Quotulatiousness

October 15, 2012

Jonathan Kay on bullying

Filed under: Health, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:38

In his National Post column, he responds to a fellow journalist’s column on the topic of bullying:

The appetite to bully cannot be treated as a social sickness, or the product of maladaptive psychological development — which is how it is universally depicted in the media, and in government-funded public-service announcements. Bullying is in our genes. And any effort to fight it must reflect that fact.

The reason that bullying has become part of human evolutionary psychology is that it works — for both males and females — as a strategy to increase one’s attractiveness to the opposite sex, one’s perceived social status, and the cohesiveness of one’s social alliances.

In movies, bullies are shown to be wounded individuals whose bullying is a perverse symptom of the pain that’s been inflicted on them by abusive parents inhabiting poor and broken homes, or by more dominant figures in their social pecking order. There is no evidentiary basis for this stereotype. In fact, research cited by Anthony Volk, Joseph Camilleri, Andrew Dane and Zopito Marini in a 2012 Aggressive Behavior journal article indicate that bullying-induced social dominance is correlated with reduced stress and improved physical health. Amazingly, “bullying is also positively linked with other positive mental traits such as … cognitive empathy, leadership, social competence, and self-efficacy.”

[. . .]

The strategy works: Studies show that boys who bully other boys, on average, gain status with girls, who perceive the boys as more dominant. And girls who bully, on average, receive more positive attention from boys.

As the aforementioned authors report, “Dominance has been found to be positively associated with both bullying and peer nominations of dating popularity among adolescents. Bullying is also positively correlated with peer nominations of power, social prominence, student and teacher ratings of perceived popularity and peer leadership” — all of which translate to social capital, which in turn means social or mating opportunities with the opposite sex.

An earlier post on this topic is here.

Crony capitalism: a bipartisan plague

Filed under: Government, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:10

Veronique de Rugy writes about the problem both major US political parties have (and neither really wants to get rid of):

In his 1986 memoir The Triumph of Politics, former Reagan administration budget director David Stockman wrote: “I had long insisted, to any liberals who would listen, that the supply-side revolution would be different from the corrupted opportunism of the organized business groups; that it would go after weak [corporate welfare] claims like Boeing’s, not just weak clients such as food stamp recipients. Giving the heave-ho to the well-heeled lobbyists of the big corporations who keep the whole scam alive would be dramatic proof that we meant business, not business-as-usual.”

After four years as the Reagan administration’s fiscal whiz kid, Stockman left, objecting to the president’s inability or unwillingness to make good on his promises to cut government spending. Crony capitalism, having avoided a showdown with a principled adversary, has thrived ever since.

Cronyism is the practice by which government officials — Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives — give preferential treatment to particular firms or industries in exchange for votes, campaign contributions, or the pleasure of promoting pet projects. Favored companies reap financial rewards, reduce their exposure to risk, and gain an advantage over rivals who don’t get the same government help.

[. . .]

Corporate double dipping isn’t new. Bipartisan federal, state, and local support for the “weak claims” of corporations has been going on for far more than 30 years, and not just in new and exotic industries such as alternative energy. The target of David Stockman’s ire, aerospace giant Boeing, continues to receive almost unfathomably huge direct and indirect subsidies from the federal government. Ninety percent of the value of the loan guarantees issued by the Export–Import Bank in 2011 went to subsidize Boeing. As a result, Carney reports, Boeing “accounted for 45.6 percent, or $40.7 billion, of Ex-Im’s total exposure in fiscal 2011.” With the help of federal guarantees, the company gained contracts from the likes of Air China and Air India.

Boeing shows its gratitude to taxpayers by overcharging them at every turn. The nonprofit Project on Government Oversight recently reported that “Boeing charged the U.S. Army $1,678.61 for a plastic roller assembly that could have been purchased for $7.71 internally from the Department of Defense’s own supplies. In another transaction, a thin metal pin worth 4 cents that the Pentagon had on hand, unused by the tens of thousands, ended up costing the Army $71.01 — a markup of more than 177,000 percent.” The watchdog group’s investigation found that Boeing overcharged the Army nearly $13 million in dozens of transactions, jacking up the price on small, mundane parts and in some cases charging thousands of times more than they were worth. What Stockman called the “corrupted opportunism of the organized business groups” has become business as usual.

