As most of you know by now, I’m the new editor of the national newsletter of the Canadian Society of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.  We recently put out our second edition under my direction, and I wanted to share with you one of the more controversial articles I penned.

For those of you not in Canada, this country recently underwent a bit of a political storm when our right-wing government decided to do away with the mandatory long-form census.  This became a rallying cry for a lot of organizations and institutions in Canada.

I decided to explore the other point of view, and in the process risk the wrath of many of my colleagues.  But this is the nature of open intellectual activity, right?  I dunno.  In any case, I’m reproducing for you below an article from the December 2010 edition of the CSEB Bulletin on the topic of the Canadian mandatory long form census.  Here ya go…

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A Perhaps Surprising Take on the Census Controversy

By Raywat Deonandan

CSEB’s Executive Board took a position on July 12, 2010 on the on-going census controversy, stating the following:

“We are writing in our capacity as the Executive of the Canadian Society for Epidemiology and Biostatistics. As a professional organization, we are concerned that the long-form (Form 2-B) of the Census will no longer be mandatory, and we strongly recommend that this decision be reversed.

We understand that this decision was based on two major concerns, one being that of privacy. We are not aware of any breaches of privacy over the many years that this form has been used. Statistics Canada has always protected the privacy of survey and census respondents, and it is a respected leader nationally, and internationally, in this regard.

A second reason is that of the coercive/intrusive nature of the process. We note that Canada was founded on “peace, order, and good government”. To this end, in the interests of the public good, the duty to provide information that is protected under the law is necessary. Further, as a democratic country, accountability and transparency are principles that are integral to our governance; a representative method of gathering data is foundational to satisfying these principles.

Our members are epidemiologists, statisticians, health care practitioners and other health scientists from across Canada.  The Census provides a major source of information used by our members in the research and practice areas of public health in which they are involved.  The long-form of the Census provides the only source of detailed information on specific sub-populations, including those with special needs, those living in poverty and new immigrants with language barriers, among others. The information is used extensively for research, but also for understanding population needs and for the planning of local services such as health promotion, screening, health care interventions and social services.

In addition to the intrinsic importance of the information collected, the Census long form also serves as the gold standard against which other population surveys are measured in Canada.

In our considered opinion, allowing voluntary response to the long form of the Census would be regressive. Voluntary response will certainly result in the non-representation of the Canadian population due to inadequate response in certain geographic areas. The data will be biased and hence of poor utility because people who volunteer are not representative of the population. Without representative information, accountability and transparency in resource allocation decisions would not be able to be defended.

We urge the government to reinstate mandatory reporting of the long-form of the Census, and we congratulate Statistics Canada on producing a much-needed service to Canada.”

A PDF of this letter was sent to the PMO and can be found at the following link:  http://www.cseb.ca/documents/news/Census-letter.pdf

Now, fellow health researchers, watch carefully as I, an otherwise sane and risk-averse individual, tread onto uncertain career terrain …

The big news in our profession is, of course, the federal government’s plan to cease the mandatory long-form census.  This will likely, as has been well discussed all over the country, play havoc with many research endeavours and perhaps hobble policy work.  It may also cause droughts, rust our cars, cheat on our spouses and make our babies cry; the list of its potential evil effects is seemingly interminable.  I’m not going to go over that list here.  (Yes, I’m being a bit facetious, but I just want to make clear that pretty much everyone who deals with data acknowleges that this development poses a significant blow to many important procedures that are information dependent.)

As indicated above in the reproduced letter to the Prime Minister, the CSEB has taken an appropriate official stance in opposition to the discontinuation of the long-form census.  My intent in this very informal article is not to repeat that argument, but to do something quite different.  I want to present to you a case for the other side.  That’s right: an argument for why perhaps we shouldn’t be so quick to demand that a mandatory census be pursued at all costs.

(Yes, I’m ducking right now, in full expectation of the virtual shoes that are being hurled at my head.)

Before I continue, I want to be absolutely clear about three things:

• The argument that follows is a personal reflection –an intellectual vanity, if you will – and certainly not necessarily reflective of the opinions of the CSEB, its Board or its members.
• My arguments below are in no way to be interpreted as partisan support for the current Conservative government.  Personally, I find this government to be profoundly anti-science and anti-democratic.  And while I believe that their decision to discontinue the long-form census was made for brazen and ugly political reasons, this does not mean that we cannot discuss the role of mandatory censuses in a liberal democracy on a wider philosophical stage, without the need to be dragged down by considering the singular motivations of this particular government at this time in history.
• As a corollary to the point above, my following arguments are not to be construed as support for the recent decision to discontinue the mandatory long-form census.  Rather, it is merely a quasi-academic discussion of the role of mandatory collection of personal information in a society that purports to value civil rights and autonomy.

So, let’s all take a deep breath and consider the issue from a wider social, legal, historical and ethical perspective.  Let’s put aside our professions and the keen insights we have on the fragility and power of well collected data, and consider instead some of the more macro forces that operate on liberal democracies.  Let us think, for a moment, like ordinary citizens of the 21st century, and not like epidemiologists and biostatisticians.  And by that I mean, let us remember that we live in a time when data has phenomenal power –for both good and evil—and also in a time when vulnerable people need to be armed with rights that celebrate their autonomy.

What I propose is that we explore the issue along three domains or questions: (1) How important are these data? (2) How much do you trust your government? and (3) How much do you value your autonomy?

How Important Are These Data?

We all agree that decades of research programs are in jeopardy, and that the ability to use census data as a supremely reliable comparator for validating survey sampling data is also compromised.  Potentially, the ability to make precise estimates for social planning is also affected, as is the power for watchdog groups to validate quantifiable claims made by the government.  Many bad things abound.

Yes.  The data are important.  Very important, dare I say.  The efficient running of our society may indeed depend on them.  But the existence of our society does not.  This means that a census-free society is possible; but at what price?

This is the philosophical question that faces us: where does a mandatory census fit along a continuum of rights vs responsibilities?  For the most part, Canadians believe that citizens have a right to privacy and a right to not have to share with the state some personal characteristics that have historically made populations vulnerable to abuse.  At the same time, citizens have a responsibility to allow their rights to be curtailed if the cause is sufficiently important to the greater good.

The perceived importance of census data clearly has a role in helping us to decide whether the responsibility to share outweighs the right to remain silent.  Trust in our government also plays a role, since it is they who are ultimately the custodians of these most precious bits of information.

How Much Do You Trust Your Government?

Much has been made of Statistics Canada’s fortress of dependability.  No one protects privacy and data like they do.  We Canadians have a hard time imagining our hard-won responsive and ethical governmental institutions ever compromising their honour over something as banal as census data. And indeed one would be hard pressed to find any documented instances of StatsCan ever having violated the national trust.

But let us consider the wider family of liberal democracies.  A cursory glance through the literature to seek instances of abuse of census data yields a few shocking hits.  I will list just three:

• The Nazis, seemingly aided by the computing power of IBM, used German census data to identify and locate Jewish citizens for reasons of which we are all sadly aware [1].
• A few years later, the U.S. government used census data to identify and locate Japanese-Americans for the purposes of creating internment camps [2].
• In 2005, U.S. Homeland Security used census data to identify and locate Arab-Americans for the purposes of initiating race-based surveillance programs [3].

