Into the valley

A river divided grains of sand
Hour upon hour, slipping through veins
Upon a beach the sunset crumbled
Moons rising in the eddy and tide
Water gurgles drinking in the shadow

Each day is pulled deeper at sea
Each night drowned by company
A legion of waves passed over
Bobbing up and over
The drain wrenched free and the water runs red
every morning.

Washed upon a strange new land
The discovery, a world fossilized
Between a great mountain and the drowning sea
Darkened by endless trees
On fire, the pyre a pillar
Provider of ticklish rages
Reminders from choking gasps of air gusting by
Burning. Escape on foot. Alone.

Climbers slip, falling back
upon the riverbed, desperately thirsty
refreshment from the desert valley
Cruel tricks, illusions. Oasis
Never make it there
Carried back in circles among the dunes

A Shadow that chases shadows
Casting longer to the canyon
Trapping light and screams, echos
every shriek and laugh ignored

The bones escaped long ago
chattering against the wind
Guardians of the peak
Restless rocks flung down
Relentless for the barren slope
Watchful No rescue

Sheepish grin of confusion
exasperating tides whisper
through wind and star lights
Only this mountain will remain
if only the valley can tremble no more

The peak of snow exploded
a gruesome spire approaches
falling blackness, pitch
blind and dizzy
The up is down, down up
Now is soon, then is not

fall upon the riverbed
Hidden in the valley
Everything burns, documented
Calmly nothing to see here.
nothing but this. Looking up
a world on fire tugs and stretches
over the screen, forever

Looking back and the page disappears
Gone, never touched or seen again
Lost in the valley. Forgotten
when the river runs again
Buried by the wave

Crime pays

For many of my gripes with Kleiman, he wrote a book on this topic a few years ago (When Brute Force Fails). Some of the same conclusions are involved. Example. For minor infractions like parole or probation violations instead of sending people to prison to serve out a lengthy term, they might go to jail immediately for some smaller period of time (a few days to a month), and then are released.

A crucial element that wasn't mentioned in the piece is that one of the major aspects of "successful" punishment is that it usually is not the length or severity that matters for people to get the point that they did something wrong and deter others from doing the same. Rather it is having available swift and sure possibilities for penalties to occur in the first place. In many cases prison sentences are increased because we don't have very sure or swift penalties for the criminal acts involved and it is assumed that the only way to provide deterrence is a stiffer penalty. People can commit these kinds of crimes with relative impunity. As a result we might also want to look at which crimes we could better deter with different police patrol patterns, more community involvement, a better focus on the use of our investigative resources to solve these crimes doing the most damage, etc.

People don't tend to randomly kidnap children in the US versus other many countries because it's extremely hard to pull off without getting caught (or at least this is the belief among many criminals, it's also pretty low on the totem pole of prison hierarchies to do pretty much anything to kids, which adds another wrinkle). It's almost always a family member in this country for that reason that abducts a child. Someone who probably doesn't care if they get caught because they're not rational involving their own children. This attitude of deterrence through the surety of penalties could be applied to any number of criminal acts (murder, robbery, fraud, etc) and should provide much more deterrent value than longer sentences. There will still be murders, but they'd be more and more acts of "passion"; sudden events that escalate to violence and less and less random acts of violence committed against strangers.

I think there's also a large sum of currently designated criminal behavior that isn't described or studied here that doesn't cost as much in the form of social damage (drug use/possession and distribution being one source), or where there is damage, using the prison system to deal with it probably isn't appropriate and is wasteful and costly versus the alternatives. This would also apply to many mental health problems. It sounds like this was a study or set of them that looked too linearly at the costs of prison itself rather than also including the costs of policing or the costs of basic health care, and the benefits of same, and so on. I find that many of our policy approaches are not "3-D", taking into account alternatives from outside the context of a narrow policy view. For instance, drug addiction (actual drug or alcohol addiction, not mere use of drugs that we find are socially disapproved) or mental health disorders could be treated as a medical problem rather than a criminal one. The narrow focus on the costs of these in criminal activity often precludes people from assessing how they might be dealt with more efficiently elsewhere. It is useful to know that X criminal act potentially costs us this much in social damage, and imprisoning a person for doing so costs Y dollars, but it is useful to know that because we can then evaluate it against other alternatives and also see if we will come away with fewer of X criminal acts in the first place using those alternatives, or if those alternatives have other positive benefits (better mental health for instance allows people to hold down regular employment easier, narrow policing focus allows police to push criminal activity into smaller and smaller spaces, thus making any remaining criminal activity less likely).

List of standard disclaimers that probably should not be used

1) "Support the troops" - This is typically used when someone opposes a military deployment (a war). When someone opposes a war, that person should say that no, they don't support the troops. Because the troops are doing something they oppose. They mostly, and more properly oppose the political and policy decisions that resulted in someone demanding the troops do something they felt was inappropriate, destructive, or generally foolish and not helpful to American interests and security. But basically we should not say blandly "I support the troops". Because that implies we support the mission they are deployed for.

2) "I regret offending people" style non-apology apologies. If what you said or did was what you wanted to say or do, you don't actually regret that someone was pissed off by it. What you regret if it offended people and that reaction upset you was that you said or did something stupid (and were caught doing so). In most cases, this is not actually a regret people are experiencing that others were offended. They just want people to shut up about it and move on. I appreciate that these public displays of passive aggression in response to accumulated grievances are sometimes amusing and even warranted as a way of getting back at such complaints, but if you didn't want to apologize, it may be better to just not acknowledge it at all than to make an insincere attempt to mollify some people. If you really do want to apologize, then find a way to say it that acknowledges you may have actually been striving to learn and understand the complaints of others rather than stating the mere existence that there are complaints and grievances against some statement or action. Which you apparently either don't care about or understand.

3) "If you don't have something nice to say don't say anything at all" - Almost nobody actually follows this. Our primary form of moral reinforcement as a species is dishing dirt on other people or complaining about other people. This is far, far more common than hearing about something awesome someone else did as an exemplar. We should admit this hypocrisy and instead of telling people what not to do in as far as not saying bad things, we should strive to pay more compliments to balance out our tendency to try to do violence to other people's reputations in the trading of gossip and information on the flaws and peccadilloes of others. (Our own flaws are a different variety of currency).

Addendum point to 3: This also infects superhero movies. Where it is far more common for such movies to tell us "this person is a hero" than to actually attempt to demonstrate it as an example to hold up toward. Batman in some respects may be the exception and GotG also had elements of this. Superman movies have not (at least not for a while). The most "heroic" character was typically Jor-El, and not Superman. One reason for this is that movies that involve self-sacrifice, or acts of devotion to and protection of others, probably won't involve as many explosions. Science fiction movies have struggled with this also since probably Empire Strikes Back and some of the earlier Star Trek films (since the Borg, it's been lackluster there too). What's typically portrayed instead of acts of heroism is acts of recklessness that because of the deus ex machina and plot armor effects, are pulled off. Showing exemplars in media is apparently very hard to do, and I would bet this is because we don't spend very much of our time and energy talking about and holding up exemplary behavior in others.

4) "Some of my best friends are.." First. They're not some of your best friends. Everyone knows that in most cases except the person saying it who is holding them up as a token talisman that somehow excuses something else (using another person to protect yourself is not typically viewed an act of friendship). Second, it's irrelevant as the topic is typically either some nonsensical statement Person A has made that doesn't involve or impact their "good friend" Person B or the topic is some variety of public policy position which is informed not by a random sampling of people potentially impacted by the policy but by Person B style friends who have become so by not saying anything inoffensive to which you would disagree (in your presence). Most of us do not select diverse grouping of friends so that we can say "some of my best friends are". We select actually fairly homogeneous groups of friends who affirm our pre-existing beliefs rather than challenge them. What happens when we befriend people who are often of different and distinct beliefs and views is we may adopt portions of their views or moderate some of our own more extreme views (this is typical of people who suddenly realize they have an atheist or gay friend). Most people do not however set out to meet people for the purpose of having a set of friends that includes "person from stereotypical group B", and "person from stereotypical group X, which is very different from our group C", this is an accident of our lives and is not a defence of having said anything about any other group of people.

