Atlas Shrugged: Part I (Part II)

In Part I of my now II-part series about Atlas Shrugged: Part I,^[I] I made a few predictions, just for the hell of it. It's been out for VI days now, so let's see how I did. Oh, and out of appreciation for the filmmakers' decision to use Roman numerals for no good reason, so will I.

Libertarians will love it. Conservatives will like it, but some will complain that the film implicitly promotes atheism.

No surprise here, though most of the positive reviews are too distracted by Ayn Rand's apparent prescience regarding today's political climate to offer an objective (so to speak) evaluation of the movie itself. From Big Hollywood:

Though taken from a book written a half-century ago and set in the year MMXVI, the movie is eerily similar to the world today, bearing a particular resemblance to the United States and the societal and economic depreciation of states like California, where manufacturing industries have collapsed, economic liberty and entrepreneurialism are eroding, and productive members of society seem to be rapidly disappearing, or rather, run out of business by bureaucratic red tape and unreasonable regulations.
…
Not only is the film a winner for holding firm to Randian philosophy, it also brazenly and refreshingly brings a political perspective that is almost universally absent from the big screen…

But it's not all positive. According to Kurt Loder—yes, that Kurt Loder—of the reliably libertarian Reason.com:

Sitting through this picture is like watching early rehearsals of a stage play that's clearly doomed.

The movie is especially disappointing because Rand's MCMLVII book, while centrally concerned with ethical philosophy (and inevitably quite talky), has a juicy plot that, in more capable hands, might have made a sensational film.

As for the film's handling of religion, there's apparently not much to talk about. Even Movieguide, "the family guide to movies and entertainment", commends Atlas Shrugged for its lack of "Christian bashing". Still, Movieguide identifies XV or so examples of potentially objectionable content, ranging from "a foggy moral and philosophical confusion about eleemosynary or philanthropic individual charity" to "a low-cut dress".

Everyone else will find it dull and a little preachy, but not terrible.

From my favorite site for movie reviews, the A.V. Club:

This is the major problem with Atlas Shrugged: Part I, the first of a proposed III-part adaptation of Ayn Rand's MCMLVII novel: Its ideas are squandered by aesthetics. Given the novel's centrality to the Tea Party movement, which has made "going Galt" its call to arms, the film is curiously sterile and lifeless, hardly the stuff of revolution.

Roger Ebert was similarly unimpressed, calling it "the most anticlimactic non-event since Geraldo Rivera broke into Al Capone's vault." And Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote a II-word review that simply read "Shit Sandwich."^[II]

So I was mostly right. Everyone else found it dull, a little preachy, and terrible.

I predict a Metacritic score of LX.

Not even close. As of April XX, it has a Metacritic score of XXVII.

I also predict Sean Hannity will blame every perceived slight—up to and including Atlas Shrugged's inevitable failure to win the Academy Award for Best Picture—on liberals. And maybe immigrants.

Not yet, but I'm not worried. We've still got IX months until the nominees are announced.

I. Honestly, like LXXXVII% of the reason I wrote this article was as an excuse to use the "Part I (Part II)" title. And the other XIII% was to mess around with Roman numerals, which are delightfully pretentious.

II. Not really, but wouldn't that have been great? Here's what he actually said:

Ayn Rand's monumental MCLXVIII-page, MCMLVII novel gets the low-budget, no-talent treatment and sits there flapping on screen like a bludgeoned seal. It's the first in a planned trilogy of films. Let's hope the other II parts are quickly aborted.

Who Watches the Watchdog?

Note: This article is also my first post at Critical Thinking Applied, a group blog to which I'll be contributing from time to time. Its mission is "to show how critical thinking can be applied in a manner that enables polite, civil, and reasoned discourse on [social and political] issues," which, I promise, is a lot more exciting than it sounds—especially considering the ideological diversity of the contributors. In the future, I'll (usually) post only at one site or the other, but in this case a little cross-promotion seems appropriate to mark the occasion.

If I were asked to illustrate what's wrong with American political discourse in 60 seconds or less,^[1] I'd probably talk about Media Matters and NewsBusters. They're the two best-known media watchdog groups in the country (in my estimation, by which I mean I did a Google search for "media watchdog" and they were the first two non-Wikipedia results), and both are founded on the absurd proposition that media bias is a one-sided problem. From their respective "about" pages (emphasis mine):

Launched in May 2004, Media Matters for America put in place, for the first time, the means to systematically monitor a cross section of print, broadcast, cable, radio, and Internet media outlets for conservative misinformation — news or commentary that is not accurate, reliable, or credible and that forwards the conservative agenda — every day, in real time.

In August of 2005, with the assistance of Matthew Sheffield of Dialog New Media, the [Media Research Center] launched the NewsBusters blog to provide immediate exposure of liberal media bias, insightful analysis, constructive criticism and timely corrections to news media reporting.

Both organizations are capable of—and frequently produce—meaningful, insightful analysis, but I'm increasingly convinced that whatever legitimate media watch-doggery they accomplish has more to do with basic probability than anything else. When your strategy for rooting out bias and misinformation is essentially to "expose" everything that appears to favor a particular side, you'll probably get one right every so often. It'd be hard not to.

But there's also going to be stuff like this, from a recent NewsBusters article (emphasis theirs):

In an argument which would make his ex-NPR colleagues proud, Juan Williams took to Fox News Sunday to push for tax hikes to reduce the deficit. Scolding Brit Hume, an exasperated Williams contended: "You're going on as if, 'you know what, we don't know in America how to help our own deficit problems.' We do. We just have to tax people."

Moments before, in assessing Republican Congressman Paul Ryan's expected plan on how to slow budget growth, Williams insisted "tax increases should not be off the table," chastising Ryan for, during an interview with Chris Wallace earlier on the show, rejecting a tax increase: "I don't know why it is that he somehow suggests the rich in the country have no obligation to support the country."

