I’ve complained about Leon Kass and his “Wisdom of Repugnance” before.

Recently, several bloggers have noted Steven Pinker’s “ice cream” quote from Kass that shows pretty clearly that his repugnance shouldn’t be considered by anybody to be wise or a justification for limiting other people’s options.

Here’s Pinker’s quote:

Worst of all from this point of view are those more uncivilized forms of eating, like licking an ice cream cone–a catlike activity that has been made acceptable in informal America but that still offends those who know eating in public is offensive. … Eating on the street–even when undertaken, say, because one is between appointments and has no other time to eat–displays [a] lack of self-control: It beckons enslavement to the belly. … Lacking utensils for cutting and lifting to mouth, he will often be seen using his teeth for tearing off chewable portions, just like any animal. … This doglike feeding, if one must engage in it, ought to be kept from public view, where, even if we feel no shame, others are compelled to witness our shameful behavior.

Here’s an even longer version:

Worst of all from this point of view are those more uncivilized forms of eating, like licking an ice cream cone –a catlike activity that has been made acceptable in informal America but that still offends those
who know eating in public is offensive.

I fear I may by this remark lose the sympathy of many reader, people who will condescendingly regard as quaint or even priggish the view that eating in the street is for dogs. Modern America’s rising tide of informality has already washed out many long-standing traditions — their reasons long before forgotten — that served well to regulate the boundary between public and private; and in many quarters complete shamelessness is treated as proof of genuine liberation from the allegedly arbitrary constraints of manners. To cite one small example: yawning with uncovered mouth. Not just the uneducated rustic but children of the cultural elite are now regularly seen yawning openly in public (not so much brazenly or forgetfully as indifferently and “naturally”), unaware that it is an embarrassment to human self-command to be caught in the grip of involuntary bodily movements (like sneezing, belching, and hiccupping and even the involuntary bodily display of embarrassment itself, blushing). But eating on the street — even when undertaken, say, because one is between appointments and has no other time to eat — displays in fact precisely such lack of self-control: It beckons enslavement to the belly. Hunger must be sated now; it cannot wait. Though the walking street eater still moves in the direction of his vision, he shows himself as a being led by his appetites. Lacking utensils for cutting and lifting to mouth, he will often be seen using his teeth for tearing off chewable portions, just like any animal. Eating on the run does not even allow the human way of enjoying one’s food, for it is more like simple fueling; it is hard to savor or even to know what one is eating when the main point is to hurriedly fill the belly, now running on empty. This doglike feeding, if one must engage in it, ought to be kept from public view, where, even if WE feel no shame, others are compelled to witness our shameful behavior.”

Kass, Leon: The Hungry Soul at 148-149. (University of Chicago Press, 1994, 1999)

Amazing. It’s sad and scary that this guy, and many others, think that their internalization of eternal truths like these, revealed to them by their parents, teachers, and clergy, should be taken seriously as arguments to guide public policy and oppose promising research.

By the way, I agree with almost all of what Pinker has to say in the article, and I think it’s worth a read if you have the time.

Here’s the embarrassing report on Human Dignity and Bioethics. It’s largely stupid, but I enjoyed Dennett’s article and his commentary on Kraynak.

It seems to me that Hillary Clinton’s continued competitiveness in these late primary elections (she just won big in West Virginia) may be a very bad sign for the Democrats’ chances in November.

It’s been very clear for quite a while that 1) the delegate math is such that Obama is a huge favorite to eventually win the nomination, and 2) the longer the primary goes on, the more damage it does to the eventual nominee’s chances of winning (more money wasted, more weaknesses exposed, more bad feelings of the losing faction, etc.).

If I were a Democratic voter in one of these primaries, and had a moderate preference for Clinton over Obama, but a strong preference for a Democrat victory in November, and I thought my single vote mattered, I’d probably vote for Obama to help stop the bleeding for the good of the party. I’m sure some of Clinton’s supporters have done just that.

So, the fact that there are so many voters who are still voting for Clinton in these primaries indicates (to me) that there are many, many, Democrats who have such a strong preference for Clinton and/or dislike of Obama that they are willing to risk helping the Republicans in November in order to express their preference now.

I don’t know how many of these people will fail to vote for Obama in the general election, but if I were a Democrat I’d be concerned about it.

Megan explains it all.

It’s just a stupid gimmick that will do nothing to make most people better off.

While I don’t like any taxes, I see the gas tax as a better way to raise money for government highway construction than others, because the costs are borne by the beneficiaries.

But, this proposal doesn’t do any good. Good would be to reduce spending.

It’s hard (impossible) to believe that Clinton and McCain don’t know this (or have advisors who know this). It’s just further evidence that politicians care less about the truth than about what will help them get elected. They’d much rather cause further damage and cater to the mistaken biases of voters, than advocate genuine improvements.

Obama may be against this particular example, but he’s got plenty of his own.

May 1st always makes me contemplate the tragic legacy of communism, and the stupidity of those who continue to romanticize the awful totalitarian ideas behind it.

