There Is Always Another Dawn Risen On Noonan,
And Under Every Deep A Lower Deep Opens
I turned on the faucet and water came out. This has proven a reliable test as to whether there’s something ridiculous going on over at Blogs For Bush.
Most infamously, it was in the Supreme Court’s asinine Roe decision that a “right to privacy” first really caught the public eye.
Um, I usually like to get a few sentences into his pieces before Sadly-Noing poor Noonan, but it was actually Griswold v. Connecticut, the landmark contraception case.
People often ask how we do it. We’ve found that typing phrases into certain Internet sites can produce answers to things, as though the Internet somehow knows you’re asking it a question. Although this might be one of those things that doesn’t work for everyone, like when the guy found the singing frog.
Fundamentally, Roe says that we have such a right to privacy that any interference in any sexual or reproductive matter is a violation of the right to privacy.
Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal…
This, on the face of it, is stupid – daily we interfere with peoples’ sexual and reproductive activities – but the concept has lodged itself into the public mind and I believe that not even one in a thousand Americans doubts that among our self-evident rights is a right to privacy. But is there really such a thing?
This is funny, because a couple of days ago we were trying to interfere with Mark’s sexual and reproductive activities by doing Davey and Goliath voices outside his window, and he got mad and chased us away.
Then again, I’ve read ahead a bit, and [spoiler alert!] what Mark is really getting at is that the government (i.e., a Republican government, but of course not a potential Clinton or Obama regime) is inherently entitled to know every detail of its citizens’ lives and actions. One can immediately spot some issues arising from such a notion. The first of these is that it’s two in the freaking afternoon, and I want to go to bed and dream thickly of nothing.
But the next is that we find ourselves, at last, arguing not against sly and elliptical conservative gestures toward totalitarianism, but against literal totalitarianism of a no-kidding, letter-and-spirit fashion unfreighted by ambiguity or Godwin.
In fact, one of the things that’s so fascinating about Mark, and that keeps us coming back time and again to his commentary, is his grounding in pre-fascist ideologies — royalism; irrationalism and disdain for logic and science; a rigid, nearly Medieval sense of social order and an idealization of the pre-modern. He shows the cod-Nietzschean, vulgar-Spencerian impulses of what some pre-war German author (maybe Heinrich Mann) called ‘the eternal petite bourgeoisie,’ and (not least) a vision of perpetual national crisis, of powerful enemies ever-scheming to destroy our natural greatness and superiority. He replicates the mindset in which fascism arose — and sure enough, ding-ding: Here it is!
Lately, everyone has been talking about Brad DeLong’s excellent and useful taxonomy of conservatives, in which he uses the following formulation of Žižek’s (which referred originally to life under Soviet Communism):
Of the three features—-personal honesty, sincere support of the regime, and intelligence—-it was possible to combine only two, never all three. If one was honest and supportive, one was not very bright; if one was bright and supportive, one was not honest; if one was honest and bright, one was not supportive…
Mark seems honest, pretty much, and he certainly supports the Bush program. But indeed, as we’ve seen many times, and are about to see again, he’s about as bright as the inside of a cow:
A right, per our sublime Declaration of Indepence, is something we are edowed with by our Creator. While there can be debate about application, there can be no debate in the fundamental existence of the thing. A right to privacy, if such exists, means a right to not have our personal business exposed to public scrutiny unless we choose to make it so. Does this sound like something our all-knowing Creator would endow us with? There is certainly nothing private from God – so why should there be anything private from our fellows?
I’m just wild about Harry, and Harry’s wild about me…
It’s always interesting to watch conservatives give yoga exhibitions attempting to claim that the Bill of Rights — a document steeped to the gills in the notion of individual privacy — fails to specify, and thus to secure, a right to privacy per se.* Good old Amendment IX makes short work of that kind of sophistry:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
But this is the first time we’ve seen someone actually forget that there’s any such thing as the Bill of Rights, resorting to a list of complaints against King George III in order to, you know, whatever he was trying to say, and don’t look at me because I’m just sitting here gaping with a Dorito halfway to my mouth.
In practical application, a right to privacy is really a right to not have embarrassing details about us released to the public. If you’ve done a good job or a good deed, you’re not going to be terribly upset if everyone finds out about it…if, on the other hand, you spend your weekends oogling girls over at Jugs.com,
Apparently, that would be juggs.com (spelled with two ‘g’s). Actually, if it’s porn you’re after, thehun.net is absolutely the choice of first resort. Mark lives in Las Vegas. I’m not sure how to make these details fit together thematically. Message: If Mark were an Eskimo, he’d be unfamiliar with snow.