To recap, Juan Williams, a commentator known for having liberal views, appeared on a Fox News program and expressed a liberal view (which, by the way, he does on a regular basis, because he works for Fox News), and that view was immediately shot down. This might be the least convincing evidence of liberal media bias I've ever seen. In fact, given how Williams barely had a chance to defend his idea against its detractors, I'm a little surprised the same clip didn't show up on Media Matters as a sign of conservative bias.

While NewsBusters posts a ton of medium-length articles that assert conclusions based on flimsy (but rarely indefensible) logic and insufficient (but rarely nonexistent) evidence, Media Matters' content is something of a mix of lengthy, well-researched (albeit one-sided) analysis, and shorter pieces highlighting the various screwy things airing on talk radio and Fox News throughout the day. One recent post celebrating the end of Glenn Beck's TV show was simply a three-minute compilation of out-of-context clips of Beck saying and doing crazy things.^[2] Another alerted readers to Beck's cryptic warnings about the upcoming "summer of rage." How is that bias? Or misinformation? Is it even information to begin with?^[3]

I don't know, maybe I'm being too harsh—in principle, I'm all in favor of private organizations working to keep the news media honest—but I'm not convinced NewsBusters and Media Matters don't contribute more to the problem than the solution. Both claim to be committed to honesty and accuracy, but only on their terms, which is inherently unworkable. Even worse, they relentlessly promote the "you can trust us, but you can't trust them" mentality. They treat opposing media outlets—including each other—as if their default settings are dishonesty and misinformation, and in the process create an unsettling paradox, because they can't both be wrong.

Any thoughts?

1. Of course, the only scenario I can think of where the "describe something absurdly complicated in a minute or less" hypothetical isn't unrealistic is during a political debate, which, in and of itself, is also a pretty good illustration of what's wrong with American political discourse.

2. Would Beck's antics seem materially less crazy within the proper context? I doubt it, but that almost makes the lack of context worse.

3. Alas, I was unable (through moderate-but-not-extensive effort) to find a better example of what irritates me about Media Matters. I suppose it's to their credit that when they add commentary it's usually pretty good, but the problem is that much of what they "expose" is more in the realm of silliness than misinformation. They may not add commentary when that's the case, but merely posting the clip encourages the inference that it's representative of conservative-leaning media in general, rather than an outlier.

Sarah Palin vs. The Lamestream Media

Exciting news from America's favorite two-thirds-term governor:

I've given this a lot of thought, and I'd like to share my thoughts on the never-ending issue of media bias.

Finally!

Too often the first instinct is to ignore blatant media bias, crudeness, and outright lies, and just hope the media instigator will grow up and provide fairer coverage if you bite your tongue and not challenge the false reporting of an openly hostile press. But I've never bought into that. That's waving the white flag. I just can't do it because I have too much respect for the importance of a free press as a cornerstone of our democracy, and I have great respect for the men and women in uniform who sacrifice so much to defend that First Amendment right. Media, with freedom comes responsibility.

Sounds good so far. A nice message about the importance of standing your ground and speaking your mind and—wait, what was that about the First Amendment?^[1]

(Give me a minute…)

Yeah, I can't figure it out. In fact, the whole thing's kind of hard to figure out. She's trying to make two unrelated points at the same time—first, that Bill Maher is an ass (which is hard to argue with), and, second, that the news-oriented elements of the media are biased against conservatives, and I guess women too—and the overall result is a bit of a mess. Not that I'm complaining.

Friends, too often conservatives or Republicans in general come across as having the fighting instinct of sheep.

This is my favorite non-basketball-related line, because what? Which Republicans? These are the same people who used a bill to provide healthcare for 9/11 first responders as a bargaining chip, threatening to let it languish and die (so to speak) unless the Democrats gave them what they wanted.

Anyway, Sarah Palin will have you know that this negative stereotype she just made up most certainly does not apply to her.

I was raised to believe that you don't retreat when you're on solid ground; so even though it often seems like I'm armed with just a few stones and a sling against a media giant, I'll use those small resources to do what I can to set the record straight. The truth is always worth fighting for.

The "stones" she's referring to include Facebook (where she has almost 3 million fans), Twitter (where she has almost 500,000 followers (myself included)), two best-selling books (which have combined to sell over 3 million copies in less than two years), a reality show (which drew an average of 3.2 million viewers per episode), and what I assume is an open invitation to appear on any politically-oriented TV or radio show at any time. The "sling" would be Fox News, America's highest-rated news network, and her current employer.

Governor, I'm moderately familiar with King David. I've read about King David on Wikipedia. I like to think King David would've been a friend of mine. Governor, you're no King David.

The media has always been biased. Conservatives – and especially conservative women – have always been held to a different standard and attacked. This is nothing new. Lincoln was mocked and ridiculed. Reagan was called an amiable dunce, a dangerous warmonger, a rightwing fanatic, and the insult list goes on and on. (But somehow Reagan still managed to win two major electoral landslides…)

To the extent that Palin's missive makes any sense to begin with, this is the second-best illustration of why her reasoning is flawed. She claims conservatives are held to a different standard, then cites two (rather dubious,^[2] but that's beside the point) examples of the standard to which conservatives are held, thereby proving exactly nothing. How were their non-conservative opponents treated? (Answer: Similarly.) How did they overcome such overwhelming negative press? (Answer: It probably helped that they also had plenty of positive press.) How is whatever mockery Lincoln endured in any way relevant to contemporary treatment of conservatives? (Answer: It's not. At all.)

The thing is, if she tried hard enough, I'm sure she could make a plausible argument that the media treats conservatives unfairly. But she doesn't do that, I assume because any empirically-observed bias would be, at best, slight, and would therefore undermine her implications that anti-conservative bias is both self-evident and substantial.

Let's just acknowledge that commonsense conservatives must be stronger and work that much harder because of the obvious bias. And let's be encouraged with a sense of poetic justice by knowing that the "mainstream" media isn't mainstream anymore. That's why I call it "lamestream," and the LSM is becoming quite irrelevant, as it is no longer the sole gatekeeper of information.

