Marijuana Mushrooms

No. This is not some new way to make THC with genetically altered mushrooms. (it is just a matter of time though). It is about a follow up to my story Mutiny In Montana. The Helena Independent Record has a story called Missoula marijuana ‘mutiny’ mushrooms.

Call it the Pot Shot Heard ‘Round the World.

Oh, wait. Somebody already did that.

The Examiner online news site — one of many news organizations that picked up on the story of a Missoula jury pool that dug in its heels last month at the prospect of trying a case involving “a couple of buds” of marijuana — put a variation of that headline on its story.

Others likewise had fun with it. “The Great Montana Marijuana Mutiny,” the Wall Street Journal’s legal blog termed it.

“Where There’s Smoke, There’s Change,” pronounced the Toronto Star.

And Huffington Post declared in a possible first that “Sanity Broke Out in Missoula, Montana, Today.”

Headline hijinks aside, the jury pool’s action — and the reaction to it — has serious ramifications for continued prosecution of low-level nonviolent drug crimes, not just in Missoula County but around the country.

“It was almost like a slap in the face to the system,” said John Zeimet, of the moment on Dec. 16 when he watched his fellow prospective jurors, one after another, tell Missoula County District Judge Dusty Deschamps that not only were they disinclined to convict, but wondered aloud why taxpayer money was being wasted on the case.

“The people stood up and spoke out.”

Yes they did. We could use a lot more of that in this country. The judge in the case is also speaking out.

The judge and former Missoula County attorney said he’s “more or less” convinced that marijuana should be legalized in some form, despite being “much alarmed at what I consider to be rampant abuse of what I think was a well-intentioned initiative” — that being the 2004 statewide voter initiative that legalized medical marijuana in Montana. Deschamps also voted for that initiative.

“We’ve seen some downside in the medical marijuana thing, but I’m reasonably convinced that, over the years, I haven’t seen very many criminals go out and commit horrible crimes under the influence of marijuana. Alcohol is 10 times the problem marijuana is, a hundred times.”

Yes. Alcohol is the biggest drug problem in America. And yet, we are solving that problem, little by little over time without further recourse to prohibitions.

Which brings up the other bette noirs of our prohibitionist friends. Cocaine and heroin. A recent headline from the UK says it all: Alcohol 'more harmful than heroin or crack'.

Alcohol is the most dangerous drug in the UK by a considerable margin, beating heroin and crack cocaine into second and third place, according to an authoritative study published today which will reopen calls for the drugs classification system to be scrapped and a concerted campaign launched against drink.

Led by the sacked government drugs adviser David Nutt with colleagues from the breakaway Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, the study says that if drugs were classified on the basis of the harm they do, alcohol would be class A, alongside heroin and crack cocaine.

Today's paper, published by the respected Lancet medical journal, will be seen as a challenge to the government to take on the fraught issue of the relative harms of legal and illegal drugs, which proved politically damaging to Labour

The caption on a picture included in the article encapsulates the findings.

Heroin causes harm to users, but alcohol causes considerably more harm in the wider community, study finds. Photograph: Action Press/Rex Features

Why is that? From my studies on the subject recounted in my article Heroin, only the most abused children turn to heroin. And even those must be genetically susceptible. Most people are not interested in the stuff. But suppose you are one of those who got a habit from medical use? For those people with no history of abuse detox works well. What detox does not fix is the pain in the brain left over from child abuse. We have no fix for that. Which is why addiction is different from habituation.

We are spending tens of billions a year in America on what appears to be a minor problem. In fact if we could switch alcohol addicts from alcohol to pot we might have a LOT less trouble with alcohol. In fact just such switching was considered a valid treatment for alcohol addiction before cannabis was prohibited nationally in 1937. So not only is the spending a waste, it may actually be counter productive.

Way to go my "sufficient punishment can cure any social ill" friends.

No it can't.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Liberty And Justice For All

In Letter To A Friend I discussed how legal precedents made to favor the drug war are now coming back to bite those who favored the Drug War but who are now against ObamaCare. Well it is getting a might embarrassing. Because we now have at least one name to attach the charge to.

