Transnational Law Blog

Behind President Obama’s Warning of “Double Dip” Danger

Today, in an interview with Fox News in Beijing, President Obama warned that “the US economy could head into a ‘double-dip recession’ unless urgent steps were taken to rein back America’s mounting level of public debt,” reported the Financial Times. Speculation about a double dipping, also known as W shape economy, has been on going among academics ever since the US economy showed signs of recovery. I have long been argued that there will be a U shape recovery- a sluggish recovery but not another recession- and 2010 will be an adjustment period where real recovery will occur closer toward the end of 2010. 

At the moment, the effects of the fiscal stimulus will soon phase out at the end of this year and will probably finish by early next year barring any additional stimulus. Thus, 2010 means to be a deciding year for the shape of the U.S. economy, depending mostly either on the economy’s ability to recover on its own by increasing productivity and producing new jobs or on further government intervention to artificially boost the economy once again. I suspect both of these factors must occur concurrently for a stronger and real recovery to happen.

Let us set aside the first factor of self-recovering economy. Instead, let’s think about potential government intervention for a moment. Given the U.S. on-going commitment in the Middle East, namely Afganistan, Iraq and recently Iran, as well as the newly proposed health reform, the Obama administration has less latitude to ask Congress for another major stimulus package. This is not to mention the moral hazard issue posed by this approach. One of the remaining options is to stimulate the U.S. economy by increased trade volume, hence devaluation of the U.S. dollars.

In his recent interview with NBC news, president Obama asserts: “If we just boosted our share of exports by 1 per cent, that might be 250,000 well-paying jobs in the United States.” “So export promotion would be an example of something we could do without spending money,” quoted the Financial Times.

One major problem of this strategy is that the U.S. largest trade partner who currently benefits from enormous trade surplus with the U.S. is China. In response to the depreciation of the dollar against other major currency, Chinese government immediately pegged the yuan to U.S. dollar causing the yuan to depreciate even further than its artificial rate. The new peg effectively deflects the U.S. effort to stimulate U.S. trade volume with China. There is, indeed, an urgent need for President Obama to pay Asia a visit to prevent further distortion behavior from the Chinese exchange regime.

I found China’s new tactical complaint that “low US interest rate were fuelling a new global asset bubble based on the carry trade in US dollars” disturbing. In order to keep the dollar value low, interest rate must remain low. Economically, the devaluation of the dollar has two major negative impacts on China: increased trade pressure and decreased value of Chinese dollar reserve. Being the largest foreign holder of U.S. treasury bonds with roughly $800b on its books, China is seeing the value of its dollar assets depreciate with the dollar. Nevertheless, how could a government, which consistently devaluates its currency to earn comparative advantages on global trade criticizes the exact behavior done by its major trade partner? How about Chinese government allowing the yuan to adjust to its real value by floating its currency first?

 

Dani Rodrik was right that global protectionism was held back this during the 2008-2009 recession, but it is making a come back leading by China, the U.S. and is slightly followed by the rest of Asia. Unless we see better economic recovery and proper governing effort on trade protectionism, Europe and the rest of the world will soon join the league.

To add more complexity to the US- China diplomatic environment over trade issues, did you know that China exchange regime may in fact complies with the IMF Articles and the relevant provisions of the WTO?

On a separate and more positive note: U.C. Hastings was rated 11^th in the nation based on Super Lawyer Magazine’s new ranking. The Wall Street Journal Law Blog posted about the new ranking system here.

--Images by the Wall Street Journal (Balancing Act) and the Financial Times (Chinese Renminbi).