And this is the best illustration of why her reasoning is flawed. "Let's just acknowledge that commonsense conservatives must be stronger and work that much harder because of the obvious bias," she says, because what are you, some sort of liberal, who lacks the "commonsense" to acknowledge things that are obvious? Naturally, the main propagator of that bias is the "lamestream" media, which, Palin helpfully explains, is so named because "mainstream" is now a misnomer, what with the LSM's increasing irrelevance.

But then, if the mainstream media is no longer mainstream, what is it? And how can an entity that's "becoming quite irrelevant" also be a formidable enemy of conservatives? I mean, honestly. You'd think someone demanding better treatment from the media would try to make her internal contradictions a little harder to find. At the very least, spread it out over multiple paragraphs.

Let's keep pivoting around media bias, and not get distracted with the vulgar personal shots. Even with limited time we can try to call out lies and set the record straight, but always keep the ball moving. No one ever won a game only playing defense.

I have nothing to add to this, except that "Let's keep pivoting around media bias" edges out the sheep thing from earlier for my Favorite Palin Quote of 2011 So Far. While we're at it, let's post up on public-sector unions, and run a pick-and-roll against tax hikes, and execute Phil Jackson's triangle offense to defeat fiscal irresponsibility.

Today, our country is faced with seemingly overwhelming challenges. We have an unsustainable and immoral $14 trillion debt problem which, combined with a self-inflicted energy crisis, could bring America to her knees. The President of the United States is manipulating an energy supply by refusing to develop our U.S. energy resources. Shouldn't that be the media's focus today?

She goes on to suggest a few more things for the media to focus on, like the deficit, unemployment, home foreclosures, the Federal Reserve's recent decision to engage in some quantitative easing, rising gas prices, and our latest messy foreign entanglement.

I'm generally as skeptical as anyone of the media's ability (or willingness) to cover the important stuff, but I'm even more skeptical of Sarah Palin's ability (or willingness) to realistically characterize the extent to which everyone's out to get her, so I conducted a highly unscientific study.^[3] I did some Google News searches, restricted to March 19 through March 24—after Maher's juvenile name-calling and before Palin posted her thoughts on Facebook—and got the following results:

Search Term	Hits
"United States" "national debt"	646
"United States" energy	32,200
"Barack Obama" energy	10,500
"United States" deficit	4,230
"United States" unemployment	5,330
"United States" foreclosures	1,080
"Federal Reserve" "quantitative easing"	1,040
gas price "per gallon"	5,360
"United States" Libya	27,900
"Barack Obama" Libya	26,600
"Sarah Palin" "Bill Maher"	16

HTML Tables

The table proves nothing, except that I've learned how to tinker with column width and text alignment within cells, but I think it does create a rebuttable presumption that the media is not neglecting the real issues to talk about Sarah Palin. The media can and does cover both, and then some, because the media is an expansive, nebulous entity. So expansive and nebulous, in fact, that it should probably be referred to instead as "The Media," with finger quotes and a half-ominous, half-sarcastic tone.

More importantly—and I've touched on this a few times already, but it can't be emphasized enough—Sarah Palin is part of the media. I have a pretty negative opinion of her as a politician, but I do agree that her views are sometimes mischaracterized. Why? Because when she feels her views have been mischaracterized, I hear about it through the media. And when she feels an issue is being neglected, she talks about it through the media. So excuse me if I don't have much sympathy for Sarah Palin here. My sympathies are with the person whose voice is being legitimately suppressed.

Who is that person? I have no idea. That's the point.

1. "First Amendment" is very high on my list of terms that create a rebuttable presumption that the speaker doesn't know what they're talking about. Also on the list: racism, socialism, political correctness, anchor baby, hipster, and rebuttable presumption.

2. I was negative-three years old when Reagan was first elected, and not quite one when he was re-elected, and even I know his opponents were hardly given a free pass by the media. Carter, of course, had spent four years making a mess of everything, and Mondale famously promised to raise taxes, which I'm sure wasn't mischaracterized or blown out of proportion at all.
    As for Lincoln, the only reason he was even mentioned is that he was a Republican 150 damn years ago, when the Republican Party stood for sweeping societal change and federal usurpation of states' rights.

3. Alas, data gleaned from a Google search is far from reliable, considering Google's secrecy regarding their methodology, and the fact that hit counts often behave in seemingly illogical ways (decreasing when the date range is broadened, increasing when the range is narrowed, changing when search terms are reordered, etc.).
    But I'm pretty sure it's still more scientific than Palin's methodology, which is to simply assume there's a perfect overlap between your political agenda and reality.

Sharia Law Comes to Florida

What could possibly be the explanation for this?

"This case," the judge wrote, "will proceed under Ecclesiastical Islamic Law."

[Judge Richard] Nielsen said he will decide in a lawsuit against a local mosque, the Islamic Education Center of Tampa, whether the parties in the litigation properly followed the teachings of the Koran in obtaining an arbitration decision from an Islamic scholar.

It certainly appears, on the surface, to be yet another victory for the forces of radical Islam, which have become quite adept at using the weak and simple-minded to their advantage.

To all of the naysayers on the left who say that Sharia can never come to the U.S., here is the latest example of how it is slowly and stealthily creeping into our judicial system--in this case, courtesy of a foolish, non-Muslim judge (known as a useful idiot in Lenin's days).

But how did this happen? Is the judge blinded by political correctness? Or ignorant of the horrors of Sharia law? Or both?!

Several bills already have developed around the nation, including in Oklahoma, Missouri, Tennessee and Florida, to prevent judges from applying Shariah, which includes penalties such as beheading for leaving Islam, in the government's court systems.

In Oklahoma, voters with a 70-percent majority approved such a ban, but U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange blocked it after the Council on American-Islamic Relations argued the move was "anti-Islam."

The issue also has been the subject of a lawsuit in Michigan, where city officials in Dearborn are accused of allowing Shariah to be used to block Christians from discussing their faith at the city-sponsored Arab Fest. Under Shariah, it is illegal for a Muslim to convert to another faith.

