A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

So, I learned a fancy new word recently, “solipsism” and every so often, it grinds against one of my other hobby horses and gives me an interesting notion that may or may not hold up under further scrutiny. Today, it bounced up against libertarianism, Libertarians, and why Libertarians struggle so mightily at the ballot box.

Solipsism has a more formal meaning in philosophy and then a more casual every day usage. In philosophy, it has to do with the idea that knowledge of anything outside of your own mind is uncertain – your experience of the outside world, if it even truly exists, is mediated through your mind. So, you don’t really know how accurately the outputs match the inputs. More casually, it speaks to interacting with the world in a self-centered way.

Libertarianism holds up liberty of the individual above all else. Individualism isn’t bad. Liberty is good. So, what’s the problem? It might be that the solipsism inherent in the ideology short circuits the ability to empathize. And, I’m referring to empathy rather than sympathy where, as I understand it, the distinction is that the former is the ability to comprehend things from the perspective of another; whereas the latter has more to do with feeling bad for the other person because you understand that the position they are in is an unhappy one. I think you can empathize with someone without feeling bad for them, and I think you can sympathize with someone without really knowing how they feel.

So, if I’m correct that solipsism short circuits empathy and libertarianism creates this sort of blind spot in its adherents; then that would help explain electoral difficulties. It’s difficult to sell liberty without really understanding how others experience liberty. And even those who subscribe to the same basic ideology have a tough time really understanding each others vision of that ideology.

On the other hand, maybe electoral difficulties are nothing more complicated than that fiercely individualistic people are inevitably going to have a tough time engaging in what is fundamentally a group effort. (Which I think is a lot more likely than what seems to be the preferred explanation within the group: that non-Libertarians are too stupid and/or lazy to see the Truth.)

Anyway, like I said; just an idea that occurred to me. I’m still chewing on it.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on issues related to marriage equality yesterday. I have not had time to review any of the reporting in any depth and there are far better blogs than mine for discussion of the particulars. But, I’ve heard some more of the arguments about same sex marriage and what it does or doesn’t or might do to the institution.

Marriage is a fundamental part of our society. We haven’t tried letting gay people get married. Might we be damaging marriage in some unexpected way? That’s how one argument goes. Some are concern trolling when they make it. Others are truly concerned.

The answer, I would suggest, has to do with whether gender difference is fundamental to what we value about marriage or if it’s incidental. (And, to a large extent, this might be circular and of no help answering the question. But, I like to muse.)

So, we have to identify: 1. What does the institution of marriage provide that we value? and 2. For each thing of value, is gender difference fundamental or incidental to that thing. Are we removing the wheels of our car or just changing the paint job?

I come down on the idea that recognizing the right of same sex couples to get married is incidental to the institution of marriage but fundamental to the couples who wish to marry.

SB 213 has passed the second chamber without amendment and is therefore eligible for enrollment and signature by the governor. It basically removes the authority of local government to regulate the employee – employer relationship unless state or federal law specifically grants that authority:

“A unit may not . . . require an employer to provide to an employee . . . (1) a benefit; (2) a term of employment; (3) a working condition; or (4) an attendance or leave policy;
that exceeds the requirements of federal or state law, rules, or regulations.”

Per a story by Mary Beth Schneider, this potentially guts some local human rights ordinances.

That would turn on whether the human rights ordinances were offering a mechanism of enforcing employment rights found in federal or state law or creating new ones. The former would probably remain valid and the latter would be void.

The authors say that it wasn’t their intent to invalidate human rights ordinances. They simply wanted the local authorities to be unable to raises wages or make sure employees receive certain other benefits. (Not sure the stated motivation is a ton better than the unintended consequence; but opinions differ, I suppose.)

Blogging is light because of work obligations, but here is a good article by matt Tully entitled Conflicts of interest rampant at Indiana Statehouse.

I’ll just comment that it’s a tough balance between avoiding conflicts and the appearance of impropriety on one hand and putting legislators in a position to legislate in areas where they have expertise. Having a banker oversee the banking industry makes people understandably uneasy. But, for example, I can see if I were in the General Assembly where I’d have a lot to say and contribute to regulating the judiciary and the legal profession; and I think I’d do a decent job. (And I can see where I’d need a lot of education on banking before I’d be much good at regulating the banking industry.)

