanca. I have to hurry because I don't have enough money to go over 15 minutes on the co mputer without having to split a 20 euro bill to pay like .50 €, so sorry this is rushed. I'm writing a lot more than you guys are seeing, but it's on paper and I don't have the time to type it up for now.


In Segovia there's a great Roman aqueduct (I don't know how to spell that in english, in Spanish it's acueducto). Think, 2000 years old and still standing. With a little help from some European Union human culture preservation fund, of course. There was also a castle called el Alcázar with an amazing moat. Then in Ávila the town had its full set of city walls, an amazing sight from far off and close up. Sorry, no pic there, yet.
Gotta go, hope to share more later! Love you all,
- Josh

Monday, May 07, 2007

En españa - 7 de mayo 2007

Hola, estoy en España y les quiero escribir sobre mis experiencias. So we got to Salamanca on Sunday night and finally met our host families, but up until then Sunday was packed with visits to the Museo del Prado and the Reina Sofía museum in Madrid, then to San Lorenzo del Escorial, an old royal retreat converted into a monastery a ways out of madrid, then right next to that the Valle de los Caídos with a creepy cathedral where Francisco Franco, the good ol' dictator of Spain, is buried.

But anyway, we got to Salamanca and I and the other two guys in the group (Tommy and Chris) met our host mom (her name escapes me still). All three of us are in one little bedroom, but it's actually a great setup. We had to unbolt this bar from the side of Tommy's bed so he would have room to sleep, then get the heater turned down (it was waaaaay to hot when we got there....) Anyway, we had dinner at 8-ish, and it was some yummy soup plus bread, and also flan in a cup. It was a lot to eat! I was glad to notice that our host has a gigantic copy of Don Quijote in her living room - it's a lot like a family in the U.S. having a big family bible, since both serve as the founding document of modern English and modern Spanish respectively.

We have also living with us a brasilian girl and two french girls, which seemed like it might be trouble given Chris's propensity for hitting on girls, but I think it will work out. The brasileña speaks Spanish and English fairly well, but las francesas don't speak English, or Spanish, or Portuguese, and none of the rest of us speak french, so even with the help of an Español-Francés dictionary we had a really hard time communicating. I wish I could tell you their names or how they were spelt, but I couldn't remember. Last night Tommy and I stayed up late listening to Chris tell stories about his time in the army in Iraq, which was really fascinating. Chris is the only member of our group who is not a member of the church. By typical BYU standards he's a rough character, and seems a little out of place amongst all the rest of us. But he is a great guy - given all he's experienced in his life, he has done a marvellous job keeping his life on track and just generally being a good guy. It's fun to get to know him.

It's been cool to put my Spanish to use and see that I'm in many situations well understood, and I can keep up with what's being said to me as well. At a restaurant we went to we had to leave soon after ordering, so I checked if they could make the food to go (para llevar) and then asked them to do so. Of course, they still originally brought the food out on plates (when I asked them again to make it to go, por favor!) and they messed up some of our order (I wanted a croka, not a pizza, but close enough).

Today was our first day at the language school. I went to the class that I was assigned to - and then I became very frightened about the remainder of the program. The class seemed to having nothing to do with either what I signed up for or with the score I got on the pre-test I took. I sat for an hour and a half and copied down notes on the many exciting uses of the prepositions 'para' and 'en', and it felt like I was just transferring the contents of a dictionary entry into my notebook. A month of that would kill me! Why have I already taken 4 years worth Spanish classes only to be subjected to such drudgery? Well, it worked out that I was in the wrong class, and instead of sitting there for a total of four hours a day (including conversation), I just have to go to a one hour lecture on Spanish culture, which is far more interesting than preposition meaning.

Anyway, my friends are all finished, so I've got to jet. See you all later!

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

An Introduction to Secret Combinations

Thousands of years ago somewhere in Central America thrived two opposing civilizations, the Nephites and the Lamanites. Throughout their history, political intrigues plagued the Nephite civilization while the Lamanites sought to gain military mastery over them. About 50 B.C., the leader of the Nephites, named Pahoran, died. One of his sons -- also named Pahoran -- succeeded him, and was soon murdered. Significantly, his murder was not carried out by the Lamanite people who were his natural enemies, but by people from his own civilization.

An Unusual Succession
[In about 50 B.C. there] began to be a serious difficulty among the people of the Nephites. For behold, Pahoran [the Elder] had died.... But behold, Paanchi [one of the elder Pahoran's sons], and that part of the people that were desirous that he should be their governor, ... was about to flatter away those people to rise up in rebellion against their brethren [the rest of the Nephites].

