Across the pond, its football players, shadows ministers, and drunk Windsors, but the same theory applies.  The recent kerfuffle over widespread phone hacking has focused keen eyes on British tabloid and their excesses.  Which has led to the Levenson Inquiry on Press Standards (why start now, say I).  Editors of ‘celebrity magazines’ have apparently been receptive, coldly as that may be, to the Inquiry’s idea that a ‘Privacy List’ be established, on which the famous who do not wish to be photographed might enroll.

Hmmmm.

It seems that the U.K.’s motley crew of sensationalist papers have their own  board, and they (sometimes) abide by the rules of something called the Press Complaints Commission (PCC).  The PCC is itself a nascent creation, brought about last summer in the wake of the News of the World scandal.  Now, to my American mind, the British (nay, the European) attitude toward celebrity privacy is, at times, goofy.  If you don’t want to be famous, you don’t need to be.  Wash your soiled linen in private, keep your own counsel, and behave yourself in public.  If those of us with personal entourages can manage it, so can you, darling.

Be that as it may, I will also admit journalists are, not infrequently, vicious.  But what is noteworthy here is that the action that so incensed people involved hacking into the phone of a dead girl and, by showing activity on her voicemail, leading police and her family to falsely believe she was alive.  Why is it that fallout of such horrific intrusion on private citizens is being met with chatter about how better to suit the whims of celebrities?

Overall, the U.S., in law and in culture, gives a lower expectation of privacy to the famous; the reasoning being that people can hardly expect to selectively refute the trappings of a life they chose.  Americans see the major threat to privacy as the government and tend to give shorter shrift to starlets who willingly live in public and then attempt to take back the past only as it becomes inconvenient.  Perhaps this is a noble expression of our expectation that you ought to have some dignity in public and that you are the first person responsible for your reputation.  Or perhaps it is a justification of our deep appetite to bathe in reflected starlight and see our demigods brutally knocked to earth.

Contrarily, Europe sees government as a protector of privacy, privacy that is at gravest threat from the people around you.  Accordingly, those with a higher likelihood of coming under media attention have a higher expectation of privacy.  Sensible application of theory or still-extant vestige of Ancien Regime reverence for the cultural elite?

Back to something that might be addressed at less than book-length:-what will happen if celebrity magazines agree to abide by a ‘Privacy List’?

We might spend the entire day with questions of the state creating a privileged class and effectively legislating what citizens might be interested in.  Let’s not.  The British state does not consider truth as a defense against slander or libel – giving rise to ‘libel tourism’ –  and still censors films.  We may assume for the current article that there is an appetite to restrict press freedoms.  However, it does bear pointing out that the only reason tabloids are at all willing to discuss self-regulation is a bid to head off that very threat of government oversight.

First, tabloids sell because human nature is voyeuristic and often prurient.  A so-called ‘Privacy List’ is more apt to trigger black market broadsheets full of uncredited photos and scoops than to achieve its stated aim.  The truly gossip obsessed are not going to pay with their dollars or their eyes for a publicist-vetted puff piece about whatever that happened three days ago.  Also, given how many celebrities do conduct themselves, only publishing verifiable misbehavior is not going to do anyone’s reputation any favors.

On the other side, huge swathes of material in the glitzier publications is already done in close agreement with the celebrities featured.  Might this proposed List really only be formalizing a tacit agreement?  Then again, if the beautiful people are already hand-in-hand with the tabloids and are still getting bad press, they’re bad businessmen, pure and simple.  The solution to unfavorable news ought to be a better publicist before seeking new law.

Heck, is the proposal anything other than a flimsy way for both journalists and politicians to be seen to be doing something?  If this itself a choreographed media ploy being played out for the benefit of credulous citizens?

Second, how sound an idea is it to sponsor a culture where a blind eye is turned to poor conduct, provided those involved enjoy sufficient fame?  What on earth will this do to a generation of celebrity-addled kiddies looking to these ill-bred people as roll models?  Be that as it may, why is it the media’s task to provide positive roll models?  Might we expect at least some children to understand that intoxicated, indolent, and indicted is no way to go through life?

Ultimately, do we not punish the tacky and the gauche with shunning and shaming?  Do we not hold the right to refuse to interact with people we find ill-mannered?  Dare we still hope for policy makers who are wise enough not to legislate what is best left to culture?

Similarly, is  this something that would effectively allow a certain set of people to seek out and revel in attention when it suited them and to forbid anyone from looking when it did not?  Is it right to allow the fame hungry to play that game?  How complicit are celebrities in having fostered a tabloid culture that has utterly no boundaries?

This is, perhaps, hinging on the difference between respect, the simple decision not to intrude upon another’s private life, and deference, allowing another person to command your attention one moment and send you scurrying away the next.

Too, we are right in asking how it comes to be that existing laws were insufficient.  Between trespassing, harassment, stalking, tortious privacy claims, interfering in police investigations, and so on, it’s staggering that the state lacks the means to deal with actions that do represent actionable irresponsibility on the part of the press.

This trend is, in my opinion, unlikely to wash up on American shores.  Here, the press enjoys broader freedoms.  Nor has our Fourth Estate, yet, plumbed the tawdry depths of British tabloids.  The American worry, I would caution, is a government that withholds, censors, and denies the existence of information regarding its own activities.  That, sadly, presents a much tougher fight.

No, you can’t opt out.

What’s being handed from FB over to Politico are your status updates.  In theory, all status updates containing the name of a Presidential candidate will be culled, anonymized, and tabulated.  Politico will be perusing them for political leanings, so as to improve their analytics for 2012.  I’ve long through Politico is fine and dandy for news, but had never considered them a top pick for predictions…soooo, maybe they need the help.

Thus far, all these datapoints have led Politico to suss out the sleeper story that Mitt Romney is leading the GOP pack.  Um…way to pick up on what everyone else missed, boys?

Or maybe Politico and the eleventy-bazillion contributors they are potentially sharing your info with should do their own damn fieldwork.  Now, for those of you worried about yet another intrusion on your privacy, PPC has a suggestion.

Start off with a status update that names some ’12 contender, yet doesn’t actually contain an opinion of said contender’s platform.  For instance:

“Eileen just spent three hours staring at Mitt Romney’s hair and it NEVER MOVED.”

Wait an hour or so and then duplicate the status, switching out only the candidate’s name:

“Eileen just spent three hours staring at Rick Santorum’s hair and it NEVER MOVED.”

You might easily go through the entire roster of surviving players at any time.  For added fun, use a timer to guarantee your updates are precisely spaced.

Next, start throwing in buzzwords.  Do this right and you can get the attention not only of Politico but of Homeland Security.

“Eileen would like to put Brack Obama in indefinite detention.”

“Eileen has no interest in assassinating Newt Gingrich’s character.  The man needs no help from me.”

