In Griswold v. Connecticut, Justice Douglas found that “specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance” and that create “zones of privacy.” Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 US 479, 484 (1965).
Of course there is a general spirit of privacy and liberty in the Bill of Rights. And I think we can correctly surmise that the framers did not feel it necessary to enumerate every possible scenario they wanted to cover with the Bill of Rights. Therefore, it is right to act and legislate in a general spirit of liberty, a value which is also celebrated in other founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence itself, proclaiming the inalienable right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
In general in the United States we celebrate the best of our way of life when we restrict one another as little as possible.
Recently, at least one non-elected official in Seattle has moved clearly against that principle. Seattle Parks Superintendent Timothy Gallagher apparently -- and I did not know this -- reigns over our parks with a god-like authority little known in modern Western government. He recently over-ruled the Board of Park Commissioners (which had recommended smoking sections in parks) and unilaterally imposed a total ban on smoking in parks because of health reasons and because it “set a bad example for children.”
I don’t think I have to point out that this, if we let it stand, is just the beginning. Is there anything you do that Timothy Gallagher might think is a bad example for children? What if there are fat people in the park? What if people in the park are eating transfats? What if people in the park look like they didn’t shower today? What if people are skipping in the park?
With the attempt to federalize healthcare we should anticipate rules and legislation on a national level outlawing more and more personal acts that may arguably in some sense impose costs on society at large. Should you pay a tax if you consume more than 2,000 calories per day or if you do not exercise in a given week? Should you require a relationship license if you have a tendency to enter into destructive relationships that leave both people needing psychiatric therapy? We will get all this and more unless we resolutely defend a zone of privacy, and unless we subject restrictions on personal behavior to a very exacting degree of scrutiny.
Gallagher’s autonomy is disconcerting. I would go so far as to say that his attitude toward governance makes him a dangerous person to have in public office. His policy is ill-considered and is characteristic of a dangerous trend among Democratic politicians to achieve a gloriously perfect world by making decisions for people. This type of law-making is un-American and dangerous and we should make sure it stays un-American.
The American tradition respects individual privacy and freedoms. Let’s keep the freedoms and throw out the Liberal nanny state politicians.
Having convicted Amanda Knox of murder and 23 CIA agents of fighting terrorism over the past year, Italy today continued its rampage against American citizens by convicting 3 Google execs because someone uploaded a mean video to YouTube. When the Italian police asked Google to take the video down, Google did. But the Italian court decided that was not fast enough and they should never have allowed it to be posted in the first place (are they too dense to realize that would be practically impossible?).
The Google story:
The Amanda Knox story in case you haven't seen it:
This kind of vindictive xenophobia can go both ways, amici.
Let's not go to Italy any time soon. It's a riskier place than it seems.
I have previously thrown in my $0.02 regarding things the Republican Party needs to focus on less.
I want to talk about what we should support, both in terms of what is right to support and what will help Republicans win in 2010 and 2012. I think the Economy will be issue #1 followed by Security and Immigration, and I have a few specific planks to recommend in support of these themes.
People are unhappy about the recent economic downturn. This is something we need to focus on. To win, the Republican Party needs to sell four ideas simultaneously:
To heal the economy we must heal business. Just handing out money to people or growing the government (Obama's strategy) will not solve America's problems.
The Republican Party has a plan to make businesses more successful
While still watching out for things that concern people, like economic fairness and the environment,
And not allowing the budget deficit to get out of control (like we did last time)
The essential points are two: that we won't run up the deficit again and that by healing business we can heal the economy. I believe these points can effectively be made. What follows are specific policy ideas. As we think about policies, we need to think as if we are fighting for our lives. Because we are. We desperately need to address the distortions, mistakes and indulgences that are holding our society and our economy back.
Economy 1: Eliminate the Corporate Income Tax
Coolidge was right. The business of America really is business. All our third world relief efforts, education, help for the poor, medical care, sports programs, environmental programs, pensions, parks, schools, tenured professorships, public transportation, even protestors…everything ultimately is paid for because someone somewhere made a product or service and made a profit. The more business thrives, the more options we have. Business is what puts food on the table for everyone.
The less money the government takes out of our businesses the more money businesses have to invest in research to make our economy more competitive. Let’s lower corporate taxes.
My proposal is to eliminate the corporate tax and make the United States an international tax haven. Sounds crazy but corporate taxes only bring in 9.8% of federal receipts. We can simply shift that revenue over to the other taxes on a progressive basis such that the burden of the new income tax is allocated in proportion to each tax bracket’s likelihood of benefiting from the reduction in the corporate tax. Not only would this make our corporations more productive, it would greatly reduce corporate costs by eliminating the burden of preparing quarterly tax reports, and it would attract considerable investment from foreign corporations looking for a secure tax haven.
Eliminating the corporate income tax would be much more impactful than reducing it to a nominal rate because a complete elimination by definition eliminates the work that goes into preparing taxes. Even if the rate is miniscule you still have to file a return and figure out all the deductions, etc. It is a huge burden whatever the rate.
At the end of the day, it is people who get and spend money, who benefit from corporations, so why don’t we just simplify things and stick with one tax -- the tax on the people (as much as it pains me to say that, it makes sense in this context).
Economy 2: Switch from the Personal Income Tax to a National Sales Tax
This is an idea with some bipartisan support actually (though when Democrats advocate a sales tax or a VAT they usually intend it to be additive to the income tax). Taxes create disincentives. Our current tax system reduces incentives to earn money. This makes the economy smaller. A Sales Tax creates disincentives to spend money but does not punish making money or saving money. We need people to save more money. Eliminating the personal income tax would substantially reduce the burden of preparing taxes for individuals ad S-Corporations. See Rudolph Penner’s paper for lengthier discussion here.
