Following up on Noah Smith’s marvellous definition of derp, I thought I would add the first person to give the declension of this irregular verb

* I can’t see this happening
* You regularly restate your tight (low probability) prior
* He herped a flerp of derp, the twerp

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I have a few observations about Asia, and living here and also traveling to nations other than Singapore. I have been mulling them over on this trip alone as I have no one to talk to (except everyone I meet, and it’ll astonish you to know I am a friendly, chatty person. Well, the friendly might surprise you if you think of me as a harpy swooping to scourge my foes with a whip of venom. In truth I smile at strangers, and it took me some little time living in NYC before I could repress the drive to meet with my gaze every person I pass, a practice that actually impedes walking in Savannah, as one frequently knows the person and cannot, under any circumstance, walk past them without speaking briefly. My children think I am “scary,” a not unadulterated good character reference. By this they mean I have a mean glare on me, but that’s part of a mother’s job. If you can’t get somebody to stop fooling around just by looking at them sideways, you have failed to cultivate your maternal powers.) I have been loath to commit them–these ideas you forgot I was talking about just now–to pixels because I feel they are disorganized and perhaps it is not even possible to unwind the tangled skein. However, you are always kind in accepting my scattered thoughts as continuous writing and thus encouraged I will proceed.
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Lots of people have raised the suggestion of applying game theory to the the Greek debt crisis. I haven’t attempted this, reflecting my general scepticism about game theory in the absence of a well-defined strategy space. But now the Greek government and public have made, what is, in effect, a final move. In view of the No vote, Syriza can’t accept a deal that doesn’t include an explicit debt write-off or one that obviously crosses its stated red lines. Within those parameters, its clearly eager for a face-saving compromise.

For the other side (effectively the Troika and the German government), since Syriza’s move has already been made, the problem has now been reduced to one of decision under uncertainty, which is something I am comfortable with. More precisely, it’s a choice between a “safe” option, with an outcome that is fairly predictable, and a “risky” option where the outcome is uncertain.
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I realize our blog was curiously silent when we were all thinking, “gay marriage–in your FACE bitches!” And, “isn’t it a good thing that not quite enough Supreme Court justices were swayed by a ludicrously weak argument first tendered in the spirit of ‘0bummercare’ on IIRC the Volokh Conspiracy; at the same time, wasn’t that scary? Still, in your FACES hypocritical Jesuitical bastards!” And, “oh Lord why in the church why? How did he steel himself to it after they welcomed him and he did bible study for an hour. An hour! What kind of mordant acid of racism could etch a stain so black on the filth-splattered escutcheon of Dixie?” And, “I love the president of the United States of America. I am crying watching YouTube. There is snot on my face.” And, “holy shit, people are giving a crap about the confederate flag?! Are you serious? No, really, what?” I’ll be honest as a girl born in Savannah “home of the official platinum-level flag of bigotry” GA; a girl whose step-father was Edmund Kirby-Smith (the fourth and only)—this last one has me reeling. Also, has me realizing that I wasn’t cool in the 90s when I used a metal Dukes of Hazzard lunchbox as a purse for like 3 years. I was a dick. Well, truth be told I was going to post about the evil of Tom Bombadil, but then I felt like I needed to explain myself, so I’ll just wait a short while (and don’t you steal my thunder!).

The thing was, we flew to my in-laws in Eugene, OR (via HK and SF) and then I found out I had to do something in Indonesia so I flew back another 24 hours maybe six days later, to Singapore and then Bali, and now I’ma sort this out, fly back to Singapore, fly HK to SF to Eugene, and then the next day fly from Eugene to SF to Newark New Jersey to Savannah, and then 6 days later to Dulles, then National, then Martha’s Vineyard? No, I must have to fly to Boston. Whyyywwyyyy? OK, some people have real problems that don’t involve them flying around the world to beautiful places, so I’ll stop moping and let’s join in a carefully composed round of huzzahs and somber reflection and sore winner uncharitable triumph, shall we? In short, America: F@#k Yeah.