Several prominent conservative drug warriors signed on to an amicus brief in Raich endorsing an expansive use of the Commerce Clause. Copy, paste, and replace the word “marijuana” with “health insurance,” and you just wrote a Department of Justice brief for any of the suits defending Obamacare across the nation.

Or, for a good laugh, go read former Oklahoma congressman Ernest Istook, now working for Heritage, who frames the health care debate as “Obamacare vs. Limited Government.” As he puts it: “Straining to find a constitutional basis for mandating that everyone must buy health insurance, Obama’s lawyers resorted to the all-purpose Interstate Commerce Clause.” Istook signed on to the drug warrior brief in Raich.

I have been telling these fools forever. How you stick it to dopers will one day determine how it is stuck to you. Well the day has come. I hope they are enjoying the results. Because in a perverse way I am.

I'm also enjoying how Drug War precedents have empowered the TSA.

That Drug War seems to be an all purpose tool when you need to violate citizen's rights.

There was a guy who figured this out a long time ago.

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them. Fredrick Douglas

I guess the way it works is Liberty and Justice for All or NONE.

Martha Coakley Puts Innocent Man In Prison For Life - The Movie

In case you have forgotten Coakley is the person Scott Brown wiped the floor with in Massachusetts. I think her opponent in the Attorney General race, Jim McKenna, needs to wipe the latrine with her. Click on the link if you want to help.

H/T Hill Buzz which has more of the story.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Justice Is Racist

The above video is pretty much all you need to understand the gist of the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panthers. The politics is somewhat (an understatement) more convoluted.

So what has happened to bring all this into the news? The Washington Post reports.

A veteran Justice Department lawyer accused his agency Friday of being unwilling to pursue racial discrimination cases on behalf of white voters, turning what had been a lower-level controversy into an escalating political headache for the Obama administration.

Christopher Coates's testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights was the latest fallout from the department's handling of a 2008 voter-intimidation case involving the New Black Panther Party. Conservatives and some congressional Republicans accuse Justice officials of improperly narrowing the charges, allegations that they strongly dispute.

Filed weeks before the Obama administration took office, the case focused on two party members who stood in front of a polling place in Philadelphia on Election Day 2008, one carrying a nightstick. The men were captured on video and were accused of trying to discourage some people from voting.

Coates, former head of the voting section that brought the case, testified in defiance of his supervisor's instructions and has been granted whistleblower protection. Coates criticized what he called the "gutting" of the New Black Panthers case for "irrational reasons," saying the decision was part of "deep-seated" opposition among the department's leaders to filing voting-rights cases against minorities and cases that protect whites.

It seems that black folks are incapable of racism or voter intimidation according to our current executive branch. You know. The post racial one. As exemplified by this bit:

"I had people who told me point-blank that [they] didn't come to the voting rights section to sue African American people," said Coates, who transferred to the U.S. attorney's office in South Carolina in January. "When you are paid by the taxpayer, that is totally indefensible."

Equal justice? I guess they take the Animal Farm approach to justice. "All are equal. It is just that some are more equal than others." And how is "equality" determined? Easy. Just check out the citizen's pigment.

I could go on at length about this but there are so many who have joined in that I'm just going to do a link fests.

Instapundit has a roundup on Coates' testimony.

Justice Dept. Voting Rights Lawyer has some words.

Transcript of Coates Testimony

Video Interview Of Justice Dept. Civil Rights Lawyers. The watchword? This is only the beginning.

“Can you believe that we are going to Mississippi to protect white voters?”

USA Today chimes in.

Ed Morrissey has some words.

Eric at Classical Values looks at how the Democrat Congress runs distractions in the hopes that any controversy can be avoided before elections.

And my point with all this? Well my point is blatantly political. This situation is only going to get serious investigation if we have a Republican Congress in January. Which means: Vote this November. Throw the enablers out.

