Ron Paul \"You Can\'t Reinflate The Bubble!\"
What happens when you live on credit, pay your creditors with more credit, then run out of funds? Witness the downfall of the American Republic.
Funny, he has been predicting this financial collapse for the last 2 years - it was the central platform on which he ran for president in 2007! (closing our overseas operations to reduce the costs was a means to avoid it from happening). Yet, he is virtually unused by the media. He is a Churchill that will not be voted into power because 1) the threat cannot be coalesced into a iconic enemy to fight like the Nazi’s were, and 2) because his rhetoric can’t begin to compete with Obama. Sad. History will look back on him and the unsuccessful grassroots swell of his 2007-8 campaign as the symptom of American collapse.
How much evidence will it take for people to question the idea that the government can “steer/direct/grow” our economy and realize that the government unbalances it and creates the challenges it then “needs” to solve? What has it EVER done right in this sphere?
The talking heads on television, who admittedly do not understand _basic_ economics (supply/demand curves, marginal utility, credit vs. capital, or the relationship between money supply and inflation and its consequence), “inform” an uneducated public (who also don’t understand basic economics) about the politicians promises and the pundits positions as if they were reality - then take polls that the politicians and pundits use as evidence that they are right.
The only part missing from the equation we see/hear in the media is the one that actually matters - the REALITY of market forces, which, like water, eventually go around, overflow, or bust wide open the various obstacles the government puts it its way, causing black markets (organized crime) and destructive collapse, leading the government to “reposition/reform” the obstacles, to ratchet up the process problem one more time, until it can’t and the whole thing collapses. Result? The depression, the meltdown of the 1970’s, and now the meltdown of the 2000’s - which we have been inflating to the point of popping for the last 8 years. Now what? More of the same? You bet.
The greatest political accomplishment in human history - the codification of individual human rights as the foundation of a government - destroyed because of the politicians desire for power (personal and ideological - the road to hell is paved with good intentions) and rhetorical skill to manipulate the gullible American people through an ironic combination of riches (entitlement) and righteousness (envy). The government that robs Peter (the future, the rich), to pay Paul (the present and the so-called poor), will always have the support of Paul, until it collapses into chaos - then government becomes warlords, and the process repeats itself - UNTIL people stop the cycle and put freedom (and the consequent self-responsibility) first - i.e., the American Revolution. It is Paul who needs to step up, and he is too lazy, stupid (by choice), and immature to do so.
End Rant.
No commentsLibertarianism - A Realistic Response to the Reality of Realpolitik
Tragic. The US government nationalizing and bailing out major financial institutions it helped to destoy...
I am a libertarian. To contrast this with Democrat and Republican: we might say that the Republicans (at their core) want the government to stay out of our financial lives, but control what we do in our bedrooms (morality/religion). Democrats (at their core) want the government out of our bedrooms, but control how we manage our financial affairs (welfare/regulation/wealth redistribution). Libertarians want the government out of our financial lives and out of our bedrooms. Libertarians stand for the individual rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness according to our own conscience. They believe that the purpose of government is to protect the freedom and rights of citizens through a police force to protect us from the initiation of force by other citizens, court system to protect us from fraud (enforce contracts), and a military force to protect us from foreign invaders. The libertarian stance on foreign aggression is: commerce with all nations, alliances with none. Libertarians not only want us out of Iraq, they want us out of Japan! (and our other 800+ military bases around the world!) Let them hate us for our freedom and wealth, without the military presence/force that forces that freedom and wealth down their throats.
My reasons for being libertarian are simple. I believe that history has demonstrated (in every time. and in every part of the globe) that the more power you give to government, the more those who hold the power will be corrupted by lobbyists (business, religious, bankers, racists, populists, etc.). As PJ O'Rourke put it, "When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators." The more money and favors/regulations the government controls, the more money and favors the lobbyists can afford to spend to buy them, because (although it is somewhat of a gamble) the return on investment for lobbying is typically 10 to 1. As a lobbyist, I can spend $50 million dollars influencing various politicians in order to get a $500 million dollar annual contract, and $1 billion to get $100 billion contract. Smart business always follows the clearest incentives, and competing for government largess is clearly incentived. People/politicians are corruptible (especially through blackmail, which money buys easily), and so governments become corrupt. The solution is to reduce government power to reduce the scope and destructiveness of its corruption and keep it maximally accountable to its core functions. Hence, Libertarianism. The American Constitution/experiment, was created by men whom, by todays standards, are radical Libertarians, for the exact reasons stated above. I believe that they created the most beautiful social contract in human history, and I find it tragic that it is being increasingly ignored and distorted. I am patriotic in this sense: I believe that the ideals and values of life, liberty/freedom, protection of our right to use our property according to our own conscience (as long as we are not violating the identical rights of others) are worth cheering about and if necessary, fighting to maintain.1 comment
Deepak on Palin and Obama - Arrogance You Can Believe In
Some of you may have seen the post by Deepak Chopra about Sarah Palin, in which he psycho-eviscerates those who find value or some type of agreement with the positions she takes.
Upon reading it several times, I became progressively dismayed, although fascinated by the clarity with which it typifies “green/Boomeritis” arrogance, including the hypocrisy and self-refuting logic at its heart. This article examplifies a common stance taken by those whom I consider the most politically active people in my life. My opinion, which I offer reasons for below, is that it expresses a fundamentally dishonest and destructive perspective that is at the heart of much of the “transformational” community’s conversation about politics.
Specifically, it is built on a narrative that claims/implies that it is inclusive and integrative (2nd tier, in Spiral Dynamics terms) , but is deeply self-absorbed and parochial (1st tier), and hence blind to its blindness.