5) "Police have a difficult job, etc". This might be partially true in the same way the "support the troops" mantra has a grain of truth to it, but there are several problems with it. First it obscures that one of the reasons police have a "difficult job" is that current laws are often expansive, covering a great deal of human activity, and as such allow a great deal of leeway for police to detain and arrest people, where if laws were not as expansive police would have less latitude in who they arrest and detain. But police also have a great deal of discretion not to arrest and detain people by that same token and are therefore choosing to arrest and detain people, or choosing which people they wish to arrest and detain and which they will ignore. Some of that exercise in prejudice will be fueled by actual biases and animus toward others. Second some of the same laws should protect police already if they do things which are appropriate in the context of their duties. Self-defence law for instance should allow for an officer to have killed someone in certain contexts, which are mostly the same contexts that would permit any ordinary citizen to do so. Police are also often further insulated by law and by contracts and training in the language of the law from penalties for making inappropriate arrests or a variety of citizen complaints about their work on top of the disturbing lack of penalties for acts of violence and brutality. Third police themselves have made their jobs much harder by accommodating some of the poor incentives to enforce some laws (vice crimes and a variety of discretionary crimes that typically issue fines) by tending to come off as an occupying force in many neighbourhoods and towns across the country in the methods and tactics they use to enforce the law. "Good officers" deserve little public sympathy if they typically try to not only protect these other officers for indecent behaviors but reward it.

Garner

Honestly at this point I don't care if half the country gets burned to the ground and we have to start over. Nobody seems inclined to take seriously suggestions of how we get from here to there, where there is somewhere a decent people should want to go.

The Brown-Wilson case was mishandled at crucial points but there's little chance that would have gone to a conviction. The end result would have been the same; Wilson resigning. That entire case basically turns on what witnesses you believe or don't believe concerning what happened after Brown had moved away from the car and those last several shots being justified or not. All of which is enough for reasonable doubt in a court room. Of course, whether police usually receive reasonable doubt from juries when normal citizens often do not could be discussed at that point. How all of it was handled from there was an outrage, but that's a different sort of outrage than the actual death itself (leaving the body in the street for hours, running over memorials to the deceased, mistreatment of protesters and media in the aftermath, total lack of communication between protesters and security forces, deployment of military equipment for which police were not trained for use against a non-military grade threat to officer safety, PR battles which often had limited value, calling anyone who opposed police action "thugs" or furthering a "pro-thug" agenda, with all the attending racial-loaded implications of that language in the modern era, etc).

This case.... there was all kinds of evidence involved however. Police procedures were not followed. The arrest had no such import as a prospective assault/robbery suspect (however unjustified killing such a suspect was, the criminal acts for which the deceased were being accosted were miles apart in the importance of effecting arrests). The man clearly had medical issues induced from police action, and still they persisted. Heads should have rolled. Excuses piled up instead and nothing happens. The Crawford case was in the same boat, and one expects that the Rice case in Cleveland will fall under the same hand at this point.

This has to stop, but it won't.

The only way that happens, the only way we can begin to examine this corpse of our society and its presentation of justice and what may ultimately destroy us, is if we start to acknowledge we have a police problem. We have an institutional problem with the way we police, and how we look the other way when violence is meted out to those we deem unworthy of basic decent legal and moral protection. And the main reason we have such people upon which to permit, if not demand, such institutional violence is we have a race problem. Still.

It isn't just a race problem. Poverty, the drug war, media coverage of crime and criminal justice, military-grade hardware distributed like candy to police forces large and small, and the expansion of police powers and broad and vague legal codes all contribute. And it isn't just a police problem; a media climate of fear is perpetuating the feeling of a society under attack from what are largely mythical criminal acts and as a result the general public carries many of the same biases and prejudices in private and public encounters with people who do not look like us. Many of these situations would not have happened at all if someone with suspicion formed (primarily) on the basis of skin colour did not call the authorities to alert them of something that could have been handled with a simple question or conversation at the scene. The animus doesn't require the police. The fault is not in any stars. It is from ourselves.

When we put these problems together though, the explosives are made more deadly and more corrosive to the nature required of us in forming a functional and prosperous society. Where all people feel reasonably safe in their homes and neighbourhoods not just from criminals, but from the authorities as well. Where all people feel that the provision of law is not a means or tool for oppression of basic dignity, but rather a weapon for preventing that oppression of dignity. These should be our aspirations in crafting the laws, and the methods of enforcing and arbitrating violations of laws. We may never perfect the methods and means of obtaining these lofty goals. But we should at least act like we care that these are our preferences. Or we should admit that they are not our aspirations at all.

When we have one law for those who enforce and craft laws, and another set of laws for others, we cannot present a place for basic dignity. We enable those who would hide behind their position to inflict injustice where they should be in the service of justice. We can have room in our society for difficult decisions, for actions taken in self-defence or in defence of others, and we have legal codes which allow for this. Nor should we want police officers to fear for their safety anymore than we should ourselves live in fear. But this impunity before the law must end.

A few narrow points

The conclusions don't necessarily create the idea that conservatives have figured out how to address the concerns of women (or single mothers in particular). But there were a few morsels of ideas and concessions in here (of course, Frum isn't widely considered a conservative by other conservatives). 

"the pro-life movement really does seem to have changed American minds about the morality of abortion. Only about one-fifth of Americans wish to see abortion outlawed—a proportion that has remained steady since the mid-1970s. But the proportion that thinks abortion is wrong has edged up over the past 15 years: Only 38 percent of Americans now describe abortion as “morally acceptable.”"

- This trend explains much of the strategy behind most abortion restrictions as if most people seem to think what is being done is wrong, but aren't willing to ban it outright, the restrictions will sound like sensible methods of "getting people to think again" while ignoring the actual impact of the restrictions. It's also why I think that if Roe were ever overturned, pro-lifers are screwed as they have to defend the idea that not only is it "wrong", but it should be illegal. A prospect which is not a clear line for crafting jurisprudence, as evidenced by our fraught history waging the drug war, or Prohibition before that, among other examples. It seems even less likely to lend itself to clear jurisprudence where metaphysical assessments of the origins and meaning of human life are concerned, and these become intertwined in a variety of scientific or natural phenomenon (such as miscarriages).

The major problem with the trend is that it does two things.

1) Confuses the population's terminology and labels. "Pro-life" is more broadly interpreted than "someone who wants to ban abortion". "Pro-choice" is mostly becoming limited to people who don't want to describe themselves as "pro-life". The popularity of both labels gives the basic impression that the ardent pro-life position, or the ardent pro-choice position, are more popular than they really are. The vast majority of people are instead in a fuzzy zone and have few strong opinions other than that "it seems wrong", or something to that effect (the famous Clinton formulation of "safe and legal but rare"). Neither position should have much dominance if popular will is sufficient to argue the legal merits of abortion (I do not believe it should, and possibly even pro-life persons would agree with me on that point when they recognize that they do not stand before the majority).

2) In truth, both labels are functionally meaningless. By acknowledging that neither position does hold sway, we should be able to acknowledge properly that most other people are not in some carefully thought out and fervently advocated position on this issue and will hold neither "pro-life" or "pro-choice" politics as a result. If most people seem on simple reflection to agree that we should have fewer abortions because they are "wrong", then the actual disagreement is over what methods would best produce that outcome of fewer abortions, and not so much over the labels we use to argue to that result.