At this moment, Mark is clicking the link to thehun.net, and I’m wishing I’d thought ahead and made it point to Goatse.
then you are going to fight long and hard to protect yourself against anyone finding out about it. I can’t imagine that any right we are endowed with would entail a right to have shameful behaviour hidden from public view.
In Mark’s shining Jerusalem, the bathroom stalls have no doors, and lifting the lid activates a webcam.
It is terribly inconvenient – to say the least – when our more boneheaded actions come to public notice.
Such as is happening currently.
But to turn about and say that our desire to not be caught out as idiots is a fundamental right? I don’t think so – in my view, there is no right to privacy. There is a right to not do stupid things; there is a right to keep one’s mouth shut
This is a refreshing change from the old conservative canard about ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ freedoms — the one that privileges freedom-from (i.e., freedom-from-terrorism via government surveillance and the weakening of habeas corpus) over freedom-to (i.e., the liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights). Now, instead of the familiar Freedom of Speech that we have all so richly enjoyed, we find ourselves bestowed with a Freedom to Shut Up. Close behind are the Freedom to Not Assemble, the Freedom of Trial Without Jury, and the Freedom to Have Soldiers Quartered In Our Houses. Also, we’re free to not own guns, in order to not maintain a well-regulated militia.
This is looking like a real America 2.0, right here. Thank God for our victory over Soviet Communism.
— by keeping the trap shut and not doing stupid things, we’d find that we have no need of a right to privacy because we’d have nothing we’d want to hide from public view. Not only do I conclude there is no right to privacy, but that the notion is pernicious – behind claims to such privacy lie many a child molester; many a pornographer; many a killer making his evil plans. We’d better serve ourselves by dropping the absurd pretension and trying, instead, to just do the right thing on a day to day basis.
Yes, it’s that old classic, “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide” — which blends seamlessly with its variant, “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.”
Hey Mark, I don’t want to get all, you know, Foucauldian-thingy here, but you owe it to yourself to know something about Jeremy Bentham’s notion of the Panopticon.
[heh heh.]
* Sure enough, take a look at his comments, and there’s Mark making that very argument:
Have you read [the Fourth Amendment]? I’ll quote it for you:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Do you see the word “privacy” in there?
Also, it doesn’t specify that the Founders weren’t crossing their fingers or saying “opposite!” while ratifying the Fourth Amendment, so really, we’ll never be able to deduce their intentions. This level of reasoning plus a law degree will recommend you for membership in the prestigious Federalist Society.
Gavin, your second Michigan J. Frog link should have read “I’m just wild about Sally, and Sally’s wild about me!!” You know, just to change it up a little.
This guy must think “search and seizure” laws prohibit doctors from diagnosing epilepsy. He really seems to think that if you’re not doing anything wrong then it’s alright for Der Kommissar to sniff your wife’s panties every once in a while. Would he really like that to happ– oh dear lord.
You know it’s bad when even Noonan’s commentariat is saying, “Uh, I think you might just be out to lunch on this one.”
That “daily we interefere with peoples’ sexual and reproductive activities” line belongs in Noonan’s Greatest Hits. What the hell kind of life is Noonan leading if he does that every day? Professional cock-blocker?
You’re right. There was no choice but to change it…
So to Noonan, privacy means is prevention of public disclosure of actions or activities. Nothing about shielding patient/doctor or even lawyer/client communications. Nothing about protecting financial data, or even research data. (Or would Noonan feel completely differently about a Corporate right to privacy?) Perhaps he should consider what that Right to Privacy really means, not what he’s willing to pretend it means for the convenience of writing a particularly stupid piece for Gavin’s entertainment (I can think of no other reason why Noonan continues to whack away at it)…
mikey
Hm, its “I’m just wild about Harry”, isn’t it?
Yep.
Like Krusty plagiarizing a great line, I’ve got to use this one at the first available opportunity
“Message: If Mark were an Eskimo, he’d be unfamiliar with snow.”
Well, without the “Mark” part anyways
And mikey hit the exact points I wanted to as well, namely, if privacy is so unnecessary, then let the “privacy bad” blatherers post their personal and financial info on all the internets and googles for everyone to check out themselves
Oops.
Gah, fixed.
Looking forward to the day he’s caught peeping. “She had no constututional right to privacy, your honor.”
Kind of telling that Marky Mark of the Flunky Bunch posted responses to a couple of his commenters, but completely passed on the extensive comment that constituted a complete takedown of his stupidity.
Judging from the comments, Mark might have just jumped the shark.