A “violence tax” that would only fall on the non-violent

Filed under: Law, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:40

Steve Chapman on a recent proposal that will penalize the non-violent for violence in their community:

For urban politicians, gun control is like the bar in Cheers — a place of refuge they can seek out whenever things aren’t going well. Things aren’t going well on the crime front in Chicago, with homicides up 25 percent this year. So what else can our elected leaders do but promise action against guns?

Action against the possession and use of guns by violent felons would be a good idea, but the proposal offered by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is something else: a penalty on nonviolent citizens who bear no blame for the carnage.

Preckwinkle suggested a tax on sales of firearms and ammunition, with the goal of defraying the costs that gunshots create for the county hospital and jail. Her spokesperson couldn’t say what the tax rate would be or how much revenue it would yield but said the fee would be “consistent with our commitment to pursuing violence reduction in the city and in the county.”

[. . .]

The levy was dubbed a “violence tax,” which is exactly what it isn’t. It would not target criminals who have malice in mind, but would fall entirely on the law-abiding.

Anyone convicted of a felony, after all, is ineligible for an Illinois Firearm Owner’s Card, which is legally required to buy guns or bullets. Under federal law, felons are barred from owning guns. So ex-con gang members would not pay the tax, because they make all their purchases in the illegal market. It would hit only those gun owners who have used their firearms responsibly.

“[T]he Nobel Peace Prize Committee [wouldn’t] recognize absurdity if it slapped them in the face and did a Macarena”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Europe, History, Humour — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:37

Marian L. Tupy writes about the absurdity of awarding this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union at the Cato@Liberty blog:

The esteemed members of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee have awarded the 2012 prize to the European Union. So, if you thought that awarding it to President Barack Obama for the sole reason of not being George W. Bush was strange and unusual, think again. (By the way, I have nothing against our president. I am sure he was just as embarrassed as everyone else.)

[. . .]

As for democracy, the Peace Prize award to the EU drips with irony. The EU is not only un-democratic, in the sense that it is run by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, it is positively anti-democratic, in the sense that the democratically expressed wishes of the European peoples are either ignored or treated with contempt. When the Danes voted against the Maastricht Treaty, they were forced to vote again. When the Irish sunk the Lisbon treaty, they too had to repeat the vote. And when the Dutch and the French said no to the EU Constitution, they were simply ignored.

Here is how the president of the eurozone, Jean-Claude Juncker, sums up the decision-making process in the great bastion of democracy that is today’s EU: “We decide on something, leave it lying around and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don’t understand what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back.”

I could write about the overgrown and arrogant bureaucracy in Brussels; about the monstrously high and recession-proof salaries of European decision makers; about widespread and widely tolerated corruption; about the prosecution and silencing of whistleblowers, and about many other ways in which the EU does not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. Suffice it to say that those have been widely documented and are available to anyone interested.

Vikings lose to Redskins, drop to 4-2 on the season

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:16

Another late game that wasn’t available (on non-premium channels, anyway) in my area. It sounds like the RGIII show, from the commentaries:

The Minnesota Vikings got to within 31-26 after Christian Ponder’s second touchdown pass of the day, and after a Jared Allen sack and a short run by Alfred Morris, appeared to have the Washington Redskins right where they wanted them.

Not the case.

On third down, Robert Griffin III took the snap, and started out up the middle of the field. He peeled off to the left, and went completely untouched into the end zone from 76 yards out for a touchdown to make it 38-26 with 2:43 remaining in the fourth quarter.

And The Viking Age agrees:

It was an ugly day for the Vikings in Washington. Ugly on offense. Ugly on defense. Just plain hideous. Where to begin? How about the defense. The Vikes have excelled on that side of the ball during their recent run of wins but today was a total reversal. The run defense had its issues and the pass defense was dismal. Robert Griffin III had all kinds of time to complete passes and found plenty of open receivers. And when Griffin needed a big play to seal the deal he got it with his feet, turning a QB draw into a 67-yard TD.

RG3 played like a star today. For the most part, the Vikings’ defensive players did not. It was a bad day for everyone in the secondary except Antoine Winfield who made some plays early including an interception. The defensive line wasn’t much better. The front four was pushed around all day the by Redskins’ offensive line. Only late in the game when the Vikings were trying to come back did the defense show the spunk we’ve seen from them lately. Except for the RG3 run.

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