After that, toss off a status update acting like you’re just getting old news:

“Eileen can’t believe Herman Cain left the race.  I totally did not see that coming”

Similar to this, on a day when big news about one candidate comes out, don”t so much as mention his name.  Just babble about every candidate but the one who’s the story.

Next, display truly alarming emotions:

“Eileen needed three Ambiens and a fifth of cheap table wine just to process the news that Jon Huntsman is leaving the race.”

“Eileen finally perfected her Michelle Bachman hairstyle!!!!  OMG!!!! Supercute!!!!”

Make comments that indicate you have no idea what’s actually going on in the race.

“Eileen is so proud to be supporting the candidate who just aced the debate!  Go, Gary Johnson.”

“Eileen is already planning her Alaskan themed inaugural party for when Sarah Palin wins it all.”

For the slightly more advanced user, try to start some rumors of your own.  Remember, you have the most latitude in pretending to have seen something salacious if you are in D.C. or in the location of the current primary:

“Eileen just saw Ron Paul and Rick Perry walk out the back room at Shelly’s, together.”

“Eileen just snuck onto the Rick Santorum campaign bus.  Who knew that vodka came in Jeroboams?”

If geography is not on your side, allude to the mailer you just got or pretend you’ve just turned up some ancient photograph that has front page written all over it.

Allude to damning report cards, Polaroids from the early 70s, and unedited drafts of incendiary speeches.

What if falsely cultivating something lascivious and damning isn’t quite ‘it’ for you?  You might still aim to muddy the waters with groundless speculation masquerading as fact.

“Eileen hadn’t really considered the viability of a Ron Paul/Gary Johnson ticket, but after that press release, she sees the merits.”

If you do this, have no compunction about citing campaign ads that don’t exist and press conferences that never happened.  We all need to keep the media on their toes.

Another fan favorite is spewing nonsense that still sounds impressive:

“Eileen is gravely worried over the Azerbaijani’s Minister’s comments on the Obama defense platform.  Oh, well, totally in the Senate’s hands, now.”

The beauty here is that it hardly matters if Azerbaijan even has a minister in Washington, or if any treaty is in play.  Have fun with this one.  Lying to people who try to steal your private information is a moral good.

Next, throw in the names of people who aren’t running in 2012, but who are still peripheral figures.  Hint at having seen Nancy Pelosi’s head of communications in hushed conversation with Michelle’s Bachman’s chief of staff.  Mention that you just RSVP-ed to an event where George Bush is speaking on Rick Perry’s behalf.  Say a friend just took a job with Sarah Palin; make it sound like the old bat is gearing up for a late entry.

You could even talk about whatever it is you actually want your FB friends to know and then toss in some bastard’s name to make work for Politico:

“Eileen is finally off parole!  Drinks tonight!  Buddy Roemer.  Rick Santorum.  Barack Obama.”

“Eileen’s parole party got a little out of hand.  I think I violated the Mann Act.  Gary Johnson.  Newt Gingrich.”

Alternately, when you do want to say something about politics, just misspell or alter a candidate’s name enough to throw off some trolling program.  Personally, I like giving people nicknames:  President Obama becomes, “Barry, the Big O,” Rick Perry is “Texas Rocky” and Newt Gingrich is “Lizard Man.”  Or some such.

For the truly spiteful, remember that your status need not actually communicate anything other than your contempt.  Let fly with utter argle-bargle.

“Eileen hippodrome toothbrush lost in the blender Rick Perry big green glow in the dark Ron Paul dancing ligers.  Snarf.  Precancerous mole.  Piggily.  Newt Gingrich. Bamboo.  Hot chocolate muffin.”

Step up even that with foreign words and made-up language:

“Eileen umlaut-sil-vous-Platte-river Barack Obama.  Jabberwocky Chisinau post-haste S.P.Q.R. Buddy Roemer con leche Blutwurst.”

Once all this wears thin, just make you status full of links to Politico’s rival sites.

~ Oscar Wilde

Much too much of what passes for political sparring today is only clever, mean people taking gimme shots, if it’s even that good.  Statements are made in a condescending tone as if something is automatically funny and self-evidentally demeaning, without the alleged wag explaining why.

Talking heads yell at another and roll their eyes but they don’t do much more.  It is entirely possibly to have half a dozen advanced degrees make noise for hours without once rising to the level of a proper thought.  The vast ability of the English language is forsaken for sheer volume, in both decibels and total word count.

PPC would like to see not so much a reduction in political insults as an upgrade to the tenor of it all.  After all, if I simply want to be spitefully dressed down with neither imagination nor intelligence, I might always order a child to bed without desert.

I’ll start the discussion with an inspirational assortment of verbal devastation.

Now, among intelligent men with enough confidence to countenance their critics, one good swipe has often occasioned an equally brilliant retort.   Just as it suits to answer calumny with silence and hatred with contempt, so wit often does nicely for arrogance.  This works whether the feud is simply over the issue at hand or is a genuine personal distaste.

Henry Clay, serving in the House, was visibly bored by an endless speech from Virginia Representative Alexander Smyth.  Smyth, a cobwebbed military curmudgeon who had served as a General in the War of 1812, remonstrated his young colleague, “You,  Sir, speak for the present generation, but I speak for posterity.“ A weary Clay, according to history and an only mildly altered Congressional record, drolly answered, “Yes, and you seem resolved to speak until your audience arrives.“

A worthy heir to such insouciant composure was Winston Churchill.  Arriving to see Max Aitken, the Baron Beaverbrook, Britannia’s Bulldog was informed by the butler than the lord of the house was unavailable to receive his Prime Minister, as he was out walking.  Churchill responded, “Presumably, on the lake.”

During the second World War, Beaverbrook had been Churchill’s Minister for Aircraft Production and for Supplies, a member of the Prime Minister’s inner circle, and a confidante.  It seems that none of that precluded Churchill’s dig.  I am sympathetic.  Who could resist having an honest-to-goodness British butler as a straight man?

Let us turn to the case of John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, and Samuel Foote, the dramtist.  The two were concluding a solidly drunk lunch at London’s Beef Steak Club when Sandwich provoked, “Foote, I have often wondered what catastrophe would bring you to your end; but I think, that you must either die of the pox, or the halter.” Proving the politicians ought not trifle too readily with professional wordsmiths, Foote clarified “My lord, that will depend upon one of two contingencies; — whether I embrace your lordship’s mistress, or your lordship’s principles.”

For all the instances when the straight man and the wit were ultimately on friendly terms, there are plenty when a real enmity existed.

An insult that is too much the result of reflex and too little of reflection might be delightfully tossed off, much like last season’s scarves.  Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau answered Nixon’s vitriol with a comment that encapsulated both contempt and dismissal; “I’ve been called worse by better people.” Indeed, just such patrician dismissal is the ideal answer to unimaginative detractors.