We don’t even need to smack him down.
“There is certainly nothing private from God – so why should there be anything private from our fellows?”
Because they aren’t God?
This reminds me of something someone–okay, I–wrote, in the mouth of some character or whatever:
“My right to swing my arms around ends at your nose. Then begins my right to hit you in the nose, and your right to be hit in the nose by me.”
Happy, Mark?
The heck?
Site having issues?
Many of these Cathölic commenters (Allen Keyes is another suspect, I believe) are more interested in the Declaration of Independence than they are in our actual, governs us, ratified by our representatives, Constitution. Why, I ask? The namechecks of “The Creator?” The vague assumption of “natural rights?” (Bill of Righ..wha? They think the 10 Commandments should be the Bill o’ Rights.)
O Cathölics, please move to Vatican City & turn your “privacy” over to Pope Ratzi, as he is Gôd’s man on earth.
“He’s the hun, he’s number one!” –from “Nasi Goring” by Proctor & Bergman
Hey, you mean liberals! You think it’s funny to make fun of the mentally challenged? You are all so mean, mean, mean!
Liberals. Hmf.
You should be encouraging Noonan. I find it admirable that he so desperately wants to help.
What a cute little fella.
Unless Mark has a link on his site to his entire medical history, as well as job reviews and school records, plus those for his entire immediate family, then he is welcome to shut the hell up and go back to worshiping his loser god.
I can’t believe I just read that. Damn you, Sadly, No! How am I supposed to sleep tonight knowing that there are cretins like Mark in the world?
In fact, one of the things that’s so fascinating about Mark, and that keeps us coming back time and again to his commentary, is his grounding in pre-fascist ideologies — royalism; irrationalism and disdain for logic and science; a rigid, nearly Medieval sense of social order and an idealization of the pre-modern. He shows the cod-Nietzschean, vulgar-Spencerian impulses of what some pre-war German author (maybe Heinrich Mann) called ‘the eternal petite bourgeoisie,’ and (not least) a vision of perpetual national crisis, of powerful enemies ever-scheming to destroy our natural greatness and superiority.
There’s a place for Mark, and he doesn’t even have to trek across the Atlantic to Old Europe to find it. It’s right here in the Americas: the Brazilian Empire (1822-1889). Consider a few of its perks: a constitutional monarchy; Catholicism as state religion; a rigid social hierarchy bolstered by patronage, private violence sanctioned by the state, and a persistent concern with propriety and its flip side, public embarassment; a property regime that respected, indeed aggresively defended private ownership, especially that of other people; a number of internal uprisings that required ruthless suppression, various wars with neighboring nations that had to be fought, and an obsessive seige mentality among the elite, which lived in constant fear and distrust of the enslaved majority upon which it depended.
Unfortunately for Mark, the actual Empire fell in 1889. He’ll have to settle for living its glory through one of the many historical soap operas Brazilians produce for both domestic and international television audiences. Check the local Las Vegas cable or satellite TV listings for details.
Looking forward to the day he’s caught peeping…
No, no, Mark is proactive, you silly liberal! There are no curtains in Mark’s home, because he is not ashamed to be nude in front of God and all the neighbors. And yet, no matter how often he changes outfits, or how close he stands to the picture window, nobody seems to understand that he is making a bold statement in favor of denying the very concept of some numinous liberal “right” to “privacy”! He’s getting pretty suspicious of the neighbors directly across the street, though… why would they put up a “privacy fence” which just happens to block their view of his windows if they weren’t infected with un-Americanism?
Sounds like he’s recycling his lawyer’s argument in defense of his right to install webcams in the ladies’ locker room at the gym. Can we really say that women have a right to privacy when Mark has a strong need to see the naked in grainy black and white video?
On a more serious note, Mark is confusing the concepts of privacy and secrecy. I can stand on a street corner and scream out all my sexual habits, but that doesn’t interfere with my right to privacy. Ellen Willis described the difference very well when addressing the Clenis scandal:
But the public discussion of what to make of this invasion [of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky’s privacy] has displayed a persistent confusion—shared by queasy liberal commentators and ambivalent “ordinary Americans� alike—between sexual privacy and sexual secrecy. The two are in fact very different in their meaning and purpose. Genuine sexual privacy rests on the belief that consensual sexual behavior is a matter of individual liberty that need not and ought not be policed. Privacy will be consistently respected only in a sexually libertarian culture, for repression inevitably gives rise to a prurient preoccupation with other people’s sex lives. And when privacy is respected, secrecy is unnecessary….
A right to privacy… Does this sound like something our all-knowing Creator would endow us with?