In each of the above instances, it was argued that the public good necessitated the abuses of the data, and thus the curtailment of civil rights for a specific demographic group.  Of course, even without census data, it is possible for misguided states to pursue such draconian policies.  But there’s no denying that a mandatory national database that compels potentially vulnerable groups to identify themselves and their characteristics makes the job much easier.

It is true that all data collection paradigms, even sample surveys, that identify individuals are ripe for abuse by those with less than honourable agendas.  The crucial element that sets the census apart is its mandatory nature.  In the examples above, it would have been illegal for any German Jew, Japanese-American or Arab-American not to have identified himself.  Now extend vulnerability due to ethnicity to other demographic data types: sexual preference, age, language, maybe even marital status or elements of socioeconomic status –one cannot predict the prejudices of the future.

The point here is not that Western governments of the past did some bad things with census data.  Rather, the point is that the very existence of mandatory, state-controlled, individual-level data, regardless of how or where they are stored and released, is a tool that can be heinously abused by an ill-intentioned state.  History suggests that such abuse is most likely to occur when a state or society is engaged in a foreign war or under threat from domestic terrorism.

So let us recognize that those who are wary of sharing identifying data to the state have at least some historical precedence on their side.  Assurances of data security are irrelevant in the longest term, since the circumstances of the future cannot be predicted.  Arguments for maintaining mandatory sharing of personal information, such as in the national census, must therefore be couched within the rights vs responsibilities dialectic.

How much do you value your autonomy?

We, as professional and responsible health researchers, know the steps we are administratively required to follow when developing a project; one of those steps is to apply for ethics clearance.  Our society has determined that it is fundamentally unethical for anyone to conduct research on human subjects without first going to great lengths to secure the “informed consent” of those subjects.  Informed consent springs from a respect for autonomy, and represents the core belief that an individual must not be coerced or compelled to participate in, or share information for, projects imposed by agents expressing authority or power.

In my opinion, the national census is a form of research:  it is information collected from individuals for the purposes of drawing conclusions.  Moreover, it is research conducted on human subjects by the most powerful authority in the land, the government.  Not only are these subjects not permitted to refuse, but their consent is compelled through threat of the use of the greatest blunt instrument in the land: criminal law.

However…

We live in a society of legal and moral rights, and these rights are ultimately expressions of our autonomy.  But our rights are not absolute.  A liberal democracy expresses its acceptance of the limits of our rights by allowing transgressions against those rights to be well defined in law.  The assumption underlying a democratic state is that rights are sacrosanct, except when they can be limited for the public good.

The word “accept” may be troubling to some.  It is assumed that most laws reflect social values that have evolved over time.  As a society, we have chosen to “accept” those laws as a price for living in a free society; this is the hallowed social contract.  But the level of acceptance needs to be calibrated to reflect the true extent of need for those laws, and to allow for full appreciation of the potential costs of overly stringent application of such laws.

For example, in times of epidemic, we express our acceptance of rights curtailment by allowing the state to limit our right of assembly and impose quarantines.  Similarly, in times of extreme civil unrest, we accept that the state can even institute martial law.  In times of war, we accept that conscription –the compulsion and coercion of individuals to fight and possibly die—is a price of freedom.  More troubling still, past generations have accepted that, in times of national insecurity, internment camps could be created to segregate and control citizens with specific demographic characteristics.

And, as a less extreme example, we accept that the state can wield the hammer of criminal law and insist that we pay our taxes, otherwise society would bankrupt and fall.

In some ways, the “acceptance” of the selective curtailment of our “rights” is, in fact, our “responsibility”.  Our liberal society depends on an appropriate balance of rights and responsibilities.

So, the question every liberal democracy asks itself every moment of every day is … which public goods are worth curtailing our rights for, and which ones are not?  Moreover, what criteria do we apply to make that decision?

The problem with the census controversy isn’t that the government was invading our privacy by forcing us to share personal information.  And, it isn’t that the government is compromising our ability to make policy and to understand our population by discontinuing the mandatory census.  The problem simply is that we haven’t had two very important public debates:

• What criteria do we employ to define the expanse of the continuum between the poles of autonomy and public need?
• Where does a mandatory census fit on that continuum?

Epidemiologists, statisticians and other data professionals are saddened by the demise of the mandatory long-form census.  But one good thing that might arise from this episode is society’s engagement in these debates.  If we approach this well, we might emerge a stronger democracy with a better sense of our values.

REFERENCES

1. Black E.  IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation.  New York: Crown Publishers, 2001.
2. Seltzer W & Anderson M. After Pearl Harbor: The Proper Role of Population Data Systems in Time of War.  University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.  (28 March 2000).
3. Weber TM. Values in a national information infrastructure: a case study of the US census. 14th International Conference of the Society of Philosophy and Technology, Delft, The Netherlands, 2005.

Pastor "Doctor" Terry Jones, in his Harley-riding gear

Burning a book is never a good idea.  Our culture is rife with exhortations against this barbaric practice.  It was, after all, something the Nazis were famous for doing.  Ray Bradbury’s classic book, Fahrenheit 451 refers to the temperature at which the pages of books begin to combust, evidence of our culture’s abhorrence of this practice.  (It’s actually supposed to be Celcius, but let’s not quibble.)

Now comes news that a wacky Christian fundamentalist, “Doctor” Terry Jones, is planning to publicly burn copies of the Koran.  He’s even got a Facebook page (and I feel bad for advertising it, but it’s all in the name of education.)   He’s burning these books, not for the traditional reason espoused by book-burners (to suppress “dangerous” ideas), but overtly to offend and incite.  On second thought, maybe he really is afraid of some of the Koran’s “dangerous” ideas…?

This is big news because “the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General Petraeus, has said that the move could endanger the lives of troops in Afghanistan and protests have already kicked off in Jakarta and Kabul.” [BBC]

(Aside: there are some “news” reports of Terry Jones being arrested for child pornography.  At the time of this blog post, none of those stories appear valid.  So don’t get distracted by them.)

In an interview with BBC radio, Jones was seemingly self-contradictory.  He said that his event was to draw attention to the violence of radical Islam.  Then he said that the Koran was demonic and that Islam was innately violent.  The contradiction is in his original intent to only target “radical” Islam, but his method and verbiage clearly smears all Islam. This appears to be the norm for many American Muslim-baiters, who try to cache their hatred in the rhetoric of the reasonable, but who fail miserably when their words are examined closely.

It’s important to note Jones’s official intent: he overtly states that his intent is to incite a violent reaction from adherents to radical Islam.  We’ll come  back to this.

So what’s going on here?  Well, there are three parties that need some serious condemnation.  First are those members of the Islamic community who will predictably react with violence at Jones’s little publicity stunt.  People, listen to me: yes, it’s offensive and Jones is a moron for doing it.  But it’s just paper.  It’s the words that are sacred, not the paper.  Anyone who rises to his baiting is, frankly, a fool.  So suck it up and respect Jones’s right to be a moron.

Related to this first group is the governments and para-governmental bodies that will literally “fan the flames” to make as much of this spectacle as possible.  Iranian government and Indonesians with bullhorns, I’m looking at you.