The Evansville Courier Press has an editorial entitled Rover finds evidence Mars likely had life. I’m not sure why it was in the editorial section. It looks like a straight up news story. My conspiratorial side suspects the placement has something to do with environmentalism and young earth beliefs making such things “controversial.” But, more likely, that’s just where the story fit, and it was the editorial board which was interested. Or maybe it’s because the underlying reporting was not original with the newspaper or related wire services. I don’t know.

In any event, the editorial reports:

[I]n a rocky formation called Yellowknife Bay, which the rover crossed over what was possibly an old streambed to get to, Curiosity drilled through the surface into a layer called mudstone and, using its little lab, identified sulfur, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous and carbon, all essential to sustaining life as we know it.

Curiosity is exploring a promising 96-mile-long crater called Gale, which at one time was apparently a relatively salubrious neighborhood.

“We have found a habitable environment that is so benign that probably if this water was around and you had been on the planet, you would have been able to drink it[.]”
. . .
The Martian surface of 3 billion years ago evidently was a far livelier place than it is today. There were apparently volcanoes that spewed dust that chemically resembles the basaltic lava. So what happened?

Explains The New York Times: “With just one-tenth the mass of Earth, Mars was unable to hold on to most of its atmosphere. The inside of the planet cooled, and the volcanoes stopped erupting. … Mars became cold and dry.”

For the sake of the species, I just hope we can keep this planet habitable and in one piece at least long enough to figure out how to get to and survive on other planets.

Just finished a cruise with the family to Nassau & Freeport. We’re en route home now & I’m pecking this post out on my iPhone. That’s probably the longest I’ve been off the grid in awhile. Not all bad to disconnect from time to time. So, did the Indiana legislature do anything inspiring and/or useful while I was gone?

I’m on the road so I’m trying the mobile blogging app. The time change happened last night, so we lost an hour. Fortunately, I drove through the night on Friday, so I figure I’m net +7 or so.

My latest notion on DST is that it shouldn’t be this early in the year. I was enjoying the morning light. Maybe equinox to equinox would be the way to go.

I’m not really feeling the politics this morning. A friend of mine was talking about a conversation she had with her husband about Johnny Cash. I’d rather talk about Johnny; but only in a superficial way, because I’m not very knowledgeable about music. I didn’t know I liked Cash until I saw the video for Hurt. Cracked – where I seem to get about 90% of my information these days – ranked it as the number one cover song that stole the show from the original.

Trent Reznor had written the song, but Johnny owned it.

Ultimately, “Hurt” was about the fragile psychological state of Trent Reznor — and wow, it probably did not help matters at all when Johnny Cash roared up on a Harley, stole that manifesto of emotional agony right out of his shaking, bleeding hands, then threw a whiskey bottle at the wall and fell asleep on top of his girlfriend. Yes, you still gave birth to that song, Trent, and we all know it wouldn’t exist without you, but it very clearly loves Johnny so, so much more now. Cash’s cover was a testament to a lifetime of hard living and regret, from the lips of a man who’s lost nearly everything he’s ever loved and is now facing down death himself. No matter how real you think shit got in your 20s, your goth/industrial problems are just never going to compare to the lifelong issues of Liquor: The Cowboy. Cash had about five decades of pain on Reznor when he first performed “Hurt”; you’re just not fighting in same weight class.

From there, thanks to Pandora, I came to learn that I loved a lot of Cash’s stuff; especially, it seems, songs out of the American series toward the end of his life. Maybe I’m just a sucker for end-of-days music by hard living musicians – I very much enjoyed Warren Zevon’s “The Wind” as well.

These musicians are a bit of a deviation from my normal fare. I’d made a playlist for a poker night once, and my buddy observed, “all your songs are catchy but angry, Doug.” Which seems to be a trend in the music I like. (I didn’t come to punk music until my 20s, but that’s what I should have been listening to in high school and college.)

Like I said, my tastes in music are fairly unrefined and certainly unstudied. I mainly wander into music I like. I had friends who very methodically built collections and studied the racks at music stores. I was never that serious about developing my catalog. I mostly have just kept my ear open for stuff I like.