Secrets

The very idea that the Enemy would not notice helicopters only performing night operations when the moon was bright. Lack of nightvision equipment in British Airborne was kept secret from the British public. Crazy.

Michael Sandel

I listened to the Reith Lectures. Obviously Sandel follows on from Charles Taylor in trying to incorporate the demotic, or at least detect it for further moral scrutiny. I am disturbed at his popularity. I don't find he has anything interesting to say, much less anything that should be taken up for policy - He will would do well to follow Marc Hauser's studies. Looking up instances of Sandel in my earlier readings of philosophy I found Rorty was also dismayed with the guy. Anyone who is comfortable with the "risk" of authoritarianism, creeping out of their desperate need to enforce universal solutions, is someone to be very uncomfortable about.

Further yet obliquely: I am not defending Polanski directly. I am saying that the cries that the law must stand in principle are absurd in the light of his unblemished 30 year period of liberty. The case need be reviewed. Polanski should not be extradited, nor should he be allowed entry to US since he skipped the country in the first place. The difference between Polanski and a non-celebratory is that he is in the public eye as the average person is not. There is a strange trend in approaches to the retrospective interpretation within law and hammering on about principles is not going to make the law effective in way that lets society develop to it's self-borne challenges.