“You’re not the boss of me!”

Mar9 by Marc Grober

It occurred to me, on the occasion of re-reading, of all things, one of The Economist’s blogs on President Obama’s State of the Union Message (and the blog is well worth reading) that Rawls is an unknown quantity to most Americans. This is not unexpected as so many in the US are under the spell of the credible, but inconsistent (blame Bertand Russell for that) John Locke. Many, if not most, in the US are repelled by the name Machiavelli, but hold as the source of their highest moral authority the concept that they own themselves. Me. Me, of course, leads to Mine. And as the high priest of acquisition, Locke insists that More is a moral imperative.

A major focus of the campaigns against Obama was based on a deliberate effort to misconstrue and misrepresent the President’s speech in which he pointed out that what private business does is based on public infrastructure. The result was the “we built that” flag waving and the accompanying entrepreneurial chest beating that the country endured. What appeared to most Americans as either shallow campaign drivel or at most a principled disagreement on the nature of the welfare state vs personal liberty (though few of those engaging in such discussion really understood those concepts), also offered a third level.

Rawls argues for a collective ownership. You may own property, but your ownership of that property is not absolute in that you could not have obtained it without the assistance of the collective, assistance that from the perspective of the Lockean is at best a beneficial externality if considered at all. Hence, in claiming that “I built that” the Lockean’s unstated claim that he built that on his own, the American entrepreneur is engaging in a deception that Rawls would lay bare.

In suggesting a “just” society, Rawls is doing in a broader sense what we have legislated in the narrower sense with regard to the numbers racket. And as the anarcho-capitalism of the Mafia is arguably the love-child of Austrian economics, Rawls just state offers equality, a value that Locke would have us waive.

So how would that sit with those worshiping at Locke’s altar of Dominionism? They are of course outraged that their authority is not absolute, and just as you would expect from any child confronted with some limitation as to their behavior, they stomp their feet and issue juvenile challenge we all know so well…….

The Horse Behind the Cart

Feb26 by Marc Grober

Some weeks ago, Kathleen McCoy spent not a few column inches of the local rag in her puff piece lauding UAA’s Terry Kelly, “Ethicist handles heavy issues with a light touch.” Unfortunately, one can only conclude that this is further evidence that UAA is not a real educational destination.

UAA’s Terry Kelly must be more a stand-up comic than an ethicist. According to McCoy, he argued, in the most bizarre example of political correctness to date, that if you act in such a way as to make some one else be suspicious of you, you have acted unethically. Yes, you heard me. By way of example, Kelly offered a homily where a husband and wife pledge to be sexually faithful, and then hubbie goes off to spend Friday nights reading at the whorehouse. Kelly claimed that hubbie is acting unethically because his pathetically insecure wife is banging her head against a wall. Really?

Kelly then went on to confuse matters with a retelling of the Clinton/Lewinsky gaffe, misrepresenting the facts and of course drawing the wrong conclusion. He finally tackled his real target (after an unfortunate attempt to hijack the theory of cognitive dissonance), which appeared to be the impact of government officials receiving gifts. He apparently closed with something along the lines of “trustworthy behavior is persuasive behavior, and untrustworthy behavior is unethical.”

Yes. Instead of arguing that trust is based on ethical behavior, he argues that ethical behavior is based on trust. Very inventive. Or delusional. The word trust comes from the Norse “traust” and is defined by the Cambridge dictionary as “to have belief or confidence in the honesty, goodness, skill or safety of a person, organization or thing.” Trustworthy of course is to be worthy of trust. Ethics, per the Oxford Dictionary, are, “moral principles that govern a person’s behaviour or the conducting of an activity”, and the entry goes on to explain:

Schools of ethics in Western philosophy can be divided, very roughly, into three sorts. The first, drawing on the work of Aristotle, holds that the virtues (such as justice, charity, and generosity) are dispositions to act in ways that benefit both the person possessing them and that person’s society. The second, defended particularly by Kant, makes the concept of duty central to morality: humans are bound, from a knowledge of their duty as rational beings, to obey the categorical imperative to respect other rational beings. Thirdly, utilitarianism asserts that the guiding principle of conduct should be the greatest happiness or benefit of the greatest number

So we can take ethical to mean, depending on the system to which you subscribe, compliance with some code of conduct. In sum, we may have confidence that others may conduct themselves ethically, but if we lack confidence how can that possibly change whether the erstwhile target of out attentions is ethical or not?