In the Darkening Shadow of California Budget Crisis

A few days ago, I received some updated news from our Chancellor at UC Hastings regarding Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal to cut 100% state funding for the law school. With $24 billion deficit, the governor was searching for further cuts to make up the remaining $5.5 billion and UC Hastings' 10.3 million public fund, equivalent to approximately 25% of the school budget, was proposed to be taken away all together except for $7,000, which is the nominal amount required from the state by the bequest of the founder, S.C. Hastings. The proposal provoked deep distress within Hastings community since it would amount to $8,175 increase in tuition for Hastings' 1260 student population. The problem is further complicated by the fact that Hastings' 2009-2010 tuition has already set for the new school year. Other alternatives are much less feasible such as admitting more students to Hastings over-crowded facilities or letting go highly qualified faculties which would in turn damage the law school's teaching quality and overall rankings. Otherwise, should UC Hastings, supposedly an arm of the UC system, convert into private law school? I will leave this debate to BLT's readers.

Here is the good news from our Chancellor:

Dear Students,
 
We are pleased to announce that on Friday, June 5th the budget conference committee voted unanimously to substantially restore UC Hastings' state funding, which will put reductions made to the law school’s budget in substantial parity with cuts applied to the UC system.  If this decision stands, we will still receive a budget cut, but nothing as extensive as 100 percent of our state support, as recommended by the Governor.  CFO David Seward reported that several members of the committee spoke about the calls and emails they had received, about UC Hastings' unique history as California's oldest law school, and the inequity of singling the law school out for disparate treatment.

California’s budget crisis is not over, however, and difficult choices remain to be made.  The conference committee stated they might have to revisit the higher education budget later in their deliberations, including support for UC Hastings.  In addition, even if the legislature continues to support the restoration of UC Hastings' state funding, the Governor can countermand, or “blue pencil” the legislative recommendation.  So it is important that we not relax our vigilance.  We will continue our work on educating the legislature and the Governor's office.

People talk about the long-term benefit of education as a type of secured and high turnout investment for the future. Yet, at the time of crisis and financial difficulty, the value of education almost always faces challenges and skepticism and funding for public education is often on the top the reconsidered list. What appeared as signs of unequal treatment among public universities for higher education is the reality that the funding cuts for all UC Universities are at roughly 20% while Hastings faced nearly 100% withdrawal from the state. With the recent establishment of UC-Irvine law school, one may also rightly ask, as Senator Denise Ducheny, D-San Diego did: "Why would we start a new law school when we've had Hastings around for more than 100 years, and it has a great reputation?"

I was deeply concerned with public reaction and was distressed over the result of California’s deficit-reducing ballot initiative last month. The result convinced me that misinformed exercise of democratic power through special voting can be much more damaging than non-action itself. Yet, the long-term effect of a possible alternative such as having no voting incentive seems entirely unjustified and unacceptable. This is the case where I suspect that the communication between our governor office the people had failed allowing information disparity gave rise to hostile sentiments toward a possible solution for California budget crisis. My direct experience with the state's budget crisis through Hastings community also reminds me that the harmful effects of these deepening cuts could be much worse for other institutions that are more dependable on public fund. Thankfully, about 75% of Hastings budget are raised through other sources.

The glorious celebration of California's dot-come and asset booms has been long gone. How Californians cope with this financial calamity and budget tightening remains to be seen in days ahead. What I do know for certain is that public service will be drastically reduced, income inequality will rise, hence, lowering quality of life. Lastly, it is the poor and various under-represented groups that will suffer the hardest hits among us all.

Federal and California State Tax: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

 

If you would like to find out the tax aspects of Obama's stimulus package which seizes about 36% of the stimulus, as well as how the State of California mends its budget crisis through various tax increases, there was a recent discussion on federal and state tax issues given by professor Heather Field and professor Darien Shanske, two respected tax professors at UC Hastings. The discussion was recorded in mp3 format and is now posted here.[mp3]

Other than the applicable nature of the subject discussed, the discussion offered some insights of how CA tax increases will negate many parts of our federal tax credits and how our state’s constitutional setting makes it difficult to avoid similar budget crisis in the future.

