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California should unlock entrepreneurs’ creativity to help save the nation’s economy

In The Orange County Register, I urge Gov. Newsom to unleash economic liberty so that entrepreneurs can find new and creative ways to keep the economy afloat during this crisis (a suggestion I do not think there's a realistic chance he'll take). Excerpt:

Last week, Gov. Newsom announced a new rule allowing barber shops to cut hair outdoors—but state regulators made clear that this does not include any “chemical hair services” such as dyeing, waving, or straightening. Even shampooing is off-limits. Given those limits, Lam decided not to bother trying to reopen.

This arbitrariness is unfortunately not unusual. Since the pandemic began, government officials have repeatedly obstructed business owners’ efforts to meet people’s needs—often as a result of antiquated regulations that exist not because they protect public safety, but because existing businesses use those rules to protect themselves against competition by new companies.

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Andrew Heaton fails to defend Star Trek VI

Andrew Heaton has posted the podcast we did the other day about why Star Trek VI is such a bad film. You can read my argument in more detail here. 

Unfortunately, he added at the end a conversation with Andrew Young as a sort of rebuttal—which then completely misrepresents my position. First, I did not, as Young implies, argue that there is a one-to-one metaphor with the Soviet Union in the film (on the contrary, it was Heaton who said that), and I stuck within canon in my entire discussion. Second, the suggestion that I was arguing that “the Federation should have got into a shooting war with the Klingons the moment Praxis exploded,” as Young says (and Heaton agrees) is a straw man and is not what I said. I never suggested that the Federation should “go to war” with the Klingons, nor do I believe that.

What I said is that Star Trek VI is morally myopic because it portrays the Klingons as victims of the Federation and lionizes Azetbur for saying that the Klingons “are a proud people and intend to go on being proud,” when in fact they are a brutal totalitarian slave state, and are the actual aggressors in every confrontation with the Federation in the entire Star Trek canon. At a minimum, they owe the civilized peoples of the galaxy an apology.

Why is this relevant? Because in today’s politics, insisting on moral clarity is systematically misrepresented as a “pro-war” position. It’s an almost reflexive reaction by self-professed “realists” such as Justin Logan to say that exercising moral judgment on matters of international relations is the equivalent of wanting to kill millions of innocent people. But this childish debate tactic obscures the relationship of morality to politics and in the long run perpetuates the longevity of totalitarian slave states, both in fiction and in reality.

Do I believe there should have been a Nuremburg-style trial of former communists after the fall of the Soviet Union? Absolutely there should have been. Young suggests a disanalogy on the grounds that after World War II, the allies had defeated the Nazis and the Japanese (there were also war crimes tribunals for Japanese military leaders) on the battlefield. But this is irrelevant. There was a truth and reconciliation commission in South Africa after the fall of Apartheid and there have been similar institutions elsewhere in the absence of war. There is no reason why the leaders of one of the world’s most horrific tyrannies could not have been brought to justice similarly in real life.

And, in any event, since I (unlike Heaton) do not insist on a strict one-to-one metaphor here, and I was actually talking about Star Trek, there is no reason why something along these lines could not have been done in the fictional world. It was not. Why not? Because the writers of the film had their moral lights in complete disarray thanks to their absurd (and, sadly common) view of the Cold War—the view Ronald Reagan rightly characterized as the sin of pride; “the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label[ing] both sides equally at fault.” Whatever may be the case with the USSR, the Klingons certainly are an “evil empire.”

As Spock would say, all of the arguments Young and Heaton offer seem to be riddled with logical fallacies, including ad hominem and straw man. It’s always revealing when people misrepresent your position. It suggests the weakness of their own position. Of course, it’s Heaton’s show and he can do what he wants, but if he wants a “good old-fashioned knuckles-banging nerd fight,” I’d have thought fairly representing each side’s position would be more productive.

I stand corrected

A new article by Prof. Diane Klein in the University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender & Class discusses how courts dealt with the question of wills in which slaveowners bequeathed freedom to their slaves ("testamentary manumission"). In an article several years ago, I discussed one such case, Pleasants v. Pleasants, and how it involved the complicated "rule against perpetuities." In a footnote of her article, Prof. Klein points out that I made a couple important errors in my analysis of the Pleasants case, due to some complexities of the legal doctrine surrounding that rule. More importantly, Prof. Klein highlights how Pleasants and some other cases on the same subject developed the legal theory and political philosophy of chattel slavery in the late 18th century, which is a fascinating subject. Check it out!

Why are taxpayers footing the bill for full-time police union employees?

At Reason.com today, I explain how you're probably being required to pay the salaries of public officials whose only job is to lobby the government for more of your money. That and, oppose police reforms. 

