New Year's resolutions

I hereby resolve that, during the year 2013:

1. I will abstain from the use of alcohol, caffeine, and psychotropic medications.
2. For the first six weeks of the year, I will do the StrongLifts 3x10 workout plan on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, substituting however assisted pull-ups and assisted dips for the overhead press. Thereafter, I will evaluate my progress and determine what workout plan is proper from that point.
3. For the first nine weeks of the year, I will do the Couch to 5K workout plan on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Thereafter, I will run 5K per Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
4. I will defend my life, my property and my honor with all manly force against aggressors with or without badges.
5. I will resist all attacks on my rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, and pride. I will neutralize every threat to each of these virtues as I see them coming, by the means available to me.

Statement on criminal allegations

All of the criminal allegations which are likely to have been brought against me in the days immediately following this post are absolutely false. I am neither guilty of any crime, nor insane nor incapacitated in any way whatsoever by any mental disorder. I have no mental disorder except PTSD with cyclothymic features. All other alleged mental disorders are mis-diagnoses, which I will refute when and if I get the chance to do so.
The idea that I have autism spectrum disorder is also false, and vainly invented by my mother in her attempt to pass off the sequelae of my suppressed genius as an organic disorder. In fact, when the criteria for ASD or for Asperger's are considered in context of my high intellectual achievement, that is, when "normal" means normal to the smartest 0.1% of society, I do not meet any of the criteria except the social criteria. My conformity to even the social criteria is due to sheltering and deprivation as a child. I didn't even know what pop music was, vs. rock and country, until I was in a mental ward just prior to my 12th birthday. My TV was also limited to my brother's baby shows, because my mother considered the usual tween fare "inappropriate."
Any behavior I may do, which is ususally criminal, such as taking property or using violent force, will have been justifiable and justified. I will make my own defense for that conduct, waiving counsel, unless the Court imposes a law school clone on me in order to railroad me. In that case I will instruct him as well as I can and hope that he does me justice. For now, I hope this statement serves to preserve my good name against the wild allegations that are likely to be made after I will have been arrested, and while I thus cannot respond.

Displays of wealth in first impressions

In his book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell showed that we form most of our impressions about people in the first four seconds that we see them. In practice, this means that by the time a man is done shaking a woman's hand, she has already subconsciously decided whether she will sleep with him, sign him to her label or otherwise stake her existence on him. This is why clothing, hairstyle, shoes, grooming and cosmetics are so vitally important to a man's social future. If we go out even once sloppily dressed, and then/there meet our "big break" or future spouse, we have ruined our opportunity. Therefore, both singles and aspiring professionals must present themselves impeccably when going out.

The clothing needed to impress someone depends mainly on the refinement, and secondarily on the station, of the person you want to impress. A more refined person, even if poor, will not be impressed by just any suit or sportcoat, but will notice the details of fit and fabric. Likewise, a rich tradesman is not likely to notice the details of JoS A. Bank, but will "sir" any suit in the room. A prosperous and powerful gentleman, being himself refined, will demand even more detail, if not at the time of hiring then certainly on the job.

In dating, the same principle applies. Educated poor women and hipsters (although I repeat myself) require the right details, which cost money. Unrefined rich or pretty women do not demand or appreciate, and sometimes even disapprove of, fine clothing, but will date any man whose clothes meet the letter of the dress code. A scholar and a lady, who is herself refined, may look natural, but she really needs (although she won't say it) the look of a refined man who puts both time and money into his appearance. Whoever "dates up" must spend disproportionately on presentation, even at the expense of personal comfort.

Hunger that you can keep quiet is no object. Thinness in a petit gentilhomme, though not to the pt of emaciation, is desirable. Likewise, sleeping in a tent city in a public parking lot is no object, as long as your tent goes in a locker during the day so you are not found out. What matters is the ability to make the socially deisred outlays at an appropriate cost, and look good while doing so.

The choice of what station to climb for is a matter of cost-benefit analysis. Specifically, we must determine whether a costly display is likely to pay off for us. Following a budget, couponing or carrying a calculator to the store are all displays of poverty, which provide a very low monetary benefit at a high social cost. Wearing a silk pocket square in a good sportcoat are displays of wealth, which provides a social benefit at a moderate monetary cost.