Come to think of it, how do we know the judge is only a passive participant? Maybe he prefers Sharia law. And therefore hates America.

Whether the American people consent or not, multiculturalist elites have decided to ram sharia down our throats, apparently.

Or maybe, just maybe, Richard Nielsen, like the vast majority of judges, knows what he's doing.

People can agree to be ruled by the Wizard of Oz in arbitration if they want to. These people agreed to be ruled by Sharia law… What's happening is that the loser is saying he didn't really agree to arbitration in the first place, and now he wants to get a do-over in front of a judge with Florida law.

This happens all the time and this is why the judge wants to make clear his ruling. In other words, the judge is not sanctioning Islamic law as a basis for absolving disputes here among all people. These were two groups of people that agreed to mediation, arbitration, they wanted to do it under Sharia law, that was their contract, the judge said fine.

That's right. Rush Limbaugh, voice of reason.^[1] I didn't see it coming either.

1. That's not to say that Judge Nielsen made the right decision. I have no idea if it was the right decision, as I haven't seen the disputed contract, heard the arguments made by the opposing sides, or, most importantly, spent more than a decade adjudicating disputes over arbitration agreements. You know who else hasn't done those things? Every reactionary blowhard out there calling for impeachment.

A Deep-Seated Resistance to (Sex) Change

To most conservatives, gender is a fairly binary concept, and to a smaller-but-still-significant number of conservatives, a person's physical sex shouldn't (or can't) ever be changed. And yet, millions around the world claim to be living proof that gender is not binary, and a smaller-but-still-significant number of people make the difficult choice to transition from one physical sex to the other. When conservatives are reminded that transgender and transsexual people do, in fact, exist, the result, all too often, is an abundance of disrespect, nastiness, and scare quotes:

The members of the so-called Transgender/Gender queer taskforce, like most other gay activists, are simply whining emotional misfits who are trying to terrorize decent society under the guise of "tolerance" and "diversity."

—————

It doesn't make us "tolerant" or "compassionate" to pretend that people have something they don't or that they are something they're not. It makes us liars. It's enabling a delusion, and it's very, very silly.

—————

According to most estimates, "transgender" individuals account for less than a fraction of 1 percent of the population. Yet, [Americans for Truth president Peter] LaBarbera said, they have convinced the Obama administration to affirm their position that gender is fluid and changeable. "We should consider what transgender activism is about," he said, "which is essentially recognizing civil rights based on gender confusion." ^[1]

—————

How would you react if your daughter were forced by a school to share showers and toilet rooms with a transgender? I would have raised hell about such sexual insanity – as I will if either of my two granddaughters is ordered into such absolute idiocy.

That's some awful stuff, but it's practically polite compared to—who else?—Moonbattery:

Typical of moonbat thugs who use our deranged, hyper-politicized legal system to club anyone who opposes their agenda, [Lana] Lawless is trying to prevent LPGA from holding any events in California until it knuckles under and allows male perverts who surgically mutilate themselves to perform as women.

The obvious question, then, is where is this coming from? If I were a typical radical, agenda-pushing liberal—you know, the ones conservatives have learned to completely tune out—I'd say conservatives bash transgender people because it's one of the only groups a person can still get away with bashing. Overt racism has been out of bounds for several decades now. Women, Muslims, and the handicapped have started sticking up for themselves. Hell, 21st-century conservatives can't even call a sleazy politician a "faggot" without starting a shitstorm. Insults hurled at transgender people, though? Barely a blip on the Thought Police's radar. Sure, a few people will get upset, but many, many more will gleefully join in, adding their own fuel to the stupid, hateful fire.

I'd also say conservatives bash transgender people because they're too narrow-minded to entertain challenges to their willfully-primitive views on gender and sex. In their world, men are men, women are women, and the still-growing mountain of evidence that men are sometimes women, women are sometimes men, and a lot of people are a little of both is nothing but a liberal plot to force deviant lifestyles on real Americans who just want to be left alone. If conservatives made an effort to understand the lives of people who are different from them, they might start to come around, but they don't want to make that effort—they just want to tell those people to stop being so different.

And finally, I'd be unable to resist saying at least some transgender-bashing is merely a sad reflection of the basher's profound insecurity with their own gender and/or sexuality. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people are out there partying, marching in parades, and just generally having a great time being themselves,^[2] and that bothers the hell out of some conservatives, because they wish it was them. And they hate that about themselves, so they dig in, hoping to bury those thoughts under layer upon layer of hate. It's a coping mechanism that has been employed over and over throughout human history, with an overall success rate of approximately zero (give or take).

But I'm not a typical radical, agenda-pushing liberal—I'm tactful and diplomatic, and I'm willing to give others the benefit of the doubt, rather than assuming the worst, and I'm not even really a liberal. So I won't say those things. Instead, I'll say this: I don't know why conservatives have so much trouble with transgender people. No idea. It's baffling. I do have a few theories, but, in the interest of me not coming across as a typical radical, agenda-pushing liberal, I'm not going to say them, so let's just move on.

In articles about the election, immigration, and an assortment of outrageous nonsense, I shared some thoughts from the Internet's most civility-impaired commenters, the idea being to illustrate that conservatives are more than capable of the same absurd extremism they seem to think is the exclusive domain of liberals (and, you know, to laugh at dumb people being dumb). I'm tempted to do it here, too, but the available material is pretty damn horrible (as it would have to be, to top what's in the actual articles). Transgender issues inspire already-rotten people to strive for—and often achieve—shocking new levels of rottenness.

That said, I do kind of like one of the comments on this story:

I have an 8 year old son and a 10 year old daughter and I can tell you – THEY ARE NOT THE SAME!!!!!!