Economy 3: Fix our broken trade relationship with Asia
See previous analysis here.
Economy 4: Make Life Less Complicated for Businesses -- Start by Ending Sarbanes-Oxley
This is simple. We need to eliminate any regulations that cost more than they are worth. I will start with one: Sarbanes-Oxley. Sarbanes-Oxley requires US firms to file various onerous reports with the government about their financial controls and reporting. It costs US businesses billions of wasted dollars per year and discourages foreign firms from listing in US stock exchanges. We need to reduce red tape for US businesses and we should start with this over-reaction to the Enron scandal.
Economy 5: Reduce the burden of securities lawsuits by creating a special process for securities lawsuits
The cost of raising capital is increased dramatically by the prospect of class action securities lawsuits that allege fraud whenever companies disappoint investors. This is a ridiculous indulgence. Few of the companies that get sued actually ever committed any fraud. They typically pay off the class action lawyers to avoid an expensive trial. It’s a big business for the lawyers but a difficult burden for US business, especially younger businesses. Congress under Article I can designate special courts and procedures for special subjects, granting them "subject matter jurisdiction," as was done for bankruptcy cases. This should be done for securities lawsuits, such that there would be federal securities courts whose proceedings are much like an administrative hearing or arbitration than a full jury trial. The goal should be to speedily, at minimum cost, resolve any allegations and only proceed to a larger case when plaintiffs show that theirs is a case of deceit by a criminal organization and not a mere error or oversight on the part of a well intentioned company. In the case of an oversight, there would be no damages.
Economy 6: Instead of increasing SBA loans, invest in Venture Funds
Obama is putting another $30B into SBA loans and he thinks this will help fund startups. It is sad how little he knows about business. No start ups get SBA loans. Certainly not the ones that create real value, like say Google or Amazon.com. Real technology ventures take equity in their early stages. If we are going to help business along, we should invest in venture funds. Here’s the other good part: we will get the money back and then some.
Economy 7: Balance the Budget
Republicans have for years advocated for low taxes and we have always wound up with high deficits. This rhetoric doesn't work anymore, and accounts for a lot of the Tea Party fervor. We need to make the case that we will achieve a balanced budget. This means we must reform Medicare and Social Security and make tough choices in doing so. I think we should start with Mark Ryan's Roadmap for America's Future.
Economy 8: Reduce the Burden of Medical Malpractice Lawsuits Malpractice lawsuits are a large part of our growing health care cost problem. There are two types of damages in malpractice cases, compensation for costs and punitive damages. The punitive damages are a large part of the total cost of malpractice claims. Punitive damages at the end of the day do not restore the health or costs of the plaintiff and serve, in theory, only to make the world safer by changing the behavior of doctors, both the specific doctor before the court and other doctors. There are easier ways to achieve this.
I propose that the government should handle claims of medical negligence in administrative hearings. If negligence can be established, actual cost damages can be assessed plus some allowance for the plaintiff's legal costs. If negligence is extreme, the government, instead of assessing punitive damages, can take action against the accused doctor's license and/or subject the doctor to criminal proceedings in the rare case where that would be appropriate. It is possible that in the case of extreme negligence some sort of whistle blower reward could be established for claimants. However, that would be much cheaper than punitive damages. Moving against a doctor's license would be a significant disincentive for bad behavior, but a much, much cheaper one than the one we have today.
Issues That Are Not Strictly Economic in Nature
Immigration
Immigration of skilled workers, i.e. doctors and engineers, should be open. It is a tremendous gift to us when the most skilled workers from other countries come to contribute their knowledge to our economy. Immigration of unskilled workers, on the other hand, is a corrupt bargain between the wealthy, who want low wage workers, and Democrats, who want reliable voters. Who gets the short end of the stick? Low skilled Americans, and that disrupts our society. The burdens of low skilled Americans are quite sufficient without having to compete against people who grew up with even lower expectations. The American poor should not be ground into the dust, as they have been, by this corrupt bargain. We must take a stand for skilled immigrants and against low skill immigrants. There was a time when we needed low skill workers -- or whatever workers we could get. That moment in history has passed.
In addition to reducing immigration of low skill workers, we should assert our right to make cultural choices in selecting types of immigrants to the US. Inevitably, if we change the cultural mix of our citizenry we will change the nature of our culture. Since culture is so profoundly important to the life of any society, it is not wrong or racist, indeed it is wise and essential, to express cultural preferences in managing the evolving makeup of our citizenry. The reality is that if we wanted the USA to be more like a given other country, the easiest way to accomplish that would be to import a large number of people from that country. At one point in history we believed that people were generic and fungible, and they would over time, perhaps generations, embrace the successful American culture that we enjoy and hope to preserve. But the advocates of multiculturalism and of racial grievance politics have shown quite clearly that we should not count on any melting pot effect. Therefore, we should ask ourselves whether there are any groups that -- given that there is no melting pot -- culturally might tend to push our nation in an unwelcome direction. The experience of our European allies suggests that any large influx of Islamic immigrants from the Middle East, Pakistan or Northern Africa would be extremely undesirable and should simply be disallowed. Immigrants from Europe, Australia, Korea, China, India and certain islands in the West Indies have been our most successful immigrant groups. Their immigration should be prioritized over others.
Security 1: Recognize That Our Conflict with Islamic Jihad is a War
The number one issue internationally is Islamic Jihad. We can effectively attack Democratic policies of political correctness that reduce our ability to be effective in the War on Terror.
Trying to handle Islamic warriors as regular domestic criminals is silly and naive and people rightly oppose it. Trying to cover up Islamic terrorist activities such as the attack by Major Hasan at Fort Hood (the government report on the attack did not mention his Islamic views) is a huge mistake. The Obama administration and all democrats are deservedly vulnerable on this issue.
