Matt Stinson tears into CalPundit for his risible suggestion that he, Paul Krugman, and Atrios are “moderates” (see also John Cole). Allow me to add my two cents.

Newsflash to Kevin (and anyone else in punditry under the misguided impression they are moderate): nobody with a well-developed political ideology is a moderate. By definition, if you are liberal, conservative, libertarian, socialist, communist, Enviro-wacko, batshit neocon, or whatever the hell Pat Buchanan and Bob Novak are (paleo-pseudo-con?), you cannot be moderate. George Bush isn’t moderate. Nor is Colin Powell, Janet Reno, Howard Dean, Glenn Reynolds, Megan McArdle, or Kevin Drum. Nor am I.

Most Americans—and most people the world over, in fact—don’t have consistent, ideological belief systems. The absence of those belief systems makes them moderate, because they just react to whatever’s going on in the political ether; if you’re lucky, you might be able to pin their beliefs to some overarching fundamental value (“hard work“, “equality“, “liberty“).

There are only two types of true moderate: people who don’t care about politics, and centrist politicians (and this latter class of people generally care less about politics than they care about keeping their jobs—I defy you to explain the behavior of Arlen Specter or Olympia Snowe otherwise). Bloggers and New York Times columnists aren’t. Anyone who cares enough about politics enough to post several essays a day explicating his or her worldview is not a moderate, and neither is anyone who’s taking time away from his academic career to publish two incoherent essays a week in America’s flagship newspaper.

Said people may be swell, wonderful, good fun at parties, open-minded, and paragons of virtue and erudition. It is not a sin to have an ideology; in fact, it is a good thing. So please don’t insult my intelligence by pretending you don’t have one.

My co-blogger has equated Richard Stallman’s proposed abolition of copyright with slavery. Kevin Aylward has equated Stallman’s agenda with Communism.

Both are being unfair to Stallman.

First, let’s look at Aylward’s charge of Communism. Aylward writes:

Stealing the product, regardless of the extreme moral relativism employed by Stallman, is wrong. And he’s not just talking about teenagers downloading copyrighted materials on Kazaa, he wants the remove the rights of the content producers as well. Your output as an artist (or programmer) belongs to EVERYONE. Replace the word EVERYONE with STATE and what do you get?

Communism

Who owns the air we breathe? “No one” would be the best answer. “Everyone” might be just as good. But that’s hardly the same as the air being owned by the state, and it does not make the USA a Communist nation.

Next, let’s look at Chris’s charge of slavery. Chris writes:

Taking away that choice by requiring them to give away their work—Stallman’s ultimate utopia—is morally indistinguishable from telling programmers they are slaves. That Stallman would have the state feed and clothe the authors of software and other works makes it no less slavery than if the system were operated by rich white plantation owners.

Let’s just set aside the fact that the vast majority of software development is not creation of software for sale. Part of my job is software development, but the stuff I develop would not be of the slightest interest to anyone but my employer. (As a matter of fact, the software I develop for my employer is in the public domain.)

In most countries, the state claims a monopoly on law enforcement. If you want to be a cop, you have to work for the state, and accept the state’s terms of employment. Cops are fed and clothed by the state. Does this make them slaves? No, because they have the option of getting some other job.

Personally, I would not be in favor of completely abolishing copyright. But Stallman has something interesting and valuable to add to the ongoing dialog about copyright protection. And unfair accusations of Communism and slavery do nothing to further that dialog.

The David Cutcliffe Season Survival Meter has been a rousing success so far. It’s time to look back at the initial announcement and see how David is doing (and where he needs to go from here).

In the initial post, I outlined some minimum requirements for his survival:

1. Defeating homecoming foe Arkansas State.
2. Defeating SEC West cellar-dweller Mississippi State on Thanksgiving.
3. Defeating at least 3 of the 6 other SEC opponents.

So far, Cutcliffe has accomplished #1 and two-thirds of #3. The Rebels [5-2, 3-0 SEC] took care of Florida for the second straight season, blew out Arkansas State, and—this Saturday—thoroughly outplayed Alabama, a long-term nemesis of the program.

Now, though, I wonder if Cutcliffe has raised expectations to the point that these minimum requirements may be insufficient. Rebel fans did not expect the team to win both the Florida and Alabama games. An SEC West title is now almost expected, which means that if the team fails to deliver the faithful may want a new coach—particularly if Mississippi State looks like it might attract a name coach.

So, what do the Rebels have to do to win that title? The easy answer is “win out.” The second-best answer is that the Rebels can afford a loss, as long as it’s not against Auburn, because of the division tiebreaker rule (if both Auburn and Ole Miss are 7-1, the head-to-head winner is division champion); however, they are probably the largest impediment to winning out for the Rebels, as they are the main road test. Third-best is beat everyone except Auburn and hope someone hangs two losses on the Tigers. Auburn will probably lose at Georgia, and their upcoming trip to LSU is going to be a tough challenge for Tommy Tuberville’s squad as well. It is important to bear in mind that LSU is still lurking as well.

So, the DCSSM rests on the Rebels now winning the SEC West—something I’m perversely optimistic will happen. If the Rebels do it, Cutcliffe will be hailed as the reincarnation of both Johnny Vaught and Bear Bryant. If they don’t, expect him to be the sacrificial lamb for an embattled university administration already reeling from their mishandling of the Colonel Reb debacle.

