In depth post on American politics from me

[sabotabby]

The combination of this headline: "Obama may peg Clinton for top post" and this photo:



have put images in my mind. Bad images. Because I am 10.

P.S. If you don't know what that hand gesture is and/or what "pegging" is, please ask a grown-up.

Comments

Re: As an unapologetic remaining fan of the Clinton years

[caprinus.livejournal.com]

Well, if the Canadian government passed a law saying that cars no longer needed to go through any sort of testing before they were put on the market, or legalized drunk driving, or stopped having speed limits, I'd say they were pretty culpable if deaths from traffic collisions increased. Yes, the drunk driver would be responsible too—more than one party can be responsible.

Wait wait, I didn't bring up making the roads worse, but failing to make them better (as in "failing to adjust the sanctions when it became clear Hussein wasn't done playing chicken"). I'm talking about all drivers. Sober drivers cause collisions too. At some point, the government passed laws allowing people to drive cars, yes? Before that, there were no car-related traffic fatalities. The government, by failing to prohibit driving, is responsible for every single car-related death since then, yes or no?

Who do you hold to be primarily responsible for sanction-related deaths in Nicaragua and Gaza?

I'd have to look at the letter of the sanctions and choices available to all parties. Until then, I'll blame God!

[and now I am 10 minutes late for a meeting. Argh! Why must you be interesting on a Friday night? *tries to leave again without hitting refresh*]

Re: As an unapologetic remaining fan of the Clinton years

[sabotabby]

I am always interesting on Friday nights. Go to your meeting; the post will still be here.

Analogy Failure

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

(Perhaps not irredeemable, but does need work)

"At some point, the government passed laws allowing people to drive cars, yes? Before that, there were no car-related traffic fatalities. The government, by failing to prohibit driving, is responsible for every single car-related death since then, yes or no?"

At some point there were roads, for rolling hogsheads of bulk goods to port, or for foot and horse traffic, or even for wheeled carriages and wagons. Some of these roads were owned and maintained by various governments. There were no automobiles.

Then somebody invented mechanically-powered vehicles, and people started wanting to drive cars and motorcycles. And the roads were there, so they wanted to drive on the roads, especially the public roads. I don't know about Canada, but as I understand it in the US, folks just assumed that they could drive cars on public roads, and all the laws that came about after that regarding cars were to institute limits on that -- the government didn't pass a law saying people could drive cars; the government passed a law to settle an argument between people who were already driving cars on roads, and other people using the roads who didn't like the cars. First the laws about having someone walking ahead of the car to warn folks with horses that something scary-to-horses was approaching (I think some of those are still on the books, just not enforced -- I recall one jurisdiction even mandated that if a horse spooked, the motorist had to start disassembling his car until it stopped being scary to the horse). Then came things like speed limits (I don't know whether right-of-way laws for intersections, or driving on the right, were legislated before or after the introduction of the atomobile), and as cars became both more common and more dangerous, laws requiring registration, licensing, etc.. And then design-safety laws for automobile manufacturers and safety inspections for registered vehicles. And, many places, mandatory insurance.

So it was never, "Oh, let's pass a law to allow cars," but rather a series of instances of, "Cars (or arguments between motorists and pedestrians or horsemen) are causing this problem, so what's a reasonable, not too terribly intrusive, way of addressing it with a law?" That's where the difference between "can we make the sanctions policies better?" and "can we make the highways safer?" is: lawmakers didn't introduce cars in the first place, just reacted to them, but sanctions started out as designed and imposed (though yes, themselves in turn being in reaction to what was seen as a "We have to do something!" foreign-policy situation).