Security 2: Energy independence
Energy independence is part of security. Some portion of every dollar we send to Saudi Arabia for oil comes back as a roadside bomb. Replacing gasoline and jet fuel with a realistic alternative (not wind power, but natural gas and nuclear) should be the next American Manhattan Project.
Security 3: The F-35 Fighter Program
With respect to other nations, such as Russia, we must take a more firm stance. Obama tried to follow his liberal instincts and befriend Iran and Russia. Didn’t work. They are as hostile as they were before. China is developing an advanced fighter. You never know what is going to happen in the future. It is better to be safe than sorry. We need to ramp up F-35 production, which Obama recently cut back.
I have been traveling quite a bit recently around the country and I have been thinking about the change in attire that has taken place over the last few decades. The 1960’s brought us an unpretentious, anti-hierarchical ethos that came to be expressed in casual clothing and an indulgence in decoration for men, including long hair, facial hair and ear rings. It has been an interesting experiment for forty years or so. On the whole, honestly, I have concluded we are not doing ourselves any aesthetic favors.
The significance of attire
Does it matter? If in 2020, bearded and tattooed men with a BMI of 42 are commonly to be found strolling through airports wearing man thongs and butt chaps, should we care? Am I simply having a nostalgic moment for the “Mad Men” days of my youth where men in suits and ties would fly Pan Am to New York attended by sharp looking and “with it” stewardesses? Well, of course I am. But beyond my personal nostalgia let me make the case to you that this subject matters to us all.
How we dress is important because it is one of the most important ways in which we influence one another. Societies have always invested in buildings, obelisks, pyramids and totem poles because aesthetic symbols, like national anthems, are an important way to make a collective statement about our most important values. Aesthetic statements in architecture, art and attire communicate directly to the heart about what is important and how we should live. The formidable edifices of Berlin’s Reichstagsgebäude or Rome’s Coliseum served as local propaganda to reinforce the grandeur and permanence of those empires. The unpretentiousness of a New England chapel instills in parishioners values of simplicity and humility just as surely as the Pearl Tower in Shanghai reinforces values of modernity, efficiency and the unbridled ambition of modern Asia. As Walter Pater said: “All art ...aspires towards the condition of music”; I would argue that architecture and attire, in the directness of their communication, achieve it.
Attire and grooming are the democratic version of architecture. We do not communicate directly with each other much as a body politic. We drive in cars, listen to iPods, cast secret ballots and kind of keep to ourselves. We consume ideas spoken by people on TV or writers in newspapers (or blogs?) and we might discuss them with a few friends. But we don’t generally communicate with one another -- except with our personal aesthetic choices. Our choices in attire and presentation are political and cultural statements we make to each other every day. Collectively, they are significant because aesthetic statements are not just “I am” statements; they are also inevitably “you should” statements as well. People in societies have always learned from each other -- and taught each other -- in this way.
It has been shown in policework famously in New York in the Giuliani era (see book discussed here), that visible symbols in a society’s public spaces make a big difference. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and head of the New York City Transit Police William Bratton determined to reduce visible symbols of vandalism in the transit system, especially graffiti. Graffiti is a public statement that “the law is not in charge here.” It is an attack on the security and sense of order of citizens generally, and that is its point. Giuliani and Bratton’s campaign against graffiti is observed to have been very effective in substantially reducing crime in New York. The symbols of a society make a big difference to the people who live there and our personal presentation is one of the key ways we have the opportunity every day to influence those symbols.
How we dress
So what ideas are we Americans commonly communicating in our attire and presentation? I hope you will tolerate my frankness.
Firstly, I would observe that we are quite portly. Just eyeballing it, I think about 75% of us could lose at least 20-30 pounds. If you are 30 pounds overweight it suggests, intentionally or otherwise, that you think that society should value indulgence over discipline, ambition and industry. That is not something we should be suggesting to each other.
The second issue concerns the clothing. In this context I primarily address men over 30. The sports coat, collared shirt and, in appropriate situations, the tie were adopted over time because they make men look good. The general alternative to the collared shirt and sports shirt is the t-shirt. Its strength is its lack of pretention. But make no mistake, not one man in ten can carry off a t-shirt with dignity.
Long hair, facial hair, ear rings for men and tattoos -- you are trying too hard and lack self-confidence.
In this, my little Dante’s Inferno of modern men’s attire, the lowest rung of sartorial hell must be reserved for the sports costume, by which I refer to all possible combinations of billed caps, shirts with numbers on them, sports logos and other people’s names as well as large rubber-soled shoes. You know what I’m talking about. It is really horrible.
Wearing another man’s jersey says that you are his girlfriend. Do not wear another man’s jersey. Or, if you do, you should write, above his name, “I am,” then put an apostrophe on his name and below his name write “prison gf :).” Congratulations.
Wearing a baseball hat, which is quite common, is a way for men to dissociate themselves from any type of intellectual activity, i.e. it is a way of saying “I am not bright but I don’t care.” The rise of the baseball cap has been coincident with -- and I think related to -- the attacks on men by the forces of feminism for the past thirty years, including the many depictions of bumbling dads in primetime comedies. This has influenced men. Wearing a baseball hat when you go out in public is a way of surrendering to this attack and saying “you needn’t fear my oppression, ladies. I am not going to give you intellectual competition.” It is the dunce cap and the hair shirt of the battle of the sexes. I am not against the fair and judicious principles of feminism but I am against the anti-male rhetoric and anti-male strategies that come with it. It does not help society to don the dunce cap and cede all thinking to others. In fact, it is important you find some self-respect and resist this.
Implications
I think the explanation for the low standards of dress we have adopted is that morale is low in our society. After years of multicultural, victimization and feminist rhetoric, there is a state of disunity, unhappiness and low morale about the republic.