And it came to pass as he was about to do this, behold, he was taken, and was tried according to the voice of the people, and condemned unto death; for he had raised up in rebellion and sought to destroy the liberty of the people. Now when those people who were desirous that he should be their governor saw that he was condemned unto death, therefore they were angry, and behold, they sent forth one Kishkumen, even to the judgment-seat of Pahoran [the Younger], and murdered Pahoran as he sat upon the judgment-seat.

And he was pursued by the servants of Pahoran; but behold, so speedy was the flight of Kishkumen that no man could overtake him. And he went unto those that sent him, and they all entered into a covenant, yea, swearing by their everlasting Maker, that they would tell no man that Kishkumen had murdered Pahoran.

Therefore, Kishkumen was not known among the people of Nephi, for he was in disguise at the time that he murdered Pahoran. And Kishkumen and his band, who had covenanted with him, did mingle themselves among the people, in a manner that they all could not be found; but as many as were found were condemned unto death (From Helaman Chapter 1 in The Book of Mormon).
Thus began a secret organization within the Nephite society designed to destabilize the government, to provide protection from punishment for crimes to those who sought to gain positions of power through deception and/or violence, and overall to make it easier for people to get away with being bad.

From Bad to Worse
The next year after the murder of Pahoran the Younger, this group began to organize itself more formally:
And it came to pass in the forty and second year of the reign of the judges [that because there] was no one to fill the judgment-seat ... there began to be a contention again among the people concerning who should fill [it]. And it came to pass that Helaman...was appointed to fill the judgment-seat....

But behold, Kishkumen, who had murdered Pahoran, did lay wait to destroy Helaman also; and he was upheld by his band, who had entered into a covenant that no one should know his wickedness. For there was one Gadianton, who was exceedingly expert in many words, and... the secret work of murder and of robbery; therefore he became the leader of the band of Kishkumen.

Therefore he did flatter them, and also Kishkumen, that if they would place him in the judgment-seat he would grant unto those who belonged to his band that they should be placed in power and authority among the people; therefore Kishkumen sought to destroy Helaman (From Helaman Chapter 2 in The Book of Mormon).
Capital Murder, Take Two
And it came to pass as [Kishkumen] went forth towards the judgment-seat to destroy Helaman, behold one of the servants of Helaman (having been out by night, and having obtained, through disguise, a knowledge of those plans which had been laid by this band to destroy Helaman) ... met Kishkumen, and ... Kishkumen made known unto him ... his desire... that he would conduct him to the judgment-seat that he might murder Helaman.

And when the servant of Helaman had known all the heart of Kishkumen, and how that it was his object to murder, and also that it was the object of all those who belonged to his band to murder, and to rob, and to gain power, (and this was their secret plan, and their combination) the servant of Helaman said unto Kishkumen, "Let us go forth unto the judgment-seat."

Now this did please Kishkumen exceedingly, for he did suppose that he should accomplish his design [to murder Helaman]; but behold, the servant of Helaman, as they were going forth unto the judgment-seat, did stab Kishkumen even to the heart, that he fell dead without a groan. And he ran and told Helaman all the things which he had seen, and heard, and done.

And it came to pass that Helaman did send [men] to take this band of robbers and secret murderers, that they might be executed according to the law. But behold, when Gadianton had found that Kishkumen did not return he feared lest that he should be destroyed; therefore he caused that his band should follow him. And they took their flight out of the land, by a secret way, into the wilderness; and thus when Helaman sent forth to take them they could nowhere be found.

And more of this Gadianton shall be spoken hereafter.... And behold, in the end of this book ye shall see that this Gadianton did prove the overthrow, yea, almost the entire destruction of the people of Nephi... (from Helaman Chapter 2 in The Book of Mormon).
The prophet-historians who compiled the Book of Mormon thousands of years ago laid out the pattern of secret combinations in an attempt to warn modern readers that such organizations would be found threatening civilization in our time. I believe that they were inspired by God as they did so, that good people in these days might stand firm in opposition to evil. I hope to provide examples of secret combinations in our day to bring attention to the accuracy of the Book of Mormon in its description of such activities, as well as to help people willing to oppose these evil groups and individuals to understand better the nature of the fight. All of this, I believe, can help point people towards the ultimate solutions presented in the Gospel of Jesus Christ as contained in the Bible and the Book of Mormon: that by coming to Christ in our own lives, we can find peace in our hearts that will strengthen us even in moments when we are surrounded by evil.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

On the War

Caption: The Americans bailed, let's get out of here! (Vietnam 1975? Iraq 20x6?)

[Note: this article is a reposting of something I wrote for my family-only blog. It seems to be appropriate for general circulation, though, and I now present it with only the slightest editing.]

I sort of think fighting over politics is like Bible bashing: totally unproductive. Why fight over the Good News? Why start a war talking about a war? With these risks in mind, I do want to throw in a few thoughts of mine.