In the first section, professor Field opened  by explaining the need for a stimulus package and why the tax system plays an important role in stimulating economic activities. Professor Field then discussed the various implementations of the tax aspect which include non-repayment credit for first time homebuyers, educational tax credit for students, and sales tax reduction for new vehicle. The lecture ended with a thought provoking discussion as to weather the stimulus will work as well as the short term and long term nature of these tax provisions. It is appeared that President Obama is seeking to keep some of these tax provisions permanent despite growing concern over our budget deficit. Here, professor Field nicely instigated the debate over the role of our tax system as a tool for income redistribution.

I thoroughly enjoy the professor's subjective approach toward controversial issues such as the role of our tax system and whether Obama’s tax cuts will sufficiently motivate economic activities in the short run. Field posited the question as to why the tax credits only applies for a “limited window,” and what would be the consequence of extending these provisions permanently.

Other than issues related to fairness and wealth distribution, economists have been concerned over inflation and potential negative impact on monetary system through tax instrument. We are injecting a huge amount of capital inflow to the economy, in the long run, it will take some painful interest hike to restrain these capital surplus, tame down inflation and pay off the budget deficit. Furthermore, at some point, consumers may stop responding to tax cuts as an effort to stimulate economic activities. Behavioral economics tells us that consumer behaviors are often altered by short term and long term expectations of the consumer’s future income.

The discussion quickly moved on to Darien Shanke discussion on California budget crisis and how California state has used tax system to mitigate budget problem in the time of overall global crisis. If California were an independent state, it would have been the tenth largest economy in the world. Here, professor Shanske introduced the not-so-obvious paradox: if California hasn’t overspent, why does a State which arguably has  the highest income and sale tax in the country constantly finds ways to bail itself out of budget crisis over the past couple decades?

The key problems rest in property tax and the fact that California doesn’t have a standard sale tax system. At ¼ of the country’s average property tax, the State imposes the lowest property tax rate in the nation. Because income tax is less sufficient and stable than property tax, our State budget has always been much more vulnerable in the time of crisis as it is now. For these reasons, our state is now seeing itself going through massive lay offs (10.5% unemployment rates in February), budget cuts on education, double fee on car registration and general income tax increases.

Professor Shanske then questioned how did end up here? Why can’t we simply increase property tax to balance the budget?  California is the only State in the country that requires 2/3 majority to pass the budget. Shanske reasoned that having super majority requirement is not too "insane", but if the State were to make it very difficult to change the budget and tax structure, it should have had a good initial arrangement. Here, our State legislators happened to choose the worse possible arrangement by adopting a highly unstable tax system, and making it very strenuous to change it. Given the State's distressing institutional constrains, professor Shanske left his audience empty of any probable solution. He is not to blame.

The lectures are immensely informative and thought provoking. Nevertheless, they do not require any tax background from its listeners to appreciate the on going changes and debates in the federal and state tax system. "The Tax Aspect of the Stimulus Package"[mp3] is a highly recommended tune.

Summer Internship Opportunities for 1L Student Abroad

When I arrived in Hong Kong in July last year for the Duke Summer Abroad Program at Hong Kong University, I was surprised to find that many Duke students had already finished a summer internship with law firms either in Japan, Korea or China prior to their arrival in Hong Kong. It turned out that the students were helped by their program director to land 4-6 weeks internship before our summer program. I thought to myself how nice it was to earn 6 law units as well as an internship abroad, all in one summer.  I wanted to do that too, but it was already late into the summer, and I was afraid that I would not be able to do it. What were my chances?

After a bit of networking, I got a few words of advice from the program director that it is easier to find a summer internship in either Japan or Korea than in Hong Kong and China at such a late moment, especially for a US student who does not know the local language. I followed his advice and, without any real hope, sent out my resume and cover letters to five Korean law firms in the very last week of our program in late July.  I didn’t think that I would be successful but told myself that I would apply anyway just so I wouldn’t regret not doing it.  To my surprise, I was offered an internship with a mid-size international law firm in Seoul, South Korea within just a few days! Sometimes it is rewarding to maintain a “just do it” attitude.