This is not a complete statement of my views on this subject.

Natural health vs. the naturalistic fallacy

The allopathic community ridicules the natural health movement by accusing it of a "naturalistic fallacy." The allopaths claim that our belief that what is natural is good for us is unwarranted and unwarrantable. This ignores the inherent goodness of God and sinfulness of man. The proof of the appeal to nature is as follows.

GIVEN, that good entities are more likely to produce good things, in proportion to their goodness (Luke 6:43-45); and GIVEN, furthermore, that God is more fully good than human beings, as a consequence of humanity's sinful nature, which has been amply proved elsewhere; IT FOLLOWS that God produces more good things and things of greater goodness than man can ever create. Therefore, what God has created, viz. nature, is more likely to be good, and likely to be more good, than what human beings have created, viz. artificial drugs.

GIVEN, therefore, that we should prefer more of the good, and the greater good, over less of the good and the lesser good, we should prefer God's creation over human artifice. In the case of medicine, we should prefer natural remedies given by God over artificial drugs created by human beings. In the case of diet, we should prefer what we ate in the state of nature, viz. green leaves and animals that eat them, over what we invented to eat, viz. bread.

Why say "retarded"?

I am well aware of the campaign to eliminate the use of the word "retarded." I disagree with their contention that "retarded" is a prejudicial term. Mental retardation is a legitimate, medical term that refers to the intellectual state of people with low intelligence. The non-medical definition of retard means "to slow up especially by preventing or hindering advance or accomplishment." This pretty much sums up what happens to people with low intelligence.

I object to the alternative term, "intellectual disabilities," because that sounds like intelligence is extrinsic to virtue. I consider intelligence intrinsic to who and what a person is, even more so than their body. Intelligence is one of the virtues that our society seeks to draw out of children through education. We should not devalue that or render it extrinsic or unnecessary by passing off its absence as an extrinsic condition. Therefore, we should call mental retardation by its proper name, with good will to retarded people.

Retarded people's achievements in spite of their condition demonstrate their other virtues, such as courage and determination. I admire these virtues that demonstrate the humanity and goodness of retarded people in themselves and society. I don't needlessly discuss the handicap - if you can work, you can work here. I denounce anyone who does ridicule a retarded person or call undue attention to their condition. At the same time, I denounce the R Word Campaign and call on all writers and citizens, where utterly necessary, to use the proper term for retarded people.

Why are you against circumcision?

I am not against circumcision. I am against involuntary circumcision. I believe that it's a young man's personal choice as to whether or not to cut off half of the surface of his penis, and that California law protects that choice. I am also opposed to the proposed supremacy of halakha and shariah over American law in this regard.

What do you want me to tell you that you're ashamed to ask me openly?

Statement re circumcision lawsuit

This statement will grow into the fitful night.

1. Circumcision leaves intact some residual genital functioning, in many cases enough for a very active sex life. So what? The prepuce is a body part. Cutting off the body part is mayhem. Capisce?
1.1. The punishment for cutting off a fingertip is the same as for cutting off the whole arm. A body part is a body part. Mayhem is mayhem.
2. Circumcision means "cutting around." Female circumcision means cutting around the vagina, viz. the clit and labia. Male circumcision means cutting around the penis, removing the prepuce. Both remove the most sensitive part of the genitals. Both destroy the vast majority of fine touch sensation. Both induce a need for deep, violent sex for full satisfaction (and yes circumcised women do in fact have orgasms). Both operations are widely justified by cosmetic and medical justifications where they are practiced. The comparisons go on. So don't shout me down for comparing male and female circumcision.
3. Re the youth sex part: It's not like teens aren't having sex anyways. And it's not like we really want all those who do to be convicted of "unlawful sexual intercourse." What we want is responsible decisions. And it's not really an invitation to responsibility to say "just say no and if you say yes then it's invalid anyway and your beloved will go to jail." Young people are the owners of their own sexualities, and they have the right to consent to sex if they are actually able to do so.
4. There is no 'adults-only' clause in the State or Federal Constitution. All people are created equal. This means that young people have the same right to self-determination vis-a-vis their parents as adults who are under guardianship or conservatorship do against their guardians or conservators." 
5. This is the tip of the iceberg. I have cases in work on educational acceleration, the L.P.S. Act, voter registration and the State Bar Act. God willing, the educational acceleration case will be filed by the weekend.