Excerpt:

Police departments, fire departments, and school districts across the country pay thousands of public employees full-time salaries to do no work for the public. Instead, they work solely on behalf of the employees' unions. This practice, called "release time," means taxpayers must pay the salaries of officers who lobby against police reforms, such as eliminating qualified immunity and requiring cops to wear body cameras. When Houston Police Officers' Union chief Joe Gamaldi tells lawmakers not to change qualified immunity, he's doing so on "MBA Union Business Leave" time—funded by tax dollars.

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Joseph Conrad film festival

Since we’re staying home on the weekends nowadays, we’ve taken to doing “themes”: watching movies and eating meals that are related to some basic idea. Last weekend the theme was Richard Nixon. Films included All The President’s Men, Nixon, Elvis Meets Nixon, Dick, and various Simpsons episodes mentioning Nixon, among other things. Foods were Chinese food (cause he went to China) and foods that were popular in the Seventies. Apparently Wendy’s was particularly popular then. Before that, we did Dolly Parton weekend—Nine to Five, Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, and southern food….

This weekend, the theme was: films based on Joseph Conrad novels. I’m a freakishly enthusiastic Conrad fan. And there are tons of films based on his works, many of which I’d never seen.

First up, Hanyut (2016), a Malayan adaptation of Almayer’s Folly. That was Conrad’s first novel, and it’s not one of his best, but it’s also far from his worst. The film is quite good, I thought. It’s available on YouTube, but not on any other service or DVD that I could find. Beautifully filmed, and good acting. The editing’s not perfect, but it’s certainly one of the best and most faithful Conrad adaptations I’ve seen. I think it was the best movie of the weekend.

Next, Outcast of the Islands (1951), which is based on Conrad’s second novel, which is actually a prequel to Almayer’s Folly. So it’s funny to see this film from the 1950s, that has many of the same characters as in Hanyut. This film is only so-so. It certainly has all the brooding and sidelong glances and palm trees you expect from Conrad, and Kerima, who plays Aissa, is gorgeous. But the movie fails to really substantiate Willems’s descent into madness, and the ending seems exaggerated and excessive.

Lord Jim (1965), based on what I consider Conrad’s greatest novel, has a bad reputation, and it’s true that it’s not terribly faithful to the book. But that’s largely because the book is far too complex to be made into a movie. As a result, the film overcompensates with excessive philosophical dialogue and a too-long battle scene that is very loosely taken from the book. The characters of Dain Waris and Sherif Ali are replaced with a composite character called “The General,” Stein is made into a major character instead of the cameo he plays in the novel, and Doramin’s wife is missing entirely, which makes the final scene come off as arbitrary and bizarre. James Mason is great as Gentleman Brown, but the ending appears to make little sense. One gets the feeling that Vietnam and the Cold War had more to do with the final product than did the original novel. The movie starts well but ultimately lets you down—and it’s two and a half hours long, also.

Sabotage, made in 1936 by Alfred Hitchcock, is a loose updating of Conrad’s The Secret Agent. I’ve never been a big fan of The Secret Agent, in part because I’m so much fonder of Conrad’s sea and jungle stories, and in part because terrorism doesn’t seem nearly so exotic to me as it apparently did in Conrad’s day. The film looks terribly primitive by today’s standards, but sequences such as the climactic explosion definitely show Hitchcock’s skills at building suspense. It’s amazing to think that this film was made by the same guy who less than 30 years later would make North by Northwest and Rear Window.

Laughing Anne (1953) is based on a play Conrad wrote that was, in turn, based on a short story he wrote (called “Because of the Dollars”). I had actually never read either. The film is not highly rated, in part because the production quality is quite poor—the boat is obviously a still set being rocked, and the rear projection is extremely poor. But I actually thought it wasn’t bad, and the climactic river-pirate battle is very Conrad, and is quite well filmed. I also liked the idea that the film features Conrad himself telling the story. Seems to me that the way he wrote demands this kind of treatment in any film version of his work.

The Duellists (1977) was Ridley Scott’s first film, and it’s based on a story by Conrad that I’ve never read. It was actually a pretty decent film, bizarre as the story is. Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel do a fine job, and it certainly has that Conradian quality. (Is he really dueling himself? Is it a commentary on non-stop European wars, prophesying World War I?) The music was also lovely. But what does it all add up to? I suspect most viewers will have some difficulty with that.

Conrad’s short story “Amy Foster” has been seen as semi-autobiographical, since it’s about a Russian immigrant who feels like an outcast in English society and whose wife turns out to be poorly matched to him. It’s apparently based in part on a real-life incident that occurred during Conrad’s honeymoon, in fact. But the film Swept from the Sea (1997) is basically the exact opposite of all of this. In this version, Amy Foster seems to have more in common with Ariel from The Little Mermaid than with Conrad’s titular character. This version is more 1990s bodice-buster than anything in the Conrad vein. Still, Ian McKellen is good, as are Rachel Weisz (who, quite the opposite from Conrad’s story, is beautiful). It’s an okay date movie, but please don’t call it Conrad.

