## Free Software Foundation Files Suit Against Cisco For GPL Violations
BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Thursday, December 11, 2008 -- The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today announced that it has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Cisco. The FSF's complaint alleges that in the course of distributing various products under the Linksys brand Cisco has violated the licenses of many programs on which the FSF holds copyright, including GCC, binutils, and the GNU C Library. In doing so, Cisco has denied its users their right to share and modify the software.
Most of these programs are licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), and the rest are under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). Both these licenses encourage everyone, including companies like Cisco, to modify the software as they see fit and then share it with others, under certain conditions. One of those conditions says that anyone who redistributes the software must also provide their recipients with the source code to that program. The FSF has documented many instances where Cisco has distributed licensed software but failed to provide its customers with the corresponding source code.
"Our licenses are designed to ensure that everyone who uses the software can change it," said Richard Stallman, president and founder of the FSF.
"In order to exercise that right, people need the source code, and that's why our licenses require distributors to provide it. We are enforcing our licenses to protect the rights that everyone should have with all software: to use it, share it, and modify it as they see fit."
"We began working with Cisco in 2003 to help them establish a process for complying with our software licenses, and the initial changes were very promising," explained Brett Smith, licensing compliance engineer
at the FSF.
"Unfortunately, they never put in the effort that was necessary to finish the process, and now five years later we have still not seen a plan for compliance. As a result, we believe that legal action is the best way to restore the rights we grant to all users of our software."
"Free software developers entrust their copyrights to the FSF so we can make sure that their work is always redistributed in ways that respect user freedom," said Peter Brown, executive director of the FSF.
"In the fifteen years we've spent enforcing our licenses, we've never gone to court before. We have always managed to get the companies we have worked with to take their obligations seriously. But at the end of the day, we're also willing to take the legal action necessary to ensure users have the rights that our licenses guarantee."
The complaint was filed this morning in United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by the Software Freedom Law Center, which is providing representation to the FSF in this case.
The case is number 08-CV-10764 and will be heard by Judge Paul G. Gardephe.
A copy of the complaint is available at http://www.fsf.org/licensing/complaint-2008-12-11.pdf
### About the FSF
The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs.
The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software.
The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf. org and gnu. org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux.
Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at http://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.
### About the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL)
The GNU General Public License (GPL) is a license for software. When a program is released under its terms, every user will have the freedom to share and change it, no matter how they get it. The GPL is the most popular free software license in the world, used by almost three quarters of all free software packages.
The FSF recently updated the license to address new concerns in the free software community; version 3 of the GPL (GPLv3) was released on June 29, 2007.
### About the GNU Operating System and Linux
Richard Stallman announced in September 1983 the plan to develop a free software Unix-like operating system called GNU. GNU is the only operating system developed specifically for the sake of users' freedom. See http://www.gnu.org/gnu/the-gnu-project.html
In 1992, the essential components of GNU were complete, except for one, the kernel. When in 1992 the kernel Linux was re-released under the GNU GPL, making it free software, the combination of GNU and Linux formed a complete free operating system, which made it possible for the first time to run a PC without non-free software. This combination is the GNU/Linux system.
For more explanation, see http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html
### Media Contacts
Brett Smith
Licensing Compliance Engineer
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942 x18
brett@fsf.org
###
Magnatune.com - We Are Not Evil
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Apology to a Friend
I recently had a discussion with a friend Sami Silva Gotay regarding his book. I was harsh against his book Catolicismo y Política en Puerto Rico. In one part I precipitated myself and compared a statement he made to a statement made by Fox News. I do recognize I was very upset when I read his response to Gerardo, because I (along with other fellow history students) was not pleased with his response.
Now, I do recognize I have not read the entire book but a part of it (I have read most of it, but not completely). I do recognize that when I read that portion of the book, I did through the lens of Gerardo's own criticisms, and I promised Sami that I would read the entire book this time. I risked the prestige of a friend by publishing that blog, which has been deleted now. He has been a friend of the family and I apologize for any professional harm I might have given to him and his family.
I did express him personally though, that history students (including myself) were not pleased with his response to Gerardo, and apparently he is going to respond this time to the history students in the University of Puerto Rico. I do know that his response will be assertive, respectful towards Gerardo and the rest of us, and that he will at least respond in a specific manner to some (at least one or two) of Gerardo's own statements in his review in El Visitante.
Also I wish to add that I will review his book and Gerardo's work on the same area, and look for much of the primary sources to see which one of them is right. I wish to be fair to both Sami and Gerardo.
I hope this "fight" between them comes to an end soon, because I don't want to be torn apart by friends.
Now, I do recognize I have not read the entire book but a part of it (I have read most of it, but not completely). I do recognize that when I read that portion of the book, I did through the lens of Gerardo's own criticisms, and I promised Sami that I would read the entire book this time. I risked the prestige of a friend by publishing that blog, which has been deleted now. He has been a friend of the family and I apologize for any professional harm I might have given to him and his family.
I did express him personally though, that history students (including myself) were not pleased with his response to Gerardo, and apparently he is going to respond this time to the history students in the University of Puerto Rico. I do know that his response will be assertive, respectful towards Gerardo and the rest of us, and that he will at least respond in a specific manner to some (at least one or two) of Gerardo's own statements in his review in El Visitante.
Also I wish to add that I will review his book and Gerardo's work on the same area, and look for much of the primary sources to see which one of them is right. I wish to be fair to both Sami and Gerardo.
I hope this "fight" between them comes to an end soon, because I don't want to be torn apart by friends.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
July the Fourth: You May Rejoice ... I Must Mourn!
The above Youtube video is a dramatic reading from Howard Zinn's The People's History of the United States and broadcasted by Democracy Now, in July 4, 2004. This particular video is an excerpt of Frederick Douglass' speech titled: "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" Practically it covers everything I wish to say.
Many of you will wonder why I show this particular video after the Civil War was won by the North, when slavery has long been abolished, when it is time to celebrate the fact that we are all free. Unfortunately this conviction of slavery not existing in the United States is not true. Colonialism is a form of slavery that is still present in today's world, and is carried out by none else than the United States of America.
While in July Fourth, the people of the United States rightfully celebrate their independence, their government has denied us ours. While in July Fourth, they celebrate prosperity, it is presently doing nothing to guarantee ours. While in July Fourth, they celebrate the advent of democracy, its government has refused to let us participate in it. A colonial relationship implies just that, a condition of subordination, a condition of alienation.
Oh, we are American citizens, but only with a second class citizenship. Our U.S. citizenship stems not from the U.S Constitution, but from the Jones Act of 1917 with the same level of a "subject" or a "national". Due to this strange citizenship, the Supreme Court of the U.S. said clearly, that Puerto Rico did not form part of that body politic called "people of the United States", instead it belongs to the United States (Downes v. Bidwell, 182 US 244 (1901)). Hence, we cannot ask to participate in that body politic known as the United States, instead, the United States wants to do as it pleases with Puerto Rico. The people of Puerto Rico belong to the United States. Clearly slavery is not over.
Should I celebrate July Fourth? Clearly no. I must mourn this day also. The United States has been sometimes a good master, sometimes a bad master .... but master nonetheless, and even with all of its manifestations (good and bad), colonialism in Puerto Rico is brutal. When you have more than 45% of the population under the official line of poverty, and most of the population living on welfare, while the United States can decide to strangulate us with their cabotage laws, purposely make us lack of access to markets and political power to solve problems of our own. We cannot form part of Congress, nor vote for the President, nor can we form part of the international community in equal political standing to all the countries of the world. Then its government sends us to its wars, a form of blood-taxation without representation. That's the very nature of that monster called imperialism, and that immoral relationship called colonialism.
No ... I will not celebrate July Fourth. That day, I'll spend all day asking for our freedom. It is not the spirit of Anti-Americanism, since I'm not Anti-American. I hope the day arrives when the United States, holding to the principles it proclaims, will give us our independence and freedom. That day ... and only that day, I will join all my brothers and sisters in the United States to celebrate their independence, as I'm sure many of them will join us to celebrate ours. Until that day arrives, you dear U.S. friends may celebrate and rejoice ... but I must mourn.
Many of you will wonder why I show this particular video after the Civil War was won by the North, when slavery has long been abolished, when it is time to celebrate the fact that we are all free. Unfortunately this conviction of slavery not existing in the United States is not true. Colonialism is a form of slavery that is still present in today's world, and is carried out by none else than the United States of America.
While in July Fourth, the people of the United States rightfully celebrate their independence, their government has denied us ours. While in July Fourth, they celebrate prosperity, it is presently doing nothing to guarantee ours. While in July Fourth, they celebrate the advent of democracy, its government has refused to let us participate in it. A colonial relationship implies just that, a condition of subordination, a condition of alienation.