I didn’t take part in the book event on Danielle Allen Our Declaration, except as a commenter. But, as it happened, I converged on some of the central questions by a different route. For some time now, I’ve been writing critically about John Locke and his propertarian theory of liberalism. Increasingly, I’ve come to the view that Locke is best seen as an American rather than an English political theorist, even though he was an absentee owner rather than an American resident.

Further, while his writings appear liberal if interpreted in the English context, and if attention is focused on the passages where he is seeking to diminish the power of the English monarchy, his crucial contributions to the theory of propertarian liberalism are his justifications of expropriation and enslavement in the American context. The combination of the two made him the ideal theorist for those who wanted a Declaration of Independence that justified rebellion against the British monarchy, in combination with rule by a slave-owning aristocracy in the newly independent country.

James Wilson’s contribution to the Danielle Allen seminar, The Declaration of Independence isn’t egalitarian enough explores many of the issues, as does Gabriel Winant.

I’ve made a start to spelling out the arguments in a piece for Jacobin magazine, entitled John Locke Against Freedom, which has given rise to some interesting discussions on Facebook, Twitter etc. Chris Bertram has raised some effective criticisms, and hopefully will spell them out in more detail later on. A couple of notable points, with partial responses

* I’ve overstated the extent to which Locke’s influence was confined to the American context, although it remains clear that his political theory mattered more in that context than in England

* Even if Locke himself advocated and benefited from expropriation and slavery, it’s not obvious (as I assert) that his theory of classical liberalism necessarily entails these things. I plan to spell out the argument in more detail soon.

After Chris and John’s posts, a lot of which I agree with, I thought it made sense to look at the third member in the three-cornered disaster in Euroland …

When you look at this series, two things strike the eye. One, good God what a long and deep recession. And two, it was coming to an end. Even the worst policy mistakes don’t last forever and a combination of time, human resilience and the Pigou Effect will usually prevail. Greece had two quarters of consecutive growth at the beginning of 2014. Unemployment also began to fall. They were issuing bonds on the open market and had some hopes of completing the second bailout program with a degree of success.

Then, Syriza happened.
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Chris has already pointed out the failure of the core European institutions in their response to the global financial crisis. One excuse that can be made for these institutions is that they are still in the process of development, and were ill-prepared, intellectually and institutionally, for an event so far outside their experience. The ECB and EC developed in a period when controlling inflation and stabilizing government debt were the key imperatives, and they responded to the crisis accordingly.

No such excuse can be made for the third member of the Troika, the International Monetary Fund. The IMF has understood from the start that the austerity policies it has imposed are economically unsound and a repetition of past failures. And yet it has been unwilling and unable to do anything else.

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The first few hours the atmosphere was hearty
With fireworks, fun, and games of every kind;
All were enjoying it, no one was blind;
Brilliant the speeches improvised, the dances,
And brilliant, too, the technical advances.

Today, alas, that happy crowded floor
Looks very different: many are in tears:
Some have retired to bed and locked the door;
And some swing madly from the chandeliers;
Some have passed out entirely in the rears;
Some have been sick in corners; the sobering few
Are trying hard to think of something new.
(From WH Auden, *A Letter to Lord Byron*)

One of the consequences of the Conservative victory in the recent UK general election was that there will be an in-out referendum of the UK’s membership of the EU at some point in the next couple of years (details yet to be finalized). How should people who think of themselves as being on the left, egalitarian, liberal, progressive vote?
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Winton organized the Czech kinderstransport that delivered a total of 669 children bound for concentration camps to the UK, instead. He kept quiet about it until his wife found his records in the attic. He lived to 106, and died today, the anniversary of the train carrying the largest number of children — 241 — departed from Prague. BBC story here. Account of how he pulled it off here. He said that anybody would have done it.

Interesting video story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6FlMLyf0yk

Challenge to cynics:

I have a chapter in a newly released book on happiness, extracts of which have been published in The Conversation. My argument, summed up as Measures of happiness tell us less than economics of unhappiness, is a reworking of points I’ve made in the past. In particular, I argue that it’s more useful to think about removing avoidable sources of unhappiness, and that has been the great success of social democracy and the welfare state.

