Crime & Federalism

Why is it that people who give no money or time to charity think that lawyers should give them tens-of-thousands of dollars of free service? I once asked someone who wanted a free ride: "Do you even give blood, man?" 

It's one thing to not give money to charity because you're broke.  If you're poor, though, you have time.  Turn off the television.  Go clean up some dog shit at the animal shelter.  Volunteer at a hospital.  Lift boxes or pour a ladle at a soup kitchen.

Or give blood. 

It's the people who do nothing for others who are first in line demanding pro bono representation. 

I have little sympathy for people who can't afford a lawyer.  If you've lived your entire life such that people aren't lining up to help pay your fees, or do something to help you you...  Who have you lived for but yourself?  If no one but your momma will say, "Help this guy out," why should anyone help you out?

Because you exist?  Because you are comprised of carbon atoms?  Because you breath?  Is that the only justification needed?

Living for yourself is a legitimate way to go through life.  Don't donate time or money to charity.  Don't be the guy or gal helping out people when they are in need.  You got your life to live.

Do your own thing, bro.  Make that money.  Spend it on hedonistic activities.  Buy a satellite TV, beer, and pizza.  I won't hate.

Just don't be surprised that; when you're in trouble; you'll look around to see that no one else is there.

So Sotomayor grew up poor.  According to liberals who did not grow up poor, this matters.  For some reason.  Why?  Supposedly it makes people more empathethic. 

Well, I grew up pooooooor.  Not John Edwards, "My dad was a union manager making middle-class wages" poor.  I was actually poor.  As a kid, we were on welfare.  We had holes in our carpet.  Our roof leaked.  Until my mid-teens, I never traveled more than an hour away from my home.  We never had a car reliable enough to take on road trips.   We got school clothes once during the school year.  Two pairs of pants had the last the entire school year.

Liberals would not want me on the Supreme Court.

Why not?  I grew up the "right" way, didn't I?  I was poor!  I have life experiences!

What is wrong with me then, according to liberals? 

Speaking of which...

Didn't Just Clarence Thomas grow up really poor?  He was poorer than I.  And he was black!  I do not get all into this white privilege stuff.  I would rather be rich and black than poor and white.  Even you "race theorists" would, too.  Still, poor and black is as bad as it gets.

Liberals should thus be pleased that Clarence Thomas is on the Supreme Court.  Right? 

So.... What is really going on here?

I guess when we become adults, we stop seeing the truth we'd see as children.  A child would know what's up.  No one cares about Sotomayor's upbringing.  They care about her ideology.  Rather than admit that people form ideologies for many reasons - upbringing being just one of them - we should pretend that he ideology magically appears in all of us who grew up poor.

May we please then act like children, and start addressing the truths of her nomination?  Or must we continue to act like adults - which means behave as liars do!

I was having a discussion with a world-famous blogger over Facebook.  I explained to his Facebook audience why Obama was an alpha.  One person suggested that Obama was not an alpha.  He was beta.  There is obviously a supreme misunderstanding of the alpha male persona. 

What is an alpha male persona?  Here is how you spot an alpha male person: Stripped down of any socially constructed trappings of status in power, who would be the one people followed?

You, me, anyone else you know, and Barack Obama will enter a room.  Who will leave with the most followers?  Only a pea-brained partisan hack (and aren’t they all?) would pick the wrong answer.

An alpha persona gets followers.

When the mouth-breathing majority of people in a room, and turn to look at you for solutions, you might be an alpha.

Look at the guys always screaming, “Follow me!”  Those aren’t alphas.  If you are alpha, you don’t need to tell people to follow you.  You don’t need to draw attention to yourself.  People will follow you even when you don’t want them to. 

Go meet Gerry Spence.  I don’t even care if you like the guy.  Tell me you didn’t get goose bumps when in his presence.  When he enters a room, you can sense it – even with your back turned.  It’s magnetism.  Without saying a word, the alpha brings you to him.

People also think ideology is alpha or beta.  As if thinking there should be a societal safety net makes a person beta.  How so?  An alpha need not be cruel.  Lawrence of Arabia was a river to his people.  An alpha river.

Rahm Emmanuel seems to really believe in his liberal ideas.  Put Emmanuel into a room with you, me, and everyone we know.  Who do you think is going to come out ahead?  Emmanuel is alpha, though not as alpha as Obama.

Alpha and manliness.  What is manly?  Farting out loud?  Smoking cigars?  Those are what posers, or wanna-be alphas do.  Oh, look at me.  I’m so manly!  Again, if you are always screaming at people to look at you, you are beta. 

If you’re so manly, you don’t need to tell people to look at you.  People just will.

Are you seeing the theme?

An alpha gets attention whether he wants it or not. 

As for the claim that George W. Bush is an alpha?  Bush was all swagger – big hat, no cattle.  He had no identity or persona.  He was manipulated by everyone around him.  He had no persona, and thus by definition could not be an alpha male.

Think of this thought experiment: Without the trapping of office that others gave him, put him into a room.  Who will follow him? 

Are you going to follow that ass clown?  I sure wouldn’t.

And thus you are beginning to understand the alpha male persona.