Frum's piece points out, without actually refuting, the standard pro-choice liberal narratives. Access to birth control and various restrictions on abortion account for example for why Europeans have fewer abortions than Americans (often much fewer), or for why the teen pregnancy rate has been falling as a source of decreased demand.

In addition, regardless of whether these factors decrease abortions significantly or not they may have positive effects on these concerns about the "traditional family", such as by allowing women (or potential husbands brought on by "shotgun weddings") to attend college or university and get a degree or decent job instead of attempting to raise a child on a lower-income education and salary. And increased use of birth control has beneficial effects within families, as indicated large numbers of abortions are to women who already have children, indicating unplanned or undesirable pregnancies possibly from inadequate birth control or lack of use, or by decreasing the spread of sexually transmitted disease. We might say those are positive externalities brought on by the use and accessibility of both birth control and to a lesser extent abortion.

Frum's basic argument seems to be that the problem is that in the narrow focus on abortion, social conservatives have confused away the arguments for marriage (and in a related story, also did so by trying to argue against same-sex marriage, and have mostly lost or conceded that fight). In theory such an argument does not actively offend anything. It seems unnecessary in theory to press an active social case for women to be married, whether to men or women, in order to raise children versus the legal and political arguments. In practice there may be merits to it as the "marriage" crisis, such as it is, is largely a problem of the lower socio-economic class who either do not get married or may marry younger and get divorced sooner, and is also less likely to use birth control (but not abortion), and as a result, creates a significant population of mostly poorer and poorly educated single mothers. The upper-socio-economic class gets married later, typically after educations and careers are well-in-hand, and tends to not have children prior to that point. We are also likely to see these as cyclical effects for single-parent homes to produce children who receive poorer educations and thus poorer economic opportunities (among other possible difficulties in childhood).

Having diagnosed this as a potential social ill worthy of attention however, Frum's solutions are more to fret over how we may encourage marriage or to experiment with incentive structures rather than regard the economic and educational choices of people within these single-parenting problems as problems worthy of solution in their own right prior to advancing the agenda of "get more people married" as a second order problem that may help resolve these struggles but which may be considerably more difficult without addressing these structural problems underlying the decisions not to marry for many. These problems can be innumerated thusly:

1) Social welfare safety nets often scale poorly, providing bad incentives to improve the economic state at the marginal position of poverty. Foremost among these with a poor structure is typically state subsidies for day care. Food stamps typically phase out more smoothly. Housing and childhood assistance does not. This can impact household structure by limiting the total household size. This can have the effect of preventing marriages because the marginal assistance from the state declines much more than the amount of additional income provided from a second parent, or failing that, it can have the effect of preventing one or both parents from working at various points during a year to avoid a loss of subsidies.

2) Time management in parenting is a tremendous problem with the attending demands of raising small people into adults. This was previously resolved by two-parent households where one parent (almost always the mother) stayed home to handle most of the home and parenting duties. This is neither as straightforward an option as it was in the 1950s imagination land of conservatives (because often women may have better educational or employment options than the fathers of children), nor something that is always possible even in two parent households today (requiring both incomes for sustainable lifestyles). The solutions here are fairly well known; access to day care (many ways to achieve this), access to flexible scheduling in more occupations (so that parents can take time to deal with home concerns), and some variety of parental or family leave time (whether paid for by employers or the government). With other possible assistance measures like moving back the start of the school day added in for good measure.

3) Because of poor time management flexibility, attaining an education or license for a better occupation can itself be a considerable stretch of this valuable resource (time). We have attempted to resolve this by subsidizing college education costs, but this typically has resulted in ballooning education costs and more student loans rather than more practical outcomes; like well-trained professional skills accruing to graduates. Additionally, since the focal problem is dealing with under-educated poorer people with limited time, such a focus on providing access to college educations is ridiculous as a solution. Most such people, whether from ignorance or time constraints, will not succeed in obtaining a degree no matter how much money is thrown at the problem (within reason). The fix for that requires addressing disparities in K-12 education, not in trying to repair the damage much later, after the fact.

Instead of this focus on college education, fewer jobs or professions should require occupational licenses, along with any accompanying educational requirements, from the state. If they do require licensing from an employer, or there is a potential market benefit to advertise having achieved special training in the craft or art involved, that should be a separate matter. But with the state providing a clear hurdle to entry of various professions, this prevents many people from starting competing or side businesses that they could in fact do things like time management (by largely working from home for example) or to use the profits to fund an education for themselves or their children.

Fallout. New Tactics.

So. That was fun. A few buildings burned. A couple of cop cars. And not much was resolved or changed.

Here's what I think we know in the Brown-Wilson case.

There was some form of altercation. This resulted in Brown's death (eventually).
Wilson's story has some corroboration here there there was a form of disturbance.

Stuff that remains undetermined:
I think the causes of that disturbance are less clear. It's possible Wilson's account is accurate. I remain dubious largely because Wilson's account relies heavily on his subjective interpretations rather than other witnesses. Some of the details are not as clearly corroborated or seem outright wrong (for instance, how and why Brown turned around, the "reaching for his waistband", and the distances involved from Wilson's car). Some of those are fishy narratives that are often used by police in describing a violent episode involving deadly force. Whether they actually happened in all cases they are used to me is an unfounded assumption. To me this narrative is mostly superfluous. The crucial question isn't so much whether there was a scuffle and a shot or two fired at Brown, possibly hitting him. But whether Wilson's second batch of shots at Brown was justified after Brown retreated. Wilson uses a rather dehumanizing and scary account of dealing with an impending assault and firing at an onrushing attacker, and it is certainly possible that many elements of that account are true to the best of his knowledge. There appeared to be more conflicting accounts however over that set of details. I think it very likely that such conflicting accounts would make it virtually impossible for him to be convicted of anything. But I do think that there may be some open questions over the justification for those shots, in particular the fatal shots to the head. Or to the training involved that lead to it if nothing else.

Things that don't make sense in his narrative:

The tie-ins to the robbery suspect story feel like they were tacked in to make a revision to his story and add some form of justification. But. If an officer felt he was approaching or saw someone who might be a suspect in a robbery/assault, it seems strange that he might merely ask such a person to get out of the street and walk on the sidewalk. That entire set of facts he presented centering around a package of cigarillos feels tacked on as a result. That there was some kind of disturbance and scuffle ought to be enough that there might be a justification for force. If Brown's assaulting someone (and an officer of the law at that), that should be plenty without adding in anything else (like "this man was a wanted criminal, for basically petty theft, maybe assault). And indeed, whether or not he was involved in such an incident still does not justify being shot at by police. The justification for that turns on whether or not the scuffle provoked a considerable fear.

Things that also happened as a result of the grand jury.

Lots of people (mostly white people) complain about rioting. I agree it does not help the cause of justice here, or reform. I agree it isn't justified. I don't see why it was a surprise. Most people expected both the lack of an indictment and the possibility of riots as a result. Police spent most of the time leading up to the result talking up the level of preparations. And then didn't seem all that prepared when violence broke out, like they were surprised in particular where violence broke out (nearby where Brown was shot and where there was some violence before during the summer) rather than where people and many police were assembled (near the courthouse and police station).

Prosecutor spends a lot of his air time complaining about the media and social media narratives. I'd say that given that a lot of both of their use of narratives haven't done much to establish something about this particular case, and have done a great deal (but not nearly as much as they could have) to show the lack of merits in militarized police forces putting down protests with disproportionate force to the level of threat, or to cover the methods of police oppression used on a daily basis in communities like and including Ferguson, Missouri (largely through the collection of petty fines and warrants, asset forfeiture seizures, occasional violence against citizens, etc), that complaining about those things would be perhaps something he feels compelled to do, but has little ground on which to stand. As it is his office that helps run through the system of abuse through fines and criminal justice which isn't properly adjudicated (eg, with appropriate defense counsel), and is likely deliberate.