I didn't march for equal rights in the 60s for this kind of crap. And I have just a little voice - but I'm going to shout as loud as I can. Equal justice for ALL.

Don't Talk

The speaker in the video is Mr. James Duane, a professor at Regent Law School and a former defense attorney.

Yeah. Don't talk. The Mafia Code of Omerta. Silence. The Video explains why.

Here is Part 2 by a police officer in case you need more reasons.

Which brings up this book:

Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent

Here is what one reviewer said:

This is a very thoughtful and vigorously argued book about the injustices that arise when prosecutors seek to expand the reach of federal criminal statutes beyond their proper field of application. The author has litigated many of the cases he discusses, and is able to translate the complexities of that experience intelligently and without condescension, but also without all of the unnecessary technical details that lawyers writing for a general audience sometimes get bogged down in. Harvey Silverglate is an institution in his own right: a tireless advocate for civil liberties, prolific writer, and astute student of the law, there are few people who have a stronger commitment to illuminating the practical workings of the criminal justice system and their relationship to broader currents in the law. This is a must-read for those interested in criminal law, civil liberties, and the recent history of the Department of Justice, by a writer who has the courage of his convictions and voices them powerfully and well.

Here is an interview with the author Harvey Silverglate.

BC: Then has the common law tradition been abandoned? Does innocence of intention matter anymore?

Harvey Silverglate: The common law tradition has been essentially abandoned in federal law. Indeed, for a very long time the Supreme Court has ruled that federal law is entirely the product of congressional statutes and administrative regulations, rather than of common law evolution. This presumably was -- in part -- an effort to assure clarity. The law was to mean what Congress wrote and intended, rather than follow the long-standing dictums of common law tradition and interpretation. In theory, this should have produced a body of law with more clarity than the typical state law code.

In practice, despite Morissette's admirable but ultimately failed effort to turn the situation around common law notions were abandoned in the federal criminal justice system and clarity suffered, not to mention the moral content and purpose of the law. Now, people who have done things that most normal folks would not consider a crime, can be sentenced to decades-long stays in federal prison. In truth, any criminal justice system that abandons clarity of obligation and proof of criminal intent has abandoned its moral purpose and hence its legitimacy. And, as my book shows, our federal system of criminal justice has long since lost its legitimacy.

How about that. There is much more.

Ayn Rand explains what it is all about in her novel Atlas Shrugged.

"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against . . . We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted -- and you create a nation of law-breakers -- and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

The upshot of all this: Don't Talk to the Police. Ever.

And while you are at it you might want to talk to your Representatives about what has happened to justice in America. And don't even get me started about Testilying in drug cases.

House of Representatives
The Senate

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Civilization vs. Mob Rule

KC Johnson of Durham in Wonderland has posted a Sunday Round Up. Reading it gave rise to some thoughts.

I have heard that it takes about five years from a personal willingness to look at the evidence until a change in personal view point takes place. In the 80s I started looking into the Vietnam War and economics and by '88 I was voting Libertarian (I thought the Republicans were too compromised in their principles - I thought politics was a science/engineering problem. My study of war from the micro to the macro cured me of that attitude).

KC, when I started reading the Sunday Round Up I honestly thought I was reading a dyed in the wool Republican site - libertarian (liberal) orientation.

I think in five years (more or less) you will look back and wonder how you could support your current favorite candidate (unless things changed while I wasn't watching). At last look it was Obama.

We have laws and proceedures to bias the odds in favor of justice, and heavily against injustice to the innocent. One of the reasons the Republicans idea that our government system must be governend by rules. It is the best hope that the system will ultimately serve justice and prevent injustice.

When those laws and regulations are breached - to get the usual suspects - injustices are done.

The justice system in America is broken in the oughts for the same reason it was broken in the '20s. Prohibition is corrupting the system.

The political right is starting to come around on this issue. When more of them get it that realization will bust the justice system in America wide open.

I predict we will find corruption so widespread that confessions followed by amnesty will be the only reasonable way to fix it.