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Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson,<em> <a href=”http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Justice-Selling-Clarence-Thomas/dp/0395633184/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1435596133&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Strange%20Justice”>Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas</a></em>:
<blockquote><span data-reactid=”.1kn.1:4:1:$comment874301359302253_874303012635421:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1.$comment-body.0.0″><span data-reactid=”.1kn.1:4:1:$comment874301359302253_874303012635421:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1.$comment-body.0.0.$end:0:$text0:0″>What she remembered most vividly, however, was the way [Clarence] Thomas woke up each morning. He had a theme song which he would play at high volume in his room at the start of every day, “kind of like a mantra.”</span></span>

<span data-reactid=”.1kn.1:4:1:$comment874301359302253_874303012635421:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1.$comment-body.0.0″><span data-reactid=”.1kn.1:4:1:$comment874301359302253_874303012635421:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1.$comment-body.0.0.$end:0:$text0:0″>”What’s that?” she remembered asking [Gil] Hardy [Clar</span></span><span data-reactid=”.1kn.1:4:1:$comment874301359302253_874303012635421:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1.$comment-body.0.3″><span data-reactid=”.1kn.1:4:1:$comment874301359302253_874303012635421:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1.$comment-body.0.3.0″><span data-reactid=”.1kn.1:4:1:$comment874301359302253_874303012635421:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1.$comment-body.0.3.0.$text0:0:$text0:0″>ence Thomas’s roommate] when she was first rocked out of bed by it at an early hour. </span></span></span>

<span data-reactid=”.1kn.1:4:1:$comment874301359302253_874303012635421:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1.$comment-body.0.3″><span data-reactid=”.1kn.1:4:1:$comment874301359302253_874303012635421:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1.$comment-body.0.3.0″><span data-reactid=”.1kn.1:4:1:$comment874301359302253_874303012635421:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1.$comment-body.0.3.0.$text0:0:$text0:0″>”Oh, that’s just Clarence,” Hardy replied with a laugh. “It’s his theme song.” The song, “The Greatest Love of All,” was a pop anthem celebrating self-love rereleased by Whitney Houston.</span></span></span></blockquote>
Clarence Thomas, <em><a href=”http://www.amazon.com/My-Grandfathers-Son-Clarence-Thomas/dp/006056556X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1435605590&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=my+grandfather%27s+son”>My Grandfather’s Son</a></em>:
<blockquote>I’d heard the song many times, but it had never meant more to me than it did now…I took heart from George Benson [who originally performed the song]: …<em>No matter what they take from me/ They can’t take away my dignity</em>.</blockquote>
Clarence Thomas, <a href=”http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf”>Obergefell v. Hodges</a>, dissenting:
<blockquote>The corollary of that principle is that human dignity cannot be taken away by the government. Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them. And those denied governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them those benefits. The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away.</blockquote>

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The seminar on Danielle Allen’s recent book, _Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality_, which is available from Powells, Amazon and Barnes and Noble is now concluded. The entire seminar can be found at this link. The participants in this seminar and their posts:

* Cristina Beltrán is an associate professor of social and cultural analysis and director of Latino Studies at New York University. Slow Reading as a Practice of Reckoning with Love and Loss.

* Henry Farrell blogs here. The Declaration as Patrimony.

* Heather Gerken is the J. Skelly Wright professor of Law at Yale Law School. The Craft of Interpreting the Declaration of Independence.

* Sam Goldman is an assistant professor of political science at George Washington University. You Might Have to Believe in God to Take the Declaration of Independence Seriously

* Chris Lebron is an assistant professor of African-American studies and philosophy at Yale University. Reading Our Declaration in Support of Black Radicalism.

* James Miller is a professor of political science and liberal studies at the New School for Social Research. What Is To Be Done?

* James Wilson is Collegiate assistant professor in the social sciences at the University of Chicago. The Declaration of Independence Isn’t Egalitarian Enough

* Gabriel Winant is a Ph.D. candidate in History at Yale University. To Carry The Past Around With You.

* Danielle Allen is the UPS Foundation professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies’ school of social science, and the incoming director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.
* Post I – Responses to Gerken, Winant and Lebron.
* Post II Problems of Consensus: Responses to Goldman, Farrell, Wilson, Beltran and Miller.