Complaining about media narratives framing and prejudging the case, perhaps is a more sensible complaint. I paid much less attention to details about the actual shooting because I was aware that was more like a matchstick than the kindling on which things might burn and that details would be scarce. Also it was pretty clear from the prosecutor's demeanor, history, and close ties to the police that there would be any prosecution anyway, and what leaks of information came out ahead of time only suggested it would remain unlikely and would almost certainly fail to provide a guilty verdict even if the case proceeded to trial.

The crucial elements were that there are deep-seated reasons why these communities do not trust the authorities to handle cases of police shootings fairly, believe those shootings to be unjustified, or otherwise are more skeptical than are the people observing from the safe confines of American suburbia (where encounters with police are rare outside of speeding tickets for teens and college students, or the occasional break-in being investigated). Policing is experienced very differently based on skin colour alone, much less the cultural and socio-economic gaps between poorer communities and upper middle class neighbourhoods. This is evident when looking at polling suggesting many are seeing these events as isolated and the apparent mystery experienced by the general public in associating why there might still be riots or protests months later. When the problems are systemic to the way the community is policed and how both police and the community see one another.

Police seem to have made a hobby of developing excuses for deaths that do not require them to examine their training and use of force methods. This is one of the reasons these kinds of stories continue to persist. Some police forces have dealt with very questionable shootings by officers by dismissing officers, or pressing charges (in one bizarre case in Connecticut, officers wanted to press charges against another officer for a beating in a "resisting arrest" case, but the DA refused. The officer was at least fired).

There was a lot of attention paid to whether there were drugs in Brown's blood stream. (Well after the John Crawford shooting in Ohio, this also came up there). Marijuana on its own from observing people who use it does not strike me as heavily correlated with erratic and aggressive behavior of the sort police or 911 callers, etc, are claiming in these cases. Maybe poor judgment. But it seems a bit of a stretch to claim that this was drug addled crazy behavior when the drug in question doesn't tend to cause such behavior. If they were claiming these men were stone cold drunk, yes. I could see that. Stoned, not so much.

So where do we try to go from here. I would propose several things

1) For the St Louis area in particular (and there are other metropolitan areas with similar problems, Atlanta, Detroit, or even San Francisco/Oakland would be examples), we may want to look at consolidating some of the tiny legal jurisdictions that have cropped up as city populations have expanded and sprawled outward. These are often carved out deliberately for race related reasons and result in a lack of a sustainable tax base to support the level of civic government required (because too many people are poor and jobs are scarce). Instead, the town's government will levy considerable fines and minor legal fees upon an impoverished community. It may even account for planned increases in those fines in year-to-year budgeting. Suggesting that the fines are arbitrary rather than necessary quality of life and safety legal structures. We may not be able to abolish this variety of policing entirely, but avoiding the problem of unsustainable local governance by eliminating or at least reducing the level of civic separations in an area may be of use.

2) Continue to work to abolish the war on drugs. At this point the number one thing that can be done to improve civic relations between minorities and the police is to reduce the amount of contact and the amount of invasive police tactics that are being used. A huge portion of that comes back to the penalties (arrests, felony convictions, loss of economic and legal rights making re-integration difficult) and incentives for police (asset seizures, frequent arrests for stat games) involved in the war on drugs. The flow of militarized equipment into local police departments, of the sort used in putting down demonstrations, is also closely tied to this ridiculous project of trying to use the law and police to deal with medical problems (for some, addiction or overdose) or to avoid dealing with medical problems for others (mental health ailments being self-medicated with drugs or alcohol in a non-addictive way). A violent crime, such as assault or murder or arson or rape, should attract a significant bulk of our police attention and resources. Followed by varieties of property crime (theft, fraud, etc). We are expending inordinate amounts of attention and resources for policing what are effectively consensual acts (vice crimes, like the trade and use of narcotics). If people are getting high and going off to commit acts of violence, that is still worthy of our time and attention. But far more people are getting drunk and doing so. We do not or should not say that this is not worth our time and attention simply because the drug of choice was legally sanctioned.

3) Continue to reduce or reform the penalties for many non-violent crimes. If we can't get rid of the laws, we should at least reduce the amount of harm that punishment for a petty crime does.

4) Try to channel public anger in these directions. Talk about the harm that is done when police become an oppositional and occupational force in a community, and try to have more communities actually deploy community policing, where cops walk beats (getting out of the squad car), know the communities in which they work and are known in them, talk with leaders and representatives, and respond to complaints rather than feel like an invading army. With the appropriate funding for that rather than the funding for "community policing", where police departments have gathered large amounts of military hardware (without much training but plenty of intent to use it) and have strong incentives to make arrests rather than investigate crimes. There are communities and police departments that behave in this way. Even in areas with violence, poverty, or minority populations. The outcome of friction between police and the community should not simply be angry and violent demonstrations or police deploying in SWAT gear and firing off tear gas or pepper spraying peaceful demonstrators. Both sides have reasonable demands (both want crime to go down in a community for example and by association, their lives to be easier and safer). What we're mostly arguing over is what works to actually accommodate those demands. It is not, generally speaking, what police are doing.

To take a separate example. In Utah over the past half-decade the largest cause of homicide is the police. They're technically in a rough tie with a domestic dispute leading to death, but the ordinary things driving crime elsewhere like gangs are almost non-existent as a cause of violence by comparison. There are two ways to approach that fact of life. One might be that this might mean that the public is quite safe and there are few murders, which may indicate the police are doing an effective job helping do so. In the entire state there were just over 300 in a 5 year period. There were at least that many every year in Chicago alone in that same time frame. But another way to look at is that the public could be even more safe if the police weren't busy killing some of them. Police shooting of citizens caused 45 of those deaths. There's a middle point in there somewhere where there are perhaps some cases where police have to kill someone to protect the community, but that the use of force is a last resort and rarely if ever used and rarely if ever needed versus other methods of policing (de-escalation for instance).

Corollary to controversy

There's a flipside of course to how atheists, secularists, scientists and science educators should proceed on the question of how to teach evolution to a population of creationists.

How creationists should interact when confronted or how they carry and present themselves is equally important to a civil discourse than how others push back against them.

As a hint. Having your beliefs criticized or questioned is not censorship or oppression. 

Don't react as though you are being silenced when a ton of people come into a social media forum and say "eh, no, that's wrong/stupid". That may or may not be an appropriate way to try to reach someone who is factually wrong about what the facts actually are, but it also isn't the same thing as being oppressed for your beliefs. You stood up and said something. Other people disagreed with it and decided to stand up and say something back. Criticism is how we (Americans at least) avoid the need for censorship, by making our ideas fight in the open for supremacy and social dominion rather than pressing them into the darker corners and demanding they stay hidden away. Some of our ideas are bad or inconsistent with available evidence, and those ideas will find many people ready to push back upon them. Each of us tends to have some of these wrongful beliefs and ideas in what we think of as carefully crafted assumptions core to our being and gets defensive when they are pushed back upon.

That doesn't mean that being pushed back upon is the same thing as being censored.