It is written as if it is the only rational perspective possible, as if Deepak (and by extension Obama, or the reverse) are so right that there is no need for conversation about the accuracy of their propositions and conclusions, only about how to deal with them. This marginalizes all the values of people they disagree with - the very thing that their stance accuses all other perspectives of.
Deepak (and those who agree with and write similar pieces) pretend as if the “ground” that he is standing on and writing from represents an “enlightened/superior/higher” perspective BECAUSE it includes more information than its competing perspectives (in this case, conservatives like Palin). However, he demonstrates no understanding of the people he is critiquing. In place of understanding, he creates a straw man that burns so easily they he feels the need to apologize for how cruel he must seem to destroy his opponent so utterly. It is as if his opponent is so obviously wrong he doesn’t even need to establish the verity of his points, all there is left to do talk about their consequences…
Examples: In almost every sentence, he speaks an an unquestionable authority, and with a tone that indicates that disagreement is a sign of the stupidity that he is decrying (and, as it is said, you can’t argue with a sneer):
- Impulses that are different than those He (Barack and Deepak) promotes are “their worst impulses.”
- BECAUSE He calls people to “higher impulses,” Palin’s responses and values (and others who disagree with Obama’s policies) can by DEFINITION be simplified to “anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of “the other” , and hence written off as unworthy of consideration or inclusion.
- “Small town values” become “a denial of America’s global role, a return to petty, small-minded parochialism.” - (What the hell?)
- “Family values” become “anti social justice.” (Huh?)
- Patriotism becomes “a fallback from a failed war.” (I know my patriotism is sourced from this…)
- her political position, including all of the changes she wants to make becomes “I’m all right, Jack,” and “Why change? Everything’s OK as it is.” - (of course, to disagree with someone who wants a specific change is to be against change in general. I knew that…)
He says: “there are millions of women who stand on the side of conservatism, however obviously they are voting against their own good. ” Well, if it is so obvious, why can’t they see it? because they are stupid? because they are victims of patriarchal bourgeoisie values (which they are too stupid to go beyond)? How about because they believe that feminism is a postmodern movement that is nihilistic in nature, substance, and rhetoric, and proposes ideals that conservatives like Palin believe are destructive and soul-deadening to living, breathing people? Such a response is simply not a possible legitimate stance to take in this article. It does not exist as a possiblity in Deepak’s world.
This is the hypocrisy. Lack of understanding leads to projection of the enemy onto Palin - against which Deepak establishs his hero stature, which stature is supposedly integrated, compassionate, and wise. All bullshit.
AND, the intellectual elite of the country and the political left do not even question or challenge him. This article has been sent to me by 4 different people - more than any other political article yet this election cycle. All of them have included positive or self-congratulatory introductions to it. None have mentioned its utter arrogance. So, here I am…
Jason Alexander (the philosopher of capitalism, not the actor), used to chide me, saying “Remember, people get the government they deserve. If the people are unWholeSum, the government will be unWholeSum.” I have spent the last decade losing my will to try to prove him wrong. Welcome to election year 2008.
This article is even more painful for me because I have severe concerns about the conservative side of this issue as well. However, an enemy of my enemy is rarely my friend, just as two wrongs don’t make a right, and someone disagreeing with someone who is wrong is not thereby correct.
Sad times for the most beautiful political experiement/culture in history - the American Revolution of Self-Responsibility and Individual Rights.
No commentsSan Francisco Ballot Measures - Endorsements
Well, I’ve looked over and considered all of the Propositions on our local San Francisco ballot. And I’ve come to the conclusion that the San Francisco Taxpayers Union is absolutely correct — there’s not a damn thing worth supporting on this year’s ballot.
I tried to keep an open mind going in. I have a good friend who is working hard to pass Proposition A — the $450 Million Public School Repair/Upgrade Bond. A lot of his work brings him into and around the San Francisco Public School system. He urged me to support Prop A., even invited me to work on, and donate to, the campaign.
But I just can’t. Not when our school system is so rife with waste, mismanagement, shenanigans, and cronyism. And I don’t see that changing any time soon, unless perhaps if we stop shoveling money into the dysfunctional system (and it’s worth noting that San Francisco passed a $300 Million School Repair and Upgrade bond just 3 years ago. Where does it stop?)
I said to my friend, “we have to stop feeding the beast.” And he tried his best, but he couldn’t bring me over to his point of view. And the School Bond is perhaps he most compelling item on the ballot. The other stuff is just economic poison or political grandstanding — or both, in many cases. Force all employers to provide paid sick leave (Prop. F)? Say Buh-bye to jobs for San Franciscans (ahhh.. who needs ‘em, anyway?) Or how about Prop. H, which would force all landlords to increase the current $1,000 per tenant “relocation charge” for Owner Move-In or repair evictions to $4,500 per tenant (up to $22,500 per unit)? And people wonder why apartments are being converted into condos at a breakneck clip and nobody wants to build apartments here. Great for the few tenants who receive these exorbitant, extorted payments, very very bad for everybody else (including any tenants who are looking for a new place to rent.)
And on and on it goes.
In a way, the horrible crop of ballot propsitions will make it very easy to vote on November 7th. Just mark “NO” next to every San Francisco measure. Simple!
Below are the San Francisco Taxpayers Union ballot arguments. The SF Taxpayers Union is a worthy organization dedicated to injecting some restraint and some much-needed economic sanity into our turbulent and often screwy economic and political climate, so go here to sign up for their updates and information. They boldly assert: “San Franciscans pay enough to live and work in San Francisco without having our pockets picked every Election Day.”
Indeed. Here’s the SF Taxpayers Union:
Taxpayers Beware!