Many of you are probably working hard to search for a summer job at the moment.  I hope that some of you are considering working abroad, especially those of you who are interested in international law. I found it immensely enriching and eye-opening to live and work in a new place as well as to learn about the similarities and differences that exist between the United States and foreign countries. My last minute job search convinced me that there are more opportunities to intern abroad than one may think. For this reason, I thought I should share some tips and resources with you.

1. Prepare your resume and cover letters as early as you can and apply early. Hastings career center has a great database that will help you to locate alums working in your preferred region. You can contact them for advice and recommendation. Many alums will even help you find local jobs if they are available. It was this linkage that most of the Duke students found their summer internships with very prominent US law firms in Japan and China.

2. I used HG.org and Martindale to search for the firms by region and by practice areas. While doing your search, don’t limit yourself; apply to as many firms as you can. However, you should prioritize your options into region, country and area of practice ahead of time in case you receive a few different offers at once. Even in late July, I received two offers and was ready to negotiate for my best one. Strategize your game!

3. It is best to have a rough idea of the area of law that you are particularly interested in. While negotiating with my law firm, I was asked what field and region I wanted to work in. Later, the firm nicely arranged me to work with the chief attorney who was in charge of the firm’s South East Asian practice. The experience was beyond fruitful and instructive.

4. Be prepared to ask for any accommodation that you may need while being in a foreign country. Some law firms do have a specific program for summer associates, but most firms don’t, which means they may not be entirely familiar with your personal needs. I asked my firm to help me with finding accommodation that is close by the office. The company ended up offering me a small residence only 10 minutes by subway from the main office located in the center of Seoul’s financial district. Later on, they further paid for all utilities, transportation, lunch and even dinners whenever I stayed at work late. There were also a welcome lunch and departing dinner (with karaoke) at the end of my internship, but that was another story of building professional work relationship with your employer. I was told that some Korean and Japanese firms even pay stipends for your stay if they cannot offer you working salaries.

5.  Knowing local language is preferred but is not required. Although there is an obvious advantage to speaking the language, it is important to keep this in perspective. Before my internship, I had never been to South Korea and don’t know any Korean. Yet, I did not have any language problems during my internship. If you are in a similar situation, I suggest looking for law firms that have strong international practices, which will almost guarantee you some learning experience and professional interactions.

6. Be prepared, be patient and be open-minded when you are in a new country. Everything will sort itself out gradually. Did I say that you will have a blast? If you trust the journey, it will show you the land where your imagination often fails to reach.

Sail your boat, have fun and best of luck!

Why America is Losing the War on Terror; A Lecture by Jules Lobel at UC Hastings

UC Hastings started its lecture series this year with a lecture by Jules Lobel, who is promoting his new book Less Safe, Less Free: Why America is Losing the War on Terror, which he co-authored with David Cole. The book compares the Bush administration's preemptive strategy in fighting the war on terrorism to the science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick entitled, Minority Report, in which the Justice Department uses psychic visionaries to predict and prevent future crimes. Unlike the sci-fi story, Bush has no psychic visionaries to guide his preemptive strategy. Lobel convincingly argues that the administration's preemptive strategy has not made us safer but has in fact put us in even more danger.

His lecture was very insightful. His comments about extraordinary rendition were particularly interesting, and to illustrate his points he told the story of Maher Arar, one of his clients. Arar was arrested in the US while he was traveling from Europe to his home in Canada. He never even entered the US, he was merely transferring from one flight to another. He was detained by the US government for 12 days before he was deported to Syria, a rogue nation, where he was tortured for more than a year.

The audio includes an introduction by Evan Lee, a Hastings professor of law. Lobel's lecture can be downloaded here (it's about an hour long): Download Lobel.mp3

Or play the audio here:

TLB Blogger Wins Fulbright Award!

Our very own John Dermody has been awarded a Fulbright Award to continue his work in Sierra Leone! As you well know, this is no small task. The Fulbright is one of the most prestigious awards out there and Fulbright scholars are often at the forefront of research abroad.