The entire reason this topic of evolution came up again in my radar is a famous former baseball pitcher (Curt Schilling) and now baseball analyst decided, unwisely, to use his twitter feed to try to debate evolutionary theory, as I guess one does when one doesn't think very much about what they will say on social media forums and expects that it will be a good forum for changing people's minds. Toward the end of this digression, he decided to make a parting shot that supposedly if say, Muslims, had brought it up, they wouldn't be attacked for it because we're all liberals who just hate Christians. This proceeds from a false assumption that somehow these other religions are okay or correct on these issues because they're not Christianity. Atheists, who are mostly liberal in their politics, actually spend a lot of time running down Islam, Judeo-Christianity, and even Buddhism, on creationist beliefs and other issues. There just aren't very many non-Christians in America that the attacks aren't very pressing and aren't seen very often by the majority dominant Christian seeking to claim persecution for his beliefs. There aren't very many Muslims running around in the US trying to say that god created the Earth in 7 days, or that the Earth is only 10000 years old or some other such absurdity, not because there aren't Muslims who believe such things, but because there aren't very many American Muslims. There are very many Christians doing so, in part because there are very many American Christians. So it is they who get pushed back upon. That has nothing to do with whether the underlying beliefs are more sheltered or presented because these other people hold religions that supposedly aren't as annoying to secularists. They do. Sometimes more so. But on that topic, they don't. Because there aren't many people to talk to and ask around these parts.

What was more amazing in raising this statement was that Schilling was not censored by anyone for attempting to bring up something that many people think is wrong (even if many people agree with him on some levels). In fact he wasn't even censured by his employer. He was still busily posting vaguely racist right wing interpretations of the impending problems in Ferguson, Missouri concerning a criminal justice matter over the weekend. But guess who was censured? His co-worker, Keith Law, who began posting counter-tweets and arguments to Schilling and others as the argument swirled around for the evening and into the next day. ESPN has claimed this was not the basis for a suspension from twitter but did not offer any counter-narrative explanation that there can be another interpretation that one can follow as plausible. Law posts fairly often about all manner of topics, as one does when one is actively using social media and was silent about the basis for the suspension himself when posting on other forums. What that leaves is an atmosphere where ESPN appears to have punished someone because they defended scientific theories publicly and not punished someone who expressed religious beliefs that apparently demand they doubt those theories publicly, but who also expressed the position that he was being punished for expressing those beliefs. When his opponent was the only one who was.

Something is deeply wrong with that impression that we have a society that concludes, very commonly, that its dominant population group by religious affiliation is somehow living in a systematically oppressed world. And quite simply: "you people" need to shut the fuck up about oppression on that point. Being told you are wrong about something is disagreement. It is unpleasant, yes. The fact that someone can disagree with you, and others may rush to defend that person, is not the same as being in a position of persecution and oppressiveness. People sometimes should disagree or attempt to in a more civil manner (this of course, goes both ways), or learn to try to have constructive debates where their core and essential beliefs and priors are more easily examined by casual and interested observers. But that we disagree, and that we sometimes disagree vehemently over positions as diametrically opposed as basic worldviews, is a consequence of living in a pluralistic and liberal democratic state of the sort that the basic rights of the US Constitution grant to the individuals to practice and the state to protect. It is not at all the same as living in a society that say, demands state fealty to a religion, or a lack of one, and punishes with criminal and civil penalties even including the death of those who refuse to comply. Nor is the same to claim this is the variety of persecution when one is told that because they work in a public position (a teacher for example) they cannot use that position to advance their religious beliefs upon others. They are still welcome to do this privately. They just can't do it in their official capacity. And quite simply it is absurd to claim that someone is being held accountable and persecuted for their beliefs if they aren't punished but someone who defends a position which appears contrary to those beliefs is punished. Atheists are much more likely to encounter public discrimination and censure than any Christian sect. They're much more likely to be fired or dismissed, or not hired or held up for a promotion on that basis. There are nearly zero elected officials with an open expression of atheism in the country at any level of government. And so on. I do not know Mr Law's religious views or lack thereof, and won't presume to speak for them, but he expressed a pro-science view, with the same level of politeness and openness to inquiry (if not more so) than his interlocutors. He was the one punished. So yeah. Shut the fuck up about being stepped on and persecuted. I see shades of this in the Gamergate and shirtgate backlashes, where threats are issued toward people for expressing an opinion, and it is this group issuing threats toward other people proclaiming that it is the oppressed. Both groups claim oppression, but if one side issues direct threats of physical violence as a means of depressing the turnout of their opposition, I'm inclined to say that's the side committing the oppression. I didn't see any threats issued here. But I did see discipline hammers fall down on people. They were not the people Mr Schilling assumes are likely to be punished (eg, himself).

There are reasonable presentations of religious persecution or oppression of religious belief. I am for instance more sympathetic to an argument that using the legal system to require privately owned businesses to provide certain wedding or marriage related services (usually for homosexual couples) seems a stretch. That does not mean that I wouldn't consider that behavior a form of bigotry or at least discrimination or that I would not consider encouraging boycotting such businesses to use social coercion rather than legal sanctions to overcome the practice or drive that any business practice like this out of the industry. But I'm not certain that the government needs to step in in these ways if we have an environment that is increasingly open and welcoming to homosexual couples for marriage and equal protection of the rights granted by marriage contract laws and that there may be competitors who will be happy to serve such couples and take their business. It is in this general realm of social coercion that I think people should be pushing back against wrongful or harmful beliefs perpetuated by some religious people, such as creationism or anti-homosexual views. People should criticize. They should argue. They should debate, persuade, cajole, annoy, organize, and persist. If this atmosphere of debate reaches a point where people do not feel they can air these views publicly, for fear of the social ostracization and consequences of holding and airing unpopular views, that still is not oppression. That may or may not reflect an unpleasant atmosphere for productive and constructive debate, where the best defenses of these now unpopular ideas are not being made or sought out. But it also may reflect that those ideas are held in social disdain for very good reasons. And that people who want to hold to them should have to confront those very good reasons and try to resolve whether or why they want to continue holding these unpopular views. Maybe they will come up with better arguments in response. Chances are they will not (Mr Schilling presented nothing that hasn't been a standard creationist or ID argument for decades for his part). In the case of religion, even it evolves in what it accepts and proclaims to its followers and interested observers, one could readily find and hear arguments made either for or against slavery from the perspective of religion. One rarely sees a direct claim that slavery is morally acceptable today. Similarly various religions or their derivations have adopted ways to incorporate scientific discoveries and interpretations like the orbits of planets, the big bang theory, and evolution without much conflict and violence done to the scientific consensus on these issues.

As a final point to all of this. One of the most annoying processes of public debate and discourse is the shifting goalpost method of argument. As an example. People demand evidence for X. Other people subsequently present evidence for X. Evidence of X now becomes a non-important factor to be dismissed (even though it was just requested), or the source of evidence comes under dispute. Almost no one is reacting by saying "huh, I didn't know that, I will now investigate what you have presented to me". Schilling did this several times (transitional fossils, "problems" with the fossil record, etc) before tossing off people attempting to present him this evidence as people attempting to persecute Christians.

Evolutionary theory is one of the arenas of social discourse for which there is abundant evidence because the biological field of scientific inquiry includes hard empirical sciences with lots of data points from which to draw reliable conclusions (genetics for example). On other matters, say, economic theories regarding minimum wage law, there is much less hard empirical data and a lot of speculative conclusions. Sometimes none of those may be shown as correct in a predictable and testable way. For these subjects, arguments regarding sources of data can be more valid concerns over ideological bias. One would expect that political matters could often inspire difficult and nonconstructive debates as a result as people retreat to the corners of expertise for which their priors hold to their stated outcomes and beliefs. For public concerns over science, this is less useful. Scientists can be individually biased, and many fields, particularly in difficult to research matters like social sciences or medicine can have complicated problems with the manner of research and verification or replication of results. Skepticism can be a useful tool in digging through results that do not smell right to us for that very reason. Lots of pharmaceutical studies are flawed because they are produced or paid for by the companies attempting to market a new drug, for example, and the results were cherry picked to make the drug look more effective or to have a broad array of possible benefits, and so on. Skepticism of that variety is very useful. But that skepticism neither requires us to go in the direction that creationists insist nor does it automatically mean that data is false because it conflicts with their priors. Even if they were able to disprove evolutionary theory or some other cosmological theory, this creationist explanation does not stand on its own merits as a central truth that should replace it, if one is being openly skeptical and examining the merits of each idea. Even standing within metaphysics and dismissing empirical observations altogether, what of some other religious faith's interpretation of the story of creation? Why is this one the one? It isn't, there isn't anyway to demonstrate that. It just is the one that you want it to be because it affirms many other things you would also like to believe about yourself, your identity, and the world and how you interact with it.