Oh, we are American citizens, but only with a second class citizenship. Our U.S. citizenship stems not from the U.S Constitution, but from the Jones Act of 1917 with the same level of a "subject" or a "national". Due to this strange citizenship, the Supreme Court of the U.S. said clearly, that Puerto Rico did not form part of that body politic called "people of the United States", instead it belongs to the United States (Downes v. Bidwell, 182 US 244 (1901)). Hence, we cannot ask to participate in that body politic known as the United States, instead, the United States wants to do as it pleases with Puerto Rico. The people of Puerto Rico belong to the United States. Clearly slavery is not over.
Should I celebrate July Fourth? Clearly no. I must mourn this day also. The United States has been sometimes a good master, sometimes a bad master .... but master nonetheless, and even with all of its manifestations (good and bad), colonialism in Puerto Rico is brutal. When you have more than 45% of the population under the official line of poverty, and most of the population living on welfare, while the United States can decide to strangulate us with their cabotage laws, purposely make us lack of access to markets and political power to solve problems of our own. We cannot form part of Congress, nor vote for the President, nor can we form part of the international community in equal political standing to all the countries of the world. Then its government sends us to its wars, a form of blood-taxation without representation. That's the very nature of that monster called imperialism, and that immoral relationship called colonialism.
No ... I will not celebrate July Fourth. That day, I'll spend all day asking for our freedom. It is not the spirit of Anti-Americanism, since I'm not Anti-American. I hope the day arrives when the United States, holding to the principles it proclaims, will give us our independence and freedom. That day ... and only that day, I will join all my brothers and sisters in the United States to celebrate their independence, as I'm sure many of them will join us to celebrate ours. Until that day arrives, you dear U.S. friends may celebrate and rejoice ... but I must mourn.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Geoffrey Sampson's Reasonings on the Language Instinct
Now that I'm getting into the field of Linguistics I'm finding the famous "Linguistic Wars", especially regarding the existence of what Noam Chomsky called "universal grammar", a theory endorsed and popularized very recently in the field of Cognitive Science by Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct. According to both, Chomsky and Pinker, it seems that our brain has a "language instinct", a cognitive faculty of our mind with a basic syntactic structure that lets us form language in all the world. In other words, there is inborn knowledge in us, a brain activity that comes from our genes and lets us conceptualize, create words, create relationships between words so they are meaningful, and so on.
Now, I've read The Language Instinct and it seems to me that Pinker's arguments are not only convincing, but in most cases very obvious. However, Geoffrey Sampson has argued against this position, first in Educating Eve and then, most recently, in The 'Language Instinct' Debate. I do agree with Sampson that Chomsky's own characterizations of his opponents is many times very unfair. However, as I began to read his book (second edition) about the debate, I began noticing serious flaws in Sampson's own reasoning.
I'm not a linguist, but I am a philosopher, and I do notice Sampson's flaws regarding the way he presents certain philosophers. For instance, he wants to develop an Empirical viewpoint of language development. That's ok. The problem is that he wants to base his linguistic theory on two philosophers: John Locke and Karl Popper. Now, I have never seen in my life two philosophers who are more incompatible than these two. How can he harmonize the two ... especially regarding his views on language?
Well, Sampson subscribes to the idea that our mind is like a blank slate, or, as Locke would say, a "blank sheet of paper". According to Locke, there is no knowledge prior to experience, only experience provides knowledge, and our concepts come from generalizations of experience. He contrasts this with nativist positions, which, for him, inherit their doctrine from Plato. For Plato, there is no new knowledge, but just hidden knowledge in our soul that we need to remember through the mayeuctic method. He stresses that Plato's doctrine supported dictatorship while Locke's are the basis for democracy. It's amazing how Sampson charges Chomsky of attacking strawmen, and here we find Sampson doing the same thing! If you look at Locke's theory of government, it is not strictly speaking a democratic doctrine, although he did contribute to democratic thought. Not all Platonists have favored dictatorships either: think Bernard Bolzano, Edmund Husserl, Kurt Gödel, Jerrold Katz, among others.
Anyway ... he says he also favors a more sophisticated philosophy such as that of Karl Popper. And there I find my first problem. According to Sampson (and Locke) there is no knowledge previous to experience. I don't know which part of Popper's philosophy he read, but Popper's position is the exact opposite of what he supports. Popper says very explicitly in The Self and Its Brain that we have genetic a priori knowledge. We have inborn theories in the form of expectations: such as our mental theory that there are patterns to be expected, or our mental theory when we were babies that if we cry enough, our moms will come and feed us. In fact, Popper's theory leaves no space at all for "empty white sheets" or "blank slates". In Conjectures and Refutations he states very clearly that one never begins with observation. Observation itself is determined by theory, because the theory tells us WHAT we should observe. And in other works such as Objective Knowledge, and Knowledge and the Body-Mind Problem, Popper ridicules the idea that knowledge growth is like an empty bucket that is filled with sensations, a position held by John Locke. He calls this the "bucket theory of knowledge".
Popper points to the opposite way of looking at the mind. Genetically, we all come with a brain full of theories of how interpret what the body perceives. As Popper rightfully points out against phenomenalists, what we see, hear, touch, etc. are not sense-data. Contrary to what Sampson says, for Popper, we all have already an entire network of theories and we begin a process of conjectures and refutations through contrast with experience, those theories are revised, and our knowledge grows. Furthermore, when we observe and consider data relevant, it is in light of things we consider problems, and only something is a problem according to a theory that interprets it as a problem. Our mind are full of these problems since we are born. Popper has written lots of literature on this subject, not only in babies, but even from other living organisms, and from a genetic standpoint, they already see certain situations as problems and how they try to solve them.
How does Sampson reconcile this Popperian viewpoint with his Empiricist (Lockean) point of view? In fact, Popper himself was one of the causes of the end of Logical Empiricism, the philosophers who inherited the Empiricist tradition. And Popper was not the only one who pointed out the fact that we carry something in our mind previous to any kind of experience. Immanuel Kant, before David Hume, talked extensively about the forms of intuition of space and time, and the categories of understanding. Cognitive science inherited much from Kant's philosophy. Furthermore, Kant even was far more advanced than John Locke in this and other aspects. And Sampson wants to embrace Locke? It's like dismissing all important philosophical and scientific advances.
But there is something else that make me think that the Nativist viewpoint is right, and Sampson's so-called Empiricist viewpoint is wrong. He states as a factor against Nativism the fact that there are civilizations that cannot count beyond seven. Well, I can give Sampson better examples, civilizations that are not able to count beyond three or four. Obviously, says Sampson, that means that numbers beyond seven are products of culture, they are cultural creations. Well, in part this is true. I mean, depending on the culture needs or problems (using Popperian terms), mathematical knowledge will keep stalled or will develop in that culture. If you live in such a condition where there is no need to count beyond four, you won't develop mathematics. If because of economic, political or architectonic reasons you need to count beyond four, then mathematics will be developed.
However, there is a sense where numbers are not cultural creations. If you go to the Incas, the Maya, the Aztecs, the Egyptians, the Romans, the Greeks, the Indians, the Arabs, the Ancient Chinese, and so on, you'll find exactly the same numbers beyond four or seven! In fact, several of these discovered the notion of zero, and even some of them have discovered negative numbers and negative roots. Needless to say that their development of the field of geometry, shown extensively through their architectural accomplishments, is astoundingly the same. And this should not be a surprise!
Not only we perceive sensible objects, we are also able to establish certain formal relationships between them. This is what Husserl called "categorial intuition", specifically that act of understanding that lets us constitute these formal relationships. Also, we are able to establish essential relationships between numbers and discover their essential properties. Thanks to signs we are able to represent these formal relations in different manners. Furthermore, there must be a kind of morphology of meanings, a kind of syntax that makes us not only relate objects, but make statements about them. Statements are not given sensibly, they require acts of signification by our mind. We need a capacity to do grammar! Otherwise, we would constitute sensible objects, or objectualities (objects related formally among themselves), but would not construct sentences in such a way that we can reveal the state of affairs we're talking about. Also, formal relationships among objects is needed to relate these objects and to conceptualize them!
Now, the problem with the Empiricist (Lockean) framework is that it reduces everything to the sensibly given. Now how can you constitute formal (not sensible) relationships or formal categories if we reduce all knowledge to the sensibly given? Obviously, it is because not everything can be reduced to sensible objects and "intelligence" (a vague term Sampson uses throughout the book), it also requires an ability to carry out categorial objectualities, and also a mental ability to do grammar. There must be a minimum syntactic capacity of the mind.