Svend sues for prosecution of circumcision.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 24, 2011

In San Francisco, some people are agitating for a ban on circumcision. In Oakland, the Rev. Svend la Rose says circumcision is already banned. In a petition filed today with the Superior Court of California, County of Alameda,  la Rose seeks a writ of mandate requiring the Attorney General of California, Hon.
Kamala Harris, to prosecute circumcision under California’s mayhem law, which prohibits “Disfigur[ing]… and part of the body” of a human being. The case argues, under California's equal protection clause, that young men have the same right to keep their prepuces as do men over 18. The petition also calls for a ban on prosecution of sex with and among young people.

The petition for the writ rests on Article 1, section 7 of the State Constitution, which provides for due  process of law and equal protection of the laws. The primary equal protection interest implicated is the
equality between young citizens and older citizens, since it is already recognized that circumcising an adult may without his permission is certainly a crime. This set, la Rose does implicate gender when he calls for excuses and defenses to the crime of circumcision to be judged by the same standard used to judge the excusibility or defensibility of female circumcision. Since cutting off parts of girls’ genitals is a
crime, la Rose reasons the removal of parts of boys genitals must be equally criminal. He insists this is true irrespective of the difference in functional importance between the male prepuce (don’t call it a “foreskin” because it’s so much more than skin) and the female vulva, Nevertheless, he insists a comparison can be made, in terms of the erotic effects of circumcision and its cultural and cosmetic justifications.

In addition to the prosecution of circumcision, la Rose's petition also calls for a ban on the prosecution of sex with and among people under the age of 18. This, too, is under the equal protection clause, and calls for young people's sexual self-determination rights to be respected on the same terms as the rights of senior citizens and developmentally disabled people the logic of this is clear to la Rose: “If developmentally disabled people and retarded people are defined by their incapacity any yet they still have at least a chance to consent or to prove their ability to consent, then how can you deny the same right to young people, who are not defined by their incapacity but by some arbitrary characteristic?"
La Rose is president of ASFAR Youth Liberation (www.youthliberation.org), which is the oldest comprehensive organization in the United States advocating for the liberty and self-determination of young people. He is also an ordained minister and accomplished musician. He is suing in another case to get back into UC Berkeley. Finally, and purely coincidentally, he is homeless.
La Rose insists this will not be his only action to protect the equal protection rights of young people. In a statement, he indicated he is working on two other actions to defend young people's rights to educational advancement and to freedom from arbitrary mental health procedures. He hopes to complete and file at least one of these actions by the end of the week. To achieve this end, he seeks the support of the general public in order to pay his expenses for filing and for staying alive long enough to file.

La Rose seeks the immediate support of the public to meet his immediate needs while he works on
this case and other matters of public interest. All funds donated to ASFAR go directly to ASFAR’s
activities, so la Rose has set up a donation button on his own blog, svendlarose.blogspot.com, which points to this link: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=QST5REYR8HCUG All funds donated will be used in a frugal and just manner o keep Svend alive while he works tirelessly for justice. Anyone who agrees with Svend or merely wishes to reward his courage can and should give money.

Press desiring to meet Svend should meet him at the Alameda County Admin. Bldg, 12th and Oak streets, Oakland, CA, at 5:00 or 9:00 pm tonight, January 24, or tomorrow morning the 25th at 8:00 at the same place. Statements will be made at that time or else via this blog.