That's right, somewhere out there one boy and one girl are different, so quit wasting your time, Science! Your services aren't needed here!^[3]

1. Four thoughts about the "less than a fraction of 1 percent" thing. First, the number wouldn't be appreciably less credible if it had been chosen at random (which, really, it might've been). Second, whatever the actual number is, it would undoubtedly be higher if not for scumbags like LaBarbera who devote their lives to making the world as unpleasant as possible for those who are openly transgender. Third, I'm no mathematician, but wouldn't less than a fraction of 1 percent be, at most, zero? And fourth, how, exactly, is "there aren't very many of them" an argument against civil rights?

2. The idea that the GLBT community is mostly a bunch of flamboyant, in-your-face parade-marchers is, of course, a misconception, but good luck explaining that to the average Moonbattery reader.

3. Also, I know it's a longshot, but wouldn't it be great if this person has not zero, but two transgender children? (Answer: No, because those kids would probably have to face their gender issues without the help and support of an understanding family, the difficulty of which I can't even imagine. But still.)

Atlas Shrugged: Part I

On Tax Day, fittingly enough, a nearly 40-year saga will come to something of an end with the release of Part I of the three-part film adaptation of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. I don't especially care,^[1] but Sean Hannity does, and, naturally, he knows what caused the delay:

Hannity: The movie is set to be released next month, something that might never have happened had Hollywood liberals gotten their way.

How can he be so sure? Because shut up, that's how. This is Sean Hannity, who I assume blames liberals when his steak is overcooked.^[2] But then he brought out John Stossel for backup:

Stossel: It was hard to get the movie made.
Hannity: That's what I want to ask you next. Why [was there] a 20-year waiting period from the time that somebody bought the rights to this?
Stossel: Hollywood is liberal. They say, "oh, this is this woman who likes capitalism and selfishness. We don't like her." Still, some people signed on. Brad Pitt was interested, Angelina Jolie was going to play Dagny Taggart, but it just—the studios went, "we're not really into that." Finally, a businessman, John Aglialoro, said "I'll spend $10 million of my own money. I'm going to get this made."

So, the essence of the Hannity-Stossel Theorem is that Hollywood is so single-mindedly devoted to liberalism, they've allowed Atlas Shrugged to languish for four decades, devoting their resources instead to liberal propaganda like Red Dawn, The Passion of the Christ, V for Vendetta, and United 93. Not to mention every disaster movie where Americans save the world (i.e. every disaster movie), every movie where government operatives are sinister and/or incompetent (i.e. every movie with government operatives), and the entire contents of any of the myriad lists of "best conservative movies."^[3]

But I digress. Getting back to Atlas Shrugged, I like how Stossel emphasizes that a "businessman" stepped in, because who, exactly, does he think runs the movie industry? Was it not businessmen and -women who made almost a billion dollars on a crappy CGI-fest Roger Ebert described as "a horrible experience of unbearable length"? And are they not, therefore, by Randian standards, incredibly good at their jobs?

Absent any actual evidence of an anti-objectivist conspiracy—and I haven't seen any—the idea that "Hollywood" would suppress a project for ideological reasons is absurd. In fact, the movie industry is, by all accounts, relentlessly capitalistic. People want to spend their money on formulaic drivel and mediocre sequels, and that's what the people get. Nobody wants to see a three-part adaptation of a lengthy, thematically-dense work of literature from the 1950s.

Oh, right, nevermind.

Still, Atlas Shrugged's potential to appeal to a large audience—which appears to have increased significantly now that America's gone socialist—isn't the only sticking point. There's also the clash between objectivists' notorious refusal to compromise and movie executives' notorious insistence on messing with everything. And I'd bet studios were (rather understandably) reluctant to commit to a three-part series without first knowing if Part I will have any success.

I'm not trying to argue that studios were right to be skeptical, or that I think the movie will fail.^[4] Studios are wrong all the time, and the culprit isn't anti-conservatism or anti-libertarianism—they just aren't immune to bad business decisions.

But why bring capitalism into this?

1. "What the hell?," you're probably thinking. "A libertarian who isn't fanatically devoted to Ayn Rand? You at least like Rush, right?" Um…no comment.

2. He probably also blames immigrants, come to think of it.

3. A lot of surprising movies show up on those lists, but I'm most amused to see Juno, which apparently qualifies because—spoiler alert!—she doesn't have an abortion. Honorable mention goes to 300, which qualifies because it's an allegory for…shit, I don't know. Something to do with America and awesomeness.

4. I think it'll do fine. Libertarians will love it. Conservatives will like it, but some will complain that the film implicitly promotes atheism. Everyone else will find it dull and a little preachy, but not terrible. I predict a Metacritic score of 60. I also predict Sean Hannity will blame every perceived slight—up to and including Atlas Shrugged's inevitable failure to win the Academy Award for Best Picture—on liberals. And maybe immigrants.

Dissenting Opinions

As I'm sure I've said before, it's not conservatism itself that bothers me as much as the perception that, on a given issue, one side is inherently "conservative" and the other is inherently not. Sometimes that's the case, but there's usually more than a little room for debate, and I can't always figure out how conservatives feel justified in clinging to a particular viewpoint so monolithically.

Turns out I'm not the only one. Here's a short list of prominent conservatives who, on at least one issue, break from the herd. And I'm not talking about people considered moderate, like John McCain and his "maverick" nonsense. These are conservatives who went a different direction because the "liberal" view is more compatible with their understanding of conservatism.

Dick Cheney Supports Same-Sex Marriage

I think that freedom means freedom for everyone. As many of you know, one of my daughters is gay and it is something we have lived with for a long time in our family. I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish. Any kind of arrangement they wish.

"Freedom means freedom for everyone." Assuming the "as long as you're not an enemy combatant" caveat is implied, does it get more fundamentally conservative than that? And note that Cheney unambiguously rejects the "same-sex marriage is an affront to our freedom" argument, which is one of the most baffling things conservatives are somehow able to say with a straight (so to speak) face.