Third, of course, is Jones himself… and his thousands of Facebook followers and silent lurkers who will nod in cowardly and silent complicity.  I have written many times that one of humanity’s greatest inventions is the Constitution of the United States and its Bill of Rights.  That remarkable document gives Jones the legal right to express himself however he pleases.  To me, that right is inviolate.

But the Constitution does not say that the exercising of its rights does not excuse a citizen from responsibility for the consequences of such actions.  This is an important point, I believe.  Some contend that the fundament of ethical (and therefore legal) behaviour is that one is ultimately responsible for the foreseeable consequences of one’s actions.

So, remember Jones’s declaration, that his intent is to incite the adherents of radical Islam into violence.  The consequences of his actions, then, are not only foreseeable, they are expected… by his own proud admission, no less.

Thus, if violence does erupt, the first who must be blamed are those who commit the violence.  But a close second are those who knowingly and intentionally incited the violence.  If anyone dies as a result of this feat of nonsense, I wouldn’t be surprised if civil suits –and possibly criminal suits– are successfully brought to bear against Jones and his foolish followers.

There is so much tragedy at play here.  First there is the tragedy of a foolish bunch of inbred Floridians failing to avail themselves of a state-funded education.

Second is the tragedy of a sea of religious Muslims whose sensibilities are so fragile as to be inflamed by an inbred Floridian.

Third is the tragedy of the beautiful U.S. Constitution forced to defend actions that may cause mass bloodshed; certainly not then intent of its brilliant writers.

Fourth is the tragedy of the rest of the world’s inability to understand the beauty and intricacies of the Constitution… and so many Westerners’ inability to acknowledge that culture gap!  By this I mean the many comments I’ve read by Muslims abroad who don’t understand why the U.S. government doesn’t just step in and stop Jones’s foolishness.  (It’s because the glorious Constitution doesn’t give the government the ability to do anything it pleases, a limitation much of the world has yet to embrace.) Relatedly, so many Americans don’t understand how foreigners don’t understand that an individual’s rights are sacrosanct.  This is the cultural gap I’m talking about.  Much dialogue is needed.

And fifth is the profound tragedy that this one act will undo years of hard P.R. work by the West’s brokers for peace and understanding.   The selling of the War on Terror has always been that it is a struggle against those radicals who wish to co-opt the good name of Islam to do violence for political ends.. to counter the world’s sense that it’s just a mindless war on Islam.  The burning of the Koran sends one message and one message only: that American military adventures in Iraq Afghanistan and Pakistan are just manifestations of the West’s hatred for Islam as a whole.

No good will likely come of this.  But some good can come of this.  If the Muslim world takes a deep breath (for a change) and simply ignores this Floridian fool, maybe just shake their heads in pity and disgust and walk away, then Terry Jones’s thesis would be dramatically disproved and the two civilizations could take a giant step forward.  So how about it?  Any takers?

First off, thanks to the High Commissioner of India in Ottawa for hosting celebrations of India’s 63rd anniversary of independence from Britain yesterday.  Here’s a pic from the event, courtesy of Frank Scheme:

In private celebration of the anniversary, I re-watched Gandhi and did some additional reading on the circumstances of Indian independence.  Some of you might be interested in this critical appraisal of Gandhi’s role, by Richard Grenier.

Today, on the other hand, we celebrate two unrelated anniversaries.  First, it’s the 33rd anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley.  Weirdly, I remember the exact moment when I heard his death announced on the radio.  I was ten years old and playing in my brother’s bedroom (which was always cleaner than mine).

Second, today is the 36th anniversary of the first time that The Ramones played CBGB.  Why is this important? Because it marks the official birth of punk rock.  And yes, punk rock was important.

In Other News

Now, on a totally different topic, I’m sure many of you have heard of the plan to build a mosque on private property in lower Manhattan, near the site of “Ground Zero”, where the World Trade Centers came down on September 11, 2001.  For the obvious disappointing reason, this has become a controversy, fed by the likes of Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin.

Fortunately, President Obama has spoken out in favour of religious freedom.  Mayor Bloomberg has inspiringly stated that the building of this mosque is one of the most important tests of democracy in the USA, or something to this effect.  Despite these views, hatred and anger abound, as in this site.

Others have recently piped up to accuse the founder of the mosque to be in favour of certain seemingly undesirable principles, such as the promotion of Sharia law.

Frankly, the way I see it, it really doesn’t matter what the intent of the mosque is.  The fact remains that it’s a place of worship to be built on private land, and the Bill of Rights gives each citizen the right to build such a thing.  So the mosque must have legal licence to be built.

That doesn’t mean that other citizens aren’t free to voice their displeasure, discontentment and perhaps even suspicion.  That, too, is the nature of democracy.  But they certainly do not have the right to demand that the mosque not be built in the first place.

An interesting comparison is between the building of the mosque and the publication of those Danish cartoons way back when, the ones that portrayed Mohammed in an unflattering light.  A lot of readers took exception to my post back in 2006, in which I attempted to analyse the publishing of the cartoons via a set of ethical axioms.  To summarize, I maintain the right of freedom of expression under the law.  But it’s valid to ask the intent of the expression for the purposes of formulating a response.

Similarly, the law does and should defend the right of the mosque founders to build their place of worship.  But it’s also fair game for critics to question and discuss their motivations… without calling for the limitations of their rights under the Bill of Rights.

Fareed Zakaria put it best, in a recent interview with Charlie Rose.  He said something to the extent that the Bill of Rights is innately an anti-democratic document, as it should be.  The Bill protects the rights of the individual, even when the majority is incensed.   So both Bloomberg and Obama are correct in their characterization of this crisis as a test of the resilience of the US Constitution –for my money one of the greatest achievements of human civilization– and particularly the Bill of Rights, which is in essence the first ten amendments of said Constitution.  Failure of the Bill to defend the construction of the mosque may indeed signal the crumbling of the heart of the US social contract, the set of beliefs that truly made America into the shining city on the hill.

What our neighbours to the south eventually decide –both in terms of law and in terms of their behaviours and words– will inform us of the content of their hearts, and will tell us if they have indeed left the Bush days of exceptionalism, xenophobia and irrationalism behind them.

New Delhi, 8:pm

1. Brock Lesnar

Just finished watching UFC 116. (Yes, in my hotel room in Delhi; I’ve been trying to download it on this slow wifi connection for DAYS now).  I stunned even myself when I found myself screaming out loud, as Shane Carwin pummelled Brock Lesnar in the first round, “Kill the fucker!!!”  Yes, that’s exactly what I exclaimed.

Clearly, I don’t like Brock Lesnar.  His antics, which I described here, ruined the good name of the martial arts.  However, the beast managed to beat Carwin in the second round, and even showed some class at the end of the fight.  So maybe he’s learned something about appropriate behaviour.

2. Old Delhi

Today I took a few morning hours for a stroll through Old Delhi, specifically along Chandni Chowk, the “moonlight” walk of classical Mughal times.  It is thus named because at its imperial peak, a canal ran along the centre of the street, reflecting the moonlight at night.

Even Old Delhi has changed.  It’s still the heart of bustling Delhi, still the place to see working camels towing wood and equipment around the rail station, and still the place to dodge bicycle rickshaws that dart out of the various mosques and mandirs that pepper the main and side streets.  But even here, people tend not to notice or bother the tourists anymore.