--
Svend D. la Rose
President
ASFAR Youth Liberation
svendlarose@asfar.org
AIM: svend grafofonix

Taking a stand against male genital mutilation

On Monday, January 17, 2011, I will petition the Superior Court of California, County of Alameda, for a mandatory injunction requiring the Attorney General of California, Edmund "Jerry" Brown, to prosecute physicians who perform medically unnecessary circumcisions of infant boys' prepuces for mayhem (maiming) under state law. This will hopefully put to rest this socially accepted campaign of violence against male sexuality. A fuller statement will appear here in due course.

formspring.me

Ask me anything, anonymously! It's fun... http://formspring.me/svendlarose

Iowa marriage decision a travesty

I am deeply disappointed in the decision of the Iowa Supreme Court to allow same-sex marriage in that state pursuant to the Equal Protection Clause of its state Constitution. Iowa's decision threatens the uniqueness of marriage as an institution set up to support the procreation and rearing of children, impose order on the sexual lives of individuals, and gain the best advantages for the next generation of Americans out of the unique physical and psychological characteristics of males and females.

Gay couples by nature are incapable of procreating, and therefore incapable of rearing their own children. This has not stopped them from adopting the children of broken families, from breaking up their own families and taking their children to live with their lovers, or from conceiving children through adultery (including donor insemination).

The defense of marriage law in Iowa does not interfere with gays' right to marry; rather, it requires them to order their sexual lives in a fashion they may find less desirable in order to exercise that right.

Personal update

I realize this update is long overdue, and that it would have been proper of me to update all of you (friends, family and Facebook stalkers) as to my travails before they piled up in such a dramatic fashion. The timing of these travails has prevented me from so doing, so here's the biggest update on my personal life to date.

Summer Session 2008 was a disaster. I was bedbound with one thing or another for the bulk of the summer -- first bronchitis, then laryngitis, then another respiratory infection that went everywhere. I took two incompletes and froze them both at the end of the fall, putting me out of contention for the major in rhetoric. I dropped the other two classes while I had the chance.

Fall was little better. I had to search the whole Bay Area to find a place to move out of the dorms to, ultimately moving to Concord a few days before classes began. The first three weeks did not go well -- I was dropped from two classes by the instructors for being too sick to attend. I was ultimately forced to withdraw from the semester after bombing my first midterm in accounting and being advised that it would be nearly impossible for me to pass rhetorical interpretation after all my absences. This was the point at which I first considered and then decided to freeze my incompletes from Summer Session and start over in a new major.

I was rusticated back to Chabot for spring semester in order to get my feet back under me. I enrolled in a fairly ambitious full slate of classes only to drop all but one in favor of a bunch of secretarial skills (typing, computing and proofreading) classes. I hope the easy schedule gives me a chance to recover my strength for the summer and fall. (If it doesn't, I'm in trouble.)

Statement on Sen. Obama's VP selection

Joe Biden is not, and has never been, presidential material. His chronic foot-in-mouth disease prevents him from any hope of being a competent president - President Biden would sound like President Bush with a better haircut. His longevity in Washington prevents him from being as aggressive an agent of change as our Party needs. And his age - 65, old enough to retire on Social Security - is a slap in the face to the young people who delivered Barack Obama the nomination by voting their demographic.

Sen. Biden does, however, have two redeeming qualities. One, he is not Evan Bayh. Two, Joe Biden has never sponsored the "Deleting Online Youth Act" or any other alarmist measure to curtail young people's First Amendment freedoms in the name of public safety. So I will hold my nose and vote for him, trusting that Sen. Obama is young enough to not croak, and that Sen. Biden will not have his partner whacked in order to curtail our movement for change. "A bucket of warm piss", which is what the vice presidency is worth, for the fossil from Delaware is a small price to pay to elect the dynamo from Illinois.

YES on Proposition 2: Treatment of Farm Animals, Statute

While I object to much of the harsh rhetoric of Humane California, the group sponsoring Proposition 2, I can't bring myself to vote against it. The bill would require that laying hens, breeding sows and veal calves be given enough room to turn around in their laying crates, breeding crates and calving pens respectively. I support this bill because it would improve the conditions in which California meat is produced, including the sanitary improvements that come from the increased space.