What Terry Kelly has proposed is nothing less than a feedback loop, a neurotic echo chamber where what is real is not what you do, but what someone perceives you to do. While in a very primitive form this may hearken back to the social psychology of the ’70s and the concept of the social construction of reality, it beggars the concept of ethics, for it renders ethics dependent on the feedback loop and enables insecurity. You can only be as ethical as you convince your observer you are. He has turned philosophy into advertising, for under his rules, one becomes ethical not by adhering to a code, but by convincing others that one does, and after all, that is what our politicians try to do today, and is exactly opposite of the point we think Kelly was trying to argue. Kelly has shifted the subjective lens, and lost sight of the situation entirely.

Only His Hairdresser Knows for Sure…..

Feb24 by Marc Grober

A year or so ago UAA Nursing Students decided to put the question of whether the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of Vitamin D would produce adequate blood levels to the test and found that the RDA came nowhere close to ensuring adequate Vitamin D. Alaskan doctors are now suggesting 4000 IU daily (combined with Magnesium and Calcium) while many foolish Alaskans complain or suffer from the conditions listed below and do nothing about it.

Now a Republican Alaska State Senator has announced he is interested in doing something about this. Senator Seaton wants to test newborns for Vitamin D, while the Republican Administration dismisses concerns over the impact of inadequate Vitamin D. HB90 would create a “temporary” program for testing newborns at delivery. The text of the Bill and the Sponsor statement (available here) is well worth the read.

A big problem, however, is that Alaska hospitals have made a habit out of turning parents of newborns into criminals as they surreptitiously turn maternal blood test results over to OCS and State police over even the legal presence of anything “suspicious” in the blood, and let’s face it, Seaton’s colleagues seem much more interested in regulating wombs and criminalizing female behavior than in addressing any health care issue. Moreover, it would clearly be more important from all perspectives to have pre-natal data from pregnant mothers than on new born children, but Alaska is certainly not interested in ensuring that all women have adequate prenatal care.

The wing nut right fail to see this as one might argue the GOP caucus does (as a way to seize further control of women) and look at it instead through delusional Lockean glasses, arguing that Seaton is intruding into the individual’s privacy and that the legislature has no business addressing public health issues (except when it is someone else.) Of course, this is in no small part because though they scream and yell that we should be complying with the Constitution, they have never read that document (save perhaps to support amending same to fund religious schools.) The Constitution mandates ¹ that the Legislature must address the general health and welfare, which is clearly challenged by the gross inadequacy of Vitamin D.

What a mess! We seem to have an unholy alliance of liberals and conservatives to wrest control of pre and post natal care from parents while failing to really acknowledge the underlying health issues facing Alaskans and the need to boldly address same (Governor Sean Parnell, is even an embarrassment to Governor Brewer, who finally admitted that her state needs to get onboard with the ACA.) The GOP legislative caucuses are VERY busy rushing ALEC based repressive legislation in to law, and really can’t be bother with health policy.

So we all have a dilemma, here in the far north. Is Senator Seaton et al really concerned about the health of Alaskans, or are they merely looking for a way to ensure that all mothers get drug tested? The shortsighted nature of the policy and the questionable ethics of the caucus suggests that one look beyond the purported purpose of the Bill, but is Seaton really that much of a prat? Well…….

Impacts of a Vitamin D deficiency ²
1.) The flu – In a study published in the Cambridge Journals, it was discovered that vitamin D deficiency predisposes children to respiratory diseases. An intervention study conducted showed that vitamin D reduces the incidence of respiratory infections in children.

2.) Muscle weakness – According to Michael F. Holick, a leading vitamin D expert, muscle weakness is usually caused by vitamin D deficiency because for skeletal muscles to function properly, their vitamin D receptors must be sustained by vitamin D.

3.) Psoriasis – In a study published by the UK PubMed central, it was discovered that synthetic vitamin D analogues were found useful in the treatment of psoriasis.