Congratulations John!

A Letter From UC Berkeley's Law Students About The UC Hastings Evacuation

UC Hastings was evacuated last week and is still on high alert as a result of a prank by a UC Berkeley law school student (see here). The UC Berkeley Boalt Hall Students Association has sent the following letter to the law students at UC Hastings:

April 26, 2007

To the U.C. Hastings College of Law community:

On behalf of students at Boalt Hall, we express our deep sympathy and sincere disapproval for the unfortunate events associated with the recent threat to the Hastings community.

Understanding the pressures common to our field of study, particularly at this stage in the academic year, we find what transpired to be particularly inappropriate. The collective discomfort on each of our campuses underscores our interdependence as students. We can only hope that this incident will strengthen the bond between our schools in the future. Please accept our sympathies.

Sincerely,

Boalt Hall Students Association

I certainly don't speak for everyone at UC Hastings, but I would like to say that I have never held the students of Boalt personally responsible for the poor judgment of a single student. However, it is certainly a nice gesture on the part of the students to send us a letter. It's appreciated.

UPDATE: Here is a letter from UC Berkeley Dean Christopher Edley, Jr. to the Boalt Hall community:

April 25, 2007

To: Boalt Community

It has been a week since the distressing events involving a Boalt student's threat -a hoax - against the community at Hastings College of the Law. I am writing to let you know that all our actions following the incident have been taken with the intention of securing the safety and well-being of our community and that at Hastings, while respecting the procedural rights of the student.

On Wednesday, April 25, 2007, the Law School filed a complaint with the U.C. Berkeley Judicial Affairs Office against the law student who claimed responsibility for posting the threat on a website. We, the administrative leadership of Boalt, believe that the student's action is clearly in violation of a number of regulations detailed in the Student Code of Conduct. The case will be adjudicated by Judicial Affairs according to campus regulations.  Those regulations prohibit us from disclosing the name of the student against whom we are proceeding. Based on the facts as we understand them today, we have recommended expulsion.  This is based not only on the intrinsic wrongfulness of the act itself, but also the disruption, turmoil and emotional toll on the Hastings community and, to a more limited extent, the Boalt community as well.  I have received ample evidence of this through a great many emails, some of them painful to read.

This incident has once again confirmed for me the strength and qualities of the Boalt community. Even in this challenging circumstance, you have engaged in thoughtful and productive discussions.  We should all take some pride in this, imperfect though we are.

Christopher Edley, Jr.

Professor of Law and Dean

This letter pretty much confirms what the blog community has been saying since the incident occurred: This student's law career is over.

Piercing The Veil of Anonymity: What You Say On The Internet Can Be Used To Determine Your Moral Fitness to Practice Law

In the wake of the Virginia Tech atrocity, a student at UC Berkeley's law school anonymously made a comment on a discussion board about a copycat shooting that was construed as a serious threat to the safety of the UC Hastings population. The Berkeley law student has been been identified by the FBI and the blogosphere consensus is that this law student's future career as an attorney has ended before it even began.

There are quite obviously serious privacy issues surrounding the use of the internet and the amount of personal information that is available on the internet and whether this information can be used against an individual. As law students, we're constantly warned about the dangers of misusing forums like Myspace. The general concern is that a potential employer will search Myspace and make their hiring decision based on what they see on a student's personal profile.  Now there is talk that the comments made generally in the blogosphere and on discussion boards might  be used by the state bar character and fitness committee in determining whether an applicant  has the requisite moral apptitude. The Legal Ethics Forum defined the basis for denying admission as follows:

The basis for denying any applicant on character and fitness grounds is a prediction, on the basis of the applicant's past conduct, that the applicant will be unable to comply with the rules governing the legal profession.  It's true that the statutory character and fitness requirements make reference to vague concepts like "good moral character," but these have pretty uniformly been interpreted as including a germaneness requirement -- i.e. that any deficiencies in the applicant's character are likely to manifest themselves as an inability to comply with the bar's rules of professional conduct.

