Abstinence Ineffective

I have always thought that teaching abstinence is a sin, but apparently it is also ineffective: Teaching Abstinence Ineffective

Why I support legislating from the bench

I understand that the founding fathers intended the Supreme Court to interpret the law - and not make the law. But these same founding fathers expressly established the United States as a constitutionally limited republic and not a pure democracy. This was to protect us against the "tyranny of the majority". I agree with this. So does Ron Paul who said: "Pure democracy, mob rule, is incompatible with liberty."

In California, a 51% vote of the people is all that is needed to alter the constitution. If this isn't mob rule than I don't know what is.

So given the choice between "legislation from the bench" and "legislation from the mob", I'll take the former.

I am Going to Vote for Obama

The more I learn about Obama, the more I like about him. I also like Hillary and McCain. But I like Obama the best. I really think he has the potential to energize and inspire our country back to its position of greatness and respect in the world. Check out this speech he gave in 2002 (before we invaded Iraq). This is a great speech. This is the kind of speech that Lincoln or Kennedy might have written:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Barack_Obama's_Iraq_Speech

Any numnut can criticize the war after the fact but it took courage and prescience to do so in 2002.

Why I am Optimistic about America

With all of the dooms-day talk in the press about recessions and war and so forth, I want to tell you why I am optimistic about our country at the moment.

In every presidential election since I have been old enough to vote, my voting thought process has always been: "Who sucks the least". This was especially true in the last Bush/Kerry election. I remember thinking: "is this all we can come up with"?

But this year is different, I actually like most of the candidates that are still in play (with the exception of Huckabee). I would be happy with any of these 4 (in order of preference):

Obama
McCain
Hillary
Romney

My main criteria, coming after Bush, is that I want a smart president. Ideology aside all 4 of these contenders are very smart and talented people.

Of these four, my favorite (by an increasing margin) is Obama.

Minority Scapegoatism

I like to read history. One of the cool things about reading history is that you start to recognize recurring patterns.

In my industry (software development) they make a big deal about recurring patterns. Some people make a career out of distilling and naming patterns that recur in the world of software.

I personally like the idea of extracting the common patterns out of life and attaching catchy names to them. It aids discussion.

So, getting back to history, I would like to propose a new name for an old and recurring pattern in history: I call it Minority Scapegoatism. Following the tradition of software patterns, we also name to the pattern's chief ingredients:

1. The Chief Scapegoater: A deranged but influential leader (or leaders) who rally the majority by scapegoating the minority (witches, Jews, blacks, communists, gays, undocumented immigrants, etc.)
2. The Simpletons: A large number of simple people who get behind the movement. They find it comforting to blame others for their situation - to have such a simple and tidy answer to difficult problems ("it's the Jews").
3. The Rhetoric: A large quantity of official sounding (but ridiculous) rhetoric, to make the racism or scapegoatism appear legitimate or legal to the simpletons.
4. The Blind Eyes: A large number of less simple people who don't fall for the rhetoric and understand what's going on but turn a blind eye because it doesn't effect them.

People always say, we need to tell the story of the Holocaust so that it never happens again. But I believe, more import than telling the story, we need to understand the story. And, part of understanding that story is understanding the Minority Scapegoatism pattern. I think it's is an important topic that needs to be discussed and debated. Hopefully, coming up with a succinct name for the pattern is a good first step.

What do you think? Is this really a pattern worthy of a name or am I talking crazy? Is there already a name that describes this pattern and I just don't know about it?