Americans are the people who built this nation, articulated enduring principles of freedom and government, conquered Hitler, conquered Hirohito, shaped the modern economy and met the challenge of the West with, in the words of Samuel Walter Foss, “Men to match my mountains.” That blood is still here in America. But the spirit of this proud people has been attacked for forty years. The aesthetic statements people are making are collectively a sort of surrender to the tireless critiques of the left, the European socialists, the victimization demagogues, Howard Zinn fans and generally all the hippies and vindictive fellow travelers who hate America for its mistakes more than they love it for its virtues or for the fact that it has brought more freedom and wealth and security -- more good -- to more people than any nation in history.
So that’s why I think it matters, and that is why I think that if we don’t pull our socks up for ourselves or our spouses or our kids, we should do it for our country.
In theory, I should be a great candidate to be a Tea Partier. I am fiscally conservative. I am very reluctant to create new government-supported entitlements. I am very annoyed at the Republicans for the large deficits of the W. Bush years. I even voted for Perot for president and I voted for fiscally conservative Steve Forbes in the 1996 primary, so I am relatively open minded to “off brand” political products.
So why am I not a Tea Partier?
Third parties are a bad idea. Perot got Clinton elected. Nader got Bush elected. Heck, Teddy Roosevelt got Woodrow Wilson elected in 1912.
I am suspicious of overly emotional movements without a strong theoretical base. I don’t mind some emotion but if a movement consists of a bunch of political neophytes with an unclear platform and emotional, rabble rousing leaders, I become concerned. The Tea Party appears to be hesitant to declare an explicit platform and I think it is because they are scared that if they did they would fall apart. The conservative movement was helped greatly by the groundwork laid down by William F. Buckley and Russel Kirk years before Reagan's 1980 victory.
I think the best plan for 2010 is to support moderate republican candidates. What does “moderate” mean. Well, I can tell you it doesn’t mean supporting cap and trade, card check or Obamacare. If you support any of those in my view you are a Democrat and you should come out of the closet. A moderate Republican, to me, is basically someone who wants to cut taxes and balance the budget, is willing to put everything on the table (Medicare, Social Security, overseas defense commitments) but is not going to campaign on divisive social issues like abortion or gun control. I think abortion could be a huge blocker for Republicans in 2010 and 2012.
It is hilarious though how everyone believes that whatever they and their friends talk about represents some sort of universal consensus. Dan Riehl, with whom I would probably agree on a lot of things, says (here) of Orrin Hatch, who is discouraging Tea people from trying to organize a Perot-style third party flub up for 2012, “Hatch doesn't seem to have a clue what's going on at street level in America today.” Hmm. Really? Well I do know that Scott Brown was pretty moderate, I do know that Perot was huge disaster and I basically think Hatch is giving great advice.
If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will win a hundred battles without a loss. If you know yourself but not your opponent, you may win or lose.
If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always face defeat. - Sun Tzu
We are still very much in danger from terrorist attacks. While we are not at war with Islam in general, we are at war with a large Islamist underground who supply money, expertise and soldiers to a global effort to undermine the West. When the next terrorist attack comes to the US, it will come from an Islamist terrorist backed by an Islamist organization providing materiel, training and financing for the operation. This could be another 9/11 or it could be something more like the recent Mumbai attacks involving commando teams with small arms. In any case, it is coming our way.
It used to be that to kill 3,000 people on an enemy’s soil would take an army of perhaps 5,000 people as well as a fleet to get them there. The kill ratio might be roughly one to one, or less. In suicide bomber attacks one often sees a ratio of at least 20:1. On 9/11, using technology, 19 people killed 3,000, which is about a 150:1 kill ratio.
As people get more effective and smaller weapons, this ratio will go up. As miniaturization evolves, it becomes dangerous to have people who hate you amongst you. Whereas we used to have to worry about armies, now we have to face the difficult and new task of worrying about individuals, which is tougher. Miniaturization of weapons creates a whole new world.
To some extent the right approach to the miniaturization problem depends on our tolerance for risk. Do we want it to be 80% probable that life in the United States can continue in a reasonably peaceful manner for the next 100 years? 50%? 99.99%? If your answer is 50% then perhaps we are doing the right thing. But if we want to secure life in America as we know it for an indefinite period of time to a very very high likelihood, we will have to something now or we wait until the next attack occurs and do it then. Success depends on understanding Islamic peoples and being able to make accurate predictions about their future behavior.
It is not perhaps reasonable in order to set some context to note here that in many majority-Muslim nations, being an advocate of violence against the West is no more a “fringe” or “extremist” view than, say, being opposed to the death penalty is in the United States. In 2009, 54% of Nigerians, 52% of people in the Palestinian territories, 28% of Jordanians and 23% of Egyptians, were “confident” in Osama bin Laden’s leadership. 67% of Nigerians believed that suicide bombing against civilians is sometimes justified; 83% of people in the Palestinian territories agree, as do 48% of Egyptians, 44% of Jordanians and 26% of Turks. (These numbers are from the Pew Global Research Study, which can be found here. Apparently they didn’t go to Saudi Arabia.) When we talk about Islamic “extremists” we may be soothing ourselves with semantics. Believing in terrorism in the Muslim world is not a non-mainstream point of view. I am not trying to agitate, but I don’t want to whitewash the situation either. You might want to remind yourself how 9/11 was received on the streets of the Palestinian Territories:
I write this concededly unpleasant essay because I am concerned that the Obama administration’s view may be too rosy, indeed misguided, and his olive branch policies a waste of time, at best, and dangerous at worst. It is important to be fact-based and not just hopeful in determining what Arab nations actually want, who, in a sense, they are. Are we basing our foreign policy strategy on realism? I think it is quite debatable.