On the Legal Profession Blog, I asked whether the Berkeley law student responsible for the threat against Hastings could somehow redeem his/her moral standing, and this is what Alan Childress said:

My own assessment is that this is very unlikely, in the current climate, at least without some massive rehabilitation and time delay before the character process is invoked (and even then...).  Bar examiners simply do not hold applicants to the same standards that their state bars do in disciplining (or not) an already-licensed lawyer. ***

***And I do recognize that, to his or her credit, the student came forward and fessed up -- and that some will say that this message by one "Trustafarian" was patently offensive but not a serious threat (the latter as another commenter does).  Still, the school in fact evacuated.  I doubt the C&F screeners will take seriously the student's own statements of intent and instead will use an objective test of how the message was perceived.  If it had been ignored by Hastings (unlikely in the post-VT world and the scathing criticisms of its administration), maybe it would not be treated as a threat.  But it was and, I think, that characterization is etched in stone and will not dissipate with time.

It was an awful lapse of judgment and maybe even worse -- I do not know -- but there is something sad if the reality is that some immature kid has thrown his or her life away with just one thoughtless comment on an "anonymous" message board.  I have written before, in the context of "permanent disbarment," about the power of redemption and the need not to quit on people too soon.  John Dean learned from Watergate, I noted.  Travis's question left me, without knowing any more about the other facts and character surrounding "Trustafarian's" life, feeling sad.

I think my sadness is in part that I doubt that the bar examiners will really evaluate all the other stuff, good or bad, and that this foolish or awful prank (or serious threat) will stand alone as sufficient to mean this person can never be a lawyer.  Even if he or she has learned more morality and consequences from this situation, in two days, than many lawyers learn in a lifetime.  To me, that is not at all the saddest thing that happened this week, but it is sad and societally wasteful.  More collateral damage.

***The above text was edited.***

We should all take this as a lesson and keep it in mind when we're using the internet. However, according to the chatter on the blogosphere and the internet, there are still a number of lawyers-to-be that don't get it. A number of them believe that anonymity is technologically possible and can be maintained. Childress also addresses this point:

As for Jeff's excellent point that lawyers-to-be need to process now that lawyer accountability, at odds with anonymity, is "just about 24/7," I would add that their confidence in anonymity is an unbelievable illusion worthy of The Matrix.  They stake their careers and non-incarceration on anonymity?  Several of the messages confidently explain the technology to make a truly anonymous post (and threat).  Even if that is technologically true (and I still call Naive on it), it is foolish to think that the way secrets get revealed in this country is all about technology.  Everyone but me already knew who "Trustafarian" was, in his community, and they did not have to run some IP search to authenticate him. Joe Klein was outed for writing [the great book] Primary Colors by a lowly English professor running a program matching phrases Joe liked to use from time to time.  Unabomber was fingered by his brother after the manifesto was published.  The truly frightening part about 1984 was not the TV set that watched its watchers--it was the neighbors. I simply cannot believe that these aspiring lawyers, whatever the merits of their personalities and culture, readily hinge their entire lives on the hubris of technological cloaks and assume away community daggers.

Note to aspring lawyers re the C&F process:  accountability is "just about 24/7."  And please write everything you post or email as if it is a postcard addressed to the bar with your name in Sharpie instead of the Wish You Were Here part.

Don't be foolish, folks, be careful what you say in public forums. I also suggest checking out Disclosure Obligations In Bar Admissions.

[UPDATE: The title of this post was changed after it was brought to my attention that someone may find it offensive.]

Collateral Damage: Homegrown Terrorists and The Unabomber's Explanation

UC Hastings was evacuated and put on high alert last Wednesday, April 18, because a student at Berkeley's law school placed a post on an internet discussion board threatening a copycat shooting at Hastings (see Leiter's Blog). A great amount of effort is devoted to discussing the War on Terror here, and this seems like the right time to mention a few thoughts about our own homegrown terrorists.