Trudeau likely had in mind something like the time Canada’s Romanian born national poet Irving Layton snarked, “In Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Canada has at last produced a political leader worthy of assassination.”

Or, there is the case of John Bright, an 19th century MP who boasted membership in the Quakers, the Radicals, and the Anti-Corn Law League.  He described Benjamin Disraeli, the staunchly protectionist Prime Minister, as, “…a self made man who worships his creator.”

Given ‘Dizzy’s’ humble origins, the barb was particularly harsh.  It also shows that one might torment an enemy on his most self conscious point without sounding like a pre-menstrual Homecoming Queen.

Even the purest disgust still allows for a handsome turn of phrase.  Napoleon, no saint himself, was understandably miffed when his own Foreign Minister abandoned him and began accepting bribes from Austria and Russia to betray his old boss.  Talleyrand was, in Bonaparte’s words, “a pile of shit in silk stockings.” Crass, no doubt, but lilting even in translation and a perfect encapsulation of one man’s attitude to another.

For political opponents who are more nuisance than threat, something more paternalistic might do.  While still California’s Governor Ronald Reagan was walking past a group of protesters at UCLA en route to a speech.  The Gipper lightly paused, read their signs, and laconically opined, “Make love, not war?  You don’t look like you could do much of either.”

Reagan would go on to get a laugh out of his own opponent when he announced he was “…not going to exploit for political purposes [his] opponent’s youth and inexperience.” Not only did that reduce poor Walter Mondale to a guffaw, it succinctly laid to bed simmering questions about the 73 year old Reagan’s fitness for a second term.

One could even dismiss a particular political agenda without directly commenting on its sponsor.  Venezuelan nationalist Francisco de Mirando fruitlessly spent much of 1790s trying to interest America and Britain in backing his plan to oust Spain’s colonial government.  The former was too wrapped up in its own infantile tantrums and the latter was unwilling to irritate Spain and thus lose a potential ally against France.  John Adams summed up the hopelessness of Miranda’s scheme as, “…an excursion to the moon in a cart drawn by geese.”

That gorgeous phrase may sum up my prospects in this bid to elevate the dialogue.  Then again, my standards are high.  I expect heads of state to coherently and briefly express their own ideas, use their naive tongue fluently, and be able to deliver remarks without cue cards.

A political insult ought to reflect well on you.  The victim should be left without any possible comeback.  It needs to be brief and ever so slightly cavalier.  You are trying to leave no doubt how little you care.  Essay length rebuttals that are entirely insult only show your opponent has a hold on you.

A great political insult does more than reiterate what everyone already knows, that you disagree with or actively dislike the target of your invective.  At its best, it leaves no doubt that you are the better wit and the quicker mind.

Much hilarity ensued.  Just to prove that I am not a wicked and greedy Capitalist pig, I will happily socialize the fruits of my amusement.

In the month since its inception, the Peoples’ Library has amassed 1,647 volumes, 102 of them in the past 24 hours.  I hope you will join with me in appreciating the work this represents; even if one removes all the duplicate copies of Chomsky and New Age hogwash, I think we may be satisfied that OWS-ers are not entirely allowing their minds to rot.

Below, I have distilled the list to find the most seminal titles in the OWS collection.  I have also made, humbly, some suggestions for further acquisitions.  I have even taken the liberty of recommending a little Stalinesque purging here and there.

Part I : What to Read

1. The Berenstein Bear Scouts Meet Bigpaw, by Stan Berenstein

Oddly enough, most of the websites dedicated to the Western literary cannon lack a detailed review of this short work.  Going by the cover illustrations, this seems to be a heteronormative story of uniformed, fair skinned male cubs assaulting nature.  Nature in this instance is represented by a ill-disposed bright red naked bear.  Reading the text as an American answer to Anglo stories of ‘The Green Man’ has somehow yet to be anyone’s doctoral dissertation.  Perhaps a bored occupant could get the scholarship started.  Bigpaw was produced as a television special around the time of the 1980 Presidential election and is, therefore, not recommended for older protesters with sore memories.

Alternately, the entire series drove noted right wing curmudgeon Charles Krauthammer to villify the, “the smugness and complacency of the stories that is so irritating…[particularly] the post-feminist Papa Bear, the Alan Alda of grizzlies, a wimp so passive and fumbling he makes Dagwood Bumstead look like Batman.”  So, if it helps, just consider that, somewhere out there, the continued existence of this book is irritating a Fox News contributor.

2. Cows of our Planet: A Far Side Collection, by Gary Larson

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the inclusion of Larson’s 1992 magnum opus in an overtly Progressive library is that, for all the bovine focus, the effect of methane on ‘climate change’ is completely neglected.  However, a semiotic meaning of the text yields delightful tid bits on vegetarianism, equal rights for quadripeds, and  what to look for in leather in next year’s collections.

3. Caligula for President: Better American Living Through Tyranny, by Cintra Wilson

I initially thought this was a plea to turn this fair land over to the benevolent reign of some bestial community organizer.  To be fair, look at whose library we’re raiding.  It is, however, an almost painfully broad satire arguing that, diligence and merit aside, America is run by a handful of old families.  BoingBoing favorably reviewed the book in 2008 and posted the first chapter, which is somewhat funny.  We here at PPC are firmly of the opinion that, at least in politics, the best and brightest are rarely in charge, so we’ll go with the idea.

As a side note for the OWS crowd, while the 17th Amendment was an utter disaster, we do not condone the Caligula approach to electing Senators, either.

4. Dim-mak: Death Point Striking, by Erle Montaigue

Essentially, this is the art of murdering people with acupuncture…as written by someone called Erle Montaigue.  It’s only as ancient as 1950s Hong Kong pulp fiction, but I know all of us in the Secret Treehouse HQ of PPC would love to see it work.

If only to ensure you don’t inadvertently kill a friend with a massage gone awry, we must mark this as indispensable reading for the touchy-feely set.

5. The Manga Guide to Statistics, by Shin Takahashi

Mr. Takahashi has explained basic statistical concepts in graphic novel format.  Our would just got a little happier knowing that such a thing even exists.  3.43% happier (± 1%) at 95% confidence, to be precise.

6. Republican Party Reptile, by P.J. O’Rourke

That someone placed a copy of this into a Peoples’ Library makes me think there’s hope for the OWS types after all.  At least someone out there has a sense of humor.  Ditto for the lone Tom Robbins inclusion.

Part II : What to Burn

1. Al on America, by Al Sharpton

Kids, really.  I get your entire lefty schtick.  But it’s time to draw the line.

2. The Book of Lies, by Aleister Crowley

Some have called this the most ‘approachable’ of the noted Satanist’s corpus.  Others have noted that it’s still incomprehensible babble produced by a bigoted Victorian prick who’d ruined his brain with poor quality heroin.  As a child, Crowley shot, stabbed, skinned, poisoned, defenestrated, drowned, crushed, boiled, and blew up the same feline to test the theory that cats have nine lives.  Do what you will, but we cannot condone this man as a role model for the ostensibly non-violent OWS movement.  We are, however, impressed with his dedication to the scientific method.