Rupert Murdoch Supports Amnesty ^[1]

Our partnership advocates reform that gives a path to citizenship for responsible, law-abiding immigrants who are in the U.S. today without proper authority. It is nonsense to talk of expelling 12 million people. Not only is it impractical, it is cost prohibitive.
…
As an immigrant, I chose to live in America because it is one of the freest and most vibrant nations in the world. And as an immigrant, I feel an obligation to speak up for immigration policies that will keep America the most economically robust, creative and freedom-loving nation in the world.

So, a successful businessman argues that a government policy is patently flawed because it's impractical and it undermines natural economic forces? Sounds awfully conservative to me. Not to mention reasonable.

William F. Buckley Supported Legalization of Marijuana

Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great… And although there is a perfectly respectable case against using marijuana, the penalties imposed on those who reject that case, or who give way to weakness of resolution, are very difficult to defend.

Gay marriage might draw the silliest arguments from defenders of the status quo, but the marijuana debate is a close second. Both appear to be cases where the Urgent Need to Resist Change at All Costs has taken on a life of its own, and thus no longer requires a rational underlying foundation to sustain itself. Buckley was one of few conservatives who recognized not only that resistance to change for no good reason is intellectually dishonest, but that it's a fallacy to which defenders of the status quo are especially susceptible.

Richard Viguerie and Brent Bozell Oppose the Death Penalty

We are among a growing number of conservatives who have questions and reservations about the death penalty, believe it is no longer a necessary form of punishment based on either Lockean or biblical principles, or oppose it outright.

Maybe it's just me, but if I ever found myself advocating an ideology that sees mandatory health insurance as a deplorable abuse of government power, but sees nothing wrong with the government executing people, I'd stop and re-examine things too.

And that's the common thread here, isn't it?^[2] If new information or a new perspective makes a viewpoint seem incompatible with one's ideology, the proper course of action is to re-examine the viewpoint, the ideology, or both—not to simply redefine the ideology to make the viewpoint fit.

1. I say "amnesty" because it's pithier, and because it's the term most who disagree with Murdoch would use. Like virtually anyone accused of supporting "amnesty," what he's really talking about is a set of reforms reasonably calculated to (a) avoid the logistical nightmare of deporting 12 million people, and (b) prevent a similar build-up from happening in the future, which is "amnesty" in the same sense that a plane ticket entitles you to bypass fees, lines, security, and any other hassles between you and your destination.

2. Actually, there's another common thread. Cheney has a gay daughter, Murdoch is an immigrant, Buckley smoked pot, and…ok, I doubt Viguerie or Bozell have ever been executed, but still. It's almost as if personal experience makes the idea that a certain thing threatens to destroy society seem a bit irrational.

Obama Refuses to Defend DOMA; Limbaugh Refuses to Acknowledge Reality

Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder announced the President's decision to stop defending the constitutionality of Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act. Believe it or not, Rush Limbaugh was upset about this. And when he couldn't think of a proper justification for being upset, he decided to make shit up:

It's a law duly passed by the representatives of the people. It has not been challenged at the US Supreme Court. He does not have the authority to declare it unconstitutional. He does not have that power. He does not have the power to say, "I'm not gonna defend it anymore."

Actually, Limbaugh's half-right. He's right that Obama doesn't have the authority to declare DOMA unconstitutional, which might be why Obama didn't try to do that. What he did was declare that he believes DOMA to be unconstitutional—a conclusion that's legally binding on exactly no one.

But Limbaugh also says—and repeats several dozen times—that Obama doesn't have the power to stop defending the law, and I have no idea why he thinks that's the case. As explained in the press release itself, and in more detail here, it was established a long time ago that a President can refuse to defend a statute if he believes no reasonable argument can be made for its constitutionality.^[1]

Essentially Barack Obama has said, "You know what? I'm the Supreme Court! We don't need one anymore. I don't like the Defense of Marriage Act. Neither does my attorney general. Neither do my gay supporters and contributors. So, you know what? We're not gonna defend it anymore. I don't care what the Supreme Court thinks. It doesn't matter. I have decided.

Limbaugh never quite echoes the misconception I've heard from so many others—that on top of refusing to defend DOMA, Obama is also refusing to enforce it—but he's implying it as hard as he can. Back in reality, however, DOMA remains in force, and Obama remains constitutionally bound to enforce it. Only two branches of the government can change that, and neither of them are his.

Barack Obama, ladies and gentlemen, took an oath—not that that means anything—but he took an oath to faithfully execute his duties. And what he's doing in this Defense of Marriage Act is abandoning the defense of the law which means there's no one left to defend it.

Making sure things sound as dire as possible, Limbaugh tells his listeners Obama has essentially destroyed any chance of DOMA being defended in court. Except, wait a minute, who says the Executive Branch has sole authority to defend federal statutes? Sure, traditionally it's been their responsibility, but that's not mandated by the Constitution or anything. And if the President won't defend DOMA, how about, say, the people who drafted, introduced, and voted for it in the first place? Why can't Congress step in?

Oh, it turns out they can. And probably will:

The House leadership likely will introduce a resolution early next week to intervene in the four lawsuits pending against the Defense of Marriage Act, better known as DOMA, the 1996 federal law that defines marriage as between one man and one woman, conservative leaders say.

So, Rush is upset about pretty much nothing.^[2] But at least you can't accuse him of not having any solutions of his own:

People's reaction is the lawlessness. The conservative reaction is, "This is brazenly lawless. Who cares what he has determined he's not gonna defend. It's lawless." There are any number of ways Obama could have done this. He could have, for example, assigned the most inept lawyers in the Justice Department to do these cases when they come up and lose every one of them. He could have done this in a way that nobody would have ever known it. He could have just made sure that this act never amounted to anything by making sure he always lost. In other words, throw the game when they go to court with this case in question.

This is where I start to wonder if I'm being duped. Is he serious with this? Rush adamantly characterizes Obama's actions as "lawlessness," and then endorses an alternative that, in terms of the myriad ethics rules governing lawyers, sounds a lot like actual lawlessness.

