I just finished reading Terror and Liberalism by Paul Berman. The primary thesis of this book is that the current wave of Islamist (Berman is careful to distinguish between Islamist and Islamism) extremism and terrorism is a continuation of the anti-liberal movements of last century. Basically, Berman argues that the same instincts that drove Mussolini, Hitler and even Stalin are at the heart of the terrorist Islamist movements. Also interesting is the idea that communism and fascism, opposites on the left-right political map, are actually two tendrils of the same beast. Both are reactions to liberal societies.

Berman also spends considerable time discussing the prominent thinkers of the Islamist movements including Qutb who believed the truly dangerous part of American life was not capitalism but the separation of Church and State. I would love to provide a summary of this section and many others but I doubt I could do the book justice.

I really enjoyed this book and would happily recommend it to anyone interested in the subject.

Below are a few quotes from the book that may be of interest.

Fascism and communism were violent enemies of each other – bitter opposites. But, caught in a certain light, the bitter opposites looked oddly similar. . . . Was it possible that fascism and communism were somehow related? Mightn’t both of those movements have evolved out of some other, deeper, primordial inspiration?”
— Page 22

On the liberal ideals of Europe and North America before the First World War.

It was an insistence on freedom of thought and freedom of action – not on absolute freedom, but on something truer, stronger, and more reliable than absolute freedom, which is relative freedom: a freedom that recognizes the existence of other freedoms, too. Freedom consciously arrived at. Freedom that is chosen, and not just bestowed by God on high.
— Page 38

On the results of World War I.

Every last thing that people in the nineteenth century had believed about human advancement, the conviction that progress was inevitable, the satisfied belief that Western Europe and North America had discovered the royal road to wealth and freedom and that everyone else was bound to follow sooner or later, the grand optimism, the feeling of certainty on behalf of all the world – every brick in that magnificent edifice came tumbling down.
— Page 41

Totalitarian movements always, but always, rise up in rebellion against the liberal values of the West. That is their purpose.
— Page 99

In the totalitarian movements of the twentieth century, everyone has thought about the First World War and its aftermath. For those were the years when the liberal project of the nineteenth century finally went to pieces – the years when the simpleminded principles of rational thought and inevitable progress began to look, in their ingenuousness, grotesque and mendacious. Those were the years, in the immediate aftermath of the world war, when the new mass movements arose for no other purpose than to declare the old liberal project of the nineteenth century a lie – a gigantic deception foisted on mankind in the interest of plunder, devastation, conspiracy, and ruin.
— Page 118

The suicide bombings produced a philosophical crisis among everyone around the world who wanted to believe that a rational logic governs the world – a crisis for everyone whose fundamental beliefs would not be able to acknowledge the existence of pathological mass political movements.
— Page 143

What do the citizens of a proper liberal society feel in their hearts? A passion for solidarity and self-government. What do those citizens do? They devote themselves to those principles, until the last measure, if necessary. Liberalism is a doctrine that, in the name of tolerance, shuns absolutes; but liberalism does not shun every absolute.
— Page 170

The whole purpose of totalitarianism, Schlesinger wrote in 1949, was to combat the “anxiety” that is aroused by the lure of other, better ideas.
— Page 190

On February 1, 2005 the Federal Government of Canada introduced legislation into the house of commons that would make gay marriage legal across the country. Courts in most provinces have already ruled that stopping gay marriages is unconstitutional so it should not be surprising that the federal government has taken this measure. Not only is it the right thing to do, any attempt to make gay marriage illegal would almost certainly be struck down by the supreme court based on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms anyway. Nothing but the lining of lawyers pockets and the wasting of tax payers money would be served by such an attempt.

None of this has stopped the usual bantering and idiotic arguments put forward by the “anti-gay marriage” people.

First of all, I think I am pretty unbiased on this issue. I’m not gay; I don’t know any gay people. No matter how this ends it will not change my day-to-day life one bit. What bothers me about this issue is the abuse of the principles involved and the complete lack of logic.

Most of the quotes below come from a CBC story called Cotler unveils ‘landmark’ same-sex law.

“If you’re going to throw open the definition of marriage so you destroy it in essence, how do you know you can ever draw the line any place? If I want two or three wives and want that considered legal marriage, who are you to tell me I can’t do that?” – Ontario MP Pat O’Brien, May 10, 2003.