Now, a caucasian visiting India for the first time, may disagree with this assessment.  But trust me, five years ago you would have been molested on all fronts by touts and beggars.  Today, not so much.

I find it further interesting that in previous visits, I was clearly identifiable as a brown man of foreign origin.  The locals would immediately try to speak English to me.  This time, I’ve lost count of the number of times someone has struck up a conversation in Hindi with me, only to back away confused when faced with my toddler-like abilities in the language.

Now, I’ve said some nice things about the Delhi subway system.  Did I mention the trains are built by the Montreal company Bombardier?  Technologically, it’s quite an impressive system.  But India has yet to develop a subway culture.

Ever seen the Tokyo subway during rush hour?  Delhi is ten times worse.  The doors open, and an army of people surge forward, elbows up, without letting the deboarding folks off first.  Today I was literally lifted off my feet and into the press of flesh within the car.  I witnessed an eight year old boy similarly crushed.  It was really quite disgusting.  In this floating sea of compressed humanity, a good third continued yapping away on their cell phones. People, if you wait 30 seconds for the exiting passengers to deboard, there will be twice as much space for you!

But that’s not the way for a city of 13 million, where people have learned the hard way that you need to take what you need, and take it now, before the opportunity is plucked from you.

As the subway expands and as usership increases, the crowds will become a huge issue, especially in terms of safety.

At this point I need to explain something to those of you who’ve never travelled to India.  The Indian men of the northern cities are a skinny lot.  I’m a small man by North American standards, but am of average height in Delhi.  I’m also twice as old as the average man here, but… and believe me when I say this… I’m also easily twice as muscular.  The dudes who work with their hands here are tough as nails, don’t get me wrong.  But the office workers are soft and light.  I do not exaggerate when I say that I could bench press most of them, and would probably burst out of most of their shirts.  And I’m a petite girly man!  Among the middle class, there is not a culture of gym fitness, something that occupies a good fifth of my personal time, though there is a fair bit of vicarious living through laughable action stars and their fake martial arts.

I mention this because at two points today, while lining up to buy subway tokens, a “gentleman” has jumped the queue in front of me, completely disrespecting my place in line.  Both times, I grabbed the miscreant by the collar and yanked him back, at one time even baring my teeth in the process and probably unintentionally uttering a loud expletive.  The interesting bit is that in both instances, the men just went limp in my hands, neither resisted and neither protested, and neither changed his facial expression when thusly physically admonished.

What this tells me is that in both cases, the fellow knew he was being transgressive and was taking advantage of the yokel (i.e., me).  Lesson learned.

The new New Delhi is a place profoundly lacking in social graces and common courtesy, as rush hour subway travel accentuates and illustrates. If you step aside to make way for an oncoming person, he will not thank you, nor will anyone else do the same for you.  On the plus side, no one seems to get mad when others cut them off or fail to give them opportunity to merge into pedestrian traffic.  The furstrating part is that it is all so inefficient.

I’m usually of the “when in Rome” school of travel.  If this is the way they want to live, then so be it; I can do it, too.  The exception is when someone cuts in line in front of me.  Sorry, that’s when the teeth come out.

3. The Canadian Census

Now I’m going to take a break from my regular India travelogue to comment on a recent development in Canada, specifically the elimination of the mandatory nature of the long form of the Canadian national census.  The census of this country has traditionally consisted of two components: the short form, which is mandatory and which applies to everyone (though perhaps not Aboriginals), and the long form, which has also traditionally been mandatory, but only applied to a subset of Canadians.

There is no question that the data is useful for researchers like me.  But is usefulness a sufficient positive to outweigh the negative of compelling citizens in a liberal democracy to share personal information to their government?  I’m not so sure.

A senior colleague of mine is organizing a formal response, through the university, to the Canadian government, to argue for the reinstatement of the mandatory long form.  His argument is that failure to add the force of law to this information will cripple valuable information-gathering attempts by researchers and policymakers alike.

This person gives a thorough argument for keeping the longform survey mandatory, though I think he (I think it’s a he) understates the privacy concerns.

Personally, I think that unless we’re looking at an emergency situation (e.g., a disease outbreak or intense national security situation) civil liberties and privacy always trump the government’s desire to collect information.  The need for quality data is not sufficient impetus to apply the sledgehammer of criminal law to compel the vitiation of such privacy protections.

For one thing, there is no such thing as a guarantee of privacy where the government is concerned.  We learned this the hard way in the wake of 911, when the Bush government raided all federal databases to find terrorism links, including those that were collected under the precepts of complete privacy and confidentiality.  In short: there is no such thing as privacy; all it takes is a shift in government, government policy or the greater political landscape to make all extant data open or at least semi-permeable.

The extreme Libertarian view is that the census is innately an oppressive governmental tool.  I would not go that far, but the potential for abuse is always there.  And such potential suggests that compulsory participation, especially in this era of renewed distrust of government, may not be appropriate.

I wrote about this back in 2006, back when the government was weilding its sledgehammer in an irresponsible manner, threatening criminal action if I didn’t mail back their ridiculous census form.

Not only is this tack offensive, it’s also inefficient.  What is the goal here?  To compel maximum participation in the census?  Easy.  Instead of threatening citizens with the hammer, cajole them with the carrot.  Instead of spending tens of  millions on the criminal enforcement of census compliance, spend a single million on a national lottery: everyone who sends back their longform survey is entered, for free, to win that million dollars.  Trust me, this would be cheaper and much more effective.

And then let’s make the shortform survey voluntary, as well, okay?

Three important facts to note:

1. I’m a professor at the University of Ottawa
2. Politically, I’m liberal on philosophical points, particularly relating to foreign policy, and conservative on fiscal matters. But I’m probably best described as Left of centre, if you really need me to pick a side.
3. I think Ann Coulter is delusional, hypocritical, possibly narcissistic, dangerously disingenuous, and a seething cauldron of unexamined –nay, proud!– hate.

And if you strongly disagree with point #3, you will probably cite points #1 and #2 in your inevitable actions to refute what I’m going to say for the rest of this post. I do tire of these games, and have no intention of entering into any kind of debate with anyone over anything to do with Miss Coulter.

As you probably already know, Coulter is on a pan-Canada tour. Why? Who knows. Maybe Americans –flush with purpose and a renewed skepticism of knee-jerk hate after a Democratic and supposedly liberal President gave them all health care– are no longer in the mood for Coulter’s particular brand of idiocy. Maybe she feels that Canada, North America’s only nation now with a retrograde conservative leadership, presents better hunting grounds for a niche in which to sell Coulter’s smear-jobs-of-the-week that she packages as books.

I don’t care why she’s coming. Lots of people come here. I don’t have a problem with it, especially since I’m presently in Mexico and thus far away from her.

The problem, of course, is that Coulter is known for her so-called “hate speech”. In the past, she has publicly called for the invasion of Muslim countries, the murdering of their heads of state and the forced conversion to Christianity of Muslim civilians. In a rehearsed public speech, she called John Edwards a “faggot”. These are two examples off the top of my head. To cite more would require me to go back and read her columns again, and I really don’t want to put my ageing and addled brain through such torture.