The Administration’s View of Islam
President Obama has a very sympathetic view of Islam. He wants to put to rest the multi-century conflict between the West and Islam by being pleasant and focusing on things we have in common. Obama believes that Islam is ready to make friends and he is relying on that assumption in devising his strategy for peace.
Obama’s core belief, in general not just with respect to Islam, seems to be that people are naturally good, they share underlying goals with us, but they sometimes are misinformed; a good chat, akin to the Beer Summit or the upcoming healthcare summit, is all it should take to set people straight. His instinct is, essentially, to play “community organizer” to the world. I am not saying that with a sneer. I am just trying to accurately describe what he does.
The trouble with this view and approach is that it does not work well in certain cases. Specifically, it does not work well when your fundamental premise is wrong and you are dealing with people with whom you do not share fundamental values. For instance, in dealing with Hitler, Neville Chamberlain found that reconciliation was the wrong approach. It was the wrong approach in dealing with the Soviet Union. It is the wrong approach whenever people actually have fundamentally incompatible views and goals.
So what is Obama saying? In Egypt 9 months ago, Obama said:
I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.
He also said that “faith should bring us together.”
On February 14, 2010, Hillary Clinton rearticulated Obama’s views at the US-Islamic Summit at Doha saying that “our shared purpose and values have often been obscured by suspicion and misunderstanding.”
Since many in the Islamic world do not share this rosy view of co-prosperity with the Judeo-Christian West, this is explained away in the Obama-Clinton interpretation as being the product of poverty (i.e., it is not that they are different from us, it is that they are temporarily confused). As Clinton said at the US-Islamic summit:
True and lasting security takes root in places where people have the opportunity to find jobs, to be educated, to raise healthy families, and benefit from the scientific and technological breakthroughs that have transformed the way we live in the 21st century. When these opportunities are absent, frustration and anger often follow.
The initial Liberal line on 9/11 was that America had to sympathize with the terrorists because they were poor, indeed that poverty caused them to do what they did and it was to some extent our fault because we don’t contribute more to development in poor countries. Remember? (Overview here ; David Corn discusses here.) Well as it turned out, many of the hijackers of 9/11 and many of the major Islamic terrorists after them have been at least middle class, the more educated members of their societies who could learn English, get degrees and study in Western universities. So Liberals for the most part put away that somewhat embarrassingly wrong poverty-causes-terrorism theory. But sometimes they still return to it anyway because it just fits much better with their worldview. It’s too convenient to resist.
So the question at hand is whether it is fair to say, as Obama did in Egypt, that “faith should bring us together.” Should it? That might be a quite suitable remark if we were at war with Italy, given that nation’s catholic background, but is it a totally unrealistic remark about Islam? We have to ask ourselves, what if Islamists are more violent and antagonistic, less motivated by temporary political issues of the moment and less similar to us than Obama believes? What would our strategy be if we had to find a way to live together not because of our shared values but in spite of our radically different values? Would we be doing things differently then? Because that may be the case.
Let’s keep in mind as we investigate this issue that our primary job is to create a great future for Americans, not to be polite. So I am going to walk through this in an honest way, not in a polite way necessarily. What do we know about the Islamic world?
Do we share a purpose and values with Islam?
When you see a man leading his three black-shrouded wives down the streets of London (interesting video here), does he strike you as someone who probably “share[s] common principles about tolerance and the dignity of all human beings” with the people of John Locke, Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King, Jr.? Do you imagine he reads Jefferson and longs for a perfect democracy of yeoman farmers? Do we think a society that believes in stoning an adulterous woman to death, and which held Hitler in much higher regard than it will ever hold Obama, shares principles with us?
How like us are they? It is interesting that Mohammed, unlike Abraham, Moses or Jesus Christ, was a military leader, which lends Islam a somewhat different character fundamentally than Judaism and Christianity. Imagine if we followed a religion that had been created by Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan or Napoleon Bonaparte. It would be different. You might have noted that the Saudi flag has a sword on it. That’s no mistake, brother.
Indeed war is fundamental in the history and the language of Islam. In Arabic the term for Islamic countries is dar al Islam, “the house of Islam” (or “peace”) and the term for non-Islamic countries is dar al harb, “the house of war.” Islam was created circa 620 AD and grew through a brutal military campaign, mass slavery and forced conversions to become a tremendous empire emerging from the Saudi desert to encompass all of North Africa, Spain, Turkey and much of the Balkans. Islam and the “house of war” were most of the time at war or on the cusp of war from the early medieval period to the end of World War II. Samuel Huntington pointed out, Islam has “bloody borders.”
Islam appears, at the least, to be very susceptible to a very bellicose interpretation. As I suppose one could say that about any religion except you would really be exaggerating; I can’t recall any Buddhist or Hindu terrorists recently whereas there are Muslim terrorists wherever there are Muslims.
Theologically, Islam is the one religion that has not in the modern era developed a sense of its own limitations. Most religions have reconciled themselves to the notion that they are not going to convert everyone in the world, that people will come to diverse conclusions on religious matters and the issue is sufficiently in doubt that religion should not be imposed on individuals. Mainstream Islam has come to no such conclusion. Islam, particularly Wahabbist Islam, remains an absolutist and totalitarian creed with no concessions to diversity of religious opinion. The goal of spreading Islam around the world through education, proselytizing and simple demographics is explicit in Saudi Arabia and billions of dollars have been spent to that end. It is to this day illegal to celebrate Christmas in Saudi Arabia, even after we pulled their fat from the fire with Desert Shield.
Politically, Islamic countries have made very interesting choices. Germany, in World War I, enjoyed the staunch support of the Islamic world. In World War II, Hitler was extremely popular among our current Middle Eastern “allies.” In the Cold War, the major Middle Eastern countries were quite friendly toward the Soviet Union. Stalin was very almost as popular as Hitler in the Middle East generally. They have a real knack for picking the good guys.