When I turned on the Ethics-Check(c) feature on my World-Processor(c) software, it suggested this correction to those sentences:
“A right to life… Does this sound like something our unbeliever-smiting, city-destroying Creator would endow us with?”
I think I like Noonan better when he’s explaining how a state religion would be a good and necessary thing (since it would ensure that citizens adhere to a code of morality). If consistency is indeed the hobgoblin of small minds, Noonan’s mind is a veritable Leviathan.
Does anyone remember from a few years back when Antonin Scalia showed up to address a class of law students at (I think) NYU, and one of the adorable li’l upstarts asked him (during the Q&A) if the good Justice sodomized his wife?
This was after Scalia wrote his dissent in Lawrence.
People were, predictably enough, outraged.
I, however, was in love.
I think it obvious that there really needs to be a right to privacy, if for no other reason than that I hope to God I go to my grave not knowing the answer to the above question.
So if some public-minded citizen were, for example, to take photographs of Noonan pushing radishes up his bottom, and publish those photographs, perhaps with a stirring soundtrack, on the internet and Fox News, he wouldn’t have any objections?
I suggest for a soundtrack “In the air tonight” by Phil Collins.
“Barking Mad” Mark will make up what he likes about reality, history, truth and You, if it comes down to it, so what is your right to privacy protecting? It’s not as if these Toolios actually play by the rules of civil society.
We’re still trying to force the Wingsies to be fair. They aint never gon’ do it.
Bless goatse. Should be widely propagated.
excellent posts, Noonan has to be the best writer at Sadly No.
What’s interesting about Roe is that it was grounded in the 14th Amendment. I.e. Fetuses (feti?) don’t enjoy rights, because rights are granted to all persons born or naturalized in the US. Of course, talking to a wingnut about the constitution is like talking to Ace about vaginas.
What’s surprising about Mark’s post, is the total non-sequitur of his argument. People don’t have a right to the privacy of an abortion because we should be able to see all the mistakes they’ve made??? The government can tell a woman what to do with her body because everything should be on public record??? Can I have some of what Mark’s smoking?
Principal Blackmon said:
That “daily we interefere with peoples’ sexual and reproductive activities� line belongs in Noonan’s Greatest Hits. What the hell kind of life is Noonan leading if he does that every day? Professional cock-blocker?
Dude, you owe me a new laptop, some new nasal passages and a cat bathing after I violently spit my Pepsi Martini all over my laptop and my kitty.
photographs of Noonan pushing radishes up his bottom
For feck’s sake, Qetesh, do you sit around all day dreaming up disturbing and unnecessary visual scenarios to inflict on us?
Cokane — Excellent point. All fetuses are illegal immigrants.
This issue is going to totally split the Republican party.
n.
1.a. The quality or condition of being secluded from the presence or view of others.
b. The state of being free from unsanctioned intrusion.
2. The state of being concealed; secrecy.
Do you see the word privacy there?
Oh, my good Doktor, if you find that image disturbing, all I can say is that you must be sure you never do a Google search for “figging”.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Mark Noonan is even more stupid than I am.
The handmaiden (among many other puny humans) does not believe that this is possible, but now I have PROOF!
Noonan ought to have no problem with Ceiling Cat’s new webcam, right?
daily we interfere with peoples’ sexual and reproductive activities
We do? Well, speaking just for myself, I keep my efforts confined to those of my kid and spouse.
Well, speaking just for myself, I keep my efforts confined to those of my kid and spouse.
Properly managed, they can earn thousands.
And win valuable prizes…
mikey
We iz phl0rid8in’ ur water
Nterfering wit ur sexual and reproductive activities
“Oogling”?!
I guess it could be a portmanteau word for trying to find porn online….
What surprises me is that someone so amazingly stupid can actually type. Or do you think he dictates his spiels?
You’re all missing the subtlety of Noonan’s argument. He tries to slip this by as a regularly accepted fact:
If he can get away with this, he’s established that anything God has a right to, humans have a right to as well. Therefore, the next time Bush feels someone is showing him disrespect (you know, “you’re with us or against us”, a new low in an approval rating, that kind of thing), he can visit his righteous wrath on them by sending a couple of bears to eat them, or, if he’s feeling particularly irked, wiping out all humanity, and indeed life on earth, with a flood.
And now you know why Bush has got interested in climate change. Global floods aren’t easy to arrange, you know …
[…] seems like common sense to us now, but remember that back in the day, the world was filled with embarrassing loons like Mark Noonan who believed that the King of England had the right to put a surveillance camera in your toilet to […]