Those Who Cannot Remember the Past are Condemned to Repeat It [0]

It's important to keep things in perspective. The failure of the Treaty of Versailles after WWI taught the Allies to do things differently after WWII. The debacle of the collapse of South Vietnam after U.S. withdrawal there should teach us to do things differently with Iraq. What happened when the United States pulled out of Vietnam? The Democratic Congress refused to finance further military operations in Vietnam [12] and the south of that country was swept over by the communist forces, hundreds of thousands of people were sent to "re-education" camps as punishment for "collaborating" with the Americans during the war, and Vietnam embarked on a 20 year epoch of isolation from which it has only recently been emerging, at least economically. Vietnam has yet to grant freedoms of religion or speech, and represses those liberties far more rigorously than the Chinese Communists do. [1; see 3 and 4 for more information on the withdrawal and the Communist takeover]

Contrast that with South Korea, where the U.S. forces did not withdraw. South Korea allows full freedom of expression and religion, and turns out to be the world's 13th largest economy, ahead of Australia and Russia [5]. If American support for the war declined to Vietnam-like levels, we may have withdrawn, subjecting the entire Korean peninsula to the benighted state currently reserved for the pitiable North.

Comparing the Costs
Significantly, nearly 60,000 U.S. soldiers died in Vietnam [2], twenty times the current casualties in Iraq after 2.5 times as many years. Given the current average casualty rate, it will take about 72 more years for casualties in Iraq to equal casualties in Vietnam [my own calculation]. Current spending on Iraq is relatively less than in Vietnam as well. (Of course, 1-2% of the GNP of the United States annually is still an astronomical sum.)

About 100,000 Americans die every year as a result of alcohol use according to some sources [6]. (According to more conservative estimates "excessive alcohol use was responsible for approximately 75,000 preventable deaths" in the United States in 2001 [7].) "The total cost of alcohol problems is $175.9 billion a year (compared to $114.2 billion for other drug problems and $137 billion for smoking)" [6]. By contrast, according to [8], the United States is spending about $120 billion a year in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. We could save twice as much money and hundreds of times more lives by eliminating alcohol and tobacco than we would save by withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan. What are our priorities? Is this really all about saving lives and money? Or is it about lack of will, unwillingness to stick with a commitment once we're bored of it? In the Book of Mormon, it's clear that the problem the Nephites had with the infestation of robbers had more to do with having the will to do what was necessary to eradicate them than it had to do with having sufficient strength to do so or with being morally justified in doing so [See 10 and 11].

43% of marriages contracted today will theoretically end in divorce [9].


Many war opponents argue that every life is precious, every soldier's death is a tragedy. True. But at least they are dieing in the hope of helping a nation onto its feet and into a free, prosperous, peaceful future rather than merely in the pursuit of a high or a quick slosh.

Having mentioned the Book of Mormon already, I'd like to say that that book does seem to condemn the way in which we entered the war in Iraq [13]. Regardless, we're there, basically the whole nation agreed to go there, and we have a responsibility to leave things better than we found them.

Post Mortem
Was that so bad? If nobody else cared to read it, I'm still glad I wrote it. I feel like, given media coverage, people almost have no option but to hate the war, hate the president, and just "want out." I have too much respect for myself to simply accept what's handed to me by CNN or even our favorite student paper, The Daily Universe (which mostly just runs Associated Press stories, anyway). I've just had these thoughts bouncing around for a long time, so it's good to get them out.

There is danger in unquestioningly supporting a war. But there is also danger in merely accepting the bidding of the popular media. Supporting or opposing the war in light of history, costs, benefits, consequences, that's getting to the core of the issues.

I conditionally support the war in Iraq and the President. I think the Democratic majority in Congress -- while it brings with it some serious annoyances -- is good in motivating the Republican leadership to innovate and find more effective solutions. As bad as things are in Iraq, they will get much, much worse if we abandon those people. Genocide? Not a happy thing. I still feel like the lives of our men and women are being sacrificed for something noble and still actually attainable, a dream that President Bush and I still share to a large degree: a peaceful, free, democratic Iraq.

References
[0] http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=495329
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Vietnam
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Saigon
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Frequent_Wind
[5] http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/econ/group8/g8size.htm
[6] http://www.marininstitute.org/alcohol_policy/health_care_costs.htm
[7] http://www.cdc.gov/MMWR/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5337a2.htm
[8] http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114178357697392103-TjKUdWN4qoenDbAFbOI8Ywp2O_M_20070308.html?mod=blogs
[9] http://www.divorcemag.com/statistics/statsUS.shtml
[10] http://scriptures.lds.org/en/hel/6/18,20-21,37#18
[11] http://scriptures.lds.org/en/search?search=robbers&do=Search (The robbers of Gadianton described in the Book of Mormon are a stunningly close parallel to Jihadist terrorists, from their organizational structure to their penchant for hiding out in mountainous regions.)
[12] http://hnn.us/articles/31400.html
[13] http://scriptures.lds.org/en/alma/48/14#14

Life

I recently had a debate with my roommate about a very significant issue: how do we as a society decide whether and for how long individuals in a "permanent vegetative state" (deliberate scare quotes) are kept on life support. Who decides the matter of the prolongation of their lives? There are a few possibilities:

The Person Himself/Herself?