(We also recommend purging the multi-volume selection of Edgar Cayce nonsense.)

3. Eco-sex : Go Green Between the Sheets and Make Your Love Life Sustainable, by Stefanie Iris Weiss

For those of you whose life is missing a sustainably sourced chrome finish vibrator, or for those of you dull enough to think that avocados are just for guacamole and face masks…this is your book.  Miss Weiss’ strident support for OWS on her blog makes us think this book may have been donated in the hopes of inspiring carbon neutral, class conscious intimacy in a pestilential tent city.  We’d suggest she really wants to move product, but that’s so capitalistic.

For our part, it is never wise to pursue sexual activities that will turn any part of you green.  We recommend burning, followed by thorough disinfection of the entire area.  If you are looking to replace the gap on your book shelf, please look for my forthcoming title on unabashedly elitist coitus, ‘Capitalism: Conquest and Climax.’

4. Human Race Get Off Your Knees: The Lion Sleeps No More, by David Icke

A television sports commentator gone bonkers, Mr. Icke maintains the planet is currently run by evil blood-drinking (and possibly kitten-eating) lizard aliens disguised as politicians.  This, we feel, is a discredit to many fine lizards.

It has been suggested that poor David is really our modern day Jonathan Swift, studiously maintaining the pretense of believing in his reptillian overlords from Draco in order to demonstrate…something.  We can only hope.

Speaking of…why the hell don’t you people have any Swift?  Go barter, or however it is you do acquire property, and get yourself A Modest Proposal.

5. If the Ring Fits (Harlequin Special Edition), by Cindy Kirk

The other humans cannot take you seriously if you own romance novels.

6. Manual of Nephrology, from the McGraw-Hill Education Series

Stick to political carousing and leave my kidneys the hell alone.  Between your views on health care and on communal ownership, I am frankly terrified that you own this text.

7. Nearer, My God: An Autobiography of Faith, by William F. Buckley, Jr.

No wonder you hate the Right.

8. The Universal Standard Encyclopedia Volume 1: A – Argolis, edited by Joseph Laffan

A single volume of a 1958 encyclopedia.  Methinks someone is using you to dump unwanted books.

Then again, it could be a doomed but noble bid to educate the lot of you on where this country has been.

Part III : What to Acquire

1. Erle Montaigue and Wally Simpson, The Encyclopedia of Dim-Mak, along with Montaigue’s Advanced Dim-mak: The Finer Points Of Death-Point Striking

Might as well complete the set

2. Any of the Cthulhu works by H.P. Lovecraft

You cannot fight evil until you understand it.

3. Key foundational texts

You have neither Smith nor Marx yet you are speaking to the great divide between economic systems.  You seek to remake America, but have you considered her beginnings?  Where is your Federalist, you Democracy in America*, your basic pocket book of Founding Documents?  You’ve got plenty of agenda laden analyses of seminal texts.  Why not get the actual text and do your own thinking?

* Since the first draft of this article, you have added de Tocqueville.  Well done.  Carry on.

4. How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie

You’re trying to sell a platform and the whole not-taking-baths thing is costing you points.  You have got to make them up somewhere.

I will start by sharing some of my thoughts on the alleged intellectual majesty and mystery of the shenanigans currently gripping America.  One thing I must give the OWS monkeys right off the bat is that they have nicely demonstrated that irate protest may thrive in the total absence of coherent motives.

However, Eric Hoffer long ago noted that mass movements don’t need a God but they absolutely must have a Devil.  Did you catch what I was doing there?  That’s right, kids; I was being intellectual.  I have proved that I read books, and understand at least some of them.  If my bet, that most people accept what they see in print and don’t do their own research, is correct (and it is), I could just as easily have claimed that Hoffer’s real assertion was that politically confused naifs will sell out their cause for Starbucks on a chilly day.

Such blather makes up the article I am keen to lambaste.  Author Dan Berrett basically noticed that pseudo-Marxist polemicists have decamped from faculty lounges and alternative book stores to preen and squawk over a walking, talking, sign-waving sociology dissertation.  Wherever two or more petulant lefties of average intellect are gathered, so also is an academic leftie with dreams of being first author.  (When right-wingers congregate in similar numbers, the academy maintains a healthy distance and remotely diagnoses psychological maladies.)  

Berrett’s giddiness over all the academic celebrities flocking around OWS is not, as he maintains, a purely abstract meditation on what it all means.  It is an entirely predictable market function.  Academics live on what is called “Publish or Perish”.  By nature and by need they are always looking for something interesting enough to make it past peer review and get a few citations.  The attendance of the Ivory Tower set at a prolonged anti-Capitalist screed event betrays the market realities of everything humans do far more than the titular ‘intellectual roots’.

However, I did not read through Barrett’s entire piece in order to agree with myself about how pompous most intellectuals are, or how they are endlessly pretending it’s all about knowledge and not at all about ego or paycheck.  Though Berrett tosses in some ideas about OWS properly being a grassroots phenomenon, he spends most of his effort of crediting professional intellectuals for the spread of the protests.  Berrett favorably cites the ethnography of one David Graeber, who spent time in the jungles of Madagascar studying the Betafo people.  Graeber noticed that, without a strong, central government, the Betafo were still capable of cooperating and completing projects.  It took him 20 months to figure this out and he trumpeted it to the world as a watershed idea, the entire millenia old body of libertarian though having apparently escaped him.

The Betafo are descendants of slaves left behind on Madagascar when the state bugged out, having more of less decided it had better things to do then pester humans.  This, I would like to tell Mssrs. Berrett and Graeber, is not a vindication of far-left anarchy.  It is a libertarian fantasy come true.  The success of the Betafo also testifies to the validity of many small-government, market-dominated ideas.  According to Graeber, it never occured to the Betafo to seek out or create a top heavy state, nor did it occur to them they were somehow deprived without such an apparatus.  They just figured out what they needed and took care of it.  That humans are capable of such spontaneous order, self-direction, and granular level planning is a key free market argument.

What Graeber calls “consensus decision making” is really just Spontaneous Order with a new name.  No self-respecting wonk could, of course, use such a term as it implies the ghastly idea that people can do plenty without intellectuals thinking it up first.  Much of Berrett’s article is, in fact, just that – an attempt to find direct academic ancestors to the OWS protests.  Why it would be so awful to admit that people took to the streets for some reason other than the dense prose of Ivy League luminaries is beyond me.  These are angry people with some legitimate complaints who are pursuing a remedy to a felt need.