Your exposure of the Duke case has opened a lot of fracture planes in America. Equality vs. affirmitive action. Justice based on evidence vs. justice based on mob rule. Upholding standards vs flexible standards. Belief vs. evidence.

A whole array of human behavior. In the end it comes down to civilization. Mob rule, rule by intimidation, is incompatible with civilization.

Roughly Justice

There is a discussion going on in the comments at Durham in Wonderland about the quality of our justice system and the acceptable error rate. The ever ubiquitous anon. at 9:12AM had this to say:

As for rough justice? When most violent criminals are just that, violent criminals with long arrest and conviction records, records of commiting violent crimes and pleading down to lesser charges, WHO CARES???? I don't. I don't think rough justice can work for the crimnal underclass. But if it does, if it brings more pain to the families of those who bring pain to others, bring it on. I applaud it.

What does he mean by rough justice? Using the criminal justice system to harass the usual suspects.

My answer (revised and extended) was:

Rough justice is normally done by rounding up the usual suspects. The people no one cares about if a mistake is made per 9:12AM.

However, when it becomes a habit and the race and class boundaries are breeched there is hell to pay.

Here is what Graham Greene has to say about who can be given rough justice and torture in his novel of the cold war Our Man In Havana:

"The poor in my own country, in any Latin American country. The poor of Central Europe and the Orient. Of course in your welfare states you have no poor, so you are untorturable. In Cuba the police can deal as harshly as they like with emigres from Latin America and the Baltic States, but not with visitors from your country or Scandinavia. It is an instinctive matter on both sides. Catholics are more torturable than Protestants, just as they are more criminal."

The Biggest Cover Up Of All

Rough justice is not real justice. It is a short cut. Short cuts have consequences.

When rough justice is the norm the innocent get no break.

The purpose of justice is to prevent the rise of a vendetta culture. It is bad for business.

Rough justice erases the line between guilt and innocence. It is an unwise policy.

Remember back to the movie Casablanca where the police chief says round up the usual suspects even though none of them were guilty. The good guy goes free. Some bad guys got punished, and yet we know in our heart of hearts justice was twisted.

So what level of error am I willing to tolerate?

I'm an aerospace kind of guy. We build the stuff so that it is safer to fly than to drive. We have a system for getting this done and correcting errors in a very timely fashion. Why not have a justice system held to similar standards?

An error is an error even if it takes a bad guy out. The quality of justice counts just as much as the quality of our airplanes. Either can take your life.

And yeah. It is going to cost more money to do things right.

The money is there. All we have to do is give up on drug prohibition and give the drug problem to those best qualified to handle it. Doctors.

We ended prohibition once. We can do it again.

===

Prohibition is an awful flop.
We like it.
It can't stop what it's meant to stop.
We like it.
It's left a trail of graft and slime,
It won't prohibit worth a dime,
It's filled our land with vice and crime.
Nevertheless, we're for it.

Franklin P. Adams, 1931

===

Isn't it time that our justice system met the quality level of our air travel system? In terms of getting you to your destination alive? I will say it would be nice if your luggage arrived with you a bit more often.

Consider that the baggage system that goes with air travel makes about the same level of error as our justice system - in the range of 1% to 3%, and we are deeeply unhappy with that level of performance.

We ought to apply the same standards to justice as we do to baggage delivery.

So what is the rate of error in our justice system? In death penalty cases in Illinois there were 167 men on death row when George Ryan left office. There had been 13 exonerations. That would then be 13 / (167 + 13) = about 7%. That is for death penalty cases. Would the results be better or worse given the lesser quality control on less serious charges? One of the posters on the thread thought the error rate was under 1%. If you use the lost baggage standard it would have to be very significantly below 1% to make the customers happy.

One wag on the thread thought a miscarraige of justice was more likely in high profile cases due to community pressure. In other words the more community pressure the more corrupt the process. Not a comforting thought at all.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Anti-Railroading Society

Let me state here at the beginning that I do not have it in for the Union Pacific, B&O, Southern Pacific or any of the myriad other rail transportation companiers in America. The kind of railroading I'm against is where police and prosectors home in on a suspect and won't let go despite evidence of innocence.