4.) Chronic kidney disease – According to Holick, patients with advanced chronic kidney diseases (especially those requiring dialysis) are unable to make the active form of vitamin D. These individuals need to take 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 or one of its calcemic analogues to support calcium metabolism, decrease the risk of renal bone disease and regulate parathyroid hormone levels.

5.) Diabetes – A study conducted in Finland was featured in Lancet.com in which 10,366 children were given 2000 international units (IU)/day of vitamin D3 per day during their first day of life. The children were monitored for 31 years and in all of them, the risk of type 1 diabetes was reduced by 80 percent.

6.) Asthma – Vitamin D may reduce the severity of asthma attacks. Research conducted in Japan revealed that asthma attacks in school children were significantly lowered in those subjects taking a daily vitamin D supplement of 1200 IU a day.

7.) Periodontal disease – Those suffering from this chronic gum disease that causes swelling and bleeding gums should consider raising their vitamin D levels to produce defensins and cathelicidin, compounds that contain microbial properties and lower the number of bacteria in the mouth.

8.) Cardiovascular disease – Congestive heart failure is associated with vitamin D deficiency. Research conducted at Harvard University among nurses found that women with low vitamin D levels (17 ng/m [42 nmol/L]) had a 67 percent increased risk of developing hypertension.

9.) Schizophrenia and Depression – These disorders have been linked to vitamin D deficiency. In a study, it was discovered that maintaining sufficient vitamin D among pregnant women and during childhood was necessary to satisfy the vitamin D receptor in the brain integral for brain development and mental function maintenance in later life.

10.) Cancer – Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington DC discovered a connection between high vitamin D intake and reduced risk of breast cancer. These findings, presented at the American Association for Cancer Research, revealed that increased doses of the sunshine vitamin were linked to a 75 percent reduction in overall cancer growth and 50 percent reduction in tumor cases among those already having the disease. Of interest was the capacity of vitamin supplementation to help control the development and growth of breast cancer specially estrogen-sensitive breast cancer.

1 Alaska Constitution Article 7 http://ltgov.alaska.gov/treadwell/services/alaska-constitution/article-viiA096A0health-education-and-welfare.html

2 Geib, Aurora. “The 10 symptoms of vitamin D deficiency you need to recognize” Natural News, 2/10/2012 Web http://www.naturalnews.com/035089_vitamin_D_deficiency_signs_symptoms.html

Mediating Self Medication

Feb20 by Marc Grober

Dr. Gabor Maté argued to Alaska that, “The first question in addiction is not why the addiction, but why the pain? And if you understand a human being’s pain, you cannot look at their genes.” You can listen to his presentation at http://www.alaskapublic.org/2013/02/15/addiction-from-heroin-to-workaholism/ . While the proposed historical basis for his arguments are dubious, and the jargon makes one shudder to think of Fritz Perl voodoo and the modern profit center of “mental health”, there is a good deal to be said for a functional approach to addiction, and under the patina of the sloppy academics and loose jargon, that is, after all, what the good doctor is talking about.

Maté, like some medical analog of D’Souza’s “nemesis”, argues that western imperialism is responsible for “addiction”, in that while tribal people may use psychoactive substances, they do so reverently and with cultural approval, and therefore not addictively. Apparently the pervasive and ubiquitous use of betel nut, coca leaf and other similar substances (Sullivan and Hagen), are overlooked by Maté. Maté only has eyes for noble savages, while Anthropology retired that trope years ago (Ellingson, Grinde et al., Hames.)

But the presentation, ”The Hungry Ghost: A Biospsychosocial Perspective on Addiction, from Heroin to Workaholism” based on the book “In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction“, can be forgiven the blood libel. The important bit is that Maté effectively makes the case that addicts are not necessarily the insane and mentally ill, nor deviant fiends bent on breaking the law; they are as likely to be persons doing their best to essentially self-medicate themselves to states in which they can survive.

And THAT serves as an excellent indictment of both the criminal justice approach to addiction AND the mental health approach to addiction. The former punishes the addict for attempting to comply with other’s rules, and the latter denies the rationality of the user.

