Here’s an old joke from the Brezhnev era. I offer it as a parable in light of the recent debate at Catallarchy (2005-12-15) and Unclaimed Territory (2005-12-14) over public objections to the killing of Tookie Williams and the alleged failure of his supporters to properly denounce all the murderous regimes in the world.

A Soviet apparatchik has been assigned to show an American guest around Moscow. They’re standing on the subway platform waiting for the train, which is now a couple of minutes late. The apparatchik is passing the time by showing his guest the map of all the subway stops throughout Moscow and the spotless cleanliness of the platform — a triumph of socialist efficiency and the rational planning of the people’s public works committee. The American nods quietly and agrees that it’s very clean. Half an hour later, the apparatchik is still talking, and there’s still no train in sight; by now he’s moved on to pointing out the ornate beauty of the station and the murals on the walls — a visible manifestation, he says, of the people’s victory, and the workers’ heroic sacrifices. The American says Yes, Sergei Ivanovich, it is very elaborate. After about an hour another train whizzes by without stopping on its way to another station, and the apparatchik (who’s looking pretty nervous at this point) tries to get his American guest to marvel at the latest triumphs of Soviet science and technology that allow the trains to run faster and more quietly than any in Eastern Europe. Finally the American turns to his guide and says, That’s all very impressive, Sergei Ivanovich, but where is our train?

His guide turns very red in the face and blurts out, And what about your blacks in the South?

Further reading

• GT 2005-12-13: Murder in the first

I have some material coming down the pipe that I’ve been chewing on for a while — a little bit on philosophy, some stuff on copyrights and contracts, and some stuff on the nature of law. Plus some announcements about various things of varying interest. But my aching feet are going to keep me from getting to it today. So, in the meantime, here’s some things that I’ve had going on elsewhere:

Bloviating elsewhere

• Tonight at No Treason, I dispute Stefan’s claim that tyrants and murderers often have satisfying lives (in any sense of the word satisfying that matters), and argue (with Plato) that being a tyrant is actually the most miserable kind of life. (The point is related, somewhat, to some similar remarks I made against some utilitarian arguments over at Philosophy, et cetera.)

• Over at Kevin Carson’s Mutualist Blog, Kevin discusses land theft against farmers in modern history, and I follow up in comments by debating with P. M. Lawrence over land ownership, homesteading, and slavery. I defend the radical notion that the Southern plantations should have been expropriated from the slave-drivers’ illegitimate control, and distributed amongst the former slaves, after Emancipation. (It should have been distributed not as reparations for slavery — although the former slaves also deserved those — but rather because freed Blacks were the rightful owners of the land that they had lived and worked on all their lives.) Lawrence objects on several fronts; I defend.

• At Project for the New Anarchist Century, I object to Jeremy Sapienza making shit up about the civil rights movement and Rosa Parks in particular. We go on to debate the historical significance of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

• At Alas, A Blog, I object to several commentators saying, over and over again, that society causes any number of conditions that make rape and other forms of violence against women, as if society were some looming presence outside of us. In fact it just is us. And refusing to recognize this snuffs out any questions we might have about just who, among the men and women that make up society, does most of the things that constitute a rape culture. (Here’s a hint: it is not, for the most part, women.)

Howard Dully and My Lobotomy on NPR

Meanwhile, NPR recently broadcast a riveting and heartbreaking audio documentary, My Lobotomy by Howard Dully. At age 12, diagnosed with nothing worse than being a difficult child, Dully was one of the youngest victims of Walter Freeman’s ice-pick lobotomy. It turns out that the complaints were nothing but a pack of lies, but even if they weren’t, the senseless mutilation of his brain would have still have been an atrocity. In any case, Dully somehow survived with his faculties mostly intact, and is able — unlike so many of Freeman’s other victims — to search for answers about his suffering and to tell his own story. Dully also talked about his experiences some more on Thursday’s Talk of the Nation. It’s not stuff you can enjoy listening too, really, but it is stuff that you should listen to. And listening to it is not a burden; while not pleasant, the tale is compelling, chilling, and, sadly, real.

Further reading

• GT 2002-08-20: Brain Mutilation for Fun and Profit: the Story of Walter Freeman
• Psychosurgery.org: Remembering the Tragedy of Lobotomy

1. My post from a couple weeks ago, Goodbye To All That. Again. is featured in the most recent Carnival of Feminists (#3), which is full of pieces much better than mine. I was particularly pleased to see that Melinda (of Sour Duck) had chosen 1970s feminist thought, and its applicability today, as a theme. (See, for example, Elayne Riggs’ memories of c.r., Clancy’s comparison of deoderant ads from 1973 and today, and midlife mama’s remarks on teaching The Second Sex and the memory-hole fate of recent feminist history.) Anyway, as they say, read the whole thing.

2. Apparently the Rad Geek People’s Daily is one of the candidates this year for Liberty and Power’s award for Best Libertarian/Classical Liberal Individual Academic Blog. I think that Roderick or Alina or Chris should probably win. But I can promise that if I win I will not put any badges on my sidebar to mark the occasion. And if I lose, I can promise to petulantly blame it all on the lack of Condorcet voting. In any case, as they say, it’s an honor just to be nominated.

3. In case you are an avid reader of the Southwest Philosophy Review, keep your eyes out for the upcoming winter issue, which will feature a version of my essay on paradoxes of self-reference, Sentences That Can’t Be Said: or, How to Semanticize with a Hammer. If you’re interested in finding out how I dispatch the Liar Paradox, save Marco Polo’s Travels, from philosophical mauling, and develop an irrefutable new proof for the existence of God in the process, drop me a line and I’ll send you a xerox when it arrives.

You might wonder why I put in so much time over the past few months transcribing G. E. Moore’s ethical works for use on the web. Well, I did it because it was needed. Consder the following page, clipped from the most recent Dell catalogue:

Someone at Dell clearly needs to be sent a copy of Moore’s Open Question Argument: what more explicit example of the Naturalistic Fallacy could you find?

I have shocking news to convey. The disturbing truth about the papacy of Benedict XVI was only the beginning. New photographic evidence from Rox Populi 2005-08-19 has shown unmistakably that this reaches to the very highest levels, not only of the Church, but also of the State:

The raftsmen little suspected what terrible cargo they carried down the valley…

Coffins! Coffins filled with earth!

The ship of death has a new captain.

It would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?