Do her words qualify as hate speech? Sure, why not? I’m on record, though, of being opposed to Canada’s hate speech laws and hate crime laws. I think that a crime is not made more criminal simply by being hateful; and I think that hateful speech should not be legally punished until a link can be shown between such speech and an actual criminal act. Otherwise, people should be able to say whatever (non-libelous things) they want to say.

But that’s just me.

So where are we? Ann Coulter, known for her hateful speech, is coming to Canada. Of more immediate concern to this blog post, though, is that Ann Coulter was coming to the University of Ottawa…. my generous and gracious employer whom I’d never dream of disparaging

Now, I don’t know why the following happened. I have some theories. Here’s one. The university knows its students, knows that they are mostly a Left-leaning activist lot who would get quite riled up by Coulter’s (deliberately) provocative statements. Statements that may dance on the border of hate crime, or maybe even cross over into that realm, would be carefully parsed and legal action would be demanded of the university by these passionate students. So perhaps to save itself such trouble, perhaps to avoid more administrative burden in an institution already known for its overwhelming mass of bureaucracy, the university issued the following letter to Ann Coulter:

“Dear Ms. Coulter,

I understand that you have been invited by University of Ottawa Campus Conservatives to speak at the University of Ottawa this coming Tuesday. We are, of course, always delighted to welcome speakers on our campus and hope that they will contribute positively to the meaningful exchange of ideas that is the hallmark of a great university campus. We have a great respect for freedom of expression in Canada, as well as on our campus, and view it as a fundamental freedom, as recognized by our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I would, however, like to inform you, or perhaps remind you, that our domestic laws, both provincial and federal, delineate freedom of expression (or “free speech”) in a manner that is somewhat different than the approach taken in the United States. I therefore encourage you to educate yourself, if need be, as to what is acceptable in Canada and to do so before your planned visit here.

You will realize that Canadian law puts reasonable limits on the freedom of expression. For example, promoting hatred against any identifiable group would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges. Outside of the criminal realm, Canadian defamation laws also limit freedom of expression and may differ somewhat from those to which you are accustomed. I therefore ask you, while you are a guest on our campus, to weigh your words with respect and civility in mind.

There is a strong tradition in Canada, including at this university, of restraint, respect and consideration in expressing even provocative and controversial opinions and urge you to respect that Canadian tradition while on our campus. Hopefully, you will understand and agree that what may, at first glance, seem like unnecessary restrictions to freedom of expression do, in fact, lead not only to a more civilized discussion, but to a more meaningful, reasoned and intelligent one as well.

I hope you will enjoy your stay in our beautiful country, city and campus.

Sincerely,
Francois Houle,
Vice-President Academic and Provost, University of Ottawa”

I don’t know if the letter was meant to be public. But it has been reproduced in many Right-leaning forums, the National Post among them. Poor Dr Houle was now on the radar of the vicious, bitter and petty extreme Right-wing blogosphere, for what really is a polite letter.

Now, many Coulter supporters read this letter as a veiled threat of criminal action. There’s nothing veiled about it. I think it’s quite a reasonable letter, but it is clear in its intent and implications. If some of Coulter’s speeches in the USA were spoken in Canada, they might very well constitute hate crime under our current laws. The letter did not discourage her from coming or threaten to ban her if she didn’t promise to “play nice”. It just suggested that the university would feel compelled to add to its ridiculous administrative burden if Coulter did indeed give her standard US campus presentation on Canadian soil.

So far, so good…. Except that Coulter, seeing a chance to gain some press over what would have otherwise been yet another barely noticed campus tour, saw her opening. She re-printed the letter on her column, with the provocative –and incorrect– title, “Canadian University Provost Wants To Send Me To Jail… For a Speech I Haven’t Given Yet“. At that point, what transpired next was fairly predictable for anyone who’s observed the shenanigans of the bored and angry far-Right as much as I have.

Now, being in Mexico, I haven’t been privy to all the details of what’s happening on campus. But essentially, citing fears for Coulter’s personal safety, “organizers” cancelled her appearance. The “organizers”, as I understand it, were a campus-based student group. This is important: the university never cancelled Coulter’s appearance; her own representatives appear to have done so, or at least a campus group in coordination with Coulter’s representatives did so. Keep in mind that I have no facts beyond that which are published in the papers, and I’m observing all of this from Mexico. So, really, what do I know?

Okay, now on to the really predictable part. With the appearance cancelled, Coulter retained none other than Ezra Levant to –here it comes– represent her in a human rights complaint against the University of Ottawa.

Now, I have talked about Ezra Levant many times in the past in this space. There was Ezra’s seeming tolerance of hate speech on his own website. There was more of the same. There was Ezra’s attacks on former Liberal leader Stephane Dion. There was Ezra’s seeming blind love for all things George Bush. Oh, I’ve talked about him many many times before. One of his supporters even suggested that Ezra would one day track me down and beat me up. (Yeah, I laughed, too. I’m not that hard to find.)

Now the important thing about Levant, at least with respect to the current topic, is that he styles himself as an uncompromising defender of free speech. This, in and of itself, is a great thing. Who doesn’t love a defender or liberties? The problem is that his support only seems to extend to people who want to say things that he agrees with.

For example, when George Galloway was banned from speaking in Canada –a true and obvious denial of free speech!– Levant said of the issue:

“I don’t see this as a free speech issue; I see it as a sovereignty issue — keeping out an undesirable foreigner who has no right to be here, and who boasts about violating our criminal code.”

“Undesirable foreigner who has no right to be here”? Sounds like a certain skinny blonde firebrand with a hate-on for Muslims. Someone “who boasts about violating our criminal code”? Again, if Coulter brags in her column that the things she says would get her arrested in Canada, I think that that constitutes “boasting about our criminal code.” How about it, Ezra?

(By the way, read my whole take on the Galloway affair here.)

Levant is claiming that his reasons for taking on the Coulter case is to show how duplicitous the human rights tribunal process is, and that it is biased against conservatives. I don’t know if that’s true. But I think Levant lost pretty much all his credibility with not only his failure to defend Galloway’s right of free speech in Canada, but his active support for the denial of those rights. Levant would be more convincing if he were more consistent with his views and appplications of his principles.

What about Coulter? Since I started writing this post about 10 minutes ago, I received an email from her automatic listserv (someone thought it was funny to sign me up; I actually kind of enjoy deleting her emails). You can read her current column here (which is exactly what she wants you to do; so I guess I’m helping her out, as well.) It’s interesting how the mighty have fallen. Once a syndicated columnist at leading papers, a promising lawyer, someone who, I think, even worked at the White House briefly, Coulter is now calling out members of the SFUO –the University of Ottawa’s student federation! Picking fights with undergrads? Really? Oh Ann.

So Coulter is denouncing someone’s decision to “deny” her he opportunity to spread her extreme views on a college campus. Hmmm, this sounds vaguely familiar. Let me see… Columbia University once compared Coulter to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Why it this relevant? Because Ahmadinejad once spoke at the Columbia campus, despite conservatives trying really hard to prevent him from doing so.