We have seen that in the Duke case where the charges against the 3 Duke lacrosse players is demonstratively false. The accuser's story has changed in very significant ways over time. None of them matching the evidence. The accuser couldn't identify any lacrosse players in the first two line ups. None of her early descriptions matched any of the boys she picked. And on. The case is a bust and yet DA Nifong couldn't quit. He needed the case to win a hotly contested primary election.

However, similar cases are reported all over America. What is unusual in this case is that the boy's parents were in a positioin to fight back. They have good lawyers who have investigated and destroyed the case before it even came to trial. So badly destroyed that the original DA in the case is now up before the bar on charges.

However, most such cases never get the spotlight or the resources this case did. Who gets buried by such tactics? Poor people. Many blacks, hispancics, and poor white trash. Which brings me to the Duke Chapel. Rev. William Barber spoke yesterday at Duke Chapel. A sermon. KC Johnson discusses what he heard.

I decided to watch the webcast of Barber's sermon to hear what he had to say. With copious references to Martin Luther King, Jr., Barber organized his talk around the "devastation of denial" when Pontius Pilate gave into the mob and denied clemency for Jesus.

"The refusal to acknowledge what is right in front of us," declared Barber, "can be devastating," even more so when accompanied by a denial of responsibility to change what is bad. Any "attempt to deny injustice covers us with the blood of guilt," since "all the denial in the world will not save us from ultimately having to face reality." To replace this atmosphere, "what we need today is a theology of truth and not denial."

Then he goes on to discuss all the Rev.'s individual and collective denials. In other words the Rev. is trying to support a case that doesn't exist.

What he needs to do is turn his whole mind set around. Which is very hard. What Rev. Barber needs to focus on is bigotry free justice. I'm not just talking in a raicial or other similar context. I'm talking about situations where there is a rush to judgement, which in itself is a kind of bigotry. Bigotry is the art of avoiding evidence contrary to preconcieved notions. We know this happens from the numerous cases of people on death row exonerated after many years in prison. We also know the system is reluctant to re-examine the evidence when it is available. Which means that the system thinks it has a lot to hide.

What I think the Rev. should do is join the anti-railroading society. Because, if the prosecutors would pull this on white boys look at how much easier it would be to do to blacks. How do poor people come up with even a retainer for top lawyers?

Rev. Barber needs a serious attitude re-adjustment.

Well any way. We should help our brothers get back on track rather than pick fights with them. It would be the Christian thing to do. Funny thing is I'm Jewish.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Right Loses Faith

It is interesting to read the hard right's take on the justice system based on the Duke case.

When folks from Free Republic lose faith in the justice system, we are in serious trouble.

Here is a typical comment:

To: TommyDale

"Multiply that in North Carolina, where the legal system can screw innocent people and the general public would never know,"

That is everywhere in the country.

10 posted on 01/24/2007 6:14:39 AM PST by SmoothTalker

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Tribalism

Across the sea,
Corpses in the water;
Across the mountain,
Corpses heaped on the field;
I shall die only for the Emperor,
I shall never look back.

Japanese Popular Song: Umi Yukaba
The war against Islamofascism is not the first time we in America have faced enemies who loved death more than life. Honor more than victory. We have faced such enemies every time we have faced one of the oldest human cultures on earth. Tribalism.

What we call western civilization is really a series of attempts to get past tribalism and move towards universalism. The Jews with their universal laws (good for Jews and gentiles - the Jews of course were chosen to be burdened with more laws than the gentiles). The laws are (taken from this Wiki):

The seven laws (commonly rendered as Sheva Mitzvot Shel Bnei Noach) are:

1. Avodah zarah - Do not worship false gods.

The universe is a unity. Since it is a unity there can be only one Maker. Tribal gods are null and void. Unity for a nation then becomes possible. Egypt solved the unity problem by incorporating local gods into their religion. They would find in their pantheon a god or goddess that was similar and graft the tribal god to it. The Romans pretty much took the Greek gods wholesale. Eventually Christianity spread the Jewish idea of the unity of the universe and the pagan gods and goddesses were junked. Still the Catholic Church will, if the demand is great enough, incorporate tribal gods disguised as saints.