Yes, the sort of real brains who define entire eras and movements develop truly new ideas or effect a near miracle by capturing something amorphous and nascent already in a lot of peoples’ heads.  But a great many of the scribbling class are actually analyzing, synthesizing, explaining, and cataloging.  I believe all that has benefit, but it is reactionary stuff; it comes after people (some of whom don’t even have one advanced degree) are already engaged in something.  I will also concede that there are feedback loops; as much as intellectuals get grist for the mill from observing, so people are influenced by what they read.

What has me ticked off is Berrett’s assertion that OWS must somehow be consciously acting on some scholar’s brilliant words and his subsequent mission to figure out who that might be.  Obviously, he likes Graeber, who returned from Madagascar to organize some of the first anti-globalization stunts in London.  This, Berrett holds, is sufficient to credit Graeber as something of an academic sperm donor to OWS.

Who else, though, he wonders.  It surprises Berrett to find a growing ‘Peoples’ Library‘ at the Zuccotti Park protest site in New York.  People have contributed their own titles and someone has taken the initiative to keep the books in boxes with plastic sheeting to block water, a verified instance of organic cooperation that could only ever surprise a socialist.  OWS even has a librarian, who delivers a vicious backhanded compliment when he purrs, “I really am amazed for the respect they have for the word”, as if it should be expected that the protesters are all bumpkins.  He adds, “There’s a real reverence for what has been written that has surprised me, since they eschew whatever came before, all the thought that came before.”

No, you blustering twit.  OWS members are not contemptuous of all that came before.  They are perfectly happy to recreate all sorts of mayhem that fizzled out long before they were born, and more than a few of them get off on that execrable 19th century German economic rat.  Hearing such a pandering quote from someone who, I think it’s fair to say, supports the protests, was a bit surprising.  Then again, it does indicate that same intellectual haughtiness, the blithe certainty that the little people don’t read and must be given their ideas.  Why someone like Berrett, hell-bent as he is on assigning academic ownership of OWS, quotes this befuddled librarian, who seems shocked that average people still like books, is the real oddity.

One can’t conceive of unwashed souls, souls without tenure, kickstarting something.  The other marvels to see them seek out ideas.  I say OWS could stand to clarify whatever ideas it has a bit more.

Such a disconnect does still encapsulate something I’ve noticed in the rapidly growing body of commentary on OWS.  Observers praise the natural, grassroots flavor, the welcoming and participation by all comers, the lack of an obvious leader.  And, with the next breath, they trot out the old argument about central planning being so bloody crucial.

If anything, it seems that OWS’ problem is that the people camping out don’t really have a fully developed message, but that plenty of self-congratulatory men with unhealthy power lust have fully crystallized ideas about what to do with the great huddled masses.

It’s going to be illegal to impersonate the TSA. Or use their stellar reputation for one’s own gain.

Given how few people might ever actual do that, passing this nonsense would pretty much be a bill of attainder.

The immediate concern is that, somewhere, there are people who couldn’t actually get a job with the TSA yet fantasize about being a pudgy monkey in blue gloves, groping children and pilfering from carry-on Samsonites. By itself, that’s a depressing thought.  Honestly, if you want to be a thief and a sexual criminal you don’t need a government job to make that happen.  First, the TSA does not actually require a high school diploma and only demands the appearance of literacy. And the list of crimes that are not disqualifiers for employment is a painful read. Not being good enough to join the TSA is about as close to truly having nothing as you can get while living in a first world nation.

But even most losers at least have a semi-respectable fantasy life. It may not be original to want to live in a gangsta rap music video and date a model, but it is understandable. Who fantasizes about someday qualifying to join the most loathed agency in the U.S. Government and hovering around a unmonitored radiation leaking device all day? What kind of person is so sprung on the idea of being a TSO that he’ll fake it? Are there really enough of them to require an Act of Congress?

Yes, I suppose some criminal mastermind might need to briefly impersonate airport scum as part of a grand plan to take over the world. And I suppose that rarest of creatures, the legitimately brilliant criminal, could scale back R&D and just steal all his ideas from old Bond movies.

In the real world, massive criminal enterprises tend to engage in serious crimes, a lot. Crimes for which we already have laws. Am I to believe we need to add felony impersonation of a Homeland Security flunky in case the RICO, grand larceny, and murder charges don’t stick? Or are American prisons so full of space that we need to jail people fro having lame cosplay fantasies? The proposed sentence is up to one year in jail. That’s basically the equivalent of doing jail time for transporting fruit across state lines.

The entire logic of having the TSA assumes that somewhere out there is a man planning to duplicate an attack that happened ten years ago, a man so good that every actual security professional will be unable to stop him prior to the moment he walks into an airport, at which point a human being who has difficulty walking and breathing at the same time will save us all. You can see that same bizarre mind (for lack of a better term) at work (for lack of a better term) here.

Now, let’s short-cut to the end of this line of logic. The TSA is pure ‘Security Theater‘. It makes people think something meaningful is being done to ward off terrorism, and the sheer banality of the show ought to tell you something about the target audience. What about snarky types like us? People who play TSA bingo at the airport to see what we can get past the U.S.A.’s vaunted security forces.  People who take a troublingly malicious satisfaction in gainsaying the entire domestic security set-up of the American experiment in self-governance?

Remember when I said this new law could make it felonious to satirize the TSA? Usually, laws banning impersonating government agencies and ripping off their logos have an exception for parody. Not here. Enter the problem. Let’s assume this is an oversight, an accident. We are, after all, talking about something a Congressmen wrote. It’s always the safer to assume stupidity and laziness than to argue that they made a deliberate, malicious oversight.

However, we are still faced with the chilling effect of a federal ban on mocking the most consistent source of fodder since September-goddam-eleventh. Writing for a living is tough enough without source material being illegal. Honestly, for a satirist, this is an illegal infringement on trade.  Give me enough latitude and I can make it Unconstitutional.  At the very least, neither I, nor any other writer, should be expected to pay taxes to the government that plans to cut so severely into our ability to earn money.

Likely, this clause will be stricken, or get a standard issue loophole for parody. Maybe its insertion is just a red herring to sneak something else through. Maybe gallantly agreeing to take it out is a planned tactic to get this heap of offal passed. As in, by putting in an outrageous one-off that can’t survive, you make it look like you’re compromising when you agree to remove it. The main bill that this has been crammed into is still a re-authorization of the TSA, and it is to be expected that its sponsors would plan for opposition. Much as I enjoy mocking that agency, I wouldn’t mind seeing it go away.

All the same, if I’m stuck paying, from my after-tax income, to be harassed and violated just to go on vacay, I reserve the right to bitch, loudly and constantly, about it. That’s the real threat if this goes through without some amending. Treating people poorly and then expecting them to pretend nothing untoward is going on is the sort of stuff that leads to violent uprisings.

