FD: New York decriminalizes the female body: This is what it looks like

Published at Freedom Democrats 16 June 2006 (I am the author).
Update: the links are busted, try here.

---

I just stumbled upon a collection of photos by Jordan Matter of all types of women going topless in NYC.
It took me a few minutes to get used to the images of topless women on the street, but eventually it started to look natural. Two pictures really emphasized how natural it is: one of a woman breast-feeding in the park, and another showing an older couple running up the steps from Penn Station with their shirts off.
There's also a video on the front page of Jordan Matter's website, which includes the photographer reading (bare-chested) from a court decision striking down laws that prohibit women from going bare chested just like men.
The USA has eliminated a lot of sexism from its laws, but we're not quite finished yet.

From whence gay marriage?

There's a somewhat interesting article at Public Discourse questioning where the demand for gay marriage comes from. The thesis is basically that gay marriage wasn't an issue a few decades ago -- even advocates of gay rights didn't bring it up (for the sake of argument, I'll take his word on this). So the author wonders why this demand gained popularity so suddenly (and whether that speed is healthy). While I'm not an expert, I will propose an explanation for the suddenness of the transformation. Basically, I believe that the historic prosecution of homosexuality kept the idea of marriage off the radar. For heterosexuals, they never thought about it because they didn't know any open homosexuals and were unaware that anyone would care about homosexual marriage. For people with homosexual tendencies, they could not establish stable long term homosexual relationships (due to persecution), so it never really occurred to them what benefits could come from formal recognition. During this period, gays were by definition embracing an alternative lifestyle, which in turn influenced their views on traditional institutions such as marriage. Now that homosexual relationships are mainstream, the consequences of marriage discrimination are apparent and homosexual marriage has been embraced as a natural component of mainstream acceptance of homosexual relationships.

Aside from offering that theory, I want to quickly dismiss the authors assertion of the conjugal theory of marriage. He writes:

but they marry in order to make something new that honors and ennobles that attraction and love: the nucleus of a family, in a comprehensive relation of husband and wife that points toward the future, with an openness toward making that future through procreation.

From what I've seen and read, this is not the current mainstream attitude towards marriage. Instead, marriage is an expression of romantic love and commitment. What I learned in history class is that this romantic theory of marriage gained prominence in the 1950s and was largely the norm by the late 1970s (at least among the college-educated middle-class). Within this context, childbearing is an exciting opportunity offered by marriage, but definitely not the point of marriage.

To say that there is no reason for formal recognition of the household in the absence of childbearing is silly (and I won't give any attention to semantic quibbles over the word "marriage"). We have standard legal recognition of many arrangements, including business partnerships and corporations. Why not a household? Why not give a special place to a union of two adults. And no, the recognition of gay marriage does not imply that we should also recognize threesomes -- there is a major, consequence of the union of two people which is not comparable to the effect of adding a third*.

Anyway, it's not all that surprising that gay marriage has suddenly become an issue, and it's not all that radical given the preceding changes to our conception of marriage and the mainstreaming of homosexual relationships. In many ways, it is just the cherry on top.

*Okay, upon more thought, maybe my logic would allow for the recognition of threesomes (but not larger groups). The problem with recognition of pairs only is that if a threesome were to form, then one member would not have any recognition of his relationship.

Are "stand-your-ground" laws (un)libertarian?

Following the Sandy Hook shooting, I've been gloomily anticipating an authoritarian knee-jerk reaction to ban some types of guns. I've read libertarians calling for a renewed commitment to the pro-gun message. Despite this, I won't fall for the old trope that the pro-gun movement is somehow libertarian. Libertarians should evaluate each pro-gun initiative on its own merits to decide whether it advances liberty.

For instance, the NRA is clearly not a libertarian organization. Not only are they willing to attack free speech (by blaming violent media for real violence), but they are perfectly comfortable establishing a permanent police presence within schools. That's not to mention their refusal to address any other infringement on liberty, even those that so clearly exacerbate gun violence (such as the drug war).

The NRA has even managed to institute pro-gun policies that directly infringe on liberty. For instance, private institutions are often forbidden from regulating whether guns can be brought onto their real estate, all in the name of "gun rights". One issue of contention right now are the "stand-your-ground" laws, so I am wondering if these laws are libertarian.

On the "plus" side, the obligation to retreat is a regulation on individual behavior that is enforced by criminal penalties, so eliminating it seems to be libertarian. However, since it is only regulating an involuntary interpersonal interaction, I think that it can't really be libertarian or anti-libertarian.

On the "negative" side, many of the "stand your ground" laws over-ride the civil tort system (see Table 1, here), which seems anti-libertarian to me.