There they go again! Here are some good reasons to vote against everything and save your money:
Prop A - Another School Bond . . . . No
$450 million with no guarantee how it will be spent? We know they spent part of the 2003 bond on schools that were later closed and that most of this one will be spent on a disabilities lawsuit settlement, Until responsible people come up with a long-range spending plan, there are better uses for property taxes.
Prop. B - Supervisors Stay Home . . . . No
Taxpayers deserve the opportunity to confront the people who take and spend their money. Make them go to work like everyone else.
Prop C. - Politicians Get a Big Raise . . . . No
The Sheriff gets $55,000 more and the Mayor gets $40,000 more if this passes, plus all of the trickle down raises to staffers whose salaries are tied to elected officials – labor costs will skyrocket. There are no incentives for performance – they can do a lousy job and still get a raise.
Prop D. - Privacy Protection . . . . No
It’s one thing for the city to be uncooperative with the Federal Government, but it’s quite another to force city contractors to do the same. Another attack on business.
Prop E. - Higher Parking Taxes . . . . No
This 25% parking tax increase and 35% valet parking increase is not even going to MUNI - it’s going into the General Fund for the Mayor and Supes to spend as they will. Driving a car is already too expensive - save your money for gas.
Prop F. - Mandatory Paid Time Off . . . . No
Forcing small businesses to provide benefits without regard to whether doing so will drive them, their customers, or the taxes they generate to other cities is foolish..
Prop G. - Anti Formula Retail . . . . No
This will require a Planning Commission hearing for every new formula retail store (like Starbucks), and enable the Supes to ban them outright in more commercial districts. Just another anti-business and anti-taxpayer move.
Prop H. - Renter Relocation Benefits . . . . No
Property owners would be forced to pay thousands of dollars to renters [up to $22,500 per unit] for temporary relocation, even if they are repairing/improving their buildings for the renters’ benefit!
Prop I. - Fun and Games at City Hall . . . . No
While we agree it would be fun to watch the Mayor try to answer questions from the Board of Supervisors every month nonsense such as this belongs in a comedy routine, not on a ballot.
Prop J. - Impeach Bush/Cheney . . . . No
The Board of Supervisors needs to stay out of national and international debates. Ballot clutter like this costs tens of thousands of dollars for each proposition, money better spent on police officers and gardeners.
Prop K. - Feel Good Housing Policy . . . . No
A policy debate that belongs in Board chambers, not on the ballot.
2 commentsIslamic Fascists? Yes!
AnalPhilosoher asserts that it’s inappropriate for President Bush to call Jihadists fascists because “jihadists aren’t statists” (via Instapundit.)
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Okay, well, how can we square this assertion with the former Taliban government in Afghanistan or the current Iranian regime?
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If you read Paul Berman’s excellent book “Terror and Liberalism” (and everybody should), you’ll be AMAZED at just how many links there are between classic European fascism on the one hand and the Muslim movements we’re dealing with on the other. I mean what would you call the Baath movement of Iraq and of Syria but a classic fascist movement? (And you’ll find that their history is actually directly connected with European fascism). It’s true that the “Islamist” movements have some different wrinkles. But as the Buddhists say, are they more the same, or more different? And again, don’t forget about the Spanish Phalangists — widely considered to be a classic “fascist” movement — who incorporated the religous angle, albeit in a European and Christian form.
Here’s more Berman on the subject (but do check out his book.)
Also…we blogged about Berman and the meaning of Iraq at awhile back.
Personally, I am thrilled that Bush is finally articulating this.
No commentsHezbollah’s Propaganda Machine
Over at EU Referendum we see the Director’s Cut of Qana.
No commentsThe narrative here is of how the combination of Hezbollah’s media management and modern photo-journalism has turned the recording of a tragic event into theatre, in the best tradition of Michael Moore.
As best we can, we have pieced together the jumble of evidence which surrounded the production of the iconic photographs which were published around the world, and put them in perspective. Many of the photographs have been used before, some are new to this site and others are video “grabs”. But it is not the pictures, per se, that tell the story, so much as their ordering and analysis. Make of this what you will, but I can assure you that you are not supposed to see them in this light.
The “story” - for that is what it is - starts here, in the wreckage of the buiding at Qana which is performing the temporary and unwholesome function of a morgue. It is from here, that the bodies are extracted, the essential props of this theatre. And standing on the left of the frame is one of the two star characters of our story, Mr “White Tee-Shirt”. With equal accuracy, though, we could call him Mr Hezbollah, for reasons which will become apparent [...]
McCarthyism lives: Global Warming, Gore, and Corporatism as the new Communism
I recently saw “good night and good luck”, which re-awakened my interest in the cultural impacts of fascism and the ability of people with media power to smear people with inaccurate but effective half-truths, or out and out lies. To avoid dealing with the unfair social ostracism such smears create, many of the best and brightest quit the game, or go along with the party line in the hopes of keeping at least a few sane voices in the mix.
As I have watched the press and media around the global warming issue, it reminds me heavily of this “McCarthyism” style of debate. I am watching every climatologist I am aware of who questions Gore’s (and the IPCC) data or agenda being written off as spurious or even malicious. This time, instead of “communism” these previously well-respected climatologists are smeared with “corporatism.” They lose funding, get their articles rejected without review, and become fodder for the “conspiracy” theorists in the global warming camp.
Gore regularly smears (meaning asserts without proof or context) the more prominent anti-global warming climatologists with “ties to oil interests” and “their work has been discredited.” This public comment gets reprinted thousands of times. Meanwhile, the scientists themselves question how and where their work has been discredited. They offer systematic defense of their work which are not published by the journals that publish their status as discredited.