2. Shefichat damim - Do not murder.

What is special about this law is that it was applied not just within the tribe, but universally.

3. Gezel - Do not steal (or kidnap).

Again what is special about this law is that it was applied not just within the tribe, but universally. There is no such thing as fair game for theft, kidnap, and plunder.

4. Gilui arayot - Do not be sexually immoral (forbidden sexual acts are traditionally interpreted to include incest, bestiality, male homosexual sex acts, i.e. sodomy, and adultery.)

The acts are still forbidden, but the prosecutorial zeal is not what it once was. Except for incest and adult-child sexual relations. That Jesus guy may have had something to do with this. Plus the fact that the status of women has risen from that of property (goats as one of my commenters likes) to people.

5. Birkat Hashem - Do not "bless God" euphemistically referring to blasphemy.

Again the act is still forbidden, but the prosecutorial zeal is not what it once was. Even among the devout, at least in the current western practice.

6. Ever min ha-chai - Do not eat any flesh that was torn from the body of a living animal (given to Noah and traditionally interpreted as a prohibition of cruelty towards animals)

This gives the idea that unnecessary cruelty is not a positive virtue. You can still eat your meat, but the kill must be with as little suffering as possible.

7. Dinim - Set up a system of honest, effective courts, police and laws.

Here is a truly novel idea. Your brother in law or cousin doesn't get special treatment. Every one is equal under the law.

The Talmud also states: "Righteous people of all nations have a share in the world to come" (Sanhedrin 105a). Any non-Jew who lives according to these laws is regarded as one of "the righteous among the gentiles". Maimonides states that this refers to those who have acquired knowledge of God and act in accordance with the Noahide laws.

In the west even the most devout secularist adheres to these laws as currently practiced. Exceping for some on the left who wish to devolve back to a state of tribalism in the name of multi-culturalism where certain tribes are to be given special favor. Everyone is not equal under the law. Of course this destroys the unity of a nation and would reduce the nation state to groups of warring factions when the big advantage of the nation is that it eliminates open warfare within a nation thus making the nation more economically advantaged and stronger morally and militarily. United we stand... and all that.

Which is a long lead up to this very interesting look at tribalism in the Middle East.

To understand the nature of the enemy in the Middle East and to evaluate the prospects for democracy and peace, we need to extend our gaze not five years into the past, but five hundred and even five thousand.

I've spent the last four years writing two books about Alexander the Great's campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, 331-327 B.C. What has struck me in the research is the dead-ringer parallels between that ancient East-West clash and the modern ones the U.S. is fighting today — despite the fact that Alexander was pre-Christian and his enemies were pre-Islamic.

What history seems to be telling us is that the quality that most defines our Eastern adversaries, then and now, is neither religion nor extremism nor "Islamo-fascism," but something much older and more fundamental.

Extremist Islam is merely an overlay (and a recent one at that) atop the primal, unchanging mind-set of the East, which is tribalism, and its constituent individual, the tribesman.

Tribalism and the tribal mind-set are what the West is up against in Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, the Iraqi insurgency, the Sunni and Shiite militias, and the Taliban.

It looks like what we are confronting is a very old form of human organization. The problem with this type of organization is that the justice it provides is not universal. The in tribe gets a measure of justice. The out tribes get the leavings.

What exactly is the tribal mind-set? It derives from that most ancient of social organizations, whose virtues are obedience, fidelity, warrior pride, respect for ancestors, hostility to outsiders and willingness to lay down one's life for the cause/faith/group. The tribe's ideal leader is closer to Tony Soprano than to FDR and its social mores are more like those of Geronimo's Apaches than the city council of Scarsdale or Shepherd's Bush.