In fact, prior to the Iranian leader’s appearance, conservative forces rallied under the leadership of such Coulter compatriots as Michelle Malkin, who issued this call for supporters to send a message to the university administration that Ahmadinejad was not welcome on campus.

When Coulter herself was asked about Ahmadinejad’s Columbia appearance, she said this:

“You know, I give a lot of college speeches, I know how colleges behave, and there is the least free speech on a college campus as any place in America. It is like Iran—so for them to be saying they are allowing this guy to speak because of free speech, you know, your head explodes.”

Er… what? Further in the same interview, Coulter suggested that by allowing Ahmadinejad to speak, Columbia was “aiding the other side.” At least that’s the way I read it. Coulter is a master of dancing around topics so deftly that it’s hard to pin her down to any particular viewpoints, except that liberals are sissies and Muslims are evil.

The president of the University of Ottawa, Mr Allan Rock, a seasoned diplomat, issued the following statement to all members of the university community today:

“On Tuesday, March 23, an appearance by Ann Coulter was scheduled on our campus, organized by the International Free Press Society Canada and the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute.

The University of Ottawa has always promoted and defended freedom of expression. For that reason, we did not at any time oppose Ann Coulter’s appearance. Whether it is Ann Coulter or any other speaker, diverse views have always been and continue to be welcome on our campus.

Last night, the organizers themselves decided at 7:50 p.m. to cancel the event and so informed the University’s Protection Services staff on site. At that time, a crowd of about one thousand people had peacefully gathered at Marion Hall.

“Freedom of expression is a core value that the University of Ottawa has always promoted,” said Allan Rock, President of the University. “We have a long history of hosting contentious and controversial speakers on our campus. Last night was no exception, as people gathered here to listen to and debate Ann Coulter’s opinions.

I encourage our students, faculty and other members of our community to maintain our University as an open forum for diverse opinions. Ours is a safe and democratic environment for the expression of views, and we will keep it that way.”

It doesn’t sound to me like anyone’s free speech was being curtailed. In fact, all official missives suggest that Coulter was openly welcomed to the university campus. I think what actually happened was that when Professor Roule sent that ill-advised letter, the Coulter-ites and their hypocritical self-styled supporter of “free speech for people I agree with”, Ezra Levant, saw this as an opportunity to manufacture an event and make both Levant and Coulter briefly relevant again.

That is all. Nothing more to see here. Ignore the pests and they’ll just go back to screaming about Communists and evolutionists in their basement meetings.

I was living in Washington, DC, in the eras of 9/11, the start of both recent US wars on/of terror, the Beltway sniper and the now fabled anthrax attacks. One day my friend Andrew J. and I went to see a movie. At the start of the movie was the now common US Marines recruiting ad. I looked over to Andrew and saw that he was visibly saddened.

“What’s up?” I asked him.

“They’ve won,” he said. I asked him to explain and he said, “There was a time when the military recruiting ads would come on and everyone would boo because we all saw through it. Now we all sit in silence.” And indeed, some seemed to sit in not only silence, but in reverence. “They’ve won.”

Fast forward to present day. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve watched a lot of UFC. I love the sport of MMA and I love the way that UFC has helped the sport to grow. I’ve blogged about it here, here, here and even here. In this post, I wrote:

“I’ve argued many times that MMA is a civilized sport, that it exalts in the purity of the human spirit and strives to make a man confront his true self. The battle is, in many ways, irrelevant to the character-building journey that minimal-rule fighting represents.”

A weird thing has begun to happen in the last few months, particularly in the last few weeks –or maybe I’ve been to blind to notice it before: the ever-growing intimate relationship between MMA –the UFC, in particular– and the US military. This relationship, sadly, may somewhat invalidate my quote above.

At least one entire UFC pay-per-view (PPV) event was completely sponsored by the US military and was put on specifically for US military personnel. At last month’s finale of The Ultimate Fighter, UFC’s reality show, it was announced that one of the competitors was leaving for Afghanistan in a few days. The fight commentator, Mike Goldberg, was almost in tears, emoting on how this young man was fighting in the octagon, but would soon be abroad “to fight for our freedoms”.

At UFC 107, which I finished watching last night, it was announced in the ring that one of the fights (that between Kenny Florian and Clay Guida) was being “brought to us” by the US Marine Corps. Both fighters then gave the corps a standing ovation, and the camera panned to shaven-head men in uniform in the audience, whooping it up.

In the past, UFC has sent its fighters to tour US soldiers in the field, such as Rampage Jackson’s trip to Camp Pendleton. The relationship between UFC and the US military is an increasingly intimate one.

Well, what’s the big deal? Ordinarily there wouldn’t be one. In my world, any legal entity is allowed to sponsor any legal event and reap the rewards of sponsorship. And it’s certainly any citizen’s right to express his patriotism in any legal way he sees as appropriate. I may not like the recruitment methods of the US military, and I certainly don’t like the way in which armed men have begun to be revered in some parts of society; but I do not deny the military’s right to sponsor events and the UFC’s right to accept such sponsorship. And, as I’m sure has occurred to many, there is a certain congruence in two brands of violence finding love in one another’s tattooed arms.

Admittedly, it makes me uncomfortable that an erstwhile global brand like the UFC is visibly tying its philosophies, fortunes and values to the political dynamic of a single nation, the USA. I wonder what that says of the company’s attitude toward fighters from nations not sharing American geopolitical ideologies. The company’s newsworthy inability (or unwillingness) to sign Russian heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko, considered by many to be the pound-for-pound greatest living fighter in the world, might be indicative of an inability to fit competitors from non-NATO nations into their conceptual dynamic. Even so, if UFC wishes to tie its fortunes thusly, as did many professional wrestling companies, I suppose it is their right to do so, however unattractive to me their brand becomes.

But let me be absolutely clear and say that this post is not about bashing the military. Not at all. In other posts, I will gleefully offer my criticisms of US (and increasingly Canadian) military fetishism, and of the thinning line between soldierdom and policymaking, and of immoral and politically inappropriate use by government of the instruments of war and security. But no one should take any of this as criticism of the individuals who serve in the military. All of my interactions with members of the latter have always been pleasant and cordial.

Rather, the big deal, for me, arose when I received a Twitter tweet from UFC President Dana White, acting, not as a private citizen, but as the President of the UFC. The tweet was this:

danawhite http://www.tinyurl.com/yd22h4b Read the story then you decide. They have my support. I hope they have you too.

Click on the link he forwarded. It’s a Facebook page asking for political, emotional and financial support for “two elite Navy Seals” who are facing courtmartial for allegedly abusing an Iraqi detainee in their custody. According to the page, the charges are of “impeding the investigation and dereliction of duty in failing to safeguard a detainee.”

I don’t know the facts surrounding the incident beyond those reported in the Facebook page. The page itself exists to garner public, and therefore political, support for a sociopolitical perspective, specifically that the rights of the detainee are less important than the need to honour the Navy Seals in question. To quote the page:

“The proceedings against these heroes are an outrage to all the brave Americans serving in uniform to defend this country, especially those deployed in harm’s way.”