What about the funding that these people get, and the political power and fame? Are those, perhaps, motivations that equal the supposed “oil” ties of anti-global warming hysteria?Alvin Gouldner pointed out that in Marx’s system of capitalists, workers, and landlords, he left out the intellectuals. By leaving them out of the equation (he happened to be one, go figure), Marx’s system leaves room for them to dominate the system, which they did and have. When we add them back into the equation, we see that the leaders of the communist revolutions have all been intellectuals, and those in power after the revolution as well.
In the same way, I question whether we might want to add “alarmists” to the political/scientific equation around global warming. Why is it that people are so quick to jump on Gore’s bandwagon? Why do they so easily write off those scientists who claim that the data does not lead to a preponderance of evidence for HUMAN impact on global warming? Why do they listen intently to scientists whose speciality is not climate but ignore the climatologists that dare to question Gore’s Claims? Why are they so easily led by those who use clearly ambiguous scientific reports to mean certain “proof” of their position?
And what are the source documents that the politicians and pundits use to “prove” their case? Upon what basis do they claim “scientific consensus?”Several critics point out the variation between the substance of major reports and the “summary findings” that end up in the conclusions, showing that the DATA suggests major uncertainty, but the summaries suggest that the issue is decided. Here are a couple examples cited by Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT. http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008597
Given that we do not understand the natural internal variability of climate change, this task is currently impossible. Nevertheless there has been a persistent effort to suggest otherwise, and with surprising impact. Thus, although the conflicted state of the affair was accurately presented in the 1996 text of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the infamous “summary for policy makers” reported ambiguously that “The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.” This sufficed as the smoking gun for Kyoto.
The next IPCC report again described the problems surrounding what has become known as the attribution issue: that is, to explain what mechanisms are responsible for observed changes in climate. Some deployed the lassitude argument–e.g., we can’t think of an alternative–to support human attribution. But the “summary for policy makers” claimed in a manner largely unrelated to the actual text of the report that “In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.”
In a similar vein, the National Academy of Sciences issued a brief (15-page) report responding to questions from the White House. It again enumerated the difficulties with attribution, but again the report was preceded by a front end that ambiguously claimed that “The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability.” This was sufficient for CNN’s Michelle Mitchell to presciently declare that the report represented a “unanimous decision that global warming is real, is getting worse and is due to man. There is no wiggle room.” Well, no.
I wonder if, in retrospect, if and when we discover that the human contribution to global warming is insignificant, or given in terms of millennia rather than decades, we will look back on the current “certainty” of public sentiment as yet another symptom of the same human desire that lead to the spread and horror of socialism and communism. Even more, I wonder if we we learn that historical lesson, or simply repeat it on whatever issue of the day promises the most powerful feelings of self-righteousness and distracts us from the existential issues of being a human being in an era of power and choice?
No comments
Liberal and Conservative - in the face of uncertainty…
Rather Defensive
So, Dan Rather is talking about Rathergate and partisanship and the media. San Francisco Chronicle TV critic Tim Goodman liveblogged Rather’s latest, um, account at the annual Television Critics Press tour which is going on right now in Los Angeles. An excerpt of Rather’s remarks ran today on the first page of the Chronicle’s Entertainment Section.
(Side note: Goodman has dubbed the annual TV Press Tour “The Death March With Cocktails,” and his accounts are consistently enjoyable, if one cares about insider reports from the TV industry and rich-and-famous foolery and that sort of thing. You can follow The Death March With Cocktails here.)
And, for easy reference and background, here is an index of the entire pre-election Rathergate memo scandal.)
Below is the full transcript of Rather’s remarks. Rather had just been asked if he felt that he carried any “baggage” from his career in network journalism.
No comments“Yes, I have baggage. I have the baggage of being a graduate of the journalism school out of the University of South Vietnam. I have baggage from the Civil Rights movement in Birmingham. I have baggage from Watergate and covering, as the White House and lead correspondent for CBS News, on the only President in history who resigned. I have baggage from Afghanistan when the Soviets invaded it. I have baggage from two interviews with Saddam Hussein. You bet your life I’ve got a lot of baggage. And make no mistake, I’m proud of it. Yes, I’m biased. I have a very strong bias toward independent journalism, italicized, underlined, put in bold caps. Some - I’m not here to argue all - some of the problems I have and have had with this question of, quote, bias, is misunderstanding what my bias is. I’m committed to independent journalism and, yes, fiercely independent when necessary. And a lot of the times it’s necessary. Not all, but some of what you describe as, quote, baggage, comes from people who have the following view, which they’re entitled to have. This, God bless it, is America, and you can have it. But their view is, to not just Dan Rather, but to a lot of people in journalism, “Listen, Mr. or Ms., you report the news the way I want it reported, or I’m going to make you pay a price. I’m going to hang a sign around your neck that says you were a bomb-throwing Bolshevik or something. And I’m going to mount a sizable and very effective smear campaign on you.”
Now, this doesn’t only happen to me. If you’ve seen “Good Night, and Good Luck,” you know what I’m talking about. And I should - I should be lucky enough to live to the day that I can walk in the same room with Ed Murrow, but I can’t, and nobody before or since him could. But there’s the model for things. If you’re determined to be independent, you’re going to take the heat. If you are determined to be fiercely independent when necessary and say, “No, sir” - or ma’am - “I’m not going to report the news the way you want it reported. I’m not going to be bullied or intimidated. I’m not going back up, back down, or back away to meet your partisan, political, or ideologic agenda. I’m going to play to my bias for independent news” - now, when you face the furnace, you have to take the heat, and some of the time, you’re going to get burned. And I’ve got plenty of scars. I’ve made my mistakes, and some of my wounds are self-inflicted.