Can the tribal mind embrace democracy? Consider the contrast between the tribesman and the citizen:

A citizen is an autonomous individual. A citizen is free. A citizen possesses the capacity to evaluate the facts and prospects of his world and to make decisions guided by his own conscience, uncoerced by authority. A congress of citizens acting in free elections determines the political course of a democratic community.

The citizen is an altogether different animal from the member of a tribe. He lives by a diffeent set of rules. A set of rules the tribalist considers unmanly and without honor. The civilized man rates peace and prosperity higher than honor. Which is not the same as being without honor. A mistake tribalists have been making about the democratically civilized for a very long time. Because the civilized man will allow himself to be dishonored for the sake of peace the tribal man assumes that the civilized man is weak. In fact the civilized man can be more brutal than the tribalist when the civilized man goes into the honor mode. When in that mode it is not just tit for tat revenge he seeks, but the complete destruction of the disturbers of his peace.

The value of the civilized man is the value of the merchant who will take small humiliations for the sake of profit. For the tribalist no amount of profit is worth any humiliation. Which is why merchants and bankers are so despised by the tribalist.

A citizen prizes his freedom; therefore he grants it to others. He is willing to respect the rights of minorities within the community, so that his own rights will be shielded when he finds himself in the minority.

The tribesman doesn't see it that way. Within the fixed hierarchy of the tribe, disagreement is not dissent (and thus to be tolerated) but treachery, even heresy, which must be ruthlessly expunged. The tribe exists for itself alone. It is perpetually at war with all other tribes, even of its own race and religion.

The tribesman deals in absolutes. One is either "of blood" or not. The enemy spy can infiltrate the tribal network no more than a prison guard can worm his way into the Aryan Brotherhood. The tribe recognizes its own. It expels (or beheads) the alien. The tribe cannot be negotiated with. "Good faith" applies only within the pale, never beyond.

The tribesman does not operate by a body of civil law but by a code of honor. If he receives a wrong, he does not seek redress. He wants revenge. The taking of revenge is a virtue in tribal eyes, called badal in the Pathan code of nangwali. A man who does not take revenge is not a man. Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and the sectarian militias of Iraq are not in the war business, they are in the revenge business. The revenge-seeker cannot be negotiated with because his intent is bound up with honor. It is an absolute.

Perhaps the most telling difference between the citizen and the tribesman lies in their views of the Other. The citizen embraces multiplicity; to him, the melting pot produces richness and cultural diversity. To the tribesman, the alien is not even given the dignity of being a human being; he is a gentile, an infidel, a demon.

The tribesman grants justice within the tribe. In his internal councils, empathy, humor and compassion may prevail. Outside the tribe? Forget it.

Civilization is a fragile thing because the lure of tribalism is always there. Socialism's appeal is that the government will take care of you in the way that being a member of a tribe did. The Nazis' appeal was to the greater German tribe. Sadly in America the Democrat Party is the Party where tribes gather; they just don't get civilization. Civilization works by encouraging the tribes to make the tribal identity secondary.

I'm going to be looking into this topic further over time. The number one question is how the tribalist can be converted either over time or by generational change to more universal values.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The civilized man pursues happiness. The tribalist pursues narrow justice.

The number one problem for the civilized and the tribalized alike is mirror imaging.

Update: 26 Sept '06 1651z

Commenter Paul noted in the comments this very interesting piece by a libertarian anthropologist: Observations on Arabs

Update: 27 Sept '06 1803z

Clayton Cramer comments.

Update: 30 Sept '06 0059z

Elder of Zion and Liberty ans Justice and Infidel Bloggers Alliance comment.


Update: 02 Oct. '06 0807z

Captain's Quarters discusses Afghan tribalism. The comments are especially good. See the one by Dale in Atlanta.

Update: 16 Oct. '06 1405z

Israel Matzav has a good bit on tribalism in Gaza.

Cross Posted at Classical Values 01 April '08.