This issue is a bit difficult for me. Much of my libertarian preference is based on the idea that we should use the minimal necessary force when dealing with others, therefore I am opposed to the tough-guy spirit behind "stand-your-ground". On the flip side, I a person who stands his ground is not so far out of line that it is necessary to use force against him.

But this is coming from someone who is still pondering whether force is justified to deter theft.

P.S. more information on self-defense laws.

Blackmail Inc.

There's another interesting overview at Philosophical Disquisitions, this time focusing on blackmail. The basic question is why should blackmail be prohibited if it is composed of acts that are individually permissible. Anyone who is wedded to absolute free speech as a general principle of social organization (as I am), should be familiar with these arguments.

In this case, Danaher is focusing on Epstein's Blackmail Inc.,described as...

Such a corporation would spend all its time hunting down salacious and upsetting information about people, carefully gaining monopoly control over that information, and demanding money for its non-disclosure.

Would such a world be a pleasant one? Would it be one we ought to welcome? Epstein thinks not, and his reasons for thinking not form the basis of his argument in favour of the continuing criminalisation of blackmail.

 I have some thoughts on this, but should wait for Danaher to finish describing the established work. Mainly, I would object to the models of society that are implied with these arguments (e.g. that society would not adjust to the existence of Blackmail Inc., and that criminalization is an effective way to reduce deceit and fraud in society).

Is it illegal to disobey your employer?

I am not a lawyer, but it sounds like there is serious legal disagreement over whether it is a federal crime for an employee to use his work computer in a way that violates the employer's policies. If this goes in the wrong direction, it could be a cornerstone for totalitarianism by employment contract.

I am absolutely fine with violation of policies being grounds for termination of employment and even liability for damages, but making it criminal is just creepy. These fraud laws are ripe for abuse, as illustrated by the prosecution of Ferrell and Kurtz. We cannot count on the restraint of prosecutors ensure that these laws are applied reasonably -- a prosecutor can hound a sick old man and and widower for years without cause, and the scumbag will still get promoted. The corporations already own Congress; they don't need to have prosecutors at their beck and call.

This is interesting...

Glenn Greenwald claims that many prominent persons in national politics have openly conducted business with (and essentially become lobbyists for) a Federally designated terrorist organization -- a crime that is punishable by up to 15 years imprisonment. Many other people have been prosecuted for simply advocating on behalf of such organizations after speaking with representatives on the organization (without taking any money).

In other words, Greenwald claims that these people are above the law. If they are above the law, then there is no law.

As Lee Adama said:

if you are telling me we are throwing out the law, then I am not a captain, you are not a commander, and you are not the president. And I don't owe either of you a damned explanation for anything.

Here's the original report from the CSM. I may just have to subscribe again.

Threats to free speech

Here are two stories of companies threatening the free speech rights of their employees (and former employees). Both came to my attention via Slashdot.

First, who owns your twitter account? This is an issue of trade-secrets, non-compete contracts, and trademarks. The lawsuit is in Federal courts.

If you set it up as a company representative (e.g. using their name), does it belong to them? This is the issue that is contested in an ongoing court case, where the company "Phonedog" is suing a former employer who had amassed 17,000 twitter followers under the name "Phonedog_Noah". When Noah left Phonedog, he changed the name and continued to use the account. Now Phonedog wants $2.50 for each subscriber to the list. What a crock!

Lawsuit May Determine Who Owns a Twitter Account - NYTimes.com

My first thought is that if the company wanted control over the account, they should have established it themselves. Either they should have set up their own server, or they should have established some sort of corporate account with Twitter (if Twitter allows such things). If Noah contracted with Twitter under his own authority, then it is his account. Noah is a free man, and can do whatever the fuck he wants with his account.

The other thing that bugs me is how they treat the subscribers an their property. Noah's subscribers are people with their own interests, and Phonedog can go fuck themselves if they think that they have the right to disrupt communications to these people. The question here is "what did the subscribers think that they were subscribing to?". If they wanted to hear Noah's opinion, then they are Noah's audience. If they wanted to hear about Phonedog, then they are Phonedog's audience. I'd think that the proper way to deal with this sort of divorce is to shut down the account in question, and give the subscribers the following non-exclusive options: if you want to hear Noah go to A, if you want to hear Phonedog go to B. I don't know how Twitter works, and whether this is plausible (I'm sure they'd loose a chunk of their subscribers), but it seems to be the only way to handle this split while respecting the audience.*

This lawsuit is in Federal courts. It shows why we need to invalidate all contractual arrangements that constrain a person's ability to make a living or their free speech rights (e.g. non-compete and non-disclosure agreements).