I need to read the rest of his book. I've read only the first half. I hope his other arguments are convincing. Up until now, he has just shown me all the contrary of what he tried to prove.
Now, I've read The Language Instinct and it seems to me that Pinker's arguments are not only convincing, but in most cases very obvious. However, Geoffrey Sampson has argued against this position, first in Educating Eve and then, most recently, in The 'Language Instinct' Debate. I do agree with Sampson that Chomsky's own characterizations of his opponents is many times very unfair. However, as I began to read his book (second edition) about the debate, I began noticing serious flaws in Sampson's own reasoning.
I'm not a linguist, but I am a philosopher, and I do notice Sampson's flaws regarding the way he presents certain philosophers. For instance, he wants to develop an Empirical viewpoint of language development. That's ok. The problem is that he wants to base his linguistic theory on two philosophers: John Locke and Karl Popper. Now, I have never seen in my life two philosophers who are more incompatible than these two. How can he harmonize the two ... especially regarding his views on language?
Well, Sampson subscribes to the idea that our mind is like a blank slate, or, as Locke would say, a "blank sheet of paper". According to Locke, there is no knowledge prior to experience, only experience provides knowledge, and our concepts come from generalizations of experience. He contrasts this with nativist positions, which, for him, inherit their doctrine from Plato. For Plato, there is no new knowledge, but just hidden knowledge in our soul that we need to remember through the mayeuctic method. He stresses that Plato's doctrine supported dictatorship while Locke's are the basis for democracy. It's amazing how Sampson charges Chomsky of attacking strawmen, and here we find Sampson doing the same thing! If you look at Locke's theory of government, it is not strictly speaking a democratic doctrine, although he did contribute to democratic thought. Not all Platonists have favored dictatorships either: think Bernard Bolzano, Edmund Husserl, Kurt Gödel, Jerrold Katz, among others.
Anyway ... he says he also favors a more sophisticated philosophy such as that of Karl Popper. And there I find my first problem. According to Sampson (and Locke) there is no knowledge previous to experience. I don't know which part of Popper's philosophy he read, but Popper's position is the exact opposite of what he supports. Popper says very explicitly in The Self and Its Brain that we have genetic a priori knowledge. We have inborn theories in the form of expectations: such as our mental theory that there are patterns to be expected, or our mental theory when we were babies that if we cry enough, our moms will come and feed us. In fact, Popper's theory leaves no space at all for "empty white sheets" or "blank slates". In Conjectures and Refutations he states very clearly that one never begins with observation. Observation itself is determined by theory, because the theory tells us WHAT we should observe. And in other works such as Objective Knowledge, and Knowledge and the Body-Mind Problem, Popper ridicules the idea that knowledge growth is like an empty bucket that is filled with sensations, a position held by John Locke. He calls this the "bucket theory of knowledge".
Popper points to the opposite way of looking at the mind. Genetically, we all come with a brain full of theories of how interpret what the body perceives. As Popper rightfully points out against phenomenalists, what we see, hear, touch, etc. are not sense-data. Contrary to what Sampson says, for Popper, we all have already an entire network of theories and we begin a process of conjectures and refutations through contrast with experience, those theories are revised, and our knowledge grows. Furthermore, when we observe and consider data relevant, it is in light of things we consider problems, and only something is a problem according to a theory that interprets it as a problem. Our mind are full of these problems since we are born. Popper has written lots of literature on this subject, not only in babies, but even from other living organisms, and from a genetic standpoint, they already see certain situations as problems and how they try to solve them.
How does Sampson reconcile this Popperian viewpoint with his Empiricist (Lockean) point of view? In fact, Popper himself was one of the causes of the end of Logical Empiricism, the philosophers who inherited the Empiricist tradition. And Popper was not the only one who pointed out the fact that we carry something in our mind previous to any kind of experience. Immanuel Kant, before David Hume, talked extensively about the forms of intuition of space and time, and the categories of understanding. Cognitive science inherited much from Kant's philosophy. Furthermore, Kant even was far more advanced than John Locke in this and other aspects. And Sampson wants to embrace Locke? It's like dismissing all important philosophical and scientific advances.
But there is something else that make me think that the Nativist viewpoint is right, and Sampson's so-called Empiricist viewpoint is wrong. He states as a factor against Nativism the fact that there are civilizations that cannot count beyond seven. Well, I can give Sampson better examples, civilizations that are not able to count beyond three or four. Obviously, says Sampson, that means that numbers beyond seven are products of culture, they are cultural creations. Well, in part this is true. I mean, depending on the culture needs or problems (using Popperian terms), mathematical knowledge will keep stalled or will develop in that culture. If you live in such a condition where there is no need to count beyond four, you won't develop mathematics. If because of economic, political or architectonic reasons you need to count beyond four, then mathematics will be developed.
However, there is a sense where numbers are not cultural creations. If you go to the Incas, the Maya, the Aztecs, the Egyptians, the Romans, the Greeks, the Indians, the Arabs, the Ancient Chinese, and so on, you'll find exactly the same numbers beyond four or seven! In fact, several of these discovered the notion of zero, and even some of them have discovered negative numbers and negative roots. Needless to say that their development of the field of geometry, shown extensively through their architectural accomplishments, is astoundingly the same. And this should not be a surprise!
Not only we perceive sensible objects, we are also able to establish certain formal relationships between them. This is what Husserl called "categorial intuition", specifically that act of understanding that lets us constitute these formal relationships. Also, we are able to establish essential relationships between numbers and discover their essential properties. Thanks to signs we are able to represent these formal relations in different manners. Furthermore, there must be a kind of morphology of meanings, a kind of syntax that makes us not only relate objects, but make statements about them. Statements are not given sensibly, they require acts of signification by our mind. We need a capacity to do grammar! Otherwise, we would constitute sensible objects, or objectualities (objects related formally among themselves), but would not construct sentences in such a way that we can reveal the state of affairs we're talking about. Also, formal relationships among objects is needed to relate these objects and to conceptualize them!
Now, the problem with the Empiricist (Lockean) framework is that it reduces everything to the sensibly given. Now how can you constitute formal (not sensible) relationships or formal categories if we reduce all knowledge to the sensibly given? Obviously, it is because not everything can be reduced to sensible objects and "intelligence" (a vague term Sampson uses throughout the book), it also requires an ability to carry out categorial objectualities, and also a mental ability to do grammar. There must be a minimum syntactic capacity of the mind.
I need to read the rest of his book. I've read only the first half. I hope his other arguments are convincing. Up until now, he has just shown me all the contrary of what he tried to prove.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
How Intelligent Design Cannot Be Science (I): Creationism
One of the particular things about Natural Science is its effort to look for natural explanations for everything, and not supernatural ones. Supernatural explanations are themselves unscientific, they do not provide knowledge about the world at all. Regardless of anyone's beliefs, you can be an atheist, Jew, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and so on, this is still true.
Creationism, the Beginning of all Scientific Ills
Creationism, as one of the earliest forms of Intelligent Design theories, have been completely unscientific and anti-scientific. First, science is founded on theories that are considered solid but provisional in case a better and simpler theory comes around that explain far more than before. This happened when Newton formulated his theories, that clearly refuted Galileo's and Kepler's, but at the same time explained not only what both of them explained, but also phenomena here on Earth. Then came Einstein, his Special and General Theories of Relativity and refuted the Newtonian theory in essence, and yet could explain everything that Newton could explain, while could explain much more: the way Mercury's orbit revolves around the Sun, how light bends around massive objects, the first twin paradox, the second twin paradox, among others.
With Creationism, Intelligent Design vices came to be. Contrary to scientific practice, they propose as an absolute theory that the world was created in six days as it is suggested in the Bible, just a few thousand years ago. Now, people often forget that there are two dimensions of a scientific theory: 1. A scientific theory must be internally consistent, i.e. logically consistent; 2. A scientific theory must be also consistent with the phenomena they try to explain. Of course, science has not reached yet the full level of internal consistent theories, there are several levels of contradictions and gaps (the biggest one being between the realm of the laws of gravity and the laws of quantum mechanics). However, scientists are fully aware that these theories are just provisional and that other ones might come along. Perhaps it will be through String Theory, or other theories being proposed.