There are in Islamic countries no strong traditions of art or literature because these activities are discouraged as un-Islamic. Men marry up to four wives. Women are not allowed to drive. It is perhaps impossible to imagine a society this side of the Klingons whose instincts appear more different from ours.
So, taking this all in, is it sensible to assume that the natural character of Islam is very much like that of Judaism and Christianity, the cultures, history and leaders of which are less directly associated with war and war-like notions than those of Islam? That we share fundamental premises and goals?
In the least charitable interpretation of Islam, but one that cannot absolutely be controverted by facts, one could interpret it as an imperialist, militarist ideology fundamentally incompatible with Christianity (or with the secular, individualistic notions of the Western Enlightenment) that is bent on extending its domain over the world through whatever means necessary including military action, ideological propaganda and demographic takeovers. It could be interpreted as being more akin to Nazism than to Christianity.
Do we know that this is an unfair and uncharitable interpretation? For sure? Because if we do not know this is wrong, then we have to act as if it might be right. I am not going to say that Muslims are all one way or all another way. Any such assertion would be absurd. But it does seem to me that there is a lot we do not know about Islam but they do, en masse, seem to have a troubling and unusual inclination toward suppressing freedom and promoting brutality and violence. And many of them dislike the kafir (unbelievers).
Implications if we lack shared values
If we fundamentally do not share values and are in some ways incompatible and doomed never to live in harmony; or, if we think this could be true, how would we hedge our bets? This I do not know. I will propose some ideas below in the spirit of whiteboarding. But I believe that we need to devise policies that would make less optimistic assumptions than the ones the administration is making.
Some ideas: Idea 1: Impose a “terrorism tax” on Islamic countries?
The West now spends a great deal of money defending against terrorism, whether in the form of law enforcement, intelligence, military operations in Afghanistan or extra security at home. The Islamic countries should bear this economic burden because they export it. We have essentially an ongoing tort claim against them. Whether they have directly sponsored the terrorism, as in the case of Libya, Syria and Iran, or their citizens are funding the terrorism as is the case in Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, they are ultimately responsible on a res ipsa loquitur basis.
If there were pro-Western, pro-democracy or pro-vengeance militias from the US, funded out of the US, who were travelling to the Middle East and blowing people up, it would to some extent be our fault and our responsibility. We would legitimately owe the Middle Eastern countries some sort of redress. So Option 1 would involve a tax on the Middle Eastern countries forcing them to bear the full economic burden of Islamic terrorism on the West. These monies would be distributed to Western nations in proportion to their expenditures on anti-terrorist efforts. The goal of this program would be to internalize the cost of tolerating or promoting an intolerant, bellicose ideology back on its originators and encourage them thereby to change their ways and do more at home to prevent their people from exporting violence abroad.
Idea 2: Religion or not, can we manage the spread of Islam in the US more deliberately?
We wish to protect against terrorism, we observe that Muslims have a greater tendency than others to become terrorists and we know that it cannot be determined until one acts whether a given individual is inclined to be a terrorist or not. Imagine if some percent of, say, Bulgarians unpredictably developed a horrible disease that caused them to explode and kill everyone around them (which is kind of what happened with Major Hasan). We would change the rules regarding naturalization of Bulgarians who are here already. The TSA recently announced that if you have been to one of 14 (predominantly Muslim) countries on a given trip, you will be given extra scrutiny if you wish to fly into the US. This was done despite the fact that it will offend some of our Muslim friends. This is probably necessary. But why confine it to a given trip? Why not give people special treatment if they have ever been to one of those countries? People might say they are being singled out unfairly, but it wouldn’t be unfair. It would be based on quite objective data.
If we took this approach of trying to be careful about admitting Muslims to the US, it would essentially be a matter of agreeing to live in peace with the Islamic nations, but apart. It’s not that we have ill will toward each other necessarily but it might be for the best if we do not live together.
Option 3: We could do something we haven’t thought of yet
This is where you come in.
Option 4: Pretend the Muslims are a peaceful people who like us, and hope for the best
This last approach seems risky.
Not all of these people are strictly speaking conservative in every way but they are always worth listening to and they have made and make our political culture stronger. I have generally excluded major world figures outside of the US and Commonwealth tradition as well as religious figures and sports figures. So if you are wondering why John Wayne, Babe Ruth, Gandhi, Elvis, Napoleon Bonaparte, Mother Theresa and Jesus Christ are not on the list, that is why.
Patty Murray is a mediocre Senator. I don't think anyone disagrees with that honestly. I suspect, among friends, you know, she might even cop to it herself. She reminds me of someone. Oh, that's right. It's the mediocre, stridently partisan senator I was just writing about -- Barbara Boxer. Oh, no their personalities are not much alike. But Boxer is the luckiest person in the Senate (details here) and Murray would like to be the next luckiest!
My previous article (what, you haven't read it? shame on you) pointed out that Barbara Boxer has earned a long career in the Senate by knocking out lightweights. Patty Murray has gone up against the following contenders:
- Rod Chandler
- Linda Smith, who focused unrelistically on the Choice issue, and
- George R. ("I know I have no chance") Nethercutt, Jr.
Who?
Against Chandler in 1992, it was the "year of the woman" in the Senate, the year of Clinton-Gore and the previous senator, Brock Adams, stepped down due to sexual abuse charges. This was the right place, right time for Murray.
In 1998, Linda Smith was not very dynamic and focused on a sure loser issue, abortion.
In 2004, Nethercutt...well, Washington hasn't elected a senator from east of the Cascades since Miles Poindexter in 1916. Yes, Miles Poindexter.So let's leave it at that.