The next situation is that the Heartland institute is threatening lawsuits over alleged leaked/forged documents. It seems that they want to sue all their opponents for defamation or something. So far, there is no actual lawsuit, just vague threats. Fuck them. I think I'll jump in the pool just because of these threats.

http://heartland.org/press-releases/2012/02/15/heartland-institute-responds-stolen-and-fake-documents

*An alternative would be to clone/fork the account. On the one hand, if Twitter allowed such behavior, it might expose the audience to a bunch of spam (equivalent to selling an address list). However, if the chain of inheritance is transparent, subscribers would be empowered to punish anyone who is selling the subscription list (perhaps simultaneously unsubscribing from the original feed and all cloned feeds)

The Innocence Project -- puts your money to good use

The Innocence Project is fund-raising via The Liberty Papers: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is — The Innocence Project

Getting innocent people out of prison? I don’t see how you can argue with that. Note also that The Innocence Project is spending their time and money on the ground, helping actual convicts. This is not an activism organization lobbying your legislators, it exists to actual help individual convicts trying to prove their innocence.

This is surely one of the best uses of my charity/activism budgets.

1. It helps people directly, unlike donations to political campaigns or regular advocacy groups
2. It benefits the "least-advantaged members of society", unlike donations to cultural institutions
3. It increases the total productivity of society be enabling the released prisoner to fulfill his social and economic roles, unlike institutions that only relieve suffering of the targeted individuals
4. It increases awareness of widespread injustices, unlike charities that help people in the shadows
5. It improves my own society, unlike charities that intervene in foreign societies

All in all, the Innocence Project may be the best charity around in terms of its potential to produce immediate and lasting benefits to myself and the people I care about, without potentially offending any reasonable people or displacing more sustainable solutions.

My only concern would be that we would come to rely on pro-bono lawyers to defend the accused, rather than modifying our court system to provide sufficient resources for the accused. However, the current indifference of the politicians to the plight of the falsely convicted is not a response to pro-bono defense lawyers. In fact, these advocates for the wrongly convicted may be the only ones who can bring public attention to this problem, thereby changing public attitudes towards punitive laws and placing pressure on politicians to actually think about justice when they write their laws and construct their budgets.

Patents and progress in the method of discovery

I am often shocked by the rapid advances of scientific techniques, and how major accomplishments from a decade ago can be repeated with a tiny fraction of the effort. Recent advances in biology -- particularly with DNA sequencing and synthesis - may be exceptional, but the basic principle surely holds across all sciences: advances in the methodology of discovery will increase the ease with which future discoveries are made.

Through the recent past, the most general advances are probably related to computing -- the storage, transmission, and analysis of data. These advances are continuing, along with advances in artificial intelligence and robotics. Regardless of whether these advances will create a technological "singularity", they will surely contribute to additional discoveries in all fields of science.

Recently, a "robotic scientist" has even been built. Specifically, this "scientist" is a geneticist, with a very limited toolkit (both in design and implementation of experiments). However, as a proof of concept, it does raise the specter that robotic systems will soon be able to make discoveries that traditionally required a lot of time from highly trained scientists. Perhaps over the course of a decade, we will see 100-fold reductions in the price of discovery, across many fields of research.

If we put this rate of advancement in the context of patent law, we see a startling incongruity. Patents grant a 20 year monopoly to the inventor of a new tool or process, supposedly providing incentive for research and development. This monopoly allows the inventor to capture all of the benefits of the new invention for himself -- which makes like more costly for everyone else, but seems fair as long as we assume that it was necessary to produce the invention in the first place. While this assumption has always had some problems, it seems extremely shaky in light of the current rate of progress.

Fraud everywhere

From News of the Weird:

A lawyer in Xian, China, filed a lawsuit in September against a movie house and film distributor for wasting her time -- because she was exposed to 20 minutes of advertisements that began at the posted time for the actual movie to begin. Ms. Chen Xiaomei is requesting a refund (equivalent of about $5.20) plus damages of an equal amount, plus the equivalent of about 15 cents for "emotional" damages -- plus an apology. [The Guardian (London), 9-8-10]

I hope she wins. In fact, I hope that she comes to America leads a billion-dollar class-action fraud lawsuit against the movie theaters and movie studios. If the movie studios will sue their audience for illegally distributing copyrighted material, then we should sue them for this sort of systematic nickel-and-dime fraud that regularly emanates from the marketing departments of corporate America.

Fair is fair, but I'm willing to accept a truce if they are.