This is nothing but fear mongering. Society can, and does, set limits all the time. Did lowering the drinking age from twenty-one to nineteen “throw open” the possibility of further lowering the drinking age to sixteen? Of course not.

“The Conservative party will fight to give a greater voice to Parliament. We will ensure that issues like marriage are decided by Parliament, not the courts.” – Party website.

Great plan. Lets have societies dominant elements decide for everyone else what is OK and what is not. That is a sure way to make sure everyone is treated fairly. Wake up! The Charter was created for exactly this reason. The elected representatives who, in a large part, represent the dominant groups of society cannot be trusted to enact legislation that protects minorities.

. . . no religious officials will be forced to perform marriages that are contrary to their beliefs.
– Justice Minister Irwin Cotler

Vic Toews, the Conservative party’s justice critic, disputed the Liberals‘ insistence that the law protects religious officials from having to perform gay-marriage ceremonies.
He also said there’s no protection for individual Canadians who don’t hold a church office but want the right to refuse to have anything to do with gay marriage.
. . .
Toews cited several examples of people and groups whom the bill wouldn’t protect:

• Civil marriage commissioners in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, who have been told they must perform same-sex ceremonies or lose their jobs.
• . . .

How is this any different than if a civil marriage commissioner refused to marry an inter-racial couple because of his or her beliefs? The answer? It’s not. The idea that an agent of the state should have discretionary privileges is absurd. Why even have laws if the people implementing them have the option to ignore the laws they do not agree with?

That’s why his party [Conservatives] will try to amend the bill, limiting marriage to one man and one woman while offering homosexual couples full rights under some other type of civil union.

Notice the word “full”. At least in this case they have not used the word equal. I always find people who say things like “We believe in equal rights . . . gays can have civil unions with the same privileges as marriage just not marriage proper” hilarious. You either believe in equal rights or you do not. Adding a qualification to any statement about equal rights means that you do not believe in equal rights, period.

“What we are seeing is a consistent pattern,” he said. “Whenever equality rights and religious rights collide, equality rights trump.” — Vic Toews

Again, I am dumbfounded by this person. Of course equality rights trump religion. Think about how absurd it would be if it were the other way around. Which religions views would would society take as ‘right’? What about religions whose views directly contradict each other?

The people fighting against gay marriage need to seriously think through their views. They should think about how the world remembers the active and vocal racists of not so long ago. For this is exactly how the world will remember the anti-gay marriage people in twenty years.

Here is an interesting argument against DRM that is worth reading.

More bad copyright news in this article from the Globe and Mail.

Richard Stallman the man behind the FSF and the GPL has written a short piece on why the term intellectual property should not be used. Personally, I think it shouldn’t be used just because when I see the acronym IP, I think network protocol, not intellectual property.

Despite what the “always bad news first” nightly news programs may make you think murder rates were at a 30 year low in 2003.

• CTV: National homicide rate hits 30-year low in 2003
• CBC: Canadian youth homicide rate rose in 2003

It’s too bad that the CBC decided it was necessary to feature the bad news predominately. CTV also managed to put in their own little bit of fear mongering on the eleven o’clock news.

Michael Geist has written another great piece encouraging balanced copyright reform.

I still find it surprising that the Liberal led Heritage committee is so biased towards the content creators. Content creation groups have apparently out numbered content user groups at these hearings by a wide margin. How can this be right? Surely, there are more people using copyrighted material than there are creators. It’s odd how governments can forget who they actually represent.

I think the biggest obstacle to reasonable discussions on intellectual property issues is that it is very easy to quantify what more restrictive laws will do for the content creators; it’s all money. Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to quantify the loss that is incurred throughout our culture by these same laws. What is the cost of works not entering the public domain? What interesting new industries could be formed by freed content? What is the cost when a school teacher cannot adequately teach her students? These are all next to impossible to quantify.

People like simple things. I believe our governmental representatives are no exception. Perhaps they are just leaning towards what they actually can get a mental grip on.

Valdis Krebs has found a really interesting use of some Amazon book data. Amazon suggests books based on “People who bought this book also bought X”. Valdis uses this information to graph the left and right of the American political spectrum. You can find the graph and some background here.

How can there ever be a productive political debate when the two sides don’t take the time to understand the other sides arguments?

This graph was built with social network mapping software called InFlow. It’s interesting to see computers being used to study the relationships between people.