This may all be a fascinating argument in an introductory level course on comparative religions or something amusing to contemplate as one studies Greek mythology as a child, but it isn't a constructive way to talk about science and debate its merits. I would agree it doesn't seem very constructive to try to bludgeon Christians over the head with data, as that's been going on for decades. Or that there are institutional problems with the way science is being conducted, or that there aren't very many conservatives in some fields of study which may offer distinct perspectives, such as in moral psychology, and so on. But if Christian creationists aren't willing to observe what scientific study and the field is doing or what it has produced as evidence in support of its conclusions then why even bother having the argument? One possible interpretation for this is to not bother to engage or dignify this position with debate. If "they" want to go believe that, whatever. Our concern would be this large body of people who aren't sure what to believe. And maybe look at why that is and what we can offer. People tend to demand rigid uncertainties. Science doesn't tend to offer rigid uncertainties. But it can offer quite a lot in the way of taking some uncertainties and finding ways to make them predictable, testable, and empirical, taking the misunderstood or unknown and making it understood and known as best we are able.

Having a flashlight in a dark room doesn't always illuminate the whole room. But it makes it a lot easier to see than fumbling around in the dark.

How to teach to "controversy"?

"Hill found that 58 percent of respondents said this topic is only "somewhat, not very, or not at all important" to them. People who held creationist views were the most emphatic about their beliefs; 64 percent of that group said they care about being "right," presumably in the metaphysical sense of rightness. " 

I tend not to worry very much about whether generally the population accepts evolutionary theory on its own, excepting as it is a harbinger for otherwise poor quality scientific backgrounds. It does not have very much to do with almost anyone's daily lives. Antibiotic resistance and viral mutations would be the average person's limit of visible experience for which they are having adverse effects (by not getting vaccines for their children and by overusing antibiotics for viral infections for which they have no impact or farmers using them prolifically on animals we consume). These are fields for which the limited education of the average person on germ theory and the types and causes of illness, or even just the ability to critically examine ailments and their causes in others (eg, people get colds not because it is cold, but because they stay inside more often with other people when it is cold), is probably a bigger concern than evolutionary theory. Meanwhile the average person is not likely to work in a biochemistry lab or a genetic engineering research firm or as a naturalist studying animals and animal behavior or biodiversity. The specific influence upon their lives is pretty small as a result and so it is not something I worry a great deal about in particular.

What is concerning on this subject is that my "opposites", the creationists, seem to care an awful lot about it, much more than the much smaller cohort of people who are, like me, atheistic and accepting of evolutionary theory. And then this was also a concern: "An estimated 28 percent teach evolutionary biology according to the recommendations of the National Research Council; the rest don't advocate either view" Science teachers apparently don't care very much about whether the general population learns about science either. It's one thing if I don't care, because I have no children and little interest in teaching such creatures. But if the teachers at large don't care (or are afraid to, a plausible explanation in many cases), that's a deeper concern. If there's a large percentage of people who care a great deal, but who disagree with established scientific concerns, there needs to be a way to raise it for everyone else, the people who are unsure or don't care very much one way or the other or who otherwise want their children to learn the proper scientific ways of thinking and analysis as part of their upbringing and education.

Some thoughts

1) Let the most adamant creationist people go and teach what they want through home schooling (they're often already doing this).

2) Let the most adamant creationists set up their own private institutions to send their own children, with the possible result, if this is a significant problem that people do not learn adequate science in primary education, that they could risk being shut out of certain professional fields as adults (unless they address this later on by attending colleges that aren't conservative Christian in nature).

This is also already happening. I often think it may be acceptable to let them use tax credits to fund the institutions simply because #3 below looks so bad as a long-term prospect to me. We've had decades since Scopes and the needles haven't moved very much in the general population, and I think there's not very good reasons to think this will change in the near term for sure. My general thinking for #1 and #2 is that creationists aren't very easy to argue with logically, so they're better off not impacting everyone else as much or not being as concerned about everyone else because they've segregated their children off. I think it likely that if they are left alone to do their thing, there's a possible gain in them generally leaving everyone else's kids alone and we can focus on educating those children instead.

As a hopeful note, I don't know that this self-segregated education style has a lasting effect that the creationist might hope for. It's very possible that their children may not care as much about their religious identity as they do (often for other unrelated reasons) and this may allow for openings of doubt in any factual basis behind creationist mythology.

3) Continue the curriculum and courtroom fights and leaving teachers and school administrations to fight it out with parents who don't pursue those two above options out of inertia or marginal interest. I'm not very enthusiastic about this as a result because school boards are often democratically selected. As we should see from the link, not only are there a ton of creationists in America; roughly four times as many as the atheistic population which is largely on its own fighting back as the theistic evolutionist is not very concerned about the issue one way or the other, for reasons that should be obvious. They're also much more motivated about the issue. Meaning they will go vote for school boards that advance creationist views as much as they can get away with and they will win those elections in most states, with adverse effects upon the overall quality of education available to everyone. Not just what is available to creationists and not just impacting upon science curriculum and evolution in particular.

The optimistic view is that religious dogma on other issues, such as birth control or homosexuality, is driving away many young people from organised religion as young people have broken from their elders and parents on these questions, and they may also break on this question once broken away on others. This suggests that in 20-30 years time, fewer people may care a great deal about this as a question of evolutionary theory in education. I'm not sure this is a good calculated risk given what creationists or millennial revisionists can do to science and history education in the meantime. That damage is still considerable.

4) A different approach would be to let students try to bash each other's heads in by debating or bringing up these issues. I don't think this is an effective method of teaching "controversial" issues until perhaps high school and my preference would be that it be in the form of a comparative religion or philosophy course. Creationism is not science and doesn't belong in a biology class.

5) Address the question of meaning. Teleology has a long use as part of religious doctrine for providing people easy answers (if I think badly misleading ones) about the nature of the universe and one's purpose in it. As the poll should also show, there's a large cohort of people who are theistic but accept evolutionary theory or place their deity as having a specific involvement. To explain this view (or one possible interpretation of that view). Let's say god created evolution as a biological process, and upon its long and winding paths, came a result of the creation of man. This purported god was pleased by that development and endowed human beings with some special significance (often the "soul"). Or something to that effect. That's an opening for which acceptance of scientific conclusions about the nature of existence has walked through Christian theology for centuries ("god did it, and this is how", or other similar interpretations). Evolution for whatever reason is not typically pushed in the door this way and in fact is presented precisely as the vehicle for atheism that many anti-science creationists fear it to be. That may have to change tactics.

I don't think that's going to provide a very satisfying answer for meaning and purpose at all to address the question of "meaning" for which many people reject evolutionary theory to present it in the "god did it this way" variety of explanation. But apparently a lot of people do. I see this example of "meaning" frequently used in movies with an alternative to gods in the form of super-advanced aliens seeding humanity into the genetic code of the planet and sometimes teaching humans basic skills of agriculture or warfare, or in some cases various "advanced" technologies (a position which makes even less sense than the soul concept advanced by Catholics given that there's actually very strong observable evidence against it, while the soul is a metaphysical concept devoid of evidence or empirical debate). This path provides some presentation of meaning that is to me just as hollow and useless as those provided by religious scripture and organised religions. But given the popularity of the plot points, it is not surprising that the problem of meaning dominates the need to cling to creationist myths, whether science fiction-based or religious, to avoid the difficulty of addressing personal or species level meaning. I sympathize that those are difficult questions for which simple and emotionally driven responses may provide comfort and ease (but not actually answering the question). I don't think the average person wants to contemplate these issues very deeply, or at least very often, in favor of actually living their lives.