Murray has faced mediocre challengers generally under favorable circumstances. She could be vulnerable to a strong challenger in 2010.
However, that person has not emerged yet. A lot of nice and well-meaning people have emerged, but no stars. There's Art Coday, a real life doctor who talks too much about the Civil War and abortion (but he did go to Harvard -- go Harvard!). There's a guy who used to play pro-football. There's Chris Widener, a motivational speaker who seems like a nice guy but just, uhmmm not to be rude but, at this stage I don't think has enough heft to make it into the senate. There's a guy named Bob Denton -- oops, I think it's Don Benton -- who has apparently been in the state legislature and who was briefly the head of the state Republican Party before everyone realized he is hard to get along with. On the plus side, Benton is the spitting image of the Mayor of Munchkinland from the 1939 Wizard of Oz. It's really weird. So that's good...
California has recruited Carly Fiorina and Tom Campbell and Meg Whitman to run this year. Those people have heft. They are stars. They have done important things. Where is our star?
One challenge in Washington is that Republicans don't get elected much here, certainly not near Seattle. So Republicans don't have the kind of candidates who often succeed in other states, who, let's say, have been in Congress for ten years and who have some statewide name recognition.
OK so where will our stars come from? I think the strong candidates will have to come from Seattle's business community. Most high tech business people are Dems but if someone with star power and heft is going to give Dems a run for their money in state-wide offices, it is going to have to be, in my opinion, someone from business, like a Mitt Romney or even a Maria Cantwell who was at Real.
Who is that person? Whoever it is, I hope they step forward soon!
In politics, like life in general, luck can be a factor. For most people it is not the most important factor, but random things happen that can cut for or against people. Hillary Clinton, for instance, has been a bit lucky. Ironically, Monica Lewinsky is the best thing that could have happened to Hillary career-wise. It transformed geeky and strident Hillary into a vulnerable and human person, and she might not have had a political career without it. She was also lucky when Rudy Giuliani pulled out of her first Senate race to leave Rick Lazio as her challenger.
Nita Lowey on the other hand, is unlucky. She probably would have been the Democratic candidate to replace Daniel Patrick Moynihan, rest his soul, in 2000. What are the odds that some random super celebrity from freakin' Arkansas would pop into the state and become the front runner for the Senate seat that was practically already hers?!?!? Well, stuff happens as they say. (Or...what is it they say? I know I'm close...)
Through amazing luck, Barbara Boxer has never faced a high quality opponent in her political career. Boxer has run against:
- Unrealistically conservative, scandal-plagued and ogresque Bruce Herschenson (won by 5)
- Matt "I have no charisma" Fong (won by 10) and
- Former California Secretary of State, Bill "Plain-as-my-name" Jones (won by 20)
You remember them, right??
Well, I suspect her luck has run out. Carly Fiorina has some star power. She ran a major company and she seems human and vulnerable because of her cancer scare. She is formidable. Tom Campbell was a respected congressman, he is politically moderate, he is substantive (a former professor at Stanford Law) and is well-regarded in California. I think against either candidate Boxer's campaigning weaknesses will be exposed and she will lose decisively in 2010. The one way the California Republican Party could keep Boxer's lucky streak going would be by nominating Chuck Devore, who is basically Bruce Herschenson II. He would lose by 10. Fiorina or Campbell, either one, will win by at least five.
Gosh if she's that lucky maybe we should keep her?
To the young, all issues and crises are new and unprecedented. To those of us who have been around a bit longer, you do begin to see patterns. One of these patterns is that every few years there comes along a tremendous crisis promoted by the media that threatens the world and demands immediate action. If we do not immediately respond, we will die, many innocents will die, we will all become unhealthy or the world as we know it will cease to be, or all of the above. Often (but not always) there is a moral component to the issue. It is caused by our sinfulness or is ignored only because of our complete moral debasement.
All of these things and many others I have forgotten or which were before my time, were to have destroyed the world and essentially came to nothing. It is very interesting that we apparently do not learn the lesson that we should be more skeptical.
Why do these things occur? Mostly because everyone we rely on to tell us what is going on is motivated to create a sense of crisis. I am referring of course to the media, the scientists and politicians. The media know that you will buy more papers, look at more web pages and watch more news on the TV if you are alarmed. Politicians know that if they can get on the right side of a crisis and "own the issue," they can raise more money and gain more loyal followers. Scientists are perhaps the most corrupt of all. They have devoted themselves to a certain field of study and by the time they are old enough to have a mortgage they realize that their prestige and finances depend largely on convincing everyone that their field of study is hugely important. Sadly, no one has a vested interest in debunking alarmist theories about the future, plus one feels like a bit of a party pooper to do so at all. People like their apocalyptic crises.
I can recall in the late 80s speaking with certain scientists at Harvard Medical School about the impending AIDs pandemic. If they could have convinced everyone that there was going to be a real pandemic, they would raise a lot of money for their school and for their own labs and projects. That's their bread and butter so they were highly motivated. Of course, as it turns out, AIDs has remained a niche disease with absolutely no relevance to the mainstream heterosexual, reasonably chaste, drug-free American.
Crises that attract fewer than three of the key manipulator groups (media, politicians, scientists) become less popular and have less staying power. Therefore Y2K didn't get quite as famous as Global Warming.
Global Warming is the king of them all because it promises goodness for all three camps, the media, politicians and scientists. It involves apocalyptic consequences, a major dose of moral disapproval and has the potential to direct plenteous grants into the coffers of universities until the very apocalypse it presages. The issue came to the fore at a particularly good time for the Democratic Party as, having abandoned welfare as a theme in the mid-90's and observing the decline of broad support for their pro-organized union message, they were very much looking for an issue to campaign on. Something that would really excite people with a fiery fervor! Global warming came just in time for them. In all it has the potential to be the ultimate corrupt bargain. Recently the proponents of Global Warming have tried to reposition their story around the term "Climate Change" so that they no longer have to stand behind predictions about anything other than the notion that the weather is likely to vary.