Yes, if they clearly indicated while they were conscious that they would prefer not to be kept on life support in such a situation. Living wills? Perhaps every person applying to get a driver's license could be required to declare their position officially for future reference?

Parents?
Are parents normally permitted to cause the death of their child by neglecting their needs such as food and water? Will parents always act in the child's interest? What if they were tired of taking care of the kid? Do they always know what their child would have done? If you have children, do you know what they would want? Are you willing to pass that information on even if it contradicts with your views?

The state (bureaucrat, judge, legislators, governor)?
--Cue Orwellian Doomsday Prophecies--
It seems like government making such decisions would be a situation to avoid, but that is the status quo in many cases. In most situations I would prefer the parents making the decision over the county judge, a Health Department case worker, the state legislature, the Govern[at]or, the Senate, the President... the U.N. Secretary General....


The Benthamite Radical Equation

Scenario: X number of dollars are spent each year to preserve/prolong (fill in the blank depending on your ideology) the life of Individual A on life support. X dollars could alternately be used to invest in AIDS research, inoculation campaigns, prevention programs, or sleep apnea education that would -- by prevention or intervention -- save the lives of 10 people. This is classic opportunity-cost that leads us to the inevitable conclusion: Individual A has got to go to make room for Individuals B through K. Right?

If the situation was so simple then the choice would be clear. However, it isn't so simple. For one thing, there are a ridiculous number of alternatives that X dollars could be used for. More importantly, though, there are many more sources of X dollars than diverting funds from the care of Individual A. Please, take a look at the federal budget for the United States and tell me that there isn't somewhere else we could pull resources from, something that isn't a matter of life or death.

Towards demonstrandum
Assuming that the value of each human life is equal, let W be the value of one human life. Given that Individual A is supported for one year by an expenditure of X dollars, the support of Individual A yields value per dollar V = W / X = W/X by unit definition.

Another value-yielding activity is fire ant research. Assuming that Fire Ant Research is less valuable than an individual human being, let us suppose that the value of one year of fire ant research at Tennessee State University is Y = W / 100 (implying that a single human being is exactly 100 times more valuable than TSU fire ant research) and the cost of said research is also X dollars. TSU fire ant research yields value per dollar Z = Y / X = W / 100X. Thus the value per dollar of maintaining Individual A on life support is 100 times the value per dollar of TSU researchers investigating fire ants.

Supposing that Preventative Measure M can preserve the life of 10 individuals (Individuals B-K) over the same time period with an expenditure of $X, the value per dollar yield of engaging in Preventative Measure M is N = 10W / X. Thus engaging in prevention produces 10 times the value yield of maintaining life support for Individual A.

After further investigation, we again conclude that Individual A should be removed from life support and allowed to die, and funding should be redirected to Preventative Measure M, thereby increasing the value yield captured by X dollars. Q.E.D.

...Right?
Wrong.

Demonstrandum, Again
In the above decision we exchanged the W value received by keeping Individual A alive for the 10W received as reward for carrying out Prevention Measure M for a net gain of Δvalue = 9W. However, if we instead divert funding from fire ant research to Preventative Measure M, which gave a value of W/100, we would have a higher net gain in value: Δvalue = 10W - W/100 = 9.99 W > 9W. Therefore, funding Preventative Measure M by diverting funding from fire ant research causes greater overall wellbeing doing so using Individual A's life support money, and we conclude that the best course of action is to continue supporting Individual A and to discontinue TSU's fire ant program. Q.E.D.

Right?
Well... maybe.

Oh, Be Wise
In the scenario presented, we have only considered one other opportunity by which to calculate the opportunity cost of preserving A's life. In reality, there are many, many more opportunities, thus complicating the decision. Given perfect information about the value of each option in terms of resultant wellbeing, the fire ant program would not be eliminated until all other programs, policies, decisions, etc. in support of less effective value sources were eliminated first. Along the same lines, Individual A would not be removed from life support until all other options resulting in less net gain in wellbeing were eliminated. In other words, there is much to consider before we start pulling plugs. As King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon taught, "see that all ... things are done in wisdom and order..." [Mosiah 4:27]. I wholeheartedly agree.

Friday, February 16, 2007

Did you know...

That one of the main themes in the soundtrack from The Hudsucker Proxy comes from the adagio from Spartacus? Neither did I.