Creationism, on the other hand, only accepts one sole theory, the one found in Genesis chapter 1. Well, as it turns out, there are two versions of creation as many Bible scholars have pointed out. The first coming from the Priestly Tradition (P) written at the time of Hezekiah's reforms 714 to 687 BCE (Gen. 1:1-2:4a), and then Yahwist Tradition (J) written during the period of 848 to 722 BCE (Gen 2:4b ff.). Both versions of creation are incompatible with each other. For instance, the order of creation in the second story is very different from the first. In the first, the creation sequence is: There are waters and the earth came to be (Gen. 1:1-10), plants (Gen. 1:11-13), animals (Gen. 1:20-25), and man and woman at the same time (Gen. 1:26-31). In the second sequence of events, there was absolutely nothing but earth (not even water) (Gen. 2:4b-5), then water came to be and from the clay God created man (Gen. 2:6-7), then God created the plants (Gen. 2:8-9), animals (Gen. 2:18-20), and then woman (Gen. 2:21-25). These are two stories whose sequences and beginnings are completely incompatible. In fact, not even the number of days coincide. According to the first story it took six days to create everything and then in the seventh day Yahweh rested, but according to the second story, it talks about "the day" God created the earth and the heavens (Gen: 2:4b).
Creationists have adopted the position that such a contradictory theory must be true regardless of the evident contradiction, and try to make intellectual juggling to explain the contradiction away. In the end, the literalist and Creationist conception of creation is not logically consistent. Besides, it is also not consistent with given phenomena. Even if we accept as true the theory that the Grand Canyon and other phenomena can be explained through the universal flood (also another story that is itself a logically inconsistent theory), they would have a very hard time trying to explain how the universe is only thousands of years old, but there are structures and phenomena in space that necessarily took about millions of years to form and keep forming, and even the fact that its light reaches us (which delays millions of years to reach Earth) would have to be explained. Remember, each time we look at the sky, we are watching millions or billions of years in the cosmic past.
The first and second stories of creation were good in ancient Jewish times, but we can safely discard Creationism as obsolete and has been thoroughly debunked. Even Pope John Paul II considered both stories as being mythic in character.
The problem is that creationists will always cling to this theory, it doesn't matter what: Genesis is true by default. Their way of supporting it is through a negative approach: since X theory failed in such and such hypothesis, then Genesis is true by default. And it does not matter if there is a continuous progress of scientific theories that are able to explain phenomena better through natural means, if it fails in some way, then by default the creation account of Genesis is true. One deep problem they have is that they don't have a positive evidence of Genesis, it is just a negative response by default.
This is one of the vices that still persist in Intelligent Design. There are more sophisticated theories of Intelligent Design that do not require a literalist interpretation of Genesis. If a theory cannot explain 100% and completely everything from a natural standpoint, then the response that you have from Intelligent Design people is the exact opposite of scientific practice, instead of doing HARD SCIENCE and provide better theories that are natural explanations, they incur into what I call "intellectual laziness", they just say that God is the "only" explanation possible. Just like creationists, if a scientific theory fails in some way, then Genesis is true; in these more sophisticated forms of Intelligent Design, if a scientific theory fails in some way, then the God hypothesis is true, or the "design by an intelligence" is true.
Of course, once they have adopted this lazy point of view, then they have to think "hard" and "deep" about how to support their intelligent design theory, giving an appearance of doing science, when in reality they are not doing science, but actually acting contrary to it.
I'll talk more about this in my next post.
Creationism, the Beginning of all Scientific Ills
Creationism, as one of the earliest forms of Intelligent Design theories, have been completely unscientific and anti-scientific. First, science is founded on theories that are considered solid but provisional in case a better and simpler theory comes around that explain far more than before. This happened when Newton formulated his theories, that clearly refuted Galileo's and Kepler's, but at the same time explained not only what both of them explained, but also phenomena here on Earth. Then came Einstein, his Special and General Theories of Relativity and refuted the Newtonian theory in essence, and yet could explain everything that Newton could explain, while could explain much more: the way Mercury's orbit revolves around the Sun, how light bends around massive objects, the first twin paradox, the second twin paradox, among others.
With Creationism, Intelligent Design vices came to be. Contrary to scientific practice, they propose as an absolute theory that the world was created in six days as it is suggested in the Bible, just a few thousand years ago. Now, people often forget that there are two dimensions of a scientific theory: 1. A scientific theory must be internally consistent, i.e. logically consistent; 2. A scientific theory must be also consistent with the phenomena they try to explain. Of course, science has not reached yet the full level of internal consistent theories, there are several levels of contradictions and gaps (the biggest one being between the realm of the laws of gravity and the laws of quantum mechanics). However, scientists are fully aware that these theories are just provisional and that other ones might come along. Perhaps it will be through String Theory, or other theories being proposed.
Creationism, on the other hand, only accepts one sole theory, the one found in Genesis chapter 1. Well, as it turns out, there are two versions of creation as many Bible scholars have pointed out. The first coming from the Priestly Tradition (P) written at the time of Hezekiah's reforms 714 to 687 BCE (Gen. 1:1-2:4a), and then Yahwist Tradition (J) written during the period of 848 to 722 BCE (Gen 2:4b ff.). Both versions of creation are incompatible with each other. For instance, the order of creation in the second story is very different from the first. In the first, the creation sequence is: There are waters and the earth came to be (Gen. 1:1-10), plants (Gen. 1:11-13), animals (Gen. 1:20-25), and man and woman at the same time (Gen. 1:26-31). In the second sequence of events, there was absolutely nothing but earth (not even water) (Gen. 2:4b-5), then water came to be and from the clay God created man (Gen. 2:6-7), then God created the plants (Gen. 2:8-9), animals (Gen. 2:18-20), and then woman (Gen. 2:21-25). These are two stories whose sequences and beginnings are completely incompatible. In fact, not even the number of days coincide. According to the first story it took six days to create everything and then in the seventh day Yahweh rested, but according to the second story, it talks about "the day" God created the earth and the heavens (Gen: 2:4b).
Creationists have adopted the position that such a contradictory theory must be true regardless of the evident contradiction, and try to make intellectual juggling to explain the contradiction away. In the end, the literalist and Creationist conception of creation is not logically consistent. Besides, it is also not consistent with given phenomena. Even if we accept as true the theory that the Grand Canyon and other phenomena can be explained through the universal flood (also another story that is itself a logically inconsistent theory), they would have a very hard time trying to explain how the universe is only thousands of years old, but there are structures and phenomena in space that necessarily took about millions of years to form and keep forming, and even the fact that its light reaches us (which delays millions of years to reach Earth) would have to be explained. Remember, each time we look at the sky, we are watching millions or billions of years in the cosmic past.
The first and second stories of creation were good in ancient Jewish times, but we can safely discard Creationism as obsolete and has been thoroughly debunked. Even Pope John Paul II considered both stories as being mythic in character.
The problem is that creationists will always cling to this theory, it doesn't matter what: Genesis is true by default. Their way of supporting it is through a negative approach: since X theory failed in such and such hypothesis, then Genesis is true by default. And it does not matter if there is a continuous progress of scientific theories that are able to explain phenomena better through natural means, if it fails in some way, then by default the creation account of Genesis is true. One deep problem they have is that they don't have a positive evidence of Genesis, it is just a negative response by default.
This is one of the vices that still persist in Intelligent Design. There are more sophisticated theories of Intelligent Design that do not require a literalist interpretation of Genesis. If a theory cannot explain 100% and completely everything from a natural standpoint, then the response that you have from Intelligent Design people is the exact opposite of scientific practice, instead of doing HARD SCIENCE and provide better theories that are natural explanations, they incur into what I call "intellectual laziness", they just say that God is the "only" explanation possible. Just like creationists, if a scientific theory fails in some way, then Genesis is true; in these more sophisticated forms of Intelligent Design, if a scientific theory fails in some way, then the God hypothesis is true, or the "design by an intelligence" is true.
Of course, once they have adopted this lazy point of view, then they have to think "hard" and "deep" about how to support their intelligent design theory, giving an appearance of doing science, when in reality they are not doing science, but actually acting contrary to it.
I'll talk more about this in my next post.
Monday, April 07, 2008
Bill Clinton: In Puerto Rico, Hillary’s Worst Enemy
Ok, everyone knows I don’t favor neither Hillary nor Obama. Simply, my hopes are not with them. However, recently Bill Clinton visited Puerto Rico on Hillary’s behalf, and earned $250,000 from our politicians.
However, a point needs to be made. Whoever planned the tour for Bill Clinton is perhaps Hillary’s worst enemy. He was planned to visit Luis Lloréns Torres residential housing. It should be known that all of the people who live there are extremely poor, needless to say that it is a high crime area. Bill Clinton’s "three strikes and you’re out" policy not only meant that the criminal would lose his or her own liberty, but the ENTIRE family would have to move out of the residence and locate elsewhere. Guess what? Most of the victims of that policy in Puerto Rico were in Lloréns Torres.
Then, he was supposed to visit the "Asociación de Industriales", an association of industry investors in Puerto Rico. Well ... they deeply resent the fact that despite their advice, Clinton eliminated all the benefits of Section 936 in Puerto Rico. The members of the Asociación de Industriales suffered heavy losses as manufactures in Puerto Rico located elsewhere.