Unless you're completely out of touch with reality or studying for law school finals, you've heard about the massacre at Virginia Tech.  You may have also heard that the Virginia Tech killer, Cho Seung Hui, idolized the Columbine killers. Thus, it should not come as a surprise that the anniversary of the infamous Columbine High School murders is today, April 20 (but it might surprise you to learn that today is also Hitler's birthday). Moreover, it should not be forgotten that hovering in the background of these school shootings is the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, which was yesterday, April 19.

The first question we always ask is "Why?"  An article written five years after the Columbine murders entitled, The Depressive and the Psychopath: At Last We Know Why The Columbine Killers Did It, seems to have a pretty reasonable explanation:

School shooters tend to act impulsively and attack the targets of their rage: students and faculty. But Harris and Klebold planned for a year and dreamed much bigger. The school served as means to a grander end, to terrorize the entire nation by attacking a symbol of American life. Their slaughter was aimed at students and teachers, but it was not motivated by resentment of them in particular. Students and teachers were just convenient quarry, what Timothy McVeigh described as "collateral damage."

The killers, in fact, laughed at petty school shooters. They bragged about dwarfing the carnage of the Oklahoma City bombing and originally scheduled their bloody performance for its anniversary. Klebold boasted on video about inflicting "the most deaths in U.S. history." Columbine was intended not primarily as a shooting at all, but as a bombing on a massive scale. If they hadn't been so bad at wiring the timers, the propane bombs they set in the cafeteria would have wiped out 600 people. After those bombs went off, they planned to gun down fleeing survivors. An explosive third act would follow, when their cars, packed with still more bombs, would rip through still more crowds, presumably of survivors, rescue workers, and reporters. The climax would be captured on live television. It wasn't just "fame" they were after—Agent Fuselier bristles at that trivializing term—they were gunning for devastating infamy on the historical scale of an Attila the Hun. Their vision was to create a nightmare so devastating and apocalyptic that the entire world would shudder at their power.

Harris and Klebold would have been dismayed that Columbine was dubbed the "worst school shooting in American history."

What about the Oklahoma City Bombing? Timothy McVeigh was supposedly attempting to avenge those who died in the government siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, exactly two years earlier. The 51-day seige on the Davidian compound by the FBI ended on April 19, 1993 when fire completely consumed the complex, killing 79 people, including 21 children and Davidian leader David Koresh. You might ask, "Why is all of this happening in April?" An article entitled, Predicted: More Copycat School Shootings, gives a few reasons:

• Most contemporary school shootings tend to occur primarily during two periods of the school year - at the beginning (late August through October) and near the the end of the academic year (March-April)...
• Copycats follow a regular temporal pattern that repeats - these could be after a primary media event in a day, a week, two weeks, a month, a year, ten years - vulnerable humans have internal media clocks...
• Copycats imitate the previous violent attacks, oftentimes down to specific details as that mirror the previous specifics of the shooter, the victims, and the methods...
• "Celebrity" events have a far-reaching impact and modeling effect - so, of course, Columbine serves as a dark cloud over many school shootings.

Honestly, I believe the best explanation for all of this can be found in the infamous manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future, written by Theodore Kaczynski (AKA "Unabomber"). He sent bombs through the mail to several universities and airlines from the late 1970s through the early 1990s, killing three and wounding 23. He has an extremely high IQ and eventually earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Subsequently, he was hired as an assistant professor of mathematics at UC Berkeley, but he resigned in 1968 after only a few years on the faculty. About ten years after his resignation, he started mailing bombs to professors and individuals associated with the advancement of technology. In 1995 he sent his manifesto to several prominent newspapers (and some of his victims) and said if they published his manifesto, then he would stop his bombings. Wikipedia summarized his manifesto as follows: 

The Manifesto states that the only alternative to technological subjugation is the rejection of technology and return to a life close to nature in which the "power process," a psychological need he describes as the ability to solve one's own problems and have power over one's life, is fulfilled. In technological-industrial society, Kaczynski suggests, humanity has far greater power, but humans have far less power, in that as the number of cooperating humans in any given society increases, individuals inexorably comprise tinier and tinier fractions of the decision-making population. The overwhelming need for the power process causes modern society to be filled with endlessly multiplying "surrogate activities" which are essentially meaningless, including almost everything modern humans do for business or pleasure: artistic endeavor, professional advancement, the accrual of wealth, "an excessive amount of sex", all of this activity is "artificial" because it does not satisfy any "biological needs".