I wrote here:

On the other hand, given Musgrove’s own admission of past participation in the rally, I find it hard to fault Barbour for attending it this year. And—barring further revelations—I’m willing to give Barbour the benefit of the doubt.

But, within hours, I also wrote:

Yet despite these ties, many politicians—black, white, Democrat, Republican—continue to attend the rally, as the Magnolia Report correctly notes. As I’ve noted before, however, this is exactly the sort of thing the Council thrives on: the appearance of respectability. Getting its members in positions to glad-hand political candidates is what they want, and the Black Hawk Rally was a prime opportunity. And it’s time that Mississippi’s politicians told the Black Hawk folks once and for all, thanks but no thanks.

A bit of explanation is in order. When I wrote the first post, I was still buying Bill Lord’s allegation that the rally and barbecue were separate events, with the rally sponsored by groups unaffiliated with the Council; I don’t consider this allegation credible any more.

If I were to rewrite my first statement in terms of what I know now, I would have to say that I fault Haley Barbour for attending the rally, as I fault any other candidate for public office who attended it in the past—including Ronnie Musgrove, who’s damn lucky that his smiling face isn’t plastered on the Council’s website right next to Barbour’s. (Barbour does rack up some extra sleaze points for his failure to demand his picture be removed from the site.)

Now, you can make an argument that a principled voter should turn to one of the third-party candidates in the race. However, as a group they’re all fairly unappealing: neither the Green Party nor the Reform Party deserve even the miniscule amount of added credibility that my vote for their candidates would give them, and the other alternative is running under the slogan “Keep the Flag, Change the Governor.”

More to the point, in a close, winner-takes-all election it is irrational for voters to cast a ballot for a candidate with a negligible chance of winning the election if they have transitive preferences among the candidates with non-negligible chances to win—which is political science speak for “vote for a major-party candidate if you prefer him or her over one of the other major-party candidates.” And in this campaign—taking into account my policy preferences and the fact that on most issues of consequence Musgrove’s position is more illiberal* than Barbour’s—at the moment I still have to give a small edge to Barbour, notwithstanding his pathetic handling of this situation and refusal to come out forthrightly against the Council’s use of his picture.

Kevin Aylward does me the huge favor of explaining my distaste for Richard Stallman’s agenda. Indeed, in my opinion, the key reason why producing free software is morally superior to producing proprietary software is that the author is making the choice to give away the fruits of his labor for the benefit of others.

Taking away that choice by requiring them to give away their work—Stallman’s ultimate utopia—is morally indistinguishable from telling programmers they are slaves. That Stallman would have the state feed and clothe the authors of software and other works makes it no less slavery than if the system were operated by rich white plantation owners.

In the mainstream media today:

• The DeSoto Times Today carries a writeup of its editorial board’s Friday meeting with Ronnie Musgrove.
• The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a lengthy article on the state gubernatorial race, which explains where the “Keep the Flag, Change the Governor” signs and bumper stickers came from:

  This year, in addition to [Green Party candidate Sherman Lee] Dillon, there’s a Reform Party candidate, Shawn O‘Hara, and John Thomas Cripps, who’s running on the memory of the 2001 state flag referendum, in which voters resoundingly turned down a design—favored by Musgrove and most of the state’s business community—that would have removed the Confederate battle emblem. His posters urge voters to “Keep the Flag, Change the Governor.”

• Delta Democrat Times columnist Amy Redwines considers her vote. She writes in part:

  I used to be happy to live here, as did a lot of other young people. But that was before I grew up and began to understand what kind of situation this state is in. I love Mississippi, and it will always be my home.

  We need a person in the governor’s mansion who can make this state do a 360-degree turnaround. If that doesn’t happen, we will continue to slide downhill.

  People already think Mississippi is chock full of backward rednecks and bigots, but there is more to the people here than those superficial perceptions.

• Jackson’s alt-weekly, the Free Press has an extensive comment thread on the Barbour/CofCC/Blackhawk situation.

In the blogosphere and thereabouts:

• Not Quite Tea and Crumpets wonders if the New York Times Magazine is seeing racism where there’s really partisanship in airing complaints about Haley Barbour’s discussion of the “Musgrove-Blackmon ticket.”
• Patrick Carver elaborates on the theme, noting that Blackmon and Barbour have opposite positions on the tort reform issue; if Barbour’s going to move tort reform through the Senate, he’ll probably need a reform supporter in charge of the chamber—and Blackmon is no fan of tort reform.
• MississippiPolitical.com helpfully compiles a list of people who have attended CofCC-sponsored events (a veritable “who’s who” of Mississippi politics); there’s also a lengthy commentary that is skeptical about Barbour’s protestations of ignorance.

This post will be updated throughout Sunday; previous posts can be found here.

I haven’t had much to say about the Gregg Easterbrook situation—Daniel Drezner, as always, does a good job explaining the background while Matt Stinson has a roundup of reactions.

I think the more interesting angle here is ESPN’s pathetic reaction to the flap, and in that I generally agree with Jonah Goldberg (yes, I did a double-take writing that sentence too), who said:

[C]reating a climate where offending Jews automatically results in your termination will do far more to hurt Jews in this country than anything which might have resulted from Easterbrook’s original comments.