Following that unfortunate event, he was supposed to visit Barceloneta, the municipality that suffered most of Clinton’s elimination of Section 936. Its poverty rate increases as more manufacturing industries keep locating overseas.
What does Clinton promise? That if his wife becomes President, she will reinstate the benefits to attract more American capital to Puerto Rico. Of course, this is nothing less than deception. Everyone who looks at the global economy knows that to place such incentives to benefit Puerto Rico alone would go against the best interests of NAFTA and other free trade treaties with Latin American countries. The whole Neo-Liberal view of the economy, which Democrats endorse with some safeguards, states that countries should compete in attracting capital from a variety of sources. The only way Puerto Rico could do this is if eventually Congress gives it power to establish treaties world wide, contract those ships that we want, and establish commerce throughout the region, trade with the U.S., trade with European countries, trade with Asia, and so on. In other words, the only possible incentive for Puerto Ricans is to be able to have as much political and economic powers we can, either in the form of a sovereign free association with the U.S. (which is recognized by International Law), or independence. To hope that in our current status, Hillary or any candidate to the presidency will give us any incentives to attract American capital, is like waiting for Christ’s Second Coming: people always say it’s close, and he doesn’t arrive.
However, a point needs to be made. Whoever planned the tour for Bill Clinton is perhaps Hillary’s worst enemy. He was planned to visit Luis Lloréns Torres residential housing. It should be known that all of the people who live there are extremely poor, needless to say that it is a high crime area. Bill Clinton’s "three strikes and you’re out" policy not only meant that the criminal would lose his or her own liberty, but the ENTIRE family would have to move out of the residence and locate elsewhere. Guess what? Most of the victims of that policy in Puerto Rico were in Lloréns Torres.
Then, he was supposed to visit the "Asociación de Industriales", an association of industry investors in Puerto Rico. Well ... they deeply resent the fact that despite their advice, Clinton eliminated all the benefits of Section 936 in Puerto Rico. The members of the Asociación de Industriales suffered heavy losses as manufactures in Puerto Rico located elsewhere.
Following that unfortunate event, he was supposed to visit Barceloneta, the municipality that suffered most of Clinton’s elimination of Section 936. Its poverty rate increases as more manufacturing industries keep locating overseas.
What does Clinton promise? That if his wife becomes President, she will reinstate the benefits to attract more American capital to Puerto Rico. Of course, this is nothing less than deception. Everyone who looks at the global economy knows that to place such incentives to benefit Puerto Rico alone would go against the best interests of NAFTA and other free trade treaties with Latin American countries. The whole Neo-Liberal view of the economy, which Democrats endorse with some safeguards, states that countries should compete in attracting capital from a variety of sources. The only way Puerto Rico could do this is if eventually Congress gives it power to establish treaties world wide, contract those ships that we want, and establish commerce throughout the region, trade with the U.S., trade with European countries, trade with Asia, and so on. In other words, the only possible incentive for Puerto Ricans is to be able to have as much political and economic powers we can, either in the form of a sovereign free association with the U.S. (which is recognized by International Law), or independence. To hope that in our current status, Hillary or any candidate to the presidency will give us any incentives to attract American capital, is like waiting for Christ’s Second Coming: people always say it’s close, and he doesn’t arrive.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Acerca de la Propuesta Enmienda a la Constitución de Puerto Rico
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
© Copyright 2008, Pedro M. Rosario Barbosa
Hoy día en Puerto Rico se ha levantado una controversia en torno a una propuesta enmienda a la Constitución de Puerto Rico. La enmienda a la que nos referimos dice lo siguiente:
“El matrimonio es una institución civil, que se constituirá sólo por la unión legal entre un hombre y una mujer en conformidad con su sexo original de nacimiento. Ninguna otra unión, independientemente de su nombre, denominación, lugar de procedencia, jurisdicción o similitud con el matrimonio, será reconocida o validada como un matrimonio”. (RconS 99)
¿Cuál es el motivo de la enmienda? La inquietud proviene del sector religioso. De acuerdo con este sector, la tentativa de sectores que favorecen el matrimonio de homosexuales, lesbianas y transexuales de cambiar el Código Civil de Puerto Rico para que el matrimonio no sea solamente entre un hombre y una mujer. De acuerdo con estos grupos, esto es para salvaguardar uno de los valores morales más importantes de la cultura puertorriqueña, porque ésta se funda en el mensaje de Dios y del Evangelio.
¿Qué hay de malo en esta propuesta? En primer lugar hace falta hacer una división entre estratos sociales. Muchos teóricos como André Compte-Sponville han trabajado seriamente estas distinciones entre artificios humanos abstractos (véase su obra El capitalismo ¿es moral?). En primer lugar encontramos el ámbito económico-técnico en el que se encuentra todo el desarrollo tecnológico, toda la investigación científica, y toda la dinámica del mercado. En segundo lugar, encontramos el ámbito político y jurídico, que regula la dinámica de la técnica y el mercado. Finalmente, en tercer lugar, encontramos el aspecto moral que sirve para poder adoptar unas disposiciones legales que permitan que el ámbito jurídico y el económico sean funcionales.
Nótese que el ámbito legal y el moral se encuentran en dos ámbitos distintos. Lo legal no es necesariamente moral, ni todo lo que es moral debe ser legal. Pensemos en una disposición que penaliza a un ciudadano por robar un banco. Esta disposición legal no se adopta por motivos morales, aunque coincide con principios objetivamente morales. Es decir, se adopta esta disposición para evitar, dentro de un sistema jurídico, que las personas encuentren el robo como una alternativa económica viable. El criterio principal para esta disposición legal sería como recurso jurídico funcional para desincentivar el robo, para que la economía pueda operar apropiadamente, y se pueda garantizar una calidad de vida para los miembros de esa sociedad.
En otras palabras, lo que le concierne al ámbito jurídico no es los valores morales. Ha habido varios intentos grandes para moralizar la economía o para moralizar el ámbito jurídico. Un problema del marxismo es que por mucho tiempo intentó moralizar la economía, cosa que causaba que los gobiernos marxistas degeneraran en el en una dictadura. En los gobiernos de dictadura de derecha se intentó moralizar la economía vía la privatización y la mal llamada "responsabilidad de los individuos" y "respeto a la propiedad privada" (de eso, Naomi Klein hace una excelente exposición en su libro The Shock Doctrine).
En el ámbito jurídico ha habido intentos de moralizar la sociedad. El caso más notable fue el caso de la prohibición del alcohol en Estados Unidos y Puerto Rico. Todos estamos de acuerdo de que el alcoholismo es un mal social, y que, desde el punto de vista moral, es malo. Sin embargo, en la época de la prohibición, se creó una economía subterránea criminal basada en el tráfico de alcohol. Este tipo de economía cobró miles de vidas en Puerto Rico, ya que, al no estar regulada legalmente por el estado, la única manera de garantizar la funcionalidad de esa economía subterránea era a través de amenazas, heridas graves y asesinatos. En otras palabras, la moralización jurídica puede ser más perjudicial que el mal social que intenta corregir. Hoy, aspectos de estos intentos de moralización perduran hoy día, por ejemplo, la ilegalización de las drogas, que ha llevado a que el 85% población penal consista en personas que hayan usado drogas, a que haya aproximadamente 80,000 usuarios de heroína, cocaína y crack, y que más del ochenta porciento de los incidentes criminales violentos estén relacionados a las drogas ilegales. En otras palabras, la ilegalización de las drogas, como la ilegalización del alcohol, no es funcional para evitar la criminalidad.
El caso de la propuesta enmienda a la Constitución de Puerto Rico no es otra cosa que una moralización del ámbito jurídico. Es esencialmente un "moral statement" de parte de la comunidad religiosa. Como base jurídica, ellos mencionan estados de la Unión que contienen esa disposición legal en sus respectivas constituciones: Ohio, Kentucky, Louisiana, y Georgia. ¡Claro está! Se puede presentar esos precedentes legales, sin embargo, no son funcionales a nivel social ni político. Estas enmiendas constitucionales han condenado a muchos homosexuales, lesbianas y transexuales a ser legalmente discriminados (por más que se alegue que no), para propósitos de acompañar a una pareja en un hospital, o en lo que concierne a la herencia, o en lo que concierne a la adopción. Tales enmiendas son, paradójicamente, unas restricciones a ciertos derechos a la asociación, a pesar de que dichas constituciones garantizan los derechos a la libre asociación.