From Patrick at Popehat:

I’ve commented many times here concerning what a silly state you people live in. I find your California notions of easy judicial fiat (the West Coast and the Ninth seem to be most “activist”) and easy plebiscites by direct vote revolting.

This case was especially illustrative. A court finds that the California constitution has always contained a right that very few thought to exist ten years ago, and a mob of yahoos remove the right based on religious and social prejudice just by putting their thumbprints on a ballot.

Perfect.

All of the law professors said it would be Diane Wood or Elena Kagan.  I knew it would be Sotomayor.  That so many people got this wrong shows how little people understand President Barack Obama.  He sees race everywhere.  Race is his obsession.  Was the first black President going to miss his chance to nominate the first Latina to the United States Supreme Court?  There are such things as stupid questions.  That people would even argue otherwise shows how clueless one gets while on his knees licking boots all day!

The topic du jour is clothing in the courtroom.  It's all over the law blogs.  Some horny old male judges said that when a woman shows some cleavage and legs, the judges have to go masturbate in chambers before being able to pay attention to the woman's argument.  A woman judge judge joined the hate.  Because, as we all know, no one hates women more than other women. 

As any serious thinking must know, this issue has been addressed in The Little Prince:

I have serious reason to believe that the planet from which the little prince came is the asteroid known as B-612. This asteroid has only once been seen through the telescope. That was by a Turkish astronomer, in 1909.

On making his discovery, the astronomer had presented it to the International Astronomical Congress, in a great demonstration. But he was in Turkish costume, and so nobody would believe what he said. Grown-ups are like that...

Fortunately, however, for the reputation of Asteroid B-612, a Turkish dictator made a law that his subjects, under pain of death, should change to European costume. So in 1920 the astronomer gave his demonstration all over again, dressed with impressive style and elegance. And this time everybody accepted his report.

Truth.

Appearing in the audience at UFC 98, Mike Tyson gave an interview to a Fox Sports reporter.  Tyson seems to have some some sort of inner peace.  What thing not know about Tyson is that he's an intelligent, thoughtful person.  He was an example of what mental illness plus excessive testosterone does to a person.  Anyhow, here is the video interview. His analysis of the Rashad Evans Lyoto Machida fight is better than anyone who commentates. In a couple of sentences, he explained why Evans would lose:

Allow me to be pleased with myself.

May 2004:

May 2009:

I've never agonized so much over a blog review of a book.  Honest Signals: How They Shape Our World had a weird effect on me.  I read the book several months ago, and am only now blogging it.  What gives?

First, it made me very angry.  These guys are at MIT, and they didn't know that if you want to know if a person is open to persuasion, or if they like you, you look at body language and other physical signs of arousal like dilated pupils, flared nostrils, flushing skin?

As a taxpayer, it infuriates me that I subsidize worthless disciplines like Women's Studies, African American Studies, and Political Science.  But MIT?!  These people are really so huge morons?

They think that it's a revolutionary discovery observing sympathetic arousal is how one discovers honest signals?  But that's the point of the book.

We all send off signals.  If I wear a nice watch with an Armani suit, it's to signal my social class.  If I drive a Prius, it's to signal that I'm a socially-conscious person.  If I say, "I like you," I am signaling that I like you.

Some signals are false.  I could be broke but wear Armani.  Maybe I put it on a credit card.  Maybe I stole it.  I could hate your guts but tell you that I love you.  I'd be sending dishonest signals.

Honest signals are signals most people can't fake.  Thus, how can one distinguish an honest from a dishonest signal?

Some are things people are oblivious of.  Body language comes to mind.  Most people can't fake their own body language, since it's a subconscious thing.  Here's an example: A person not interested in me might make eye contact and square his shoulders on me.  Yet he doesn't realize I'm not looking at his shoulders.  I am looking at his hips and feet.  People are good at faking body language from the shoulder up.  They are not good at faking things below the belt! 

Still, masters of body language can give dishonest signals.  If you know body language, you can make a bore think you are interested in him.  Just watch a beautiful woman at dinner with a old, rich man. 

Some signals cannot be faked.  The gold digger can't make her pupils dilate when she sees the old bastard.  While I can take a deep breath through my nose, but I can't get the red outline of flared nostrils.  I can't make my skin tingle.  These things are honest signals, and they can be observed and measured.

The authors have created some gadget that measures these honest signals.  I guess if you're a social retard, you need one of these gadgets.  Or you could just tell a guy, "Go eff your mother," see how he reacts.  Then leave a big tip next time you dine out; see how that person reacts.  Do this stuff over and over again, and you get a sense for what honest signals look like. 

One interesting part of the book discussed dishonest signals that are really honest signals.  Imagine a poker player with a hot hand.  He wants to send a dishonest signal about his hand: He wants you to think he has a bad hand.  So he makes a smaller bet than usual.  That overcompensation was an honest signal - even though it was the opposite of his intention.  Professional poker players don't make those mistakes. 

Anyhow, that's sort of the point of the book.  Though I don't think they did a good job of explaining things.  Instead, they kept talking about their gadget.

I'm still glad I read the book.  It reminded me to be more mindful of honest signals.  I've also thought of some useful tests to apply when looking for honest signals.