* The plum fool behind this bill is Michael Rogers of Alabama. Seriously, kids, I lean more right than left, but even I can’t ignore the potent opportunity to make a stock joke about ultra-far-right Southern good ol’ boys with hard-ons for anything related to killing terrorists. Actually, I could. I don’t want to. Sponsor a bill this bad and I will insult you. And sometimes, just sometimes, the shortest point between an observation and a joke s a straight line.  Gentlemen, consider yourselves warned.

Eileen McGuire Mahony was once talked out of an ad hoc attack on TSA headquarters with the promise of drinks at the Pentagon Row Ritz Carlton.  Nice as it was, a $27 martini has not quenched her lust for blood.  Or for privacy and sane policy.

And he illustrated it with a Venn Diagram.  Which I kind of loved.  (Venns are basically infographics for people who understand basic statistics but not graphic design.)

Could both sides have a valid point?  Capitalism is groovy.  Corrupt business practices, rent seeking, protectionism, and deliberately distorting the market to block competition are not capitalistic.  Just because men in business suits are doing it doesn’t make it true capitalism or good business.  Hell, it’s possible for registered Republicans to be bad people.

We all seize on quotes when an avowed lefty admits the government may have gone too far as proof that we really were right.  Is it maybe time to admit that an obsessive and all-encompassing defense of large corporations isn’t so smart a strategy?  I don’t see a problem in reconciling this with being an aggressively free-market type.  Governments protecting existing businesses isn’t capitalism, and I think it’s a little disingenuous to pretend that isn’t going on.

As Sinclair points out, the real threat to entrenched whores-in-power-suspenders* would arrive if these two groups considered what they have in common.  Of course, this means OWS needs to lose the romantic Marxist baloney and the Tea Party needs to spend some time apart from those beloved hardcore social values.  But hell, if those two annoyances were removed from political discourse, it would be a big improvement all by itself.

Eileen McGuire-Mahony still reminds you to spellcheck your protest signs, factcheck your soundbites, and make time for a shower with hot water at least once every 24 hours.  Hygiene isn’t bourgeois; it’s polite.  The world is a screwed up place and there will still be plenty to howl about when you rejoin the group.

* Actually, I somewhat like the look of suspenders, very ‘soaring-blue-chip-index’ without all the nasty S&L crisis associations.  Still, have cliche…will travel.

One of these fallacies is likely behind Congress’ current perusal of the “Mobile Informational Call Act” (HR 3035), something that no self-respecting human would dare suggest, let alone seriously consider.  At stake is the 20 year old ban on auto dialed calls to cellphones.  Some businesses and trade associations support this, apparently operating on the idea that they regularly need to tell people things so vital as to necessitate interrupting whatever anyone is doing, but not so important as to merit an actual human getting involved.

Hardly surprising, the politicians are only going to release the hounds if they get to join in.  In short, MICA would make it legal for the entire glut of Potomac pimps and whores to robocall your cell phone.

Seriously, aren't our lives bleak enough as it is? (Via TheCommonIlls/C. Isaiah)

Something like 77% of Americans listed their land lines on the FTC’s Do Not Call Registry by the registry’s third birthday.  So favorable was the response that a five-year expiration for registered numbers was stripped from the original law, meaning a number, once registered, now never expires.  Businesses whined about violations of commercial speech, as if imposing on private individuals and attempting to compel attention is such a sanctified pursuit.

Let me head off the immediate criticism; “But, Eileen”, you say, “aren’t you against laws regulating what businesses do?”.  Yes, yes I am.  But look closely at what’s going on here.  Individuals are making it abundantly clear they do not want unsolicited communications by any means from anyone.  Congress, however, wants to legally protect a set of exemptions that create enough loopholes to keep people drowning in unwanted calls they have explicitly tried to end.  MICA also has a fun little add-on that would forbid states from passing their own laws to counter MICA.  Amendment X violation?  Why the hell not?

This is high nannyism: to listen to the articulate request of an adult and respond that you know better and will make it legal to ignore their requests for privacy under circumstances favorable to yourself.  We live in a society, where our actions impact others who have the same rights we do.  Simply, we can’t do whatever we like even when it harms others.  This is not about stripping freedom from businesses and campaigns to pursue money.  It’s about the freedom of people who clearly ask not to be solicited.

This is what happens when you autodial. It's even worse than letting the terrorists win. (Via RainbowZombiesAteMyUnicorn.de)

The fact is that people enjoy their privacy and their peace and quiet so much that most of us can’t opt out of unwanted contact fast enough.  What robocalls aren’t blocked usually provoke a string of profanity and slammed receivers.  If you doubt this, you should see my mother when charities start calling while she’s having evening tea.

It is because individuals have made it so clear these calls are unwelcome and because people are abandoning land lines for cellphones that the rush is now on to get access to cells.  A sensible person knows that no message stands much of a chance when the messenger and the timing of delivery are loathed.  A sensible person would further accept the sheer volume of evidence that people don’t like robocalls and make the very logical assumption that, if it ain’t welcome by land, it sure as hell won’t be welcome by air.

Yes, you would be able to opt out of specific campaigns.  That, however, is like having to deal with spam by blocking, one at a time, each and every address that sends the stuff.  The problem with current exemptions to ‘Do Not Call‘ lists is that an outfit can call you now and forever provided they squeeze into one of several loopholes, meaning that if you donated a battered muffin tin to the Anti-Scurvy League in 1937, they and all their connected boondoggles will be cold calling you during the cocktail hour until the Armageddon hits.

You see, the first problem is that the burden would be on you to get out of annoying, unsolicited calls.  That’s bad enough, but now I want you to think about the tactless insistence of a campaign chasing dollars and votes.  That’s what could soon be making irksome call waiting noises when you’re already on the line with your broker and generally gobbling up your anytime minutes.  See where I’m going? The second problem is that the people who will be receiving your opt-out requests aren’t going to listen.

I have spent time phone-banking and I have seen how campaigns do it.  They use any list they can get; they don’t care that the people on that list might not care to hear from yet another self-glorifying politician.  If the only way to get a list is dirty, there’s always some ambitious intern who’ll take it all the same.  If the campaign gets caught, they chalk it up to over eager newbies who don’t know the rules.  If that’s not enough, interns can always be sacrificed.

Promises about not sharing lists rarely have any feeling or spine.  Those things move at lightning speed, greased along with the fact that the campaign world is full of friends.  If, like most people, you’re on multiple lists, then good luck with actually nailing down who sold you out.  For that matter, you may not even know how many databases you’re on where, unless you take the initiative to start a lengthy opt-out process, campaigns can use that list.  Voter registration rolls, for one thing.  You might also read the full privacy disclosure of the lists you do sign up for.  They don’t promise not to give your information away.  They often promise only to not sell it, or they promise not to give it away without your permission.  The list of things that will be taken as tacit permission may be quite long.