Which is probably why many people are fairly blah about whether evolution is a thing.

To put a quick flip on this science fiction-y thinking. There's also been a strain in Star Trek type shows that the future will be better tomorrow because there won't be religions because presumably the aliens we would encounter won't have them either or will find our myths absurd and have their own better ones or some such. While I find the humanist ethos running through Star Trek amusing and sometimes appealing (and sometimes not so much, since it glosses over economics on the basis of "we have matter replicators"), there doesn't seem to me to be a basis point for saying that human beings on discovering other sentient beings from other worlds would suddenly and inevitably accept that this means that there is no god and their religious beliefs are pointless. What it might (optimistically) suggest to many people is that evolutionary theory is generally correct. But that acceptance of theoretical knowledge already doesn't come into conflict with the questions of purpose and meaning that most people are using religious beliefs and practices, and the affirmation of congregations of like-minded others, to try to wrestle with. Those questions aren't going to be diminished by the discovery of and communication with other beings.

Series of social-cultural things

Upon which I have comments.

1) Serial. I am rather annoyed that most people seem to either think this has a firm conclusion or are annoyed that it seems like the interviewer running the podcast seems to have a firm conclusion/bias in mind.

What is actually happening on the podcast is we are seeing what the criminal justice system can look like. We are seeing that eyeball witnesses often aren't very reliable, but people and police think they are anyway. We are seeing that resources for defense teams to investigate a case and otherwise effective defense counsel are hard to come by. We are seeing that juries tend to be very deferential to police and prosecutors. We are seeing that police don't follow every lead, but that even when they don't, that can be considered "good" police work. We are seeing that once the justice system has concluded guilt, it will be very hard to un-conclude it (usually one has to prove someone else's guilt).

None of that establishes that Adnan is innocent of the murder he was convicted of many years ago. Some of it probably could have established reasonable doubt in a jury trial, which is a different question. Whether someone should be convicted of a crime based on available evidence is distinct from whether this person is guilty or probably did it. Which may be the most important manifestation from the broadcasts is that the system we use, despite our fervent belief to the contrary, doesn't always work the way the airy words we described and imbued it with in our popular narratives of crime and its foes.

2) Shirt-gate. And gamer-gate for that matter.

Seeing what seem like fairly tepid complaints like "hey why's that scientist/engineer wearing that shirt with all the half naked women on it?" or "hey, why's every woman in an average video game look like a porn star?" These aren't that disturbing of issues taken on their own, but they're part of a general problem relating to sexism in society. Probably more disturbing than the shirt itself was the Kardashian shot heard round the world that eclipsed the news we landed a probe on a comet hundreds of millions of miles away.

The shirt is more about the general biases and prejudices experienced by women in science fields or wanting to go into them than the shirt itself. Presumably if men are comfortable enough going to work wearing shirts with erotically depicted female characters on them, then they may be comfortable enough with other sexist or misogynist forms of expression.

Games, I think we're stuck with "attractive" forms to a degree in video games and pop culture media (music, art, photography, movies/TV, print ads, etc). I can see that it can be toned down. The burning question mark is not just the physiques and physical depictions, but also the development of characters within the mediums. One of the simpler tests for film character arcs has been "are there two women as characters who manage to have a conversation not about a man in it". Video games in some sense have an advantage already simply because any female characters involved are often extremely powerful at destroying demons or zombies or Nazis or whatever else the game's foe is (not always, but this comes up enough, and enough games allow for a female protagonist or party member, etc, that one would think it would have an influence on the thinking of women as capable, independent, or something along those lines).

Each of these are themselves problematic, worthy of input as to the varieties of offenses that come up. But what's really disturbing isn't these things as cultural notes themselves. It's that people reacted to anyone bringing them up as though the act of pointing it out or taking any offense to it, requires not merely an argument, but a denigration of the women (it's usually women pointing these out) who are involved in making these points or a defense of men and the apparent demanded and inherited right to ogle or sexualize women as a variety of free speech. This actually isn't under attack that I can tell. I suppose there are people who don't want these movies, T-shirts, or video games to be made and distributed. But the initial reaction wasn't that. It's calling attention to the type of character traits one possesses when one does present as a person wishing to ogle women or sexualize them as characters or "artistic" presentations and whether these are desirable traits for men to possess. The fact that this is reacted to with an often out-sized level of scorn or annoyance then makes itself into a more clear example that it probably is not a set of desirable traits.

For men to try to understand this. Ogling women isn't going away. I find women attractive. I enjoy that about humanity that there are other persons who are attractive to me, and thus find speaking in the company of women I find attractive, spending time around such persons, and so on, engaging and energizing (such as I find spending time around almost any persons engaging and energizing). What I also find though is that women will tend to make for more interesting company when this is not the central attribute of any form of relationship with them. In the same way that if one is a heterosexual male, the attractiveness of your male co-workers, companions, and friends is generally not a major concern (at least this is my experience).

If that's the only attribute of a relationship is that one party spends a lot of time being looked at for looking good, it's going to be really boring or frustrating for one or both parties fairly quickly, and it will also quickly be learned that this is all one wants to contribute to any form of relationship is to look upon another person because they're deemed attractive. One has to spend an often considerable portion of the time recognizing and exercising those other qualities of interaction with other human beings than superficial appearances and one should find that that time is enjoyable. It can be frivolous, rude, polite, funny, intellectual, whatever. But if all anyone sees when they look at another person is a good view, and nothing else, that's more a potentially disturbing character trait about you than a suggestion that more people should provide those good views for you in the form of popular media presentations. And that if these demands as expressed through the exercise of design of games or T-Shirts marketed to people like you are offensive to others, that actually should not be surprising, shocking, or alarming to discover that other people find this a character defect. Beauty and the admiration of it as a concept seen in others isn't going away, and isn't even likely to be challenged as a human evolution. But it's a more complicated venue to navigate and appreciate properly than demanding nude photos of every woman who shows up in an online forum or multiplayer video game as it appears some men are wont to do from the reactions and abrasive attitudes that have taken up arms in the wake of these fairly modest complaints.

If one really wants to see and experience beauty, it doesn't appear by issuing forward to the world the opinion that you deserve it from others, you will have to contribute to it first at a minimum. Or more pragmatically, the idea that beauty as a commodity one appreciates and seeks to find also includes the women who one finds beautiful as a commodity that one can effectively buy or sell as well through those demands isn't a pathway to find oneself suddenly appreciated as an enlightened and kind being. It forms rather very different impressions in the minds of others instead.

I suppose it should not be surprising that people would react with vitriol to discover that other people think them pigs or sexist or even someone that actively hates women. That would be a rather unpleasant discovery to be made aware of (for most of us). The really curious part is how one intends to define away these undesirable traits by demonstrating them against anyone who points them out.

3) I've entertained some conversations with other secularists, agnostics, and atheists over the years. I find I have a set of policy disagreements or disaffection with some issue or other that aren't always shared. I don't hold that against these "fellow-travelers" and continue to argue for whatever it is I'd prefer and sometimes shrug at whatever it is they might prefer (and sometimes not, as above). I rather expect from years of holding sometimes radical views that other people don't agree with me for any number of reasons. What is not always abundantly clear is why.