Anyway, Limbaugh's normally pretty good at shaping reality to fit his narrative without resorting to blatant falsities (how's that for a backhanded compliment!), but this time he couldn't quite pull it off. The result is a series of unsupportable assertions that still kind of sound true, as long as you avoid hearing any extrinsic details. At worst, it's the tactic of a person who doesn't respect his audience enough to expect to be called out for intellectual dishonesty. At best, it's the tactic of a person who just doesn't care.

1. That's the real question—can a reasonable argument be made that Section 3 of DOMA is constitutional? I'm inclined to say no, for two reasons. First, post-DOMA developments like Lawrence v. Texas have made its constitutionality even more suspect than it already was in 1996. And second, I made up my mind on gay marriage a long time ago and thus can't be trusted to answer the question objectively.
    Regardless, Limbaugh, like most conservative commentators, doesn't even try. I'm sure some are just ignorant of the established standard, but, in Limbaugh's case, I'd guess it's because he (a) can't think of a reasonable argument, and/or (b) doesn't want to bring it up, lest he undermine his premise that Obama is flagrantly overstepping presidential authority.

2. More from the Washington Times article:

At the same time, the administration may have done opponents of same-sex marriage a favor by allowing the House to substitute lawyers who have no conflict about defending the law. Conservatives have complained about the Justice Department's less-than-zealous legal defense.

In other words, it's probably more likely that DOMA will be upheld now that the Obama administration has bowed out. But that doesn't lessen the righteousness of conservatives' indignation, because they care more about the underlying principle of the thing (that is, Obama's perceived abuse of presidential authority) than one issue in particular, right?

On Biased Research and Enlightenment

Last spring, researchers published the results of a study in which 5,000 Americans were asked to choose one of five responses—strongly agree, somewhat agree, strongly disagree, somewhat disagree, or not sure—to the following statements:

1. Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable.
2. Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services.
3. Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago.
4. Rent control leads to housing shortages.
5. A company with the largest market share is a monopoly.
6. Third-world workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited.
7. Free trade leads to unemployment.
8. Minimum wage laws raise unemployment.

Every "correct" answer was taken as a sign of "economic enlightenment," which, I'm sorry, is a ludicrous term, and I'm going to insist on using scare quotes. Even if we go along with the premise that each of these statements is either undeniably true or undeniably false, there's nothing especially enlightened about acing a multiple-choice quiz where three of the five possibilities—including, in all cases, "not sure"—are considered correct.^[1]

The researchers were caught entirely by surprise, I'm sure, to find that respondents who claimed to be conservative or libertarian were more "enlightened" than those who claimed to be liberal or progressive, with moderates, as is their wont, landing somewhere in between. They also found no correlation between attending college and being "enlightened," for which four possible explanations are suggested:

1. The liberal-dominated academic environment makes students "not only unreceptive to economic enlightenment, but actually unfriendly to it."
2. The college experience generally shelters students from economic realities.
3. The college admissions process, with its emphasis on abominable Marxist concepts like community service, is inherently biased in favor of liberals.
4. The "enlightened" are less likely to go to college in the first place, possibly due to concerns about the factors above.

I have no major complaints with the theories (which isn't to say I agree or disagree, just that they do seem logically connected to the data). In fact, for a study clearly designed to reach a pre-determined, ideologically-driven outcome, the authors do a pretty good job of acknowledging the flaws. Among other caveats, right at the top they concede the "asymmetry in sometimes challenging leftist mentalities without ever specifically challenging conservative and libertarian mentalities."

Still, I'd like to posit a hypothesis of my own: People are disinclined to acknowledge the negative aspects of views they support, or the positive aspects of views they oppose.

I say this, in part, because if I had taken the quiz myself I would've gotten seven of eight "correct,"^[2] making me more economically "enlightened" than even the average conservative or libertarian, and more than twice as "enlightened" as the average liberal or progressive. So, great for me, except that I don't know anything about economics. On the comprehensive list of my areas of expertise, economics ranks somewhere above particle physics and below Australian rules football, which I believe is played on a field shaped like an oval.

On the "rent control leads to housing shortages" question, for example, my thought process went something like this: "Rent control restricts natural market forces; natural market forces are generally good—therefore, rent control is bad. Housing shortages are also bad. Is the latter causally related to the former? I don't know, probably." And with that, I patiently await my letter from the Nobel Committee.

———————

Everything above this line was written several months ago. The plan was to illustrate my point by creating a similar quiz where the "correct" answers favored liberal views, but I never got around to it. I should've known if I waited long enough someone would do it for me. Specifically, I'm thinking of that study I ranted about back in January—the one that found Fox News viewers to be "misinformed" by asking questions like this:

• Is it your impression that economists believe the economic stimulus (a) caused job losses, (b) saved or created a few jobs, or (c) saved or created several million jobs?
• Is it your impression that among economists who have estimated the effect of the health reform law on the federal budget deficit over the next ten years, (a) more think it will increase the deficit, (b) more think it will not increase the deficit, or (c) views are evenly divided?
• Do you think that most scientists believe that (a) climate change is occurring, (b) climate change is not occurring, or (c) views are evenly divided?

Asking for the opinions of experts, rather than the respondents themselves, allowed the researchers to plausibly (but not indisputably) say that the questions have objective answers, but this study has exactly the same problem as the other one, with the ideologies reversed.

For both questionnaires, there are two groups of people likely to give the "correct" answers—those who actually know the answers, and those whose thought processes haven't evolved past "MY SIDE RIGHT, OTHER SIDE WRONG." When no attempt is made to distinguish one group from the other, the data probably won't tell us anything we don't already know, and it certainly won't support a conclusion that conservatives are in some way superior to liberals, or vice versa.

Being enlightened, or well-informed, or whatever you want to call it, and being a close-minded ideologue aren't the same thing—in fact, they're diametrically opposed. It really seems like that should go without saying, but apparently it doesn't.

1. That's not to disparage those who answered "not sure." In fact, I'd argue "not sure" is the only truly enlightened answer. In the translated words of Socrates:

And how is not this the most reprehensible ignorance, to think that one knows what one does not know?