Speaking of selling, the gigs that don’t give it away will still sell lists and not always for something as unimaginative as cash.  Sometimes, the price is an IOU among pals.  I was once approached by a low level staffer to turn over a contact list for a group I ran.  The price?  He would owe me one.  And he made it clear the higher-ups on the campaign wouldn’t ask where that list came from.  The staffer who asked for it took multiple refusals over several occasions to get the message.  He was clearly shocked that anyone took all that argle-bargle about privacy seriously.  He later approached another officer of the same organization, someone he thought would be easier to pressure, with the same request.

This ostrich is a non-voting member of the PPC Board. Her diet consists entirely of dishonest political activists.

But a lot of this would be moot if MICA passes.  MICA would allow political outfits to take your name off of petitions and from ‘affiliated’ organizations, similarly to the ‘prior business relationship’ claptrap governing autodialed calls to land lines.  ’Affiliated’, however, does not begin to do justice to the incestuous slumber party that is political activism.  Going by how interconnected all those various groups are, getting on one list would doom you.  As would already being on any lists.  The obvious thing is, most people who shared cell phone information did so with the expectation that they wouldn’t be passed around like a party favor and harassed morning, noon, and twice at night.

Essentially, one part of MICA would allow groups to do legally what they already do – share contact information regardless of the desires of the person to whom that data pertains.  Only a politician could think that the proper remedy to a bad act is to pass a law saying it isn’t bad, anymore.

Compounding insult with injury, all that robocalling and pushpolling DOES NOT WORK.  This is a form of political outreach where “success” means getting 5% of the people to listen to you for more than 15 seconds.  I hold that far more people are motivated to vote against a given candidate or issue than ever have a favorable reaction.

Campaigns that use robocalls traditionally inflict this on people during evenings and weekends – the limited times when people are relaxing, what is for some people the only time they have with their families.  Rude?  Of course it is.  Hell, it’s an obvious violation of basic sense and decency.  Yet, even the most modest candidate out there is so certain of his own brilliance that it never occurs to him people have higher priorities than being graced with his recorded blather.

Given all the awesome things a phone can do, why is anyone still robocalling at all? (Via Fashionably Geek)

Perhaps the only astonishing thing here is that anyone still uses repeated unsolicited phone calls full of useful chatter.  It’s a sign of desperation and laziness.  Many campaigns will engage in busy work before they make the actual effort of studying effective communication.  As for my feelings on why so many political projects lack insightful thinking and good creative work, I think that’s established.

Well, what should you do?  Right off the bat, you should cold calls the sons of bitches who pretend to work for you in Washington and tell them exactly what you think of a robocall free-for-all.  Also, you should take a look at the National Political Do Not Call project’s petition at StopPoliticalCalls.org.  NPDNC is the brain child of Shaun Daukin, the same man who touted a technology designed to allow irate citizens to inflict reverse robocalls on politicians and who drafted a sample “Privacy Bill of Rights for Voters”   You could also turn a malicious eye on Nebraska based rat Lee Terry, who is sponsoring this dreck, and his equally rat-like so-sponsor, Edolphus Towns of New York.  Damn rats.

Eileen McGuire-Mahony has not actually answered an unidentified number since 2002.  She supports indefinite detention and enhanced interrogation against anyone who has ever approved a robocalling campaign.  She promises not to call you at night and beg you to do things for her…unless you’re into that sort of thing.

Frankly, I think they’re spot on.

These groups are hauling it in like never before in the wake of the 2009-2010 Tea Party phenom…something they can’t legitimately claim to have sparked.  Local activists, and a lot of people who’d never been “political” before, were fed up and did something about it.  The usual major groups out of DC, doing things the usual way, had more to do with the 2006 and 2008 debacles than with the belated pushback.  However, it’s the usual Potomac Crowd making mad bank from this surge of patriotic indignation.

Such Washington heavies and their favored establishment kiddies don’t share.  Worse, they aren’t interested in spending money wisely.  Donations go into huge salaries for those at the top, into a perpetual series of invitation only soirees, into honorariums for political celebrities that are twice what most local activists could expect to earn in a year, into endorsements of nebulous value, into feeding overpriced but well-connected vendors who peddle ‘consulting’ and ‘event planning’ for eyewatering sums…in short, into everything but funding work on the ground level.  Politico has some numbers likely to raise eyebrows.  I don’t doubt it.  And, lest it weren’t clear already, I don’t believe those expenditures are having an effect at all commensurate with the cost.

Says American Majority leader Ned Ryun, “There isn’t an unlimited pool of cash in the conservative movement, and my concern is that some of these big national groups are sucking up money that could otherwise go to the local tea party leaders who are the ones really making things happen on the ground.”

Damn straight, Ned.  We’d buy you a drink but, like most activists on the actual front lines, we can’t even afford enough lipstick to look pretty these days.

National groups are honey tongued enough when asking for contact lists and briefing on business models.  The very sad truth is that a lot of good groups quickly find their calls aren’t returned and the promised land of funding and support never materializes.  Entrenched outfits, overwhelmingly based in Washington, are far more apt to take whatever work product and data they can and run.

At the same time, national operatives just don’t give much back.  Many won’t do so much as make introductions or share contact information, so intense is the fear of losing a donor or no longer being the lone gatekeeper to some major player.

Small groups are, as the article surmises, “cannibalized.”  It’s hardly new for a weary grassroots type to see his idea making waves on all the network shows without his name ever coming up.  Often, a lifted idea is handed off to some favored insider, a good many of whom run those ideas into the ground.

Unfortunately, the same people do manage to secure funding over and over, with questionable tactics and vague results never really holding them back.  I have seen the scope of what does and does not get funded, and I have seen the class of people who will always have a backer, no matter how lackluster their performance was the last time around.

Honestly, fundraising is a nightmare for smaller groups.  It is indescribably difficult to get that first major backer when you’re still a minor league outfit.  I think that the mindset of many donors is to trust huge groups with DC offices, assuming those are the ones who know how to distribute money and that worthy activists will receive a share.  Worse, I think that outlook is encouraged by the same major organizations.

Adam Brandon, a talking head with FreedomWorks and one of my new least favorite people, fairly oozes patronizing offal on this point.  ”If you want to get a bunch of people together to go walk neighborhoods, do you really need a legal structure? You get lawyers involved, it gets expensive. So, a lot of groups rely on us to take care of the backbone infrastructure, so they can focus in on the activism.”

What a champ!  I can stomp around in 90 degrees heat for 14 hours and maybe have a slice of cold pizza with congealed pseudo-cheese waiting for me back at HQ! Meanwhile, you’ll do all that hard work of schmoozing and taking meetings! Because I’m obviously not cut out for such a challenge!  Hot damn, you brilliant boy!  Say, Adam, are you single?!?!

Adam freely admits he “counsels” local groups not to incorporate, likely with fire and brimstone pictures of the headaches caused by paperwork and legal compliance.  Of course, an unincorporated group isn’t often able to even seek donations, but I’m sure the solicitous Mr. Brandon has a line for that, too.