I urge you all to review the great collection of articles in the May Day tradition at The Distributed Republic.

Here are some more of their collections from 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004.

Note: It seems that many of the links in these pages can be fixed by replacing “catallarchy.net/blog” with “distributedrepublic.net”

I don’t like Hillary Clinton very much. But, I’m happy that she won the Pennsylvania primary by a large enough margin to keep her in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, and to attract more donations (she raised $10M in 24-hours after the primary was called for her).

There’s a lot that I don’t like about John McCain, as well. His militarism is worrying. He shares the Democrats’ romantic vision of government. He’s all too willing to trample on individual liberty when he thinks it will enhance respect for public institutions, or would just be for our own good.

But, it seems that we’ll be better off with him in the White House than either Obama or Clinton. He’s much better on limiting spending and burdensome regulations, and supporting free trade. He’s likely to nominate better judges (including possibly two to the Supreme Court).

But, most of all, with the near certainty of Democratic control of congress, I’m hopeful that having an opposing-party president will give us the gridlock we need to prevent either branch from imposing too much damage on us.

So, I’m glad to see Clinton stay in the race, draining resources that might otherwise be used to win the general election, exposing weaknesses of both Obama and Clinton, and sowing the seeds of resentment when one of them loses the nomination.

There’s no great, feasible, result in this election. But, the longer the Democrats are fighting each other, prospects improve for the feasible result that’s least bad.

I didn’t watch the Democratic debate the other night, but Daniel J. Mitchell had a post about one exchange about raising the capital-gains tax rate on the cato-at-liberty blog that I found really disturbing.

MR. GIBSON: And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased. The government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?

SENATOR OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.

The Senator then proceeded to bash evil rich (sorry for the redundancy) people, so the moderator asked the question again:

MR. GIBSON: But history shows that when you drop the capital gains tax, the revenues go up.

SENATOR OBAMA: Well, that might happen or it might not. It depends on what’s happening on Wall Street and how business is going.

I’m not making any claims about the factual matter of which side of the Laffer curve we’re on with respect to capital-gains taxes (although, I am in favor of lowering taxes on general principle).

But, Obama didn’t even dispute the possibility that raising the tax rate could lower revenue. He wants to raise the rate even if it does lower revenue. He doesn’t just see taxation as a necessary evil to finance the programs he likes. He also sees taxation as a stick that he can use to punish the economically successful.

He calls it fairness.

I call it being an asshole.

Among the many reasons that I’ll never be a successful politician, is that I could easily see myself getting into big trouble for what I thought was a reasonable remark, and having it blown completely out of proportion.

But, I think it was pretty clever of the Clinton campaign to distribute “I’m Not Bitter” stickers after Obama’s recent “gaffe.”

It seems to me, though, that anybody who would parade around wearing one of those stickers, or who would deface his property with one, would be making it pretty obvious that he is bitter.

Perhaps not exactly in the way Obama was describing, but the self-contradiction is still pretty amusing to me.

I’m not a climate scientist, so I can’t speak directly to the technical arguments behind the global warming debate.

But, when I see claims of catastrophe, and moral imperative, and religious zeal about an issue, leading to calls for changes in behavior that most of the advocates would have supported even without the current “crisis”, I’m naturally skeptical about the wisdom of following their advice.

So, I thought that this post was quite interesting. Check it out (and the links and video) yourself if you’re interested. The bottom-line claim is that the predictions of major damage are not founded on the relatively strong science behind the warming effects of CO₂, but rather on the much weaker science of a positive feedback estimate that can multiply these effects. And, the estimates of the CO₂ effects have been falling, while the feedback estimates have been rising to maintain the frightening predictions.

There are many good reasons for us to be interested in progress with other energy sources and efficient technologies. But, it seems that Don’t Panic (about the global warming crisis) is still good advice for now.

I’m all for the efficient use of resources, but I think that the symbolism of Earth Hour (encouraging everyone to turn off their lights between 8 and 9pm tonight) is awful.

It reminds us that many who oppose modern comforts regardless of environmental impacts are using the specter of global warming to move us back to the dark ages.

And Google is helping, with their black-background homepage today.

Maybe Google should do something that would actually have an impact on energy use and shut down all of its servers for an hour. Maybe for a week! Or, maybe for a few hours every night. I’m sure the earth would really be better off then!

They could follow the progressive lead of that great earth-friendly country: North Korea. This picture of the Korean peninsula at night speaks volumes.

Nobody is going to make much progress at actually improving our energy-use situation sitting in the dark tonight.

I’m going to turn on a few extra lights at 8pm.

I’d rather make a symbolic statement supporting the Enlightenment.

Don Boudreaux doesn’t seem very excited about Barack Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s recently proposed “solutions” for the economy.

His bottom line:

Almost all that any politician says on any topic other than political strategy should be treated with even less respect than would be accorded a professional circus-clown’s speculations about string theory.

Awesome.