People are skeptical about global warming because the people who are promoting global warming have an investment in convincing everyone that it exists. Under those circumstances, it is sensible to be skeptical of any claims in its favor. Being skeptical of course does not mean that one will not under any circumstances believe it. After all, some crises, such as the sub-prime mortgage crisis, actually turn out to be real. But skepticism does require us, when we are told about a new apocalyptic crisis, to require proof and look at who is ringing the alarm before we believe.
The recent embarrassing revelations about data manipulation in Climategate make the case even stronger.
The GOP's image is divorced from its reality. Many people seem to believe that the GOP is the party of the wealthy, of monied interests plotting in board rooms and country clubs. I don't see it that way at all, voting patterns don't support that and policies don't support that. To understand how Republicans think of the Republican Party, and how I think the Republican Party should be understood, I think you have to look at it as the party of ideas. The Democratic Party certainly seems to think so, since that appears to be where they get all their new ideas. It seems to take about 20 years for the Dems to adopt republican insights.
The Democratic Party for many years has been focused on the set of policies laid out and partially implemented by President Johnson as the Great Society. Their loyalty to forcible wealth redistribution and strengthening unions has been strong. Therefore they haven't been the party of new ideas. They have ideas, but all of them would be entirely recognizable by John Dewey.
Republicans having been out of power for so long became the party of new ideas in the 70s and searched for new ways to accomplish societal goals, orienting themselves toward developing new solutions.
As Obama said in the 2008 campaign, “I think it’s fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10-15 years in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom.” (link)
What are we talking about?
Nuclear power
Republican idea: 1975
Democratic adoption: 2010 (Obama SOTU speech)
Time for Dems to catch up: 35 years
Teacher incentive pay
Republican idea: 1985
Democratic adoption: 2009 (Arne Duncan)
Time for Dems to catch up: 24 years
It is possible that the Republicans should not be labeled "conservative," as it is the Republicans who appear to be innovating and the Democrats who seem to be the conservative supporters of the old ways.
Seattle times story is here. State Senator and former chairman of the state Republican Party Don Benton is entering the race to oppose Patty Murray and try to become the West Coast Scott Brown. Six others have thrown their hat in already.
Early results from the Seattle Republican's four-pronged candidate rating system (all scores from 1-10):
Charisma: 3
Name recognition: 2
Political Experience: 7
Other life story elements: 3
As one of the fundamental planks of his foreign policy, Obama has resurrected nuclear disarmament talks with the Russians. As he said in Egypt:
No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons. That is why I strongly reaffirmed America's commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons.
I'll keep this short. We haven't been in a major war since we dropped the bomb. Mutual Assured Destruction has kept the peace for 60 years. Nuclear disarmament would greatly increase the temptation for aggressive countries eager to intimidate their neighbors or grab resources (yes, I am talking to you Russia!). It would lead to war.
Nuclear weapons are our friend. This is a perfect example by the way of democrats supporting policies because they feel right, not because they actually produce the right results, which I discussed here.
I am actually not a rabid, knee jerk, Obama basher/birther type. Let me disabuse you of that supposition straightaway. I basically have good will toward presidents because when they do well, we do well.
That said, the administration's "green jobs" and small business initiatives are misguided.
First, "green jobs." Green jobs is the kind of economic program someone who has never been in business would devise. Here's how it works. Certain entities (I am thinking of Microsoft, Intel, Apple, Google, Boeing and Amazon.com but you can think of whoever you want) make money. They're innovators. They have mastered the difficult task of investing in new technologies to create products that both please customers and turn a profit. These companies, and the experts who make them work, make the economy stronger by creating lasting businesses that employ people at high wages and at the same time provide for retirements and nest eggs everywhere. The government takes money from those entities, preventing them from reinvesting it. Instead the government spends it to pay people to do things that a rational investor or business manager or homeowner or whatever would ever pay for. Why won't people pay to have these green things done? Because they are not worth it. You wouldn't pay $50 to save $10 in heating bills would you? But if it's "green," then the green jobs program will pay for that. By paying for this green work, the government has turned the $50 it took from the innovating company, that would have gone to fund a new business, and turned it into $10. Like magic! The economy is now smaller and instead of creating jobs for more engineers to start tomorrow's businesses, we have trained more insulation installers...no offense.
I am sure that the green jobs program is very popular in high schools or generally in places where no one is very familiar with business. But it will hurt our economy. We should invest in green jobs when their are green technologies that actually create value.
Second, disproportionate favoritism for small business. Obama has announced lower capital gains taxes for investments in small businesses, plus graduated deductibility for small business investment in plant and equipment, plus $30 billion for community banks to lend to small businesses. I like the idea of reducing capital gains taxes in general, but government should not try to point capital in any particular direction. without government interference, capital where it will generate the most wealth for our economy. if it is going to create more value today to invest in a big business, let's let people do that. And if tomorrow it is time to buy plant and equipment and invest in small business, let them do that. If you mess with that flow, in the immortal words of Ned Beatty (well actually the writer Paddy Chaefsky) in Network, "you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale." Or more plainly, you have taken money from successful companies and used it to distort make our national investment flow less rational and less effective. We all come out poorer for it.
My advice? Stop. Stop spending. Resist the impulse to come up with increasingly clever ways to pump up this and that. Take a breath. Take a little vacay. Let the people who know how to create value for the long term keep their money so that they can create value and good jobs for the long term. Find something presidential to do that does not involve the economy (or maybe foreign policy, but more on that another time).