Here’s the bottom line.  The executives and consultants who occupy the top of the center-right’s food pyramid are used to getting an insane amount of work for free.  To date, they’ve been able to whine about how hard up for funds they are and toss off the “If you loved liberty, you’d do it for free” line.  If that sounds to you like it’s better suited to picking up a whore at a political convention than for recruiting experienced professionals, you’re starting to grasp it.

What could be activism infrastructure and an impressive new media machine are in such a sorry state, especially relative to the left, because they are comprised of activists who can only do what they can in their free time.  At the height of the election, grossly underpaid and hideously overworked staffers might be briefly flung at some project.  But, in the mind of right-wing Washington, there is no need to pay for any of that, let alone, to keep it going.  Whatever survives from one cycle to the next to be resurrected owes to suburbanites running things from their living room.

In that the ‘little people’ ought to be involved, that’s great.  In that they aren’t at the table and that they aren’t getting the rewards of their work, it’s a shame.

Obviously, pretending people can be had indefinitely is not a viable business model.  I think limited government interests will suffer in 2012 if this funding nightmare abides.  Nor am I hopeful things will improve.  Certain people have benefited from the current arrangement for too long to welcome change.  Once you’ve made that first mistake of working for someone for free, it’s damn hard to convince them you need to be paid for what you contribute.  Activists would also need to be willing to walk away in large enough numbers to send a convincing message.

What can I say?  Cynicism is a smart worldview.  Overwhelmingly, I’m right.  When I’m not, it’s a pleasant surprise.

Eileen McGuire-Mahony is very crabby this morning, largely due to this article.  She has worked on campaigns and she has been to Washington.  It is her considered opinion that rank and file campaign staffers are paid and treated like dirt.  But she will say that the invitation only, open bar goings-on in DC are spec-bloody-tacular. She’d love to hear your thoughts on the hackneyed funding situation, unless you are Adam Brandon, in which case you may go get bent.

Electoral politics, by its nature, basically ensures the worst characters will win.  In the time it takes one candidate to balk at some amoral tactic, a dozen others will have rushed ahead.  It is a cynical and axiomatic truth that those who survive politics at the very top levels are not at all the best men.  Governed as we are by ethically dubious egomaniacs, we owe it to posterity to record the character and disposition of the jackals we’ve been foolish enough to elect.

Obviously, this makes us look bad.  It makes the politicians look worse.

Lèse Majesté, the French term for ‘injured majesty’, refers to laws criminalizing anything deemed offensive or derogatory to the dignity of a sovereign.   We have no such nonsense in America.  For one thing, the majority of the Congress would soon be hanged for violating lèse majesté against itself.  Though, come to think of it, wouldn’t that be nice?

A relic of hereditary power, lèse majesté is usually found in the remaining pockets of monarchy.  In some places, people can actually earn prison sentences for nasty remarks, including those made privately.  It’s been used against foreign nationals who made unflattering comments while in a country with lèse majesté, including a Coloradan who “defamed” the King of Thailand.

In practice, those states that have such statutes often expand their use of lèse majesté to go after people who malign the sovereign’s main squeeze, rugrats, and assorted grasping relatives.  For instance, a man was fined several hundred Euros for saying rude things about Beatrix, coronated git of The Netherlands, and describing some rather intimate things he’d like to do to the old dame.  I pulled up her picture.  Quite frankly, in passing judgment, I’d prescribe therapy or, perhaps, corrective eyewear.  Even better, I’d recommend that the delicate little snowflakes at the royal court grow a pair.

The proper response to an insult is, if it was witty and well-aimed, appreciative laughter, and, if it was gauche and unimaginative, cold silence.  Decent people have better things to do than bring the power of the state to bear on irreverent words.

Refining the dialogue and punishing the most ill-bred cretins among us is the work of culture; it is not a fit task for the government.  While we must, so as to preserve civil rights and private life, abide a certain level of vulgarity in the arena, we are under no obligation to stand for such behavior privately.  In fact, it is precisely because we allow such freedoms in public life that we may maintain our own standards in our own personal spheres.

It is one thing to allow some behavior legally and another altogether to smile upon it in polite society.  Trying to legislate manners is as stupid and dangerous as trying to lower the murder rate via cotillion lessons.

The state that proposes to regulate barbed speech wherever it is found is, make no mistake, proposing to regulate private life.

When a state does not quite outlaw the act of tittering at the political class but goes about obsessively collecting information on sharp-tongued critics, it’s a dire sign.  In the era of the Absolute Monarchs, this sort of spying was, I imagine, down by mustachioed cads who went bopping about in run-down neighborhoods, probably wearing long capes and velvet masks.  These days, such stuff is relegated to a number of Foggy Bottom cosplay groups while the work of collating data on dissenters gets done via the Web; that, of course, is infinitely more frightening.

Modern technology has allowed levels of surveillance and intrusion once unimaginable.  Even thoughtful people, with keen grasps of policy and ethics, admit that theory lags far behind technology here.  Hypothetically putting such marvelous machines and gizmos in the hands of Potomac troglodytes who never think and have no morals is a formula for crisis.  Worse, we won’t be able to say rude things about the inevitable screw-ups.

A state that chases down each insult and every aspersion is necessarily an exspansive  police state, a society that recognizes no free speech and respects no privacy.  The paranoia and malice of such a government infects the citizens, making them reproachful against one another, turning them into unpaid spies who work by a sort of ‘Denounce your neighbor lest he denounce you first’ logic.

Ironically, by the time any state could be well along the path to such dystopia, it would too late to do much fighting back.  The increase of government surveillance strikes at the root of the ability to effectively resist the overreach of the state.  It is for this reason  that I have some sympathy for immediate and pronounced reactions when some facet of the government announces plans for one or another asinine program.  Just think, if we’d all flown into timely, apoplectic rage back in January 2010 when Homeland Security began rolling out backscatter x-rays, it might still be possible to fly with dignity.

Alright, fine, there’s my theory and pontificating.  How does this apply?  Do I think the United States is on the brink of upending the First Amendment and assigning the political elite to a special realm where no one may dare criticize them?  No.  For one thing, American free speech protections and American slander and libel laws give wide latitude to speech that might be upsetting and unkind.  Especially compared to some states, we have a way to go before even getting close to criminalizing insults.

But, I stand by the idea that the strongest way to fight off attacks on civil liberties is to push back immediately, not to belittle the threat.  Happily, if applied soon enough, a few belittling insults can work wonders in cutting down the sort of pompous twerps who might like to shroud themselves in some sort of artificially polite aura.  In free speech matters, one must remember that the First Amendment protects the rights of those advocating to restrict free speech, paradoxically putting legitimate champions of unrestricted speech at something of a disadvantage.  So, say I, mock early and mock often.