2. The exception? Number six: "Third-world workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited."
    Dictionary.com defines "exploit" as (1) to utilize, esp. for profit; (2) to use selfishly for one's own ends. How it can be said that overseas workers are not utilized as part of a larger scheme to generate profit, or that the managers of such a scheme are not motivated at least in part by their own selfish interests (providing for their family, buying a nicer car, funding an army to overthrow the local dictator, etc.), is beyond me. But I guess that's why I'm unenlightened.

Anatomy of an Overreaction

I started this blog, in part, because I have an almost superhuman tolerance for the wild ravings of those farthest-removed from reality, and it wouldn't be fair to the rest of the world if I kept that talent to myself. What I've noticed, though, is that the journey from reality to raving madperson ^[1] is rarely a simple jump from Point A to Point B. It's usually more complex—like a game of "telephone" that always escalates toward the same infuriating conclusion.

Allow me to break it down:

Phase 1: A thing happens.
(I'm tempted to leave it at that, but alright—I'll talk about an actual thing that actually happened.)

Let's say, in a country not unlike America, there's a powerless government agency charged with "improving young lives" and other vague feel-goodery. The agency, in an attempt to get some positive publicity and/or do some good for the world, gives a private group £35,000 (approximately 156,000 newtons) in exchange for a few ideas about how teachers can incorporate gay stuff into their lesson plans during LGBT History Month.^[2]

Phase 2: A legitimate news organization picks up the story.
The report isn't wrong, per se, but it doesn't really promote an accurate understanding of the situation either. Sure, the key mitigating details are there:

The lesson plans, spread across the curriculum, will be offered to all schools, which can choose whether or not to make use of them.

But first you have to get past the exciting, misleading details (including, in this case, the headline):

'Gay lessons' in maths, geography and science
Children are to be taught about homosexuality in maths, geography and science lessons as part of a Government-backed drive to "celebrate the gay community".

Note the use of phrases like "Children are to be taught" and "Government-backed drive." And note the quotation marks around "Gay lessons" and "celebrate the gay community," neither of which are actual quotes from the article. Clearly the idea is to maximize the story's potential scariness (or, conversely, it's awesomeness, but I'm pretty sure The Telegraph is going for scariness). The truth—that schools aren't being forced to do anything they don't want to do, and that nobody's trying to replace basic math instruction with how-to-be-gay tutorials—is in there somewhere, but it's secondary to the sensationalism.

Phase 3: The story reaches the Internet, talk radio, or some other outlet for hyper-partisan commentary.
Imagine you write for a popular politically-oriented blog. You're working on a post about something you read about in, say, a 28-paragraph newspaper article, and, out of respect for the Fair Use doctrine, you want to keep the copying-and-pasting to a minimum. Do you go with (a) the set of excerpts that best conveys what actually happened, or (b) the set of excerpts most likely to reinforce your readers' pre-existing beliefs? And when you add your own commentary, do you (a) acknowledge any aspects of the story that don't support your point, or (b) give an indifferent shrug and press on with your one-sided narrative?

If you're a reasonable human being, you probably answered (a) to at least one of those questions—preferably both. If you answered (b) to both questions, you could probably work for Right Wing News:

The totalitarian moonbattery that holds sway in British public schools has taken the final plunge into absurdity with a curriculum that features gay math, geography, and science. No matter what the subject, kids will be taught to revere the depraved and disease-spreading homosexual lifestyle.

We've lost all references to the fact that the lesson plans are voluntary, and we've gained an apparently-so-obvious-it-goes-without-saying presumption that the consequences will be horrifying. It's a combination designed to inspire exactly one type of reaction:

Phase 4: Outrage!^[3]

Well they won't be able to read, write or perform basic mathematics, but at least they'll look Fabulous while they're slaving away for their new Chinese overlords.

It never ceases to amaze me how such a tiny and insignificant portion of the population can have such a huge influence.

No suprises here. The looney left has always want to set the feet of the young on the wrong path as early as possible. That is why they are trying to impose nonsense on those yet too young to understand.

These are people who, when I started this project, I probably would've written off as close-minded lunatics.^[4] Now…I still write them off as close-minded lunatics, but at least I have a better sense of how their worldview came to be so warped in the first place.

1. A family member recently said he likes to use male-specific terms in gender-neutral contexts because it irritates people who consider it "un-PC," and I realized I do the same thing, but in reverse—I like to go out of my way to use gender-neutral terms because it irritates people who consider it "too PC." I don't know where I'm going with that, but it seems like there's a lesson in there somewhere.

2. Fun fact(s): In the United States, February is Black History Month and October is LGBT History Month, while in the United Kingdom, February is LGBT History Month and October is Black History Month. Haha! What else is backwards over there? Do they drive on driveways and park on parkways?
    Anyway, whether I think the government-funded lesson plans are a good idea is irrelevant, but, for the record, it's a wash. As a libertarian, I can't really get behind public spending that's so clearly non-essential. At the same time, when a government has dozens of agencies that exist for the sole purpose of doing stuff, getting upset every time one of them does stuff is a pretty surefire way to drive yourself crazy. Also, I like the cause.

3. To be fair, some of the comments are a lot better:

Indeed, a month-long and entirely voluntary list of suggestions of curriculum revisions proposed by a group who was hired to develop the month-long and entirely voluntary list of curriculum revisions is a sign of a totalitarian faggot state or whatever it is you're afraid of. I mean, did you even read the article.

Van Helsing strikes me…as a deeply paranoid nut who deliberately seeks out information that he can insert into his frankly terrifying image of the world as it stands. Kind of like that guy who always has new evidence the president is an alien lizard.

Don't know who the moonbat is here, but [Right Wing News] should really consider pulling this diary off the site. It's intellectually embarrassing.

4. Why isn't Van Helsing, the writer of the article (and the lunatic responsible for Moonbattery), lumped in with the Phase 4 lunatics? Because he's a professional lunatic, which makes him a lot less crazy than the lunatics who do it for free.