What I'm finding in spending more time around or among other atheists as a group of other individuals is that they are sometimes angry. Christians sometimes think or say this is because they're angry at god. They're not. They're angry with you (Christians, since this is America and most of you are of that flock). For what you put them through or for what you still put them through. Entertaining as those diversions on policy are, there are actual people suffering for the upbringing they experienced, the isolation of it, and the lack of options presented, the lack of pragmatic experiences to draw upon. I did not experience these things because of faith or lack thereof or organized religion and my lack of interest in it (I still experienced them but for very different reasons). I did not experience the isolation from family in the way that I could never see them or wouldn't hear from them. Or did not experience a loss of friendships because I changed my belief structure (I may have from becoming somewhat more expressive of my ideas, but my underlying "beliefs" haven't changed very much in decades).

Something I've long thought about religion is that it operates principally with the need for social reinforcement. It evolved in large part as a way to keep a social unit cohesive as it became larger and more unwieldy to operate without chaos and it performs this role very well in fact. "Belief" and beliefs that people hold are largely enforced through the shared affirmation of a social unit (family, church, friends, etc) and not because there are any effective and good reasons for those beliefs to be regarded as truthful and honest interpretations of the world around us. One of the usual selling points people may use is to claim that X number or X% of others agree with them about their preferred method of deity worship. Sometimes, perhaps often, this number or percentage is erroneous anyway, but the idea that this should be persuasive is not a statement that they are holding true and correct beliefs apportioned to evidence. What it is is a statement of social conformity and social penetration. It is saying that we have a strong and cohesive social unit and wouldn't you like to be a part of it?

The flip side to this conformity is rarely appreciated by someone like me though. Because I never had to leave it behind. I've always been a bit of a non-conformist or non-conventional thinker. In part I've developed an instinctive discomfort with people who let me fit in too easily and without disagreements, so belonging to a "strong" group doesn't appeal to me anyway. The flip side for others is that when one rejects those beliefs, and the associated community and its rituals and practices, that community often rejects you for doing so. It does not neatly help people transition to a new set of beliefs or a new worldview in ease and comfort with former relations and associates. Not only does it not assist (which one assumes it shouldn't have to), it often kicks such people to the curb and announces they are horrible people to everyone involved as a means of speeding along that departure. For someone like me, being rejected by people I don't agree with on a fundamental question of worldview and any associated practices isn't inherently annoying or isolating. But I didn't have to agree with them or pretend to for some portion of my lifetime. One assumes this method of penalty is primarily there as a means of discouragement. People inside the bubble may see that the exit is an anguishing affliction of suffering and despair by being deliberately separated from the social networks of support one builds up through a lifetime of shared associations and they decide that their doubts can be a little quieter. Because the US offers easy access to a smorgasbord of religious devotions and their assorted beliefs however (even for those wishing to stay within the rubric of "Christendom"), this method is of diminishing return and effectiveness upon the litany of people who might wish to transition out. What it does not do and not offer in that transition is an easy way out. The exit strategy still sucks. It still inflicts damage for many.

I have some sympathy for that. I'm not sure how one gets from there to "religions should all be abolished", and then operating as though that is a plausible social goal. But I am sure why many people of a variety of atheist thought might be angry at the religions, other adherents, and their institutions.

More on the advance by nickels and dimes

I've often had some strange opinions. Or what must seem like strange opinions to most people.

So. This one is kind of out there too. I don't think the problem for pro-choice people is defending Roe v Wade in the Supreme Court. That's not going to be overturned for one. And if it ever is, the problem is then on pro-life voters to defend a minority position in almost every state (the complete ban of abortion) by making that their intended legal framework. My thought has long been that if Roe were ever overturned, the pro-life movement shrivels and dies because it can't win that way and Roe is a rallying cry that it doesn't get any other way. 

The real problem has been, especially over the last few years, a system of nickel and diming the effective options of what it means for pro-choice to be actually exercised. To restrict; primarily with tedious, invasive, expensive, and mostly unnecessary legal frameworks to run a clinic conducting abortions and to obtain access to it from within a state (waiting periods, ultrasounds, descriptions, parental notification, restrictions on IUDs, etc). Most of that is controversial and well-known to be useless and arbitrary rather than meaningful restraints among pro-choice advocates, but such advocates are also not very common (ardent pro-life voters are roughly as common). Most people are squishy and uncomfortable with the topic and without much contemplation will feel these are reasonable restraints. Even though they're not useful to protect anyone except to waste more time or money for those who want or need access.

But it's also starting to punish. And this is more where it gets scary and strange. 

"Based on the belief that he had an obligation to give a fetus a chance for life, a judge in Washington, D.C., ordered a critically ill 27-year-old woman who was 26 weeks pregnant to undergo a cesarean section, which he understood might kill her. Neither the woman nor her baby survived."

"documenting 413 arrests or equivalent actions depriving pregnant women of their physical liberty during the 32 years between 1973, when Roe v. Wade was decided, and 2005. In a majority of these cases, women who had no intention of ending a pregnancy went to term and gave birth to a healthy baby. This includes the many cases where the pregnant woman was alleged to have used some amount of alcohol or a criminalized drug. 

Since 2005, we have identified an additional 380 cases, with more arrests occurring every week." [Bold mine]

This is in combination with cases like that in Texas earlier in the year where the state was attempting to keep a pregnant but brain-dead woman "alive" long enough to deliver a baby against the family's wishes and before the legal statutes required it (which is grotesque and macabe enough that there are legal statutes requiring it rather than allowing families to decide this). 

The problem with these legal changes isn't just that it presents these arbitrary distinctions over the access of women to abortion. It's that it now potentially criminalizes basic medical decisions, places judges in positions of authority over the health risks or even the lack of life rather than doctors and patients making these decisions, and in some cases, criminalizes terrible things happening to women naturally. Miscarriages. Which are much more abundant than people realize. Or severe health problems placing both her and a probably very much wanted pregnancy at risk. These demands and realities are placed at odds with legal codes that are not as accommodating. Even if women are eventually cleared of any "wrong-doing" and even if one agrees with the fundamental "personhood" legal basis behind many anti-abortion legal codes, that we should be demanding the intrusion of the state onto personal liberties of women who have suffered a considerable loss, or been through considerable trauma and risk to their own lives suggests that we have accorded the state far too much power over this. And far too much power primarily for the purpose of punishment rather than power for the purpose of protecting the life and safety of citizens. 

As a corollary to all of this. I'm still extremely baffled by the Democrats election strategy being premised largely on fear based positions relating to abortion politics. As noted above, there is not actually a grand divide of people for whom this is a single-issue vote that they will always turn out to vote for or against. There are some people for whom this is an issue, but there were not many. The electorate seemed mostly concerned about their economic prospects, with maybe IR (ISIS) and other assorted issues mixed in. And what's more, this has never actually been a "women's issue" in the sense that it motivates women to vote uniformly or as a bloc of voters. It is a women's issue in the sense that it is women getting abortions or in need of them; men obviously don't need them as we can't have one. It is not a women's issue in the sense that there are more women in favor of abortion (men are usually slightly higher in support in polls, especially later term) and that thus running such ads or campaigns based upon the (legitimately) terrible things Republicans could do in office on these issues would turn out women FOR Democrats. It doesn't break that way. It was just as likely to either: 
a) get women to go vote FOR Republicans, because there are numerous women who actually favor such policies and want to see them enacted. Women break evenly here rather than "for" choice (although most women still have a "abortion for me and not for thee" style convention to this "choice").

b) get women annoyed at the men in these campaigns for thinking this is the only issue on which they are concerned and annoyed enough to stay home and not vote or annoyed enough to vote for the other guy. 

That was a textbook stupid campaign in other words.