6.17.2005

Bush Mind Control

For the last few years I thought Andrew Sullivan’s contention that Bush had mind control and used it to drive his adversaries mad was pretty funny, but now I’m beginning to believe it’s true:

Democrats Play House To Rally Against the War
In the Capitol basement yesterday, long-suffering House Democrats took a trip to the land of make-believe.
They pretended a small conference room was the Judiciary Committee hearing room, draping white linens over folding tables to make them look like witness tables and bringing in cardboard name tags and extra flags to make the whole thing look official.
Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) banged a large wooden gavel and got the other lawmakers to call him "Mr. Chairman." He liked that so much that he started calling himself "the chairman" and spouted other chairmanly phrases, such as "unanimous consent" and "without objection so ordered." The dress-up game looked realistic enough on C-SPAN, so two dozen more Democrats came downstairs to play along.
The session was a mock impeachment inquiry over the Iraq war. As luck would have it, all four of the witnesses agreed that President Bush lied to the nation and was guilty of high crimes -- and that a British memo on "fixed" intelligence that surfaced last month was the smoking gun equivalent to the Watergate tapes. Conyers was having so much fun that he ignored aides' entreaties to end the session.


The best part, however was the following:

The session took an awkward turn when witness Ray McGovern, a former intelligence analyst, declared that the United States went to war in Iraq for oil, Israel and military bases craved by administration "neocons" so "the United States and Israel could dominate that part of the world." He said that Israel should not be considered an ally and that Bush was doing the bidding of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "Israel is not allowed to be brought up in polite conversation," McGovern said. "The last time I did this, the previous director of Central Intelligence called me anti-Semitic." Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), who prompted the question by wondering whether the true war motive was Iraq's threat to Israel, thanked McGovern for his "candid answer." At Democratic headquarters, where an overflow crowd watched the hearing on television, activists handed out documents repeating two accusations -- that an Israeli company had warning of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and that there was an "insider trading scam" on 9/11 -- that previously has been used to suggest Israel was behind the attacks.

UPDATE: Here’s an actual sound clip of the event

6.14.2005

Paradox of Determinism?

Can anyone help me here? I can’t tell if this is a legitimate paradox, or even a sound line of reasoning. (Forgive me if the writing isn’t clear—I’m working on clarifying my thoughts and finding a better way to articulate them, but the urge to share and get feedback has taken precedence). Here’s what I’m thinking:

I believe in the laws of physics. I don’t have a sophisticated understanding of them, but from what I do understand, they imply that all activity in the universe is governed by laws. This leads me to endorse the theory of mechanistic determinism. And since I have yet to hear a plausible argument detailing the sense in which humans are exempt from those laws, I am, in turn, led to (reluctantly) deny free will.

But if we aren’t free, then wouldn’t that cast suspicion on the truth of the very laws that imply determinism? For we are the creators of science, and if we aren’t free, then that means that science wasn’t created freely and isn’t practiced freely. The behavior of scientific practice and development would be the result of laws with no particular (or at least identifiable) aim, not humans seeking truth. And while we may think it is our pursuit of truth that drives science, under the theory of determinism (as I understand it), this would merely be our perception, not the true cause of our actions. But to remove the motivation for truth from science seems to significantly lessen its credibility. For why should we consider the claims of science to be true if there is no evidence that truth is their intended purpose?

So here is my circular train of thought: My belief in science leads me to determinism, which then leaves me with no good reason to believe in science (or any inquiry for that matter).

I’m probably way oversimplifying the issue, partially because of misunderstanding, but also because I’m trying to cram it into one post. And the more I think about it, I don’t think that this problem is a proper paradox, at least in the logical sense. For it doesn’t seem to be the case that if determinism is true, then it’s also false; only that if it’s true, then there is no reason to think it’s true. But aside from what to call it, does it sound like a legitimate dilemma at all? I’m sure I’m missing something here. Any help?