I don’t want to sink in to some ridiculous libertarian rant about natural rights; that is not what this is about. What we have done, though, is created a religion in which the MDs are high priests and BigPharma are the keepers of the sacraments. If I can manage what ails me through moderate use of caffeine and marijuana, why should I not be permitted to do so? Is the threat of societal implosion from a 7% solution so extraordinary that we must so vehemently denounce so much of our world?

Perhaps what we need more of are not the empty chairs of Gestalt Therapy (yes, Clint was engaging in classic Gestalt therapy during the GOP convention) nor private prison beds (rendering Puritanism a profit center), but effective mediators. Once upon a time I think we called such people social workers; persons who went out in to the community and assisted others in coping with a society whose demands were in some respect more than one might be able to manage. We don;t need to talk about defective genes; we need to talk about a dysfunctional society, and what we can do to recognize and perhaps moderate the responses of some to that dismal fact of life. No, there are no silver bullets, but having some understanding of the underlying circumstances, and abandoning the Puritan intolerance that drives even those who deny same, will be a start.

Work Cited

Ellingson, Ter. The Myth of the Noble Savage. University of California Press, 2000. Print.

Grinde, Donald A., Bruce Elliott Johansen, and University of California, Los Angeles American Indian Studies Center. Exemplar of Liberty: Native America and the Evolution of Democracy. American Indian Studies Center, University of California, Los Angeles, 1991. (http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/EoL/index.html)

Raymond, Hames. “The Ecologically Noble Savage Debate.” Annual Review of Anthropology 36.1 (2007): 177–190. Web http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.anthro.35.081705.123321. 20 Feb. 2013.

M.D, Gabor Mate. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. North Atlantic Books, 2011. Print.

Sullivan, R. J., and E. H. Hagen. “Psychotropic Substance-seeking: Evolutionary Pathology or Adaptation?” Addiction 97.4 (2002): 389–400. Web http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1360-0443.2002.00024.x/full. 20 Feb. 2013.

The State Militant; militia in the 21st century

Jan19 by Marc Grober

With the rise of the “militia movement” in Alaska ( http://www.alaska.net/~cadrecc/index.html, http://anchoragemilitia.com/, http://www.centralalaskamilitia.com/ ) it is time to effectively address this potential threat to our civil society. That is to say that the federal prosecution of the members of the Alaska Peacemakers Militia, being reactive, is inadequate on its face. See the Fairbanks Newsminer for a discussion of Shaffer Cox and his role in this militia.

Not withstanding the bizarre ideation of these groups, the US Constitution puts all militia under federal control. The US Constitution, Article I Section 8, in pertinent part, authorizes Congress:

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

The US Constitution reserves to the states certain responsibilities with respect to militia. Under the Alaska Constitution, that authority is largely exercised by the Governor of the State. Alaska Constitution Article III § 19. Military Authority provides:

The governor is commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the State. He may call out these forces to execute the laws, suppress or prevent insurrection or lawless violence, or repel invasion. The governor, as provided by law, shall appoint all general and flag officers of the armed forces of the State, subject to confirmation by a majority of the members of the legislature in joint session. He shall appoint and commission all other officers.

In sum, the Governor would clearly be the commander of our various self-proclaimed militias, and as command-in-chief the Governor has ultimate responsibility for command of these organizations. Either the Governor must command these organizations, or they must be disbanded as unauthorized frauds and dangerous gangs; thugs in paramilitary drag.

It is clear that the Governor HAS NOT taken his responsibilities via-a-vis Article III Section 19 seriously, not having seized command of these organizations (or in the alternative, not having ordered the Attorney General to terminate their activities as apparent criminal enterprises or otherwise.) In having failed in those responsibilities it is high time the Governor was called to task for his oversight, negligence, or malfeasance (the last case perhaps recommending impeachment) for putting our society in danger.

Perhaps most heinous, is that while the Governor seems to continually wish to take power from the federal government (he has inordinately invested in lawsuit after lawsuit, attacking the role of the federal government on matters ranging from wildlife management to health care) he has failed to wield the responsibility the federal Constitution affords him, with the result that the Department of Justice was forced to prosecute those in such organizations apparently engaged in preparing to commit acts of homicide against our judges. For shame, Governor! For shame!