But the one thing, if you check the record - and I invite you to check the record - you will not find me cowing to pressure. Now, sometimes that can lead to making mistakes. Sometimes - and I’ve had people tell me, “Dan, this is not healthy for your career.” Well, my answer to that is to hell with the career. I didn’t get into journalism as a careerist. I’m not going to go out of journalism as a careerist. So yes, I’m biased about doing independent journalism. And you bet I’m prejudiced. I’m prejudiced toward reporters - and America is filled with reporters - who want to do the right thing. Increasingly it’s difficult to do the right thing because of what I described before. You stand up and ask the tough question. You ask the toughest question you know how of the highest power you can find, and I guarantee you the second your backside hits the seat, there are going to be people coming after you. But you know, that goes with the territory. I wouldn’t have it any other way. That news, real news, news at its best, is a wake-up call, not a lullaby. And I’m not in the lullaby business.”
Those Crazy Russians | More Iraqi Documents Translated
Captain Ed has ANOTHER great post. He also has some reasonable seculation and asks some daunting questions. Quotable:
One of the reasons that the DoD may have sat on the captured IIS files without translating or releasing them, some speculate, was that the contents may embarrass some of our allies in the overall war on terror. One document released yesterday seems to support that analysis. According to document CMPC-2003-000878, the Russians gave more active support to Saddam prior to the March 2003 invasion than previously known — and they used Syria as a conduit…
[...]
This doesn’t have much to do with WMD, of course, but the revelation of the movement of tank engines — seventy of them for every armored unit — has to raise some eyebrows about the relationship between Washington and Moscow. It also should remind people about the materiel conduit that Syria supplied to Saddam Hussein and Vladimir Putin, and whether or not that conduit operated bidirectionally. Perhaps the WMD that the US seeks did not stay in Syria at all, but made its way to Russia instead.
UPDATE and BUMP: Another look at our friends in Moscow comes in document CMPC-2003-001950, which details a meeting with the Russian ambassador in March 2003. The diplomats discussed the evacuation of Russian citizens from Iraq, but also discussed current American military assets deployed in the Gulf theater[...]
Be sure to check out all the materiel our Russian “allies” gave to Saddam in The Captain’s post.
No commentsYale’s Hypocrisy
Captain Ed has a great post about Yale’s courtship and eventual rejection of Hashemi, the Taliban’s former diplomat at large. Quotable:
No commentsIt’s odd that Yale would have trotted out the diversity argument, considering the regime that Hashemi represented. Let’s recall that the Taliban beat women for not covering themselves from head to toe and men for shaving their faces. Ancient Buddhist carvings, considered artistic and historical treasures, exist no more thanks to Taliban tolerance. The Taliban also reintroduced the lovely Islamic tradition of tolerance by crushing homosexuals to death or throwing them off of towers.
The latter point seems especially germane when it comes to Yale. After all, they have taken the position that the American military cannot stage ROTC classes at the campus due to their “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding homosexuals in the military (which I also oppose, for several reasons). Yale’s students and faculty argued that the university would benefit from having Hashemi’s diverse viewpoint represented on campus, but they kicked out the military for a much milder viewpoint and action than that of Hashemi and his colleagues.And while they argue that Hashemi would have benefited the Yale community by his inclusion, no one appears to wonder whether Yale students might benefit from having the ROTC on campus and the diversity of political opinion it might create.
Yale invited Hashemi — he didn’t just show up and fill out an application. They went out of their way to get him to choose Yale, because as their admissions office stated, they didn’t want to lose another “high profile” candidate to Harvard. Regardless of all the arguments about diversity and openness, all of which get belied by Yale’s policies towards the American military, Yale obviously chose Hashemi as a tweak at the Bush administration. They thought that Hashemi’s presence would embarrass the White House and give Yale some sort of moral authority.
Instead, they have demonstrated themselves to be hypocrites, and still do with this decision.
Islam Or Death
A letter to the editor at the Lansing STate Journal:
Islam or death
I read Le Roy Barnett’s letter (“Muslims, speak up,” June 26) about Muslims’ opinion on Abdul Rahman’s conversion to Christianity.
Islam is not only a religion, it is a complete way of life. Islam guides Muslims from birth to grave. The Quran and prophet Muhammad’s words and practical application of Quran in life cannot be changed.
Islam is a guide for humanity, for all times, until the day of judgment. It is forbidden in Islam to convert to any other religion. The penalty is death. There is no disagreement about it.
Islam is being embraced by people of other faiths all the time. They should know they can embrace Islam, but cannot get out. This rule is not made by Muslims; it is the supreme law of God.Please do not ask us Muslims to pick some rules and disregard other rules. Muslims are supposed to embrace Islam in its totality.
Nazra Quraishi
East Lansing
Hat Tip: LGF
No commentsAfter Hamdan: Jeff Goldstein on SCOTUS and Interpretive Standards
Most disturbing about all this, however, is the initial observation made by the WSJ’s editorial writers: “A single liberal retirement from the Court would thus put Hamdan‘s reasoning in jeopardy.”
How can this be? How can it be that we’ve reached the point where highly-charged SCOTUS decisions often break along partisan / ideological lines? (And before you go noting Kennedy’s break, note, too, that Kennedy defected on Kelo, as well, expanding “public good” to mean “whatever a local municipality can justify by arguing that it will bring in more revenue”. And to be fair, I think Scalia guilty of the same flawed “reasoning” in Raich).
The answer to why this is now so, I think—how “reasoning” become so completely relativistic—is that we no longer have a unified strategy for how to interpret, with the idea of a Living Constitution often acting as a judicial shortcut for failed legislative initiatives, which has the practical effect of codifying a strained (and logically problematic) idea of interpretation and how it is made to work, allowing its proponents to move back and forth between readings that cite legislative intent and readings that deny the importance of that intent in new and different “contexts.”