One down, four more to go

After six respiratory infections, ten weeks of bed rest, 40-plus pages of writing and over 2,000 pages of reading, my first semester in UC Berkeley's College of Letters and Science has come to an end. I will end the semester with grades of Incomplete in Rhetoric 150 and 162AC and a grade of Pass in German C109, capping a stressful academic roller-coaster that left me worrying whether my decision to persevere was the right one. It was.

California's gay "respect and dignity" decision

Having taken the time to read the opinion, I wish to explain my objections in enough detail to allow my fellow activists to understand my objections as being consistent with a pro-rights worldview. Let me begin by summarizing what I feel are the key problems with the opinion.

First and foremost, the state Supreme Court (with the assistance of the state defense, who conceded this point) ignores the difference between a domestic partnership and a marriage. A domestic partnership is a union of two people, of whatever gender, joined together for mutual prosperity and affection with the intention that the partnership should be lifelong or else last for a considerable amount of time. It need not differ in its legal dimensions from any other kind of non-limited partnership, such as an advertising firm or newsstand syndicate, in that both are governed by the mutual consent of the members thereof, and the proceeds thereof are distributed in some fashion to the members thereof, although State law might make a special domestic partnership that does so differ, and indeed did so in this matter. A domestic partnership can be dissolved by filing a form with the Secretary of State and fulfilling certain separation requirements. An individual in a domestic partnership may be as qualified as a single individual with a long-term partner of some other kind to adopt a child, but the relationship is not necessarily open to, and constructed for the purpose of, procreation and the family bond; it is constructed for prosperity and affection.

A marriage has more attributes and social purposes than a domestic partnership. A marriage is the union of one man and one woman joined together for mutual prosperity, affection, and posterity, with the intention that the partnership should be lifelong and (at least in theory, if not in practice since the 60s) that it should lead to the rearing of children in a stable family unit governed by a mother and a father. (I will touch on the gender question in a later article.) It differs in its legal and juridical dimensions from every other institution; it has even given rise to an entire field of law (family law) that is separate from other fields of law. It fulfills a very unique purpose: that of procreating, raising and socializing children in a stable, prosperous, socially perpetuated institution as far from State control as possible. So the state defense (which was ironically not given by the Attorney General, like it usually would be) erred in conceding this point and setting forth the very real difference between a marriage and a domestic partnership.

Secondly, the Court's characterization of the interest in question -- "the opportunity of an individual to establish ... an officially recognized and protected family ... entitled to the same respect and dignity accorded a union traditionally designated as marriage" is an inappropriate question for the court to decide. The government has no place making value judgments as to what is and is not "entitled to" certain degrees of "respect and dignity". That is a judgment for the community and the members thereof, applying private and personal standards, to make. The government does have a place in providing equal protection under its own law, and it did so in every substantive sense; the question in this matter, as the opinion states on page 4, is "whether, under these circumstances [of complete equal protection under State law of marriage and domestic partnership], the failure to designate the official relationship of same-sex couples as marriage violates the California Constitution." In short, the Court was dealing in appearances and demanding that the people of California, many of whom are conservative and some of whom have religious, moral and ethical objections to homosexual behavior, receive same-sex couples into what many of them (myself not included) consider to be the only licit sexual union: that of marriage. So the Court overstepped its bounds by taking the law into the domain of public opinion - of politics. The question should have been rejected as a political question.

Third and finally, the claim on which the right to same-sex marriage rests -- namely, that gay couples raise children the same way regular married couples do -- is flawed. Where do they get the children, since a sperm cannot fertilize a wad of faeces and a dildo cannot fertilize an ovum? Are they products of adultery? Sometimes they are, as in opposite-sex couples; yet this is recognized as deviant, and could not form the basis for a moral judgment. Were they created by technical means, such as the extraction of one man's DNA into an ovum (with his X rather than his Y chromosome), the in vitro fertilization by the other man's sperm, and the artificial implantation of the resulting zygote into a surrogate? Possibly, although I don't believe fertility technology is quite advanced enough to allow that to be the basis for such a judgment.

These children were gotten by adoption, and adoption requires the disembabyment of young women -- for whose rights I strive on a daily basis -- and working women. Neither youth nor working status is a disqualification from the virtue of motherhood. I cannot countenance an institution that relies on taking otherwise happy, healthy children away from (in many cases) willing and able young women as being consistent with a claim of right or a pro-rights worldview.