The New Arms Race

Jan16 by Marc Grober

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution states in pertinent part, “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” What are we to make of this? We are besieged today by “textualists” (not withstanding Paul McGreal’s cogent argument) arguing that a personal armory is the salvation of democracy. If we don, for a moment, the texturalist’s robes, what do we see in this Amendment? The Amendment says “people” – not voters, residents, citizens, adults, or ‘white men of virtue who own property and are well liked’.

Who are these “people”? People are, generally defined as “humans”. [NB: Cicero fans may now attempt to interrupt to argue populus versus civitas, and while this dispute might offer some intriguing questions for future discussion, we don’t like these elitist pedants, and, as either view’s result proves the point that kids are people too (certainly, if an embryo is a person, a kid must be a person), we will rule these classicists out of order and move on.]

Where were we? Ah, yes. And if kids are people, then we had better not infringe on their right to keep and bear arms, as that would clearly be unconstitutional. To take that one step further as the textural positivist is want to do, if our Propounding Pops thought it was so important to make sure no one disarmed kids that they Amended the Constitution to note it, then the extension of that concern would surely be an unwritten endorsement that the more kids armed, the safer our society.

Certainly arming the kids makes more sense than trusting kids’ safety at school to “a bunch of union thugs”, and trusting the thugs’ judgment as to whom to shoot. Do you really want an NEA member (someone known to you to be a communist) taking out (as in offing, not sending to the office) YOUR kid because he pulled a Nerf gun at lunch? Why put the safety of kids in the hands of Bolsheviks, when you can arm the kids, nay, MUST arm the kids? To look at the larger picture, if we can’t keep kids off university campuses with guns, we clearly can’t keep kids out of public schools with guns, and if that is the case we had better make sure that every kid showing up for Kindergarten has a Glock on each hip.

Extra chocolate milk if the guns are clean and loaded.

Maybe Wally Has a Good Idea This Time?

Apr27 by policyadvisor

The kernel, many would argue, of the social revolution at the turn of the last century was the concept that workers should own the means of production. This is NOT a radical concept, nor is it inconsistent with capitalism. Indeed, any thorough review of all of Adam Smith’s writing in context might actually suggest he was much more a socialist than any might give him credit for. And the reason this is relevant NOW is because Alaskans, offered the opportunity NOW, have a chance to invest in Alaska.

What am I talking about? The gas pipeline, of course! Not unlike the brave face adopted by citizens of the Bay area in moving forward with bonding for their bridge, Alaska has the opportunity to create a quasi-public corporation to build a gas line authorized to accept pledges of portions of PDFs and to authorize such pledges for minors (in as much as we know that the State is likely liable to the tunes of millions of dollars for allowing endorsement of PFD checks on behalf of minors in ways unacceptable under the law…..)

A pledge of $500 per year for five years by half the population would capitalize the corporation in excess of half a billion dollars, more than enough to leverage any financing necessary. Would it be a worthwhile investment? Well, considering that Big Oil is making a killing right now why wouldn’t intelligent folks want to get in on the ground floor of the most exciting investment option to appear in years (arguably persons who had received a PFD already would be offered a special price for their subscriptions.) In what other ways might the investment benefit Alaskans other than as a return on their investment? As stockholders Alaskans could then vote for a Board and insist, if they wished, that the gas line run to where they think it most appropriate (and my guess is that it would not be outside Alaska.)

Want to wax optimistic? Think about the fact that we will have ice free ports on the North Slope soon. Think about building ships to move goods between Asia and Europe through the Arctic that might use gas to power Sterling engines, gas produced in Alaska and taken on board these ships at Alaskan North Slope ports. Think also about building gas fired generating plants at the source of the gas, and then providing monorails which provides advanced transmission of electrical power through a state-wide grid.

Yes, Wally has dreamed some doozies…. But it is nice to have someone with some vision in this state, and on this matter Wally is dead on. It is time Alaskans built their own infrastructure with their own money and controlled production. If the guvna wants to build a pipeline and put Big Oil in its place, here is the way to do it….