Kaczynski's manifesto is a detailed explanation of his frustration and the reasons for his actions. It's not a stretch to call Kaczynski a killer on the same level as the killers responsible for the murders at Columbine High School and Virginia Tech. The videos and writtings left behind by the others are not nearly as detailed, incisively introspective, or frighteningly logical as the manifesto written by Kaczynski. Could the driving motivation behind these atrocities be the killer's overwhelming frustration and a sense of powerlessness, stemming from a lose of autonomy and purpose, which is a result of a technologically advanced society?

Here is Paragraph 64 of the manifesto:

It seems that for many people, maybe the majority, these artificial forms of the power process are insufficient. A theme that appears repeatedly in the writings of the social critics of the second half of the 20th century is the sense of purposelessness that afflicts many people in modern society. (This purposelessness is often called by other names such as "anomie" or "middle-class vacuity.") We suggest that the so-called "identity crisis" is actually a search for a sense of purpose, often for commitment to a suitable surrogate activity. It may be that existentialism is in large part a response to the purposelessness of modern life. Very widespread in modern society is the search for "fulfillment." But we think that for the majority of people an activity whose main goal is fulfillment (that is, a surrogate activity) does not bring completely satisfactory fulfillment. In other words, it does not fully satisfy the need for the power process. (See paragraph 41.) That need can be fully satisfied only through activities that have some external goal, such as physical necessities, sex, love, status, revenge, etc.

Kaczynski argued that the remedy to our current existential predicament is to abandon technology (or destroy it) and live in an earlier stage of civilization, one where humans spend their time fulfilling primary goals (i.e. food, sex, shelter) instead of surrogate goals (e.g. climbing the corporate ladder, getting an 'A' on a philosophy paper, or picking out new furniture). I am probably not the right person to argue with someone that has such a high IQ but I am slightly more optimistic than Kaczynski. I don't believe it's necessary to regress to a previous state of civilization to find happiness and I also don't agree with Kaczynski's conclusion that the advancements of technology have only one possible outcome for humanity, viz. the complete loss of individual autonomy.

I do believe that technology is advancing at an ever increasing rate and I positively believe that future advancements of technology will result in greater freedom for individual humans. Moreover, the resultant increase in connectivity between humans is accelerating our understanding of not just each other but also our understanding of our place within the universe and the place of our universe within the multiverse. As a species we're standing on the precipice of a great epiphany that can only be compared to collective enlightenment, which will illuminate the "middle-class vacuity" and define new elements of the unknown. Technology will consequently render our current understandings of our purpose obsolete as we acquire a new understanding that will replace our existential purposelessness-- it will be a new concept that arises from the binary of purpose and no purpose.

TLB Bloggers Rock National and International Moot Court Competitions

It is our pleasure to congratulate fellow bloggers Chris Cassidy and Nema Milaninia for bringing home very impressive rankings from their respective moot court competitions, which were recently held in Washington, D.C.

At the national Saul Lefkowitz competition, Chris won 2nd Place Best Oralist, and his team took home the award for 2nd Place Best Brief. Nema and his teammates placed in the top 8 out of 500 teams from all over the world at the international rounds for the Jessup International Moot Court Competition, and his team was the only US team in the top 8. They also won the 8th Best Overall Brief.

Major congratulations are in order for both Chris and Nema; their teams; and UC Hastings. Congratulations!!!