Be sure to read the whole thing
No commentsVDH: Hoping We Fail
Hoping We Fail: Who loses and who wins in the high-stakes poker in Iraq?
This was a piece Victor Hanson wrote in 2003. It was recently re-presenced on his web site with this preface:
The recent hysteria and rush to judgement over alleged Marine crimes at Haditha, and the downplaying of the significance of the capture of al Zarqawi suggest that many, here and abroad, simply wanted the United States to lose in Iraq, for a variety of political reasons. Almost three years ago, VDH outlined the motives of these parties and suggested it was unwise to bet against the Americans in Iraq, especially since democracy would eventually emerge and ties between al Qaeda and Saddam’s police state would probably come to light. [em. mine]
And of course, those ties are now coming to greater light through the slow, painful, understaffed and underemphasized process of translating Iraqi documents into English.
However Stephen F. Hayes has been on the case for a few years. This post is not the oldest, nor the most recent, but it had the highest google ranking for the terms I searched. 
Anywho…
Hoping We Fail is an excellent roundup of all the usual suspects and some of their underlying pathologies that lead them to root for failure–or perceive it as primary where there is more evidence for success on the balance.
It begins thusly:
No commentsIt is not hard to determine who wishes the United States to succeed in rebuilding Iraq along lines that will promote consensual government, personal freedom, and economic vitality: hardly anyone. At least, few other than the Iraqi and American people.
VDH: Winning the Iraq Wars
A long-ish piece by Victor Davis Hanson that covers many elements of this war we are engaged in. As always with VDH, it is well constructed, complex, multi-faceted, and worth reading.
I give you this excerpt not as a good representation of the peice as a whole, but becasue this is one aspect that is particulaly poignent for me right now. All the more reason to go read the whole thing.
Finally, we are witnessing a larger existential war, in which Iraq is the central, but not the only, theater. Put simply: will the spreading affluence and liberality of Westernization undermine the 8th-century mentality of the Islamists more quickly than their terrorists, armed with Western weapons, prey on the ennui of a postmodern Europe and America — with our large gullible populations that either don’t believe we are in a real war, or think that we should not be?
Americans know exactly the creed of the Islamists and what they have in store for us nonbelievers. Yet if we are not infidels, can we at least be fideles? That is, can we any longer articulate what we believe in, and whether it is worth defending?The problem is not that the majority of Americans have voiced doubts about the future of Iraq — arguments over self-interest and values happen in every long war when the battlefield does not daily bring back good news.
Instead, the worry is that too many have misdirected their anger at the very culture that produced and nourished them. [...]
Emphasis mine.
No commentsTime to Stand with Israel - Hamas | Gaza Stuff
A rational editorial from the pages of a Canadian Newspaper:
Thu, June 29, 2006
EDITORIAL: It’s time to stand with Israel
The Toronto conference of the United Church yesterday joined the Ontario division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees in calling for economic sanctions against Israel and a boycott of the Jewish state to protest its policies in the Palestinian territories.
Basically, both are calling on Canadians to choose sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Fair enough. We choose Israel, which cannot be expected to negotiate with a Palestinian government led by Hamas, a terrorist group whose founding charter calls not only for the destruction of Israel, but for the annihilation of the Jewish people.
Further, we urge Prime Minister Stephen Harper to continue Canada’s sensible policy of refusing to recognize Hamas and denying it foreign aid until it unequivocally recognizes Israel’s right to exist and renounces terrorism.
Like Harper, we support the creation of an independent Palestinian state living in peace beside a secure Israel.
But that has never been Hamas’ goal. [...]
Read it all. What’s next? Pigs fly and France goes hawkish on the WOT?
Hat tips: LGF & Meryl Yourish
No commentsGaza Crisis Roundup
Go check out lawhawk’s comprehensive roundup.
No commentsMeryl Yourish Has a Request
I’d like to make a request. Let’s stop calling for Hamas to acknowledge Israel’s “right” to exist. Let’s stop associating the delegitimization of Israel by various bodies (such as the WCC, PC-USA, most British lefties that read Comment Is Free) by asking why these idiots think Israel is the only country that has no “right” to exist.
Let us point out, as Menachem Begin did, that Israel exists. She exists, and she needs no special acknowledgement from a bunch of terrorists, anti-Semites, and Israel-haters. She existed long before any of us having these arguments was born. She will exist long after all of us are gone.
You can see the rest of it here.
No commentsThe Jawa Report is Back
After nearly two weeks of fighting a cyberterrorist attack launched by Turkish Islamists, and then wrestling with a new server, The Jawa Report is back!
We promise to continue the reporting the news the only way we know how–with mediocre analysis & plenty of offense. If that’s just a little bit more than Islam can allow, then to quote Kos, screw them.
For free thinking Muslims of the world we say: join us on our quest of exposing the danger of the bearded ones. While they may attack our website, we know you are exposed daily to much greater dangers which may result from offending their religous sensibilities.
Our website may have been beheaded for the last two weeks, but it is nothing compared to the barbarity, torture, and murder done in the name of Allah on a daily basis. We write from the luxury afforded by distance, while you face real danger on the front line. You have our sympathy and our solidarity.
Go visit the report.
No commentsOperation Summer Rains
Meryl Yourish, who is always a pleasure to read, has the latest on the IDF’s response to the incursion, kidnapping, and murder by the “palestinians”.
Cox and Forkum weigh in.