I will add to this, especially to the last point, very substantially after Finals in order to amplify my views and add the intellectual nuance that is characteristic of my evolving moderate views. For now, you can see my main objections to this decision, and I hope to establish a principled, moderate position by going on record early with my reasons for supporting the inevitable State Constitutional amendment to define marriage in California as a relationship between a man and a woman.

New ASFAR Website

Over Spring Break, I created a new beta version of the ASFAR Youth Liberation website all by myself! Suffice it to say that I am very proud of my limited CSS knowledge. I would appreciate a response to any bugs, as well as functional suggestions, sent to president at asfar dot org.

Ten theses on adolescence

I will spend the remainder of my winter break defending these theses and preparing a paper on them, portions of which will be posted here.

1. Adolescence is an entirely socially constructed phase of life. If society ceased to believe in the concept of adolescence, it would cease to exist.
2. The transition from childhood to adulthood does not require the extended period of adolescence.
3. Adolescence, as it exists in America today, is anathema to the natural pattern of human development, to the principle that rights exist in proportion to the corresponding responsibilities, and to the development of young people as it exists in other countries.
4. Age does not correlate with ability to a significant enough extent to justly deny rights based on age.
5. The elimination of adolescence in favor of the assumption of adult responsibilities by those who are ready for them would benefit society.
6. Young people should not, by virtue of their age, be barred from explicit images of sex or violence, or from discussion of any religious tradition.
7. Young people cannot, by virtue of their age, be denied the right to dispatch and receive freely the spoken and written word, to exercise their own religious conscience, to assemble peacefully, or to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
8. It is an offense against the freedom of conscience to require any person, and especially a young person, to undergo mandatory indoctrination or social engineering through any establishment set up for that purpose. It is doubly offensive to that freedom that those establishments often represent their activities as presenting facts or mending defects of body or mind.
9. It is an offense against the humanity of young people to deny their capacity to give or withhold consent to medical or psychological treatment or sexual activity, each of which has a profound effect on the mind and body of that young person, by reason of that young person’s age. It is doubly offensive to that humanity to assign the liberty of consent to a person whose values and interests may not be aligned with those of the young person receiving treatment or being restrained from sexual fulfillment.
10. It is an offense against justice to consider a young person both a perpetrator and a victim of an act of consensual sex, as is the fashion of current age-of-consent laws.

A nightmare

Last night, I had a nightmare in which I encountered a little girl who lost her father to the Iraq occupation. As a good Christian, I offered her a shoulder to cry on. Within days (since dreams move really fast), I was sitting in court insisting to an unsympathetic jury that the only sexual anything going on in that situation was in the prosecutor's mind. And apparently in the jurors' minds and the judge's mind as well.

I woke up hoping it was just a dream. Apparently, I was wrong. Four-year-olds as sexual deviants? That's a nightmare for the record books.

Five reasons why Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is better qualified for the Presidency than Sen. Hillary Clinton (DINO-NY)

1. Legal Intellect. Clinton failed the D.C. Bar Exam. Obama was a lecturer of Constitutional law at the University of Chicago, one of America's top law schools, for almost a decade.
2. Working People. Clinton was a director of Wal-Mart and a partner of the most notorious anti-union law firm in America, Rose Law. Obama fought for the working poor as an organizer on Chicago's South Side before going to Harvard Law.
3. Authenticity. Clinton is a past president of the Wellesley Young Republicans who continues to struggle with the divide between her ideas and those of the American people. Obama is an authentic, forthright progressive with no need to dissemble or triangulate.
4. Experience. Clinton has a track record of catastrophic failure on the one issue -- health care -- that her husband entrusted to her as First Lady. Obama has a track record of measured success on the issues he handled in the Illinois State Senate, and on the issues -- including ethics and lobbying reform -- that have fallen to him in the U.S. Senate.
5. First Partners. Bill Clinton is a career politician. Michelle Obama is a dignified professional. Need I say more?