Los religiosos argumentan, con una cierta "ingenuidad", de que la enmienda como tal no es discriminatoria porque no contiene ninguna disposición a favor de la discriminación contra parejas de hecho o parejas del mismo sexo. Sin embargo, como toda disposición legal, esto hay que ponerlo en contexto social. En Estados Unidos, las leyes de segregación "separate but equal" no contenían en muchos de los casos disposiciones explícitas a favor de la discriminación en contra de los negros. Lo único que disponía dichas leyes era que los blancos estuvieran en lugares para los blancos, y los negros estuvieran en lugares para negros. Sin embargo, en el sur estadounidense, donde reinaba Jim Crow y el racismo rampante, la práctica de la segregación era, dentro de todo un esquema económico y social de enajenación y continua, discriminación contra los negros estadounidenses.
En Puerto Rico, hoy día, esta disposición legal la proponen grupos religiosos que argumentan que la homosexualidad per-se es pecado, que es esencialmente inmoral, y dañino a la sociedad. Es más, ellos argumentan: ¡Es un peligro para la familia y el matrimonio! También tenemos que tener en cuenta que esta enmienda se propone en una sociedad heterocentrista y que en la práctica discrimina a homosexuales, lesbianas y transexuales. La sociedad puertorriqueña, desgraciadamente, empuja a los homosexuales a expresarse sentimentalmente y corporalemnte "tras bastidores". Sólo el más ingenuo y enajenado a nivel social se puede creer que tal enmienda no degeneraría en una mayor discriminación social contra grupos homosexuales y transexuales. Es una discriminación institucionalizada.
Además, habría que preguntarse en qué sentido el que personas del mismo sexo se casen pueda ser un peligro para la familia o el matrimonio. Si mañana se permitiera el matrimonio de personas del mismo sexo, ¿querría esto decir que gradualmente la sociedad se volvería homosexual?
Frecuentemente, se utiliza como argumento que en países que se reconocen estos derechos a los homosexuales hay una crisis de crecimiento de población. Difícilmente esto se puede atribuir al derecho a los homosexuales para que se casen, ya que la mayoría de las poblaciones de dichos países es marcadamente heterosexuales. Estos derechos reconocidos no han representado diferencia alguna en la manera en que se relacionan personas de distintos sexos.
El daño social que causaría un matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo o las llamadas "uniones civiles" no es evidente. Aún si se partiera de la premisa (equivocada) de que esto sería inmoral, la realidad es que sería funcional a nivel social en cuanto a preservación de derechos democráticos. ¿Cuál es el propósito del ámbito jurídico? En parte la regulación de lo económico y lo técnico, pero también la conservación de libertades dentro de un estado de derecho. Eso es democracia. Esta democracia debe partir de unos principios fundamentales para que, no sólo se posible la convivencia entre personas de diferentes formas de pensar, religiones, asociaciones, entre otros, sino también para que haya lo que Karl Popper llamaba una "sociedad abierta".
Se podrá argumentar ad nauseam que el matrimonio es una institución creada por Dios. Sin embargo, dentro del ámbito jurídico (constitucional), el matrimonio no pasa de ser un contrato legal entre dos personas, y cuya autoridad máxima que reconoce la validez de ese contrato no es Dios, sino el Estado. Para aquellos que objeten esta afirmación quisiera recordar que a la Constitución le concierne sólo la manera en que se rige el ESTADO y no se encarga de dispensar gracias divinas. No hay esquema funcional posible que haga a Dios autoridad civil máxima que supervise la vida moral de todos. Debemos recordar la época de las torturas de la "Santa" Inquisición cuando se intentó hacer algo parecido. A fin de cuentas, la misma enmienda propuesta reconoce que el matrimonio es puramente de naturaleza civil (y no divina).
Si la base para crear esta enmienda es la autoridad moral de la Biblia, entran en juego dos problemas. El primero, es que ni tan siquiera los mismos religiosos siguen la Biblia verbatim, sino que en muchos casos escogen aquí o allá lo que les conviene que sea aceptable a nivel social. De otra manera, hoy día los religiosos cristianos estarían quemando ganado (Lev. 1:9), vendiendo a sus hijas para la esclavitud (Exod. 21:7), comprando esclavos de otras naciones (Lev. 25:44), matando a aquellos que no observen el sábado o el domingo (Exod. 35:2), entre otras disposiciones de dudoso carácter moral. Si hacen excepciones con estos pasajes bíblicos, ¿por qué no lo hacen con el asunto de la homosexualidad (Lev. 18:22)?
El segundo problema de basar esta enmienda constitucional en la Biblia es el evidente conflicto con la disposición constitucional que establece una separación de Iglesia y Estado. Este concepto lo único que quiere decir es que el estado no discriminará a ninguna religión, sino que toda religión tendrá derecho a expresarse con igualdad de derecho. Es decir, el Estado no forzará ninguna creencia religiosa sobre sus ciudadanos sino que conservará la libertad que cada ciudadano o ciudadana de expresar sus creencias públicamente. El proponer una enmienda constitucional que evidentemente nace del sector religioso para forzarlo a varios sectores de la población que no cree lo mismo que estos sectores religiosos, entra en conflicto con los derechos fundamentales de todo ciudadano y ciudadana.
Si la base de esta enmienda no es bíblica sino filosófica, casi siempre el argumento será uno que evocará el concepto de "naturaleza". Es "natural" para el hombre estar con la mujer, y es "natural" para la mujer estar con un hombre. De tal manera, la única forma de relación matrimonial legítima será entre hombre y una mujer. El problema con este argumento es que se enfrenta a problemas serios discutidos en el campo de la ética desde principios del siglo XX. Por ejemplo, G. E. Moore, en su Principia Ethica, expuso la falacia de creer de esta manera. Es lo que llamó "la falacia naturalista": sólo lo que es natural es bueno. Es decir, los actos considerados "naturales" son los que se identifican con lo que es moralmente bueno. Definitivamente, esto no es así, ya que actos artificiales humanos también pueden ser buenos: por ejemplo, las medicinas, las casas, los inventos tecnológicos. En el caso de la relación hombre y mujer, no toda relación hombre y mujer es buena sólo porque es entre hombre y mujer. De hecho, hay relaciones homosexuales, lesbianas y transexuales que pueden ser más beneficiosas a la pareja que un buen número de matrimonios heterosexuales.
Finalmente, está el argumento de que "lo ideal" o "lo perfecto" sería que los niños crezcan con "un hombre y una mujer", con "un padre y una madre". Partiendo de la premisa de que esto sea cierto, es importante señalar que lo ideal y lo perfecto siempre es utópico. Puede ser un norte que nos guía a ser una sociedad mejor, pero no llegaremos jamás a esa condición de perfección. La razón es bien sencilla, y lo expresó el economista Francisco Catalá en su libro Elogio a la Imperfección: la perfección no es funcional, especialmente en una sociedad inherentemente imperfecta. Hay veces que es mejor que un hijo o una hija crezca en un hogar con una madre cuyo padre maltratante esté ausente. A veces es mejor que un hijo o una hija crezca con sus tíos o con sus abuelos, cuando el padre y la madre están metidos en la droga y en el alcohol. El seguir abogando por lo "ideal" o lo "perfecto" sería convertir lo "perfecto" en enemigo de lo que es "necesario" a nivel social. ¿No sería mejor que un niño o una niña crecer en un hogar cuyos adultos sean parejas del mismo sexo, pero en el que reine el amor? ¿O sería mejor para él o ella crecer en un hogar cuyos adultos sean heterosexuales, pero sean maltratantes?
Para terminar, es importante señalar que esta enmienda no pasa de ser un acto politiquero barato de parte de ciertos círculos de la legislatura y otros lugares del gobierno de Puerto Rico con tal de ganar votos del sector religioso. Poco le importa a estos politiqueros los derechos fundamentales de los puertorriqueños, incluyendo la libertad de expresión y de asociación, especialmente de asociación a nivel matrimonial. Todo lo ven desde su ceguera moral religiosa y fundamentalista, sin reflexionar los efectos sociales negativos que conllevaría la propuesta enmienda a la Constitución de Puerto Rico. Esperamos que las fuerzas tenebrosas y diabólicas de los dizque "representantes de Dios" no triunfen en este intento de coartar más la democracia puertorriqueña.
“El matrimonio es una institución civil, que se constituirá sólo por la unión legal entre un hombre y una mujer en conformidad con su sexo original de nacimiento. Ninguna otra unión, independientemente de su nombre, denominación, lugar de procedencia, jurisdicción o similitud con el matrimonio, será reconocida o validada como un matrimonio”. (RconS 99)
¿Cuál es el motivo de la enmienda? La inquietud proviene del sector religioso. De acuerdo con este sector, la tentativa de sectores que favorecen el matrimonio de homosexuales, lesbianas y transexuales de cambiar el Código Civil de Puerto Rico para que el matrimonio no sea solamente entre un hombre y una mujer. De acuerdo con estos grupos, esto es para salvaguardar uno de los valores morales más importantes de la cultura puertorriqueña, porque ésta se funda en el mensaje de Dios y del Evangelio.
