A Load Of Fatuous Crap

"An armed society is a polite society,"--Robert Heinlein

See the title. Firstly, we're talking the gateway drug to Ayn Rand. And Ayn Rand is beyond fatuous crap. Heinlein has some redeeming qualities, whereas Ayn Rand specializes in telling pubescent pimply faced boys that the highest goal in life is to be a self centered asshole. Like they need encouragement in that.

But beyond that, the statement is demonstrably false. I thought of this post while I was listening to an NPR report on the way to work this morning about Afghanistan. Afghanistan is, not to put too fine a point on it, the NRA's wet dream of a society.

Damned near every Afghani has a gun, most of them have automatic weapons, and the majority of them either own or, in a pinch, could easily put their hands on a rocket launcher. Wayne LaPierre would LOVE it there. There are a lot of adjectives that leap to mind when thinking about Afghani society. Polite isn't high on the list. Polite isn't even ON the list.

Insular, tribal, violent, sectarian, vicious, dangerous. They are on the list. Polite? Nope. I'm not saying that Afghan society would be Nirvana without weapons. It wouldn't. Thousands of years of Afghan history make it the way it is. But Heinlein claims that the presence of a large number of weapon carriers makes a society polite. A priori, and regardless of culture. And he's wrong. What makes it worse is that he knew, or SHOULD have known, that he was wrong.

History is loaded with societies where an armed society is a violent society. The example Heinlein plainly had in mind is actually in contravention to his claim. The American West may have been "armed", but it requires rose-colored hindsight to consider it "polite". It was a lot more "Deadwood" than "How The West Was Won".

Here is what an armed society is: in thrall to the people most likely to use weapons to get their way. Most of whom are Ayn Rand's favorite type of person: sociopaths.

The fun part is, by carrying carbines to town hall meetings, conservatives are attempting to strongly imply they are the latter, whilst pretending to the fictional condition. Polite isn't what they're doing. Ask Tiller. Ask the kids at that Unitarian Church in Tennessee. Polite isn't on the agenda.

Maureen Dowd Goes There

Normally, MoDo annoys me, but today she went there. When Maureen Dowd notices the problem that the GOP has with a Black man as president, the GOP has a BAD problem...

I’ve been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer — the frantic efforts to paint our first black president as the Other, a foreigner, socialist, fascist, Marxist, racist, Commie, Nazi; a cad who would snuff old people; a snake who would indoctrinate kids — had much to do with race.

I tended to agree with some Obama advisers that Democratic presidents typically have provoked a frothing response from paranoids — from Father Coughlin against F.D.R. to Joe McCarthy against Truman to the John Birchers against J.F.K. and the vast right-wing conspiracy against Bill Clinton.

But Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president — no Democrat ever shouted “liar” at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq — convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it.

You follow the Southern Strategy...it leads right THERE. And it doesn't even take a detour.

Best Line Ever

Another gem from Ezra Klein, about the need for both compromise and idealism, as exemplified by Teddy Kennedy:

There's been a lot of talk in recent days about how Ted Kennedy proved the greatest of the three brothers. JFK was an inspiring, but ultimately ineffective, president. RFK never had the opportunity to prove himself. But Ted Kennedy eventually learned an important lesson. At the beginning of his career, he saw things as they were and asked, "Why?" By the end, he dreamed things that never were and said, "How can that pass the Senate?" And that's the relevant question right now: It's not why we don't have a better system. It's how this deal can pass the Senate. No more regrets.

Why The Health Insurance Market Is NOT Competitive

Via Ezra Klein (the policy wonk du policy wonk of Health Care):

Employees, in other words, don't worry too much about the cost of their health insurance because they think their employer is picking up the tab. Employers don't worry too much about the cost of health insurance because they know employees are picking up the tab. And so there's no real constituency for cost control. If either group were actually experiencing the full cost of health insurance, the constituency for reform would be a whole lot larger than it already is.

Is It Just Me...

Or did superefficient, "outcompete that USPS dinosaur," FedEx just outsource delivery of my pants to...the Post Office???

On a side note, the "New Berlin Facility" in question is RIGHT NEXT DOOR to my office. So despite it being not 300 meters from me, FedEx needs the ever so outmoded postal service to get my pants to, you know, my door.

Required Reading

From Josh Marshall at TPM.

At this point I don't know why we bother. These guys will keep going until there are lots and lots of bodies piled up. No one in the Republican Party will take any responsibility. And every time the Repubs are out of power, it will happen again.

I'm tired of it, discouraged that I wasted any time on serving this country, and candidly, I can't figure out whether we should encourage them to actually secede or "Go Galt" or whatever the fuck they call it THIS week, or if we should just leave.

The problem is, if I were Canada I wouldn't let those crazy-ass Americans in to wreck the fuck out of my country like they did theirs, no matter HOW liberal they are...

I Could Do This Guys Job Better Than He Does...Make Me The CEO Of Whole Foods

I could use the seven figure income and I guarantee you I could avoid doing something this dumb...

Outlined by Matt Yglesias.

Shorter version:
When you're the CEO of a company that caters to liberals, it's really fucking stupid to go out of your way to piss them off.