Their rationale is that prosecution of alleged abusers plays into the master plan of “terrorists” to diminish soliders’ morale. This is followed by:

“The supposed victim, Ahmed Hashim Abed, was the mastermind behind killing, burning and mutilating four American contractors in Fallujah, Iraq, in March 2004. His followers hung the desiccated corpses high on a box-girder bridge over the Euphrates River. Mr. Abed was run down by the SEALs on a covert mission in September 2009.”

I hope it’s clear to anyone reading this that the charges against a detainee (who has yet to face trial, by the way) has no bearing on whether or not his custodians are allowed to strike him. This is the nature of accepting the responsibility of custody. This is how it works in every legal system in the Western world. And as an aside, my congratulations to the US military for convening such a courtmartial; it goes a long way to reclaiming their image as a law-abiding agency worthy of international respect.

So what makes me uncomfortable about this whole thing? It’s the fact that UFC President Dana White, in his capacity as President of a corporation, is sharing this website address to UFC fans and adding the qualifier, “They have my support. I hope they have you too. [sic]“

It’s one thing to accept sponsorship from an arm of the government, on behalf of your company, and to further state your support for the policies and practices of that governmental arm. (After all, that’s what allowing the military to embed itself so closely within your commercial activities means: that you associate yourself with that agency’s policies, practices and philosophies.) It’s quite another thing to brazenly advocate for the preferential slackening of criminal law on select transgressors where such slackening coincides with the larger agenda of your sponsor.

In other words, Dana White, private citizen, can do whatever the heck he wants. Dana White, corporate head of UFC, has no business encouraging UFC fans/customers to advocate for the vitiating of selected criminal proceedings…. That is, unless that it is indeed the will of UFC, Inc.

I wonder what the UFC Board of Directors has to say about this? And if indeed it is official corporate policy to take a side in this particular matter, then UFC needs to spell this out clearly. And, of course, they will have lost me as a fan, and perhaps many more like me.

I’m surprised that no one else has been commenting on the growing intimacy between the UFC (the fastest growing brand in sports) and the US military. A Google search brought me just two hits: this peace activist has a more angry stance than me; and this exchange on a fight forum has already been deleted, only accessible, it seems, through Google cache.

Many people reading this will respond with several predictable tropes. As in the cached exchange, some will reply with, “From the entire U.S. army, Go **** yourself.” Others will say, “Well what did you expect, that’s their demographic.”

The former is par for the course. The latter is simply saddening. What I “expect” is irrelevant. What is important here is what we choose to tolerate. How comfortable are we as a society with our corporate leaders using their corporate heft to influence consumers to not only accede to certain political philosophies (nothing new there) but now to overtly advocate for the vitiation of criminal proceedings in favour of the abuse of an individual?

Strange –and critical– times indeed.

Mysterious lights appear over Norway. Clearly, an alien space ship opened a hyperspace jump gate in the upper Earth atmosphere. Judge for yourself:

In unrelated news:

In even more unrelated news, a student who shall remain unnamed has honured me (I hope it was an honour) by naming her pet mouse somewhat after me. Introducing…. “Rayrat”:

Apparently, Rayrat lives in a cage with three lovely lady mice. It’s important to me that my namesake is, as the kids say, gettin’ some.

Lastly, D-Mack sends us the Top 10 Science Fiction Disappointments of the decade. The article is retarded. Yeah, I said it.

Today’s Real Topic

Now, in today’s serious bit of news, I just came from the press conference for the unveiling of my artist friend Jenn Farr’s newest project, a very important depiction of the cell in which Canada’s recent “extraordinary extradition” victims were kept and tortured while being held in Syria. The endeavour is spearheaded by Kerry Pither, author of Dark Days.

It’s one thing to read about modern torture and to have polite, fashionable discussions of it at cocktail parties and on the Internet. It’s another to physically experience the actual conditions. If you can get a chance, visit the installation. Here are a couple of quick pics snapped on my Treo:

The installation is called “El Abbar”, which means “the grave”, and is a precise recreation of the cell in which several Muslim Canadians were held and tortured by Syria, with collaboration (as concluded by the Iacobucci Inquiry) by Canadian agencies. Those held include Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki and, of course, Maher Arar.

The cell is tiny and dank. The walls are thin enough to overhear the torture of those held in adjacent cells. Sometimes so many would be stuffed into a single cell that they would take turns sleeping. I’m told that cats would pee on the prisoners from the grate above, and of course the odours of filth and decay were ubiquitous. One of the artist’s intents was to re-create the smell of the place, as well, but that was eventually not pursued.

It’s ironic that the press conference for the unveiling of this object was coincident with one by Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter McKay, someone I would charge as complicit in the abuse of the men held in these cells.

I think it’s important for all Canadians to recognize firstly the horror of these conditions, and the fact that innocent men were held there against their will and tortured repeatedly; and secondly the extent to which Canadian authorities were –and continue to be– complicit in these ongoing abuses.

Greetings from a Starbucks on Chapel St in New Haven, Connecticut. I’m here to attend a conference at Yale University. What a nice place! Weird how I can’t find any free wifi here, though; I’ve been reduced to paying for wifi at a coffee shop. I’m so ashamed.

As a new professor struggling to find his footing at a 2nd tier Canadian university, I must admit to being a bit star-stricken here at this storied and ivy-draped legend of academia. How I wish I’d had the money decades ago to attend a school like this. We really do live in a classist society, wherein the trajectory of one’s life is oft determined by the size of one’s family’s assets.

Thus it’s a bit ironic that I’m here essentially to hear Jeff Sachs speak about the financial and economic basis of world poverty and ill health. Doubly ironic that Sachs’ name is tainted by his associations with corporate greed, classism of the worst variety, and the nightmare of Russian economic “shock therapy”.

My day begain today by oversleeping and arriving at the airport technically after the gates of my flight had closed. I was scolded by the airline dude (“I really shouldn’t check you in but…”) And as I was about to thank him profusely for making an exception for me, I discovered that my flight was running aan hour late. Yeah I was technically late, but I was also technically early. Asshole.

I’m checked into the Duncan Hotel, which is a 120 year old grimy building that’s both dark and moldy, but is also very cheap and smack downtown, a couple of blocks from Yale. The elevator dude warned me: “We shut down the elevator after 11pm, so you’ll have to take te stairs if you come in late.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I need the exercise.”

Then he barked at me: “It ain’t no laughing matter for the disabled people!” Asshole. They should really let him out of the elevator now and then.

I stopped for a giant buffalo meat burrito at a brilliant cafe called the “Corner Copia”. Quite unlike me, I decided to share a table with a stranger. She was an older woman with a floral hat, crumbs about her mouth, and many possessions scattered about her. I have a habit of attracting crazy people, so I was braced for the worst.

But this woman was remarkable. She was a retired anthropologist with an incredible amount of wisdom and experience about a great many topics. She had done cutural fieldwork in Trinidad, some research on the linguistic potential of Neanderthals, had written a Chinese cookbook, and presently starting an ESL business in Asia. Her husband had been a project manager on the Apollo space flights, for Zod’s sake! Given the great number of ambitionless people I’ve been encountering of late, it was a joy to learn of the details of this woman’s life.

In Other News…

More evidence that the world is fundamentally retarded: The Pirate Bay has been found guilty. This bit of prosecutorial nonsense seems to be a case of pure vindictiveness and a rather liberal and reaching interpretation of the law. Copyrights as we know them are passe. We live in an era when we need to redefine the limits of so-called intellectual property, the assumptions underlying which are inherently philosophically problematic.