No commentsROVE, SATAN PLOT G.O.P. FALL STRATEGY
The Borowitz Report is always good for a well balanced laugh:
ROVE, SATAN PLOT G.O.P. FALL STRATEGY
White House Advisor, Prince of Darkness Resume Longtime Collaboration
At a joint press conference today in Washington, White House advisor Karl Rove said that he would be plotting the Republican Party’s fall election strategy with his longtime comrade-in-arms, Satan.
The Prince of Darkness, wearing his traditional red horns and cape and carrying a smoldering pitchfork, appeared to beam as Mr. Rove, his protégé, talked about how much he was looking forward to working with him on the fall campaign.
“Every time Satan and I get together, good things happen,” Mr. Rove said, adding, “Or should I say - bad things happen!”
The two of them then dissolved in laughter, demonstrating an easy collegiality that has made them an unbeatable team in past G.O.P. campaigns.
Satan’s partnership with Mr. Rove goes back to 1994, when the two of them teamed up to orchestrate George W. Bush’s first election as Governor.
But their work together reached its apogee, perhaps, during the 2004 presidential election, in which Mr. Rove and Satan devised the infernal “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” campaign.
While Satan let Mr. Rove have most of the spotlight in the hour-long press conference, he did take the microphone to say that he had been “relieved” recently when the White House advisor was cleared of all charges in the CIA leak investigation.
“I can’t imagine running a Republican campaign without my buddy here,” he said, giving Mr. Rove a bear hug. “There are plenty of Satans out there, but there’s only one Karl Rove.”
Elsewhere, Dan Rather retired from CBS after 44 years there but said that he would remain active in news and misinformation.
All emphasis mine.
No commentsRespect Your Enemy
Excellent post by Jay Tea over at Wizbang!. Too much is quotable. It is a tight, well written, compelling essay. Just go read it.
No commentsTreasury Secretary Snow Responds to Keller
Excellent response by Treasury Secretary Snow to Keller over at The Corner:
Mr. Bill Keller, Managing Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036Dear Mr. Keller:
The New York Times’ decision to disclose the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, a robust and classified effort to map terrorist networks through the use of financial data, was irresponsible and harmful to the security of Americans and freedom-loving people worldwide. In choosing to expose this program, despite repeated pleas from high-level officials on both sides of the aisle, including myself, the Times undermined a highly successful counter-terrorism program and alerted terrorists to the methods and sources used to track their money trails.
Your charge that our efforts to convince The New York Times not to publish were “half-hearted” is incorrect and offensive. Nothing could be further from the truth. Over the past two months, Treasury has engaged in a vigorous dialogue with the Times - from the reporters writing the story to the D.C. Bureau Chief and all the way up to you. It should also be noted that the co-chairmen of the bipartisan 9-11 Commission, Governor Tom Kean and Congressman Lee Hamilton, met in person or placed calls to the very highest levels of the Times urging the paper not to publish the story. Members of Congress, senior U.S. Government officials and well-respected legal authorities from both sides of the aisle also asked the paper not to publish or supported the legality and validity of the program.
Indeed, I invited you to my office for the explicit purpose of talking you out of publishing this story. And there was nothing “half-hearted” about that effort. I told you about the true value of the program in defeating terrorism and sought to impress upon you the harm that would occur from its disclosure. I stressed that the program is grounded on solid legal footing, had many built-in safeguards, and has been extremely valuable in the war against terror. Additionally, Treasury Under Secretary Stuart Levey met with the reporters and your senior editors to answer countless questions, laying out the legal framework and diligently outlining the multiple safeguards and protections that are in place.
You have defended your decision to compromise this program by asserting that “terror financiers know” our methods for tracking their funds and have already moved to other methods to send money. The fact that your editors believe themselves to be qualified to assess how terrorists are moving money betrays a breathtaking arrogance and a deep misunderstanding of this program and how it works. While terrorists are relying more heavily than before on cumbersome methods to move money, such as cash couriers, we have continued to see them using the formal financial system, which has made this particular program incredibly valuable.
Lastly, justifying this disclosure by citing the “public interest” in knowing information about this program means the paper has given itself free license to expose any covert activity that it happens to learn of - even those that are legally grounded, responsibly administered, independently overseen, and highly effective. Indeed, you have done so here.
What you’ve seemed to overlook is that it is also a matter of public interest that we use all means available - lawfully and responsibly - to help protect the American people from the deadly threats of terrorists. I am deeply disappointed in the New York Times.
Sincerely,
[signed]
John W. Snow, Secretary
U.S. Department of the Treasury
Amen.
No commentsZarqawi’s End Over at Hotair
Great video that sums up my sentiments, to be sure. Woo-hoo!
No commentsThe Real Iraq Via Pat Dollard
Not PC. Not work safe. Not PG-13. AND the truth.
No commentsZarqawi is Collecting his 72 Virgins
AbbaGav was first to relay the information in my RSS feeder. Could be his time zone helped.
Cox & Forkum right on time:
From Allah:
And from MSNBC on how we got it done here. Excerpt:
Two U.S. F-16 jets on patrol over Iraq were scrambled Wednesday evening as part of an intense six-week manhunt for Iraq’s most-wanted terrorist. U.S. military officials tell NBC News the jets were tracking Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s top deputy, Abu Abdul Rahman, as he headed to a meeting with Zarqawi in an isolated two-story farmhouse 40 miles north of Baghdad.
When U.S. special forces confirmed Zarqawi was inside, they fired two 500-pound bombs. U.S. military officials, who swept the area after the attack, say Zarqawi, Rahman and four others were killed instantly.
“We have been able to identify al-Zarqawi through fingerprint verification, facial recognition and known scars,” said Gen. William Casey, the commander of the multinational force in Iraq.
Moonbat Reaction:
Some Democrats, breaking ranks from their leadership, today said the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab Zarqawi in Iraq was a stunt to divert attention from an unpopular and hopeless war.
