American indifference?

I went to an interesting talk yesterday. The speaker was Samantha Power, a Harvard professor and Pulitzer Prize winning author of A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, which examines America’s reaction to acts of genocide around the world. At the risk of completely misinterpreting the point of her book, Power’s thesis was this: “The United States had never in its history intervened to stop genocide and had in fact rarely even made a point of condemning it as it occurred.”

And yet, despite her calls for America to do something about foreign genocide, Power found herself against the ongoing war/occupation in Iraq. Yes, it got rid of Saddam… but in the process, she said, the U.S. may have caused more problems.

Power believes that in the process of fighting this war, the United States brought four self-fulfilling prophecies to bear:

1. The Iraq – Al Qaeda connection: Before the war, the connection was specious. Now, it’s stronger than ever before. The war has bonded American haters around the world. See quote #1 for why this is a bad thing.

2. Targets: We wanted to lessen the potential for terrorism. Yet now in Iraq, there are a slew of soft targets for terrorists.

3. Legitimacy and Liberation: As much as it confounds us, many Iraqis saw Saddam as a legitimate ruler. They were fighting for their liberation, yes, but at least the country had a legitimate ruler. Now, however, Iraqis see an occupying force that won’t leave. They are still fighting for their liberation — but now it’s against what they perceive as an illegitimate ruler.

4. Ineptitude of the U.N.: The United States loves to bash the U.N. It doesn’t work, we say. It’s inept. Now that the Iraqi occupation is becoming more difficult, we are poised to hand off control of the situation to the U.N. In doing so, however, we will give them a black eye because the situation is a mess. As Power says, it’s a loser of a situation, not something anyone would want to inherit. And yet, the U.N. will probably take a larger role in its rebuilding, and after 5 or 10 years when it’s still going on, Americans will start to blame the U.N.’s ineptitude for a bad situation that hasn’t much improved.

A few choice quotes from her lecture:

• “U.S. security is undermined when everyone hates us.”
• “It’s very useful to know things about the place that you’re about to invade.”
• “The Bush administration is right: The Security Council is broken.”
• And, paraphrasing Robert Frost: “A liberal is someone who’s so openminded, he can’t take his own side in an argument.”

I’m not sure I agree with all her points, but she really made me think. I am grateful for that opportunity. Back in undergrad at U of M, this is the kind of thing I was hoping for. Intelligent speakers that would enlighten. No protestors anywhere to be found. A well thought out, reasoned discussion. At Michigan, that was not to be. Here at Case… it is!

*looking around* … Wasn’t me!

Res ipsa loquitur basically means that if something in your possession hurts another person, and you don’t have a good reason for it, you’re negligent.

Wilson v. Spencer summed it up nicely: “Thousands of automobiles are using our streets, but no one expects the air to be filled with flying hubcaps.”

And I, for some strange and twisted reason, cracked up at the imagery. Does anyone else find it hilarious?

Absolute

Found this great passage in my Contracts book. It’s from the French economist Frederic Bastiat, and it describes the awe he feels when contemplating the free market that binds us all:

On entering Paris, which I had come to visit, I said to myself — Here are a million of human beings who would all die in a short time if provisions of every kind ceased to flow towards this great metropolis. Imagination is baffled when it tries to appreciate the vast multiplicity of commodities which must enter to-morrow through the barriers in order to preserve the inhabitants from falling a prey to the convulsions of famine, rebellion and pillage. And yet all sleep at this moment, and their peaceful slumbers are not disturbed for a single instant by the prospect of such a frightful catastrophe. On the other hand, eighty departments have been labouring to-day, without concern, without any mutual understanding, for the provisioning of Paris. How does each succeeding day bring what is wanted, nothing more, nothing less, to so gigantic a market? What, then, is the ingenious and secret power which governs the astonishing regularity of movements so complicated, a regularity in which everybody has implicit faith, although happiness and life itself are at stake? That power is an absolute principle, the principle of freedom in transactions.

F. Bastiat, Economic Sophisms 104-105 (1922)

This man put into words what I’ve been marveling at for years now.

The Point

Why keep a Web site? Why, when everyone else in the world is posting their daily ramblings online, should I make the effort to do the same? After all, what makes my ramblings any more worthwhile than others’?

Not much. Which is why my ramblings will be a secondary part of this experiment. This blog is not about me; it’s about what I go through on a daily basis. It’s about antiquated Latin phrases and English words that don’t mean what they should mean. It’s about… LAW SCHOOL.

From the millions of pages I read each day, a few choice thoughts or phrases pop out at me. They are words that made me stop and think, or chuckle, or often even cry. These are the words that grab my attention during the day, and keep me up at night. They are published in my case books, and said by professors and students in class. They are law school. And that is what I hope to share with you.