I particularly like TPB’s so-called “King Kong defence“, with its shades of South Parkianism.

The amazing part is that while the owners of TPB have been found guilty, there appears to be no legal compulsion to shut down the website. What a frakked up situation. So get yer torrentz while u can.

“I‘m going to put people in my place so when the history of this administration is written, at least there’s an authoritarian voice saying exactly what happened.” – George W. Bush, re: his upcoming book. (Emphasis mine.)

News from England is that a Parliamentary bill is being introduced to police erotic content in animated materials. The new law would make it illegal to possess cartoons depicting certain elements of child abuse. Artists are naturally concerned.

I’m on record as being opposed to this sort of misguided use of police powers. I’ve oft argued that the possession of images depicting actual abuse should not be criminalized, since the possessor was not the one committing the abuse; such policing actions are tantamount to thought control, which should concern everyone, especially given our recent experiences with the heavy-handed moralizing Bush regime. My solution has been to instead recognize that such possession is instead indicative of a degree of mental illness, and to compel psychiatric interventions rather than criminal ones. If our intent really is protection of the vulnerable, and not just punishment of the distasteful, then I believe my path is the rational one.

The counter argument has typically been an economic one, that possession of images of abuse creates a market for them, compelling true abusers to produce more content, necessarily involving actual abuse of the vulnerable. I do not think that the evidence for this argument is strong enough to support it; but it is nonetheless a rational argument.

The argument in favour of this new bill is, however, even more tenuous: that possession of animated images of abuse feeds a culture of permissiveness that may compel actual abuse. The evidence for such a linkage is even more tenuous than that that seeks to link actual pornography with real abuse. I cannot help but conclude that the true motivation underlying the new bill is in fact moralistic and not rationalistic. In essence, Pariliament seeks to express its disapproval for the aesthetic tastes of possessors of such animation, rather than seeking to reduce instances of actual child abuse.

As Bill Maher would say, government has no business legislating taste.

It’s a shame that I must add the following caveat, but experience compels me to do so… For those who will predictably accuse me of defending child abusers and pornographers, I say: “Grow the fuck up.” I’m advocating for the movement of the prevention of paedophilic tendencies into the domain of health management rather than criminal management, nothing more.

I’m further advocating for a clear line to be drawn between what the state is free to police and into what it has no business even peeping, specifically the dark corridors of one’s thoughts. For when that line becomes blurred, all it takes is a power hungry and moralizing adminstration (*cough* *cough* Bush/Ashcroft/Cheney *cough*) to start poking around for more politicized content, like one’s Libertarian beliefs, sexual orientations, political allegiances and ethnic affiliations.

It starts with the state criminalizing possession of animations of abuse. It evolves with the state criminalizing possession of novels about insurrection, poems about free thought, images of rebellion. It’s a slope that’s more than slippery: it’s pretty much vertical and greased.

Speaking of erotic animations, Andrew R. pointed me to a recent article in The Globe and Mail, which discussed recently discovered drawings by Superman co-creator Joel Shuster. Apparently, Shuster had a double identity of his own: he used to draw comic books about “an imagined netherworld of corporal punishment, busty babes and cruel aristocrats.” Neat, huh?

Here are some of the images published from The Globe and Mail, taken from Shuster’s defunct title, Nights of Horror.

I think I used to date the chick in the bed.

In Other News:

In ongoing quest to die from overeating, I give you this monstrosity, the bonecrusher.

And lastly, here’s a list of 20 ridiculous complaints made by holidaymakers. My favourite:

“The brochure stated: ‘No hairdressers at the accommodation’. We’re trainee hairdressers – will we be OK staying here?”

And on the same note, here’s a famous letter sent by a disgruntled Virgin Airlines passenger to Sir Richard Branson.

Happy Hallowe’en, Diwali and Eid Mubarak everyone. And thanks to the students of the Faculty of Health Sciences who graciously invited me to their big Hallowe’en bash last night. (I only stayed for an hour, so did not manage to jeopardize my career, for those of you who are curious.)

I also want to congratulate resident Deonandia villain Matthew “Darth” Vadum for his enormously popular segment on the Daily Show this past Thursday. If you watch it, you’ll understand today’s subject heading. Here’s the clip:

Now, Matt and I go back 25 years, but have have never agreed on anything political. Indeed, we have had more than one heated argument over things social, economic and political over the years, and have taken that opposition to our various blogs and online personas. Despite all that, I still consider him a good friend, and have watched with pride as he has risen the media ranks in the USA. So I will make no disparaging comments about his segment, even though the Interwebs are just ringing with discussion over it. Just Google “daily show vadum” and see all the hits! I will, however, offer a link to Matt’s response to some of the criticism he has received here.

Knowing Matt the way I do, I can assure you all that none of the criticism or any of the mean comments faze him in any way. So I’m sure he’ll enjoy your comments, as well.

What’s it all about? Why, Barack Obama, of course. If all goes as planned, Obama will be ordained as the first non-white President of the United States. Anything can happen in the next 48 hours, though, most notably an assassination attempt, at least one of which has already been foiled. But failing that possibility, Barack Obama will be the first Black man to hold the station of Abraham Lincoln, the President who is given historical credit for having made this all possible.

I don’t think the importance of this fact has been adequately portrayed in the mainstream media. Centuries of the legacy of slavery have finally led us to this momentous event, the ascension of a self-identified Black man (though he is actually biracial) to the highest office in the land, within one generation of segregation. It really does bring tears to my eyes. There was a story of an ancient Black grandmother who voted for the first time ever, at the age of 95, then collapsed in tears afterward. It seems that she never expected to live long enough to be able to vote for a Black President.

But why must it happen now, when the American star is in decline? As one writer put it, what America is electing now is a Janitor-in-Chief, to clean up the mess of the past 8 years. And as another person put, “Right when the thing is about to go under, they hand it over to the black man.”

Barack Obama, love him or hate him, is at least a man of his time, and it’s hard not to cheer for him because of it. He’s the son of an African immigrant and white American woman, who came together in love despite the social barriers of their time. He was raised in poverty, then taken to Indonesia to be raised by a Muslim Indonesian stepfather, gaining a biracial half-sister. Orphaned as a young man, he was then raised by his white American grandparents, again quite poor. By the force of his intellect and will alone, he garnered scholarships that permitted him to attend the finest schools in the world. And as an older brother, he took care of his orphaned sister, allowing her to earn a PhD and become a scholar at his level.

How dare the GOP depict this brave man, who lifted himself from hardship, as an “elite” simply because he embodied the American dream? If anything, he resembles the Randian Libertarian ideal of a man, whose strength of character and self belief transcended temporal barriers and marshaled the resources and opportunities around him. Unlike John McCain and George Bush, Barack Obama was not born into wealth, power and influence, nor did he marry into it. If anything, he was born into a world of barriers to wealth, power and influence –like many Black Americans– and yet overcame them all with grace and civility.

If/when he wins the election on Tuesday, a new chapter will open in the Book of America, and indeed in the Book of the World. What remains to be seen is whether this chapter will be one of pain or one of redemption.