”This is just to cover Bush’s [rear] so he doesn’t have to answer” for Iraqi civilians being killed by the U.S. military and his own sagging poll numbers, said Rep. Pete Stark, California Democrat. “Iraq is still a mess — get out.”
Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Democrat, said Zarqawi was a small part of “a growing anti-American insurgency” and that it’s time to get out.
”We’re there for all the wrong reasons,” Mr. Kucinich said.
Officially, Democratic leaders reacted positively to the news and praised the troops that successfully targeted al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq with 500-pound bombs at his safe house 30 miles from Baghdad.
”This is a good day for the Iraqi people, the U.S. military and our intelligence community,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
Read it at the Washington Times.
No commentsThe European Union
Over at the Gates of Vienna [the place to go for in depth analysis on all things Islam and our struggles with its global aims] the Fjordman has filed a report on the EU with a call for its destruction in order to save Europe. Here is a taste:
The Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950, widely presented as the beginning of the efforts towards a European Union and commemorated in “Europe Day,” contains phrases which state that it is “a first step in the federation of Europe”, and that “this proposal will lead to the realization of the first concrete foundation of a European federation”. As critics of the EU have noted, these political objectives are usually omitted when the Declaration is referred to, and most people do not even know of their existence. A federation is of course a State and “yet for decades now the champions of EC/EU integration have been swearing blind that they have no knowledge of any such plans. EEC/EC/EU has steadily acquired ever more features of a supranational Federation: flag, anthem, Parliament, Supreme Court, currency, laws.” The EU founders “were careful only to show their citizens the benign features of their project. It had been designed to be implemented incrementally, as an ongoing process, so that no single phase of the project would arouse sufficient opposition as to stop or derail it.” Booker and North calls the European Union “a slow-motion coup d’état: the most spectacular coup d’état in history,” designed to gradually and carefully sideline the democratic process and subdue the older nation states of Europe without saying so in public.
In 2005, an unprecedented joint declaration by the leaders of all British political groups in Brussels called for PM Tony Blair to push for an end the “medieval” practice of European legislation being decided behind closed doors. Critics claim that the Council of Ministers, the EU’s supreme law-making body, which decides two thirds of all Britain’s laws (and the majority of laws in all Western European countries), “is the only legislature outside the Communist dictatorships of North Korea and Cuba to pass laws in secret.” As one of the signers put it: “We still have this medieval way of making decisions in the EU; people hide behind other member states, and blame them. It increases people’s sense of cynicism, but what we need is some straight talking.” According to British Conservative politician Daniel Hannan, this is how the EU was designed. “Its founding fathers understood from the first that their audacious plan to merge the ancient nations of Europe into a single polity would never succeed if each successive transfer of power had to be referred back to the voters for approval. So they cunningly devised a structure where supreme power was in the hands of appointed functionaries, immune to public opinion.” “Indeed, the EU’s structure is not so much undemocratic as anti-democratic.”
But be sure to read the whole thing.
UPDATE: this is good news:
Many adults in the Netherlands hold strong views on the way Muslims adapt to the European continent, according to a poll by Motivaction released by GPD. 63 per cent of respondents believe think Islam is incompatible with modern European life.
And they would be correct. And god help us all if modern European life is altered to accomodate Islam in its current form.
No commentsGoldstein on Bloomberg
Bloomberg has become so used to being chaffeured about that he’s either forgotten (or never knew) that there are times when acceleration is necessary for passing, merging, etc., and that preventing people from speeding on occasion will likely create more safety hazards than simply continuing to police speeders as the city presumably does now. That such nannystatist programs—proferred always in the name of public safety but used, primarily, as a way to increase revenues—continue cropping up, leads me to believe that what we really need is a device placed on Mayors that light up everytime these bored petty tyrants do something other than, say, cut the ribbon at some mall opening, or fire up the Bat signal, should the Penguin get all uppity.
That way, at least people will have time to hide their wallets.
Indeed.
No commentsThe Therapist is Back!
Go see him.
No commentsLessons From Bangalore
It is a long-ish article using Detroit as the American problem model, but any City could learn from it, including my own San Francisco:
[...] It needs to be said at the outset that no government in the U.S., not even Detroit’s, has ever imposed the kind of crushing regulations that the Indian government imposed during the height of the notorious License Raj in the mid-’50s. Key industries—steel, telecommunications, airlines—were nationalized, but even more harmful was the Kafkaesque web of regulations that the remaining private businesses had to endure in the name of ensuring a “rational allocation of resources.”
Every move of private industry, big or small, was subject to licensing. Forget setting up a new plant or a factory. If an enterprise wanted to buy or import equipment, change its product mix, or even produce more than its allotted quota for a product, it had to first obtain permission from the Directorate General of Technical Development, a process that could take years and a small fortune in bribes, points out Gurcharan Das, author of India Unbound and former CEO of Procter & Gamble, India. “Large business houses set up parallel bureaucracies in Delhi to follow up on files, organize bribes, and win licenses,” he recalls.
Confronted with a massive fiscal crisis and the prospect of defaulting on its international debt obligations, the Indian government dismantled much of this ridiculous licensing regime in 1991. In a bid to boost exports to replenish the country’s empty foreign exchange reserves, it also eliminated all import licensing and slashed tariffs on capital goods. Both were relics of India’s import-substitution days, when manufacturers were discouraged from buying equipment from abroad in order to build the domestic industry. This jacked up production costs and made the country’s exports hopelessly uncompetitive.
Trade liberalization was a boon for the I.T. industry, which already had escaped many of the stultifying controls that other industries faced simply because the architects of India’s industrial policy had failed to anticipate its birth. [...]
read the rest on your own.
No comments