¿Qué hay de malo en esta propuesta? En primer lugar hace falta hacer una división entre estratos sociales. Muchos teóricos como André Compte-Sponville han trabajado seriamente estas distinciones entre artificios humanos abstractos (véase su obra El capitalismo ¿es moral?). En primer lugar encontramos el ámbito económico-técnico en el que se encuentra todo el desarrollo tecnológico, toda la investigación científica, y toda la dinámica del mercado. En segundo lugar, encontramos el ámbito político y jurídico, que regula la dinámica de la técnica y el mercado. Finalmente, en tercer lugar, encontramos el aspecto moral que sirve para poder adoptar unas disposiciones legales que permitan que el ámbito jurídico y el económico sean funcionales.
Nótese que el ámbito legal y el moral se encuentran en dos ámbitos distintos. Lo legal no es necesariamente moral, ni todo lo que es moral debe ser legal. Pensemos en una disposición que penaliza a un ciudadano por robar un banco. Esta disposición legal no se adopta por motivos morales, aunque coincide con principios objetivamente morales. Es decir, se adopta esta disposición para evitar, dentro de un sistema jurídico, que las personas encuentren el robo como una alternativa económica viable. El criterio principal para esta disposición legal sería como recurso jurídico funcional para desincentivar el robo, para que la economía pueda operar apropiadamente, y se pueda garantizar una calidad de vida para los miembros de esa sociedad.
En otras palabras, lo que le concierne al ámbito jurídico no es los valores morales. Ha habido varios intentos grandes para moralizar la economía o para moralizar el ámbito jurídico. Un problema del marxismo es que por mucho tiempo intentó moralizar la economía, cosa que causaba que los gobiernos marxistas degeneraran en el en una dictadura. En los gobiernos de dictadura de derecha se intentó moralizar la economía vía la privatización y la mal llamada "responsabilidad de los individuos" y "respeto a la propiedad privada" (de eso, Naomi Klein hace una excelente exposición en su libro The Shock Doctrine).
En el ámbito jurídico ha habido intentos de moralizar la sociedad. El caso más notable fue el caso de la prohibición del alcohol en Estados Unidos y Puerto Rico. Todos estamos de acuerdo de que el alcoholismo es un mal social, y que, desde el punto de vista moral, es malo. Sin embargo, en la época de la prohibición, se creó una economía subterránea criminal basada en el tráfico de alcohol. Este tipo de economía cobró miles de vidas en Puerto Rico, ya que, al no estar regulada legalmente por el estado, la única manera de garantizar la funcionalidad de esa economía subterránea era a través de amenazas, heridas graves y asesinatos. En otras palabras, la moralización jurídica puede ser más perjudicial que el mal social que intenta corregir. Hoy, aspectos de estos intentos de moralización perduran hoy día, por ejemplo, la ilegalización de las drogas, que ha llevado a que el 85% población penal consista en personas que hayan usado drogas, a que haya aproximadamente 80,000 usuarios de heroína, cocaína y crack, y que más del ochenta porciento de los incidentes criminales violentos estén relacionados a las drogas ilegales. En otras palabras, la ilegalización de las drogas, como la ilegalización del alcohol, no es funcional para evitar la criminalidad.
El caso de la propuesta enmienda a la Constitución de Puerto Rico no es otra cosa que una moralización del ámbito jurídico. Es esencialmente un "moral statement" de parte de la comunidad religiosa. Como base jurídica, ellos mencionan estados de la Unión que contienen esa disposición legal en sus respectivas constituciones: Ohio, Kentucky, Louisiana, y Georgia. ¡Claro está! Se puede presentar esos precedentes legales, sin embargo, no son funcionales a nivel social ni político. Estas enmiendas constitucionales han condenado a muchos homosexuales, lesbianas y transexuales a ser legalmente discriminados (por más que se alegue que no), para propósitos de acompañar a una pareja en un hospital, o en lo que concierne a la herencia, o en lo que concierne a la adopción. Tales enmiendas son, paradójicamente, unas restricciones a ciertos derechos a la asociación, a pesar de que dichas constituciones garantizan los derechos a la libre asociación.
Los religiosos argumentan, con una cierta "ingenuidad", de que la enmienda como tal no es discriminatoria porque no contiene ninguna disposición a favor de la discriminación contra parejas de hecho o parejas del mismo sexo. Sin embargo, como toda disposición legal, esto hay que ponerlo en contexto social. En Estados Unidos, las leyes de segregación "separate but equal" no contenían en muchos de los casos disposiciones explícitas a favor de la discriminación en contra de los negros. Lo único que disponía dichas leyes era que los blancos estuvieran en lugares para los blancos, y los negros estuvieran en lugares para negros. Sin embargo, en el sur estadounidense, donde reinaba Jim Crow y el racismo rampante, la práctica de la segregación era, dentro de todo un esquema económico y social de enajenación y continua, discriminación contra los negros estadounidenses.
En Puerto Rico, hoy día, esta disposición legal la proponen grupos religiosos que argumentan que la homosexualidad per-se es pecado, que es esencialmente inmoral, y dañino a la sociedad. Es más, ellos argumentan: ¡Es un peligro para la familia y el matrimonio! También tenemos que tener en cuenta que esta enmienda se propone en una sociedad heterocentrista y que en la práctica discrimina a homosexuales, lesbianas y transexuales. La sociedad puertorriqueña, desgraciadamente, empuja a los homosexuales a expresarse sentimentalmente y corporalemnte "tras bastidores". Sólo el más ingenuo y enajenado a nivel social se puede creer que tal enmienda no degeneraría en una mayor discriminación social contra grupos homosexuales y transexuales. Es una discriminación institucionalizada.
Además, habría que preguntarse en qué sentido el que personas del mismo sexo se casen pueda ser un peligro para la familia o el matrimonio. Si mañana se permitiera el matrimonio de personas del mismo sexo, ¿querría esto decir que gradualmente la sociedad se volvería homosexual?
Frecuentemente, se utiliza como argumento que en países que se reconocen estos derechos a los homosexuales hay una crisis de crecimiento de población. Difícilmente esto se puede atribuir al derecho a los homosexuales para que se casen, ya que la mayoría de las poblaciones de dichos países es marcadamente heterosexuales. Estos derechos reconocidos no han representado diferencia alguna en la manera en que se relacionan personas de distintos sexos.
El daño social que causaría un matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo o las llamadas "uniones civiles" no es evidente. Aún si se partiera de la premisa (equivocada) de que esto sería inmoral, la realidad es que sería funcional a nivel social en cuanto a preservación de derechos democráticos. ¿Cuál es el propósito del ámbito jurídico? En parte la regulación de lo económico y lo técnico, pero también la conservación de libertades dentro de un estado de derecho. Eso es democracia. Esta democracia debe partir de unos principios fundamentales para que, no sólo se posible la convivencia entre personas de diferentes formas de pensar, religiones, asociaciones, entre otros, sino también para que haya lo que Karl Popper llamaba una "sociedad abierta".
Se podrá argumentar ad nauseam que el matrimonio es una institución creada por Dios. Sin embargo, dentro del ámbito jurídico (constitucional), el matrimonio no pasa de ser un contrato legal entre dos personas, y cuya autoridad máxima que reconoce la validez de ese contrato no es Dios, sino el Estado. Para aquellos que objeten esta afirmación quisiera recordar que a la Constitución le concierne sólo la manera en que se rige el ESTADO y no se encarga de dispensar gracias divinas. No hay esquema funcional posible que haga a Dios autoridad civil máxima que supervise la vida moral de todos. Debemos recordar la época de las torturas de la "Santa" Inquisición cuando se intentó hacer algo parecido. A fin de cuentas, la misma enmienda propuesta reconoce que el matrimonio es puramente de naturaleza civil (y no divina).
Si la base para crear esta enmienda es la autoridad moral de la Biblia, entran en juego dos problemas. El primero, es que ni tan siquiera los mismos religiosos siguen la Biblia verbatim, sino que en muchos casos escogen aquí o allá lo que les conviene que sea aceptable a nivel social. De otra manera, hoy día los religiosos cristianos estarían quemando ganado (Lev. 1:9), vendiendo a sus hijas para la esclavitud (Exod. 21:7), comprando esclavos de otras naciones (Lev. 25:44), matando a aquellos que no observen el sábado o el domingo (Exod. 35:2), entre otras disposiciones de dudoso carácter moral. Si hacen excepciones con estos pasajes bíblicos, ¿por qué no lo hacen con el asunto de la homosexualidad (Lev. 18:22)?