The Rover (1967) is an Italian movie starring Anthony Quinn and Rita Hayworth and with music by Ennio Morricone. But that’s almost all that can be said in its favor. At times it descends into B-movie quality, with a bizarre sequence in which one character is apparently insane…but then suddenly isn’t. It’s a pretty bad adaptation of Conrad’s final novel, which is also not considered one of his best—but in my opinion actually does have some things going for it. The film just doesn’t work.

We didn’t get to Apocalypse Now, which as everyone knows is freely adapted from Heart of Darkness and is probably all the Conrad most Americans know. Also not on our list were a few I’ve seen before: Victory (1996) starring Willem Defoe—which I think is a superb adaptation of the novel, possibly the most faithful of all Conrad adaptations—Heart of Darkness (1993) starring Tim Roth—which is a total failure—and Nostromo (1997), starring Brian Denney. The latter is actually a miniseries, never released on DVD, which is faithful to the book, but I don’t think it works that well since Nostromo, like Conrad’s greatest works, is simply not susceptible of translation to the screen. What’s best about him is his prose style and narrative effects that just cannot be reproduced cinematically.

Oh, and food selections included: Pei Wei, Thai Rama Chandler (one of our favorites), a new Polish place we found, and some nice English tea.

A call for papers to attack me

This is a delightful honor. Four years ago, I published an article in the Children's Legal Rights Journal that lays out (some of) the constitutional flaws with the Indian Child Welfare Act. Apparently, the students did not realize how un-PC they were being, because the Journal has now posted a "call for papers" specifically seeking articles to "counterbalance" my article and "directly address any or all of the arguments in the Sandefur article." 

Normally, of course, when a journal organizes a conference about a scholar's work, they invite that scholar, or at least let him know, and give him a chance to respond to critics. Neither of those things happened here. Instead, the Journal is specifically asking for people to write papers to refute me, and expressly excludes articles from people who agree with me.

Most amusing. I've written to the Journal to request an explanation, and if I hear back from them, I'll update this post.

Update (7/22/20): I've received an answer from the Journal saying that if they receive articles addressing mine, they intend to "include an editor's note citing [my] article" and "make sure to give [me] a heads up prior to publication."

"I refute it thus."

Incredible. Someone actually comissioned a statue of Dr. Johnson's famous response to Berkeley's solipsism.

What are the under-rated Star Trek films?

In the latest installment of "Alienating the Audience," I sat down with Aeon Skoble and Andrew Heaton to discuss what we think are the under-rated Star Trek movies. It's fun because Prof. Skoble is pretty much anti- all Star Trek films, Heaton is too gullibly pro-, and I'm somewhere in the middle.

In an upcoming episode, however, we'll discuss why Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is such a terrible film. (If you want to cheat, you can read my blog post on the subject here.)

A New Discovery Shines Light on What Frederick Douglass Thought of the Freedman’s Monument

A pair of historians have turned up a letter from Frederick Douglass that explains his thoughts on the Freedman’s Monument, about which I wrote a few days ago. You’ll recall that I pointed out the other day that the oldest source we had for the idea that Douglass disapproved of the kneeling position of the slave in the monument was from a 1916 book that quoted the 40 year old memory of a 70 year old man on the subject—and that we had nothing from Douglass himself. Now we do. Here’s the letter:

Admirable as is the monument by Mr. Hall in Lincoln park, it does not, as it seems to me, tell the whole truth, and perhaps no one monument could be made to tell the whole truth of any subject which it might be designed to illustrate. The mere act of breaking the negro's chains was the act of Abraham Lincoln, and is beautifully expressed in this monument. But the act by which the negro was made a citizen of the United States and invested with the elective franchise was pre-eminently the act of President U.S. Grant, and this is nowhere seen in the Lincoln monument. The negro here, though rising, is still on his knees and nude. What I want to see before I die is a monument representing the negro, not couchant on his knees like a four-footed animal, but erect on his feet like a man. There is room in Lincoln park for another monument, and I throw out this suggestion to the end that it may be taken up and acted upon.

This is a marvelously Douglassonian statement—and, if I may say so myself, entirely consistent with what I predicted Douglass’s views would be, if known. Douglass does not impugn the memorial, let alone call for its removal. Nor does he denigrate Lincoln. Rather—just as in his famous speech dedicating the statue—he views it objectively in the context of its time as representing only the first step toward equal liberty. His suggestion that there should be a new monument depicting the black man standing, was a marvelous one in its day and it remains one now. David Blight has already recommended a new statue of Douglass, in the act of giving his dedication speech. That, or something less specific, would be a fine addition to the park, and wholly in keeping with Douglass’s own suggestion.