El segundo problema de basar esta enmienda constitucional en la Biblia es el evidente conflicto con la disposición constitucional que establece una separación de Iglesia y Estado. Este concepto lo único que quiere decir es que el estado no discriminará a ninguna religión, sino que toda religión tendrá derecho a expresarse con igualdad de derecho. Es decir, el Estado no forzará ninguna creencia religiosa sobre sus ciudadanos sino que conservará la libertad que cada ciudadano o ciudadana de expresar sus creencias públicamente. El proponer una enmienda constitucional que evidentemente nace del sector religioso para forzarlo a varios sectores de la población que no cree lo mismo que estos sectores religiosos, entra en conflicto con los derechos fundamentales de todo ciudadano y ciudadana.
Si la base de esta enmienda no es bíblica sino filosófica, casi siempre el argumento será uno que evocará el concepto de "naturaleza". Es "natural" para el hombre estar con la mujer, y es "natural" para la mujer estar con un hombre. De tal manera, la única forma de relación matrimonial legítima será entre hombre y una mujer. El problema con este argumento es que se enfrenta a problemas serios discutidos en el campo de la ética desde principios del siglo XX. Por ejemplo, G. E. Moore, en su Principia Ethica, expuso la falacia de creer de esta manera. Es lo que llamó "la falacia naturalista": sólo lo que es natural es bueno. Es decir, los actos considerados "naturales" son los que se identifican con lo que es moralmente bueno. Definitivamente, esto no es así, ya que actos artificiales humanos también pueden ser buenos: por ejemplo, las medicinas, las casas, los inventos tecnológicos. En el caso de la relación hombre y mujer, no toda relación hombre y mujer es buena sólo porque es entre hombre y mujer. De hecho, hay relaciones homosexuales, lesbianas y transexuales que pueden ser más beneficiosas a la pareja que un buen número de matrimonios heterosexuales.
Finalmente, está el argumento de que "lo ideal" o "lo perfecto" sería que los niños crezcan con "un hombre y una mujer", con "un padre y una madre". Partiendo de la premisa de que esto sea cierto, es importante señalar que lo ideal y lo perfecto siempre es utópico. Puede ser un norte que nos guía a ser una sociedad mejor, pero no llegaremos jamás a esa condición de perfección. La razón es bien sencilla, y lo expresó el economista Francisco Catalá en su libro Elogio a la Imperfección: la perfección no es funcional, especialmente en una sociedad inherentemente imperfecta. Hay veces que es mejor que un hijo o una hija crezca en un hogar con una madre cuyo padre maltratante esté ausente. A veces es mejor que un hijo o una hija crezca con sus tíos o con sus abuelos, cuando el padre y la madre están metidos en la droga y en el alcohol. El seguir abogando por lo "ideal" o lo "perfecto" sería convertir lo "perfecto" en enemigo de lo que es "necesario" a nivel social. ¿No sería mejor que un niño o una niña crecer en un hogar cuyos adultos sean parejas del mismo sexo, pero en el que reine el amor? ¿O sería mejor para él o ella crecer en un hogar cuyos adultos sean heterosexuales, pero sean maltratantes?
Para terminar, es importante señalar que esta enmienda no pasa de ser un acto politiquero barato de parte de ciertos círculos de la legislatura y otros lugares del gobierno de Puerto Rico con tal de ganar votos del sector religioso. Poco le importa a estos politiqueros los derechos fundamentales de los puertorriqueños, incluyendo la libertad de expresión y de asociación, especialmente de asociación a nivel matrimonial. Todo lo ven desde su ceguera moral religiosa y fundamentalista, sin reflexionar los efectos sociales negativos que conllevaría la propuesta enmienda a la Constitución de Puerto Rico. Esperamos que las fuerzas tenebrosas y diabólicas de los dizque "representantes de Dios" no triunfen en este intento de coartar más la democracia puertorriqueña.
The RIAA Afraid of the Public?
Ok, there are things that, perhaps, I will NEVER understand, especially when it comes to the music industry.
Of course, I know why they enforce DRM even when they know it does not work: because the shareholders of these companies want the money immediately, now! They want to squeeze the money out of people so they have more profits. Ok, I can understand that. I'm against this practice, but I understand.
However, there is a marketing strategy that, unfortunately, I don't understand. When I went to YouTube to watch the videos of Sara Bareilles. I think she is a great singer an artist. And I noticed that it requested the same thing when I went to watch Alicia Keys videos, which was the same request made by other artists (or maybe labels under an artist nickname) ... The request stated the following:
Of course, the obvious question is the following: "WHY?????!!!!!!!!!!"
Ok... again, I'm not a marketing expert, and call me "crazy", but doesn't embedding help the scalability of artists' music and doesn't that create more market the artists or singers? Isn't it good for *everyone* including the artists and the labels to provide this ad that everyone will place in their spaces and websites for free, with not one cent requested to the label or the artists? It doesn't make sense to me.
Is the music industry afraid that people will "steal" the video? Any attempt to prevent this from happening is pointless. Besides, there are programs such as the DownloadHelper plugin for Mozilla-Firefox (and derivatives Iceweasel, Swiftweasel, GNU IceCat, and others), that lets everybody download these videos even if embedding is forbidden. There are also free software programs such as youtube-dl and clive that lets people download these videos using the command line interface. The problem with preventing people from downloading videos from YouTube or elsewhere is the same problem with DRM. You want to deliver the message with several protections, but for the message to be read or the video to be seen you have to give the user the means to open it. Clumsy and stupid technology. But again, why would the music industry prevent people from actually sharing videos of amazing artists?
I was also astonished when I went to Alanis Morissette's YouTube videos (at least the ones under the nickname "alaniscom". And then, when I looked at some of them it said:
WHY NOT????!!!!! What could possibly contain in those videos to make them unavailable in my country? Isn't the Internet the medium to make everything available to everyone? Is it because she says a word that is good in her country but foul word for ours? Because she shows pride for her country? What would be wrong with that?
The only thing that would make sense out of this is if the record labels are afraid of the people ... too afraid. They are afraid of the so-called "piracy" (a term I avoid). What could possibly happen to the music industry if everyone embeds artists' YouTube videos?
I understand the RIAA and record labels less and less.
Of course, I know why they enforce DRM even when they know it does not work: because the shareholders of these companies want the money immediately, now! They want to squeeze the money out of people so they have more profits. Ok, I can understand that. I'm against this practice, but I understand.
However, there is a marketing strategy that, unfortunately, I don't understand. When I went to YouTube to watch the videos of Sara Bareilles. I think she is a great singer an artist. And I noticed that it requested the same thing when I went to watch Alicia Keys videos, which was the same request made by other artists (or maybe labels under an artist nickname) ... The request stated the following:
"Embedding disabled by request"
Of course, the obvious question is the following: "WHY?????!!!!!!!!!!"
Ok... again, I'm not a marketing expert, and call me "crazy", but doesn't embedding help the scalability of artists' music and doesn't that create more market the artists or singers? Isn't it good for *everyone* including the artists and the labels to provide this ad that everyone will place in their spaces and websites for free, with not one cent requested to the label or the artists? It doesn't make sense to me.
Is the music industry afraid that people will "steal" the video? Any attempt to prevent this from happening is pointless. Besides, there are programs such as the DownloadHelper plugin for Mozilla-Firefox (and derivatives Iceweasel, Swiftweasel, GNU IceCat, and others), that lets everybody download these videos even if embedding is forbidden. There are also free software programs such as youtube-dl and clive that lets people download these videos using the command line interface. The problem with preventing people from downloading videos from YouTube or elsewhere is the same problem with DRM. You want to deliver the message with several protections, but for the message to be read or the video to be seen you have to give the user the means to open it. Clumsy and stupid technology. But again, why would the music industry prevent people from actually sharing videos of amazing artists?
I was also astonished when I went to Alanis Morissette's YouTube videos (at least the ones under the nickname "alaniscom". And then, when I looked at some of them it said:
"This video is not available in your country."
WHY NOT????!!!!! What could possibly contain in those videos to make them unavailable in my country? Isn't the Internet the medium to make everything available to everyone? Is it because she says a word that is good in her country but foul word for ours? Because she shows pride for her country? What would be wrong with that?
The only thing that would make sense out of this is if the record labels are afraid of the people ... too afraid. They are afraid of the so-called "piracy" (a term I avoid). What could possibly happen to the music industry if everyone embeds artists' YouTube videos?
I understand the RIAA and record labels less and less.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
