The Review
(
Review) the editors of the Washington Post say that the Bush administration is beginning to show signs of drift. They are, therefore, calling for more decisive leadership.
I suspect, however, that the president were to begin showing signs of decisive leadership, it would be of a type the Washington Post would find distasteful.
(
Review) MARK STEYN says that the "Dirty Bomber", JOSE PADILLA, is a person of no particular significance.
The big fish are still out there.
(
Review) BILL O'REILLY is upset with the Europeans.
Well, frankly, so am I. The Europeans have become so giddy over their achievement in keeping themselves from killing eath other for so long by talking things out among themselves, that they've come to beleive in the fantasy that such policies will work equally well outside of Europe. They seem to have forgotten that the only reason the current political order works in europe is because we invaded Europe's chief troublemaking countries, destroyed their militaries, occupied their capitals, tried and executed their leaders, and then imposed democracy upon them by force.
Having failed to learn those lessons, the Europeans tend now to prefer policies remarkably similar to those they pursued towards Germany in the 1930s to ill effect.
I guess some people never learn.
(
Review) LOREN THOMPSON weighs in on The Bush Doctrine for the Wall Street Journal. He makes some points similar to the one I make in my TCS piece, and places similar emphasis on the political will necessary to make the doctrine a success:
[M]ost fundamentally, the Bush Doctrine will require the will to act. That means more than investing in new war plans and command systems. It means investing time in explaining to Congress and the public why first strikes will be required, so that when the time comes to act popular sentiment does not get in the way of military necessity. Although the president and his advisers are deeply committed to taking the initiative against emergent threats, they have not done enough to explain to the public what this may soon entail.
The president will take heat from the Usual Suspects when he orders pre-emptive strikes. He can't let that deter him from doing what is necessary. No matter how much it might disturb the professional worriers, some people just need to be whacked. It isn't nice, but it's the world we live in.
(
Review) The gun control lobby is characterizing Maryland gubernatorial candidate ROBERT ERLICH as an extremist. Why? He has the temerity to beleive that the Second Amendment confers an individual right for Americans to own firearms.
Just like those other wild-eyed extremists, like liberal constitutional scholars SANFORD LEVINSON and LAWRENCE TRIBE.
Damn whackos...
(
Review) STUART ROTHENBERG isn't any more impressed by the credentials of celebrities who testify before Congress than I am. Case in point: The Backstreet Boys' KEVIN RICHARDSON.
His primary qualification to speak knowledgeably about the environment is that girls seem to to think he's hot. I mean,
really hot.
For the most part, celebrities in the entertainment world simply aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer. Why a natural ability to pretend to be someone else for six weeks during a movie shoot qualifies someone to testify before Congress is simply beyond me.
(
Review) More warnings about the essential weakness of the US economic recovery can be found in today's statements by former Fed Governor LAURENCE MEYER. According to UPI:
Equity prices have been hard hit over the past two years, and it will likely only be a matter of time before foreign interest in U.S. assets takes a tumble too, a former senior Federal Reserve official warned Friday.
However if foreign direct investment into the United States were to drop rapidly, then it would lead to a sharp decline in the dollar's value, making the current account deficit unsustainable, and lead the U.S. economy into a downward spiral, argued Laurence Meyer, who was a Fed governor until earlier this year.
"Productivity and speculative excesses are why there has been no correction in the foreign exchange rate," said Meyer, speaking at a conference on the market risks and policy responses of the U.S. current account deficit.
I have argued several times over the past few months about the underlying weakness in the current recovery. To briefly review my reasoning:
1)
Too much consumer debt: American consumers have been on a spending spree, and household debt is fairly high. Eventually, those bills are going to come due. American business did a fairly good job of clearing off their balance sheets during the recession. Consumers, unfortunately, have not. While that helped to make the recession briefer--and shallower--than most, one wonders how long consumers can keep spending.
2)
A growing current account deficit: The investment climate in the US isn't all that good any more. The stock and bond markets have been moribund for the last year. If this stops capital inflow, then the demand for dollars will drop sharply, reducing its price. That means that imports will become more expensive causing prices to rise. Already, the price of the Euro has risen from 85 cents in January to 92 cents today. Eventually, a lower dollar means higher prices, and that means slower economic growth.
The Bush administration, however, has pointedly dismissed the growing current account deficit as a source of concern. In fact, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill has repeatedly stated to date that a sustained increase in imports over exports only highlights the attractiveness of U.S. markets to overseas investors, which is unlikely to change.
"The U.S. financial market is deeper than that in Europe or Japan," given that the United States is by nature more diverse and easier to invest in than other countries, said the International Monetary Fund's chief economist Kenneth Rogoff. "When capital markets are deeper, a run on the current account deficit can have a different effect" than in other nations, he added.
Well, yes it
can. But no well is bottomless. At the end of the day, foreign investors are not going to be keen on losing money in moribund US markets, as they have been for the last two years. So if they start to sell off their dollar-denominated investments, and exchange them for Euros, or Yen, then the current account deficit
will matter, because instead of buying dollars for investments, which offsets the current account deficit, those dollar sales will magnify it.
So I'm a lot less cavalier about the current account deficit than the Treasury Secretary is in an atmosphere where US investments are declining in value.
(
Review) My TechCentralStation article on the Bush Administration's policy of pre-emption is up.
(
Review) Islam is a religion of peace II.
(
Review) Islam is a religion of peace.
(
Review) I picked this up via
Pejman. He asked for voluteers, and I decided to give it a shot.
The folks over at
The Nation have divined a new obstacle to their plans for encouraging the masses of the proletariat to rise and take their vengeance against the running-dog lackeys of the capitalist-imperialist forces.
Gay Conservatives.
Let's a take a closer look at this little article by RICHARD GOLDSTEIN, shall we?
If the very concept of an out-and-proud conservative seems like an oxymoron, you haven't been following the gay right's march across the American media. In a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey, 66 percent of lesbians and gay men called themselves liberal and only 7 percent said they were conservative. Yet the loudest queer voices belong to homocons.
Homocons...don't seem all that conservative. The fact that they are out and proud can make their most reactionary ravings seem vaguely progressive, and they maintain the illusion by the enemies they keep. The gay right is as fiercely opposed to religious fundamentalism as it is to queer theory, and this dual repudiation allows homocons to position themselves as independents whose only agenda is speaking "common sense." They pose as free thinkers fighting the orthodoxies of both the left and right. In fact, homocons are neither independent nor individualistic. They are neoconservatives in every respect--or would be were it not for the issue of homosexuality.
Well, first, if only 7% of homosexuals consider themselves to be conservatives, then that seems to indicate a certain individualism within the Gay community. But, of course, that doesn't count. Homosexuals can only be free-thinkers if they are Leftists. The Left's idea of a free-thinker is a person who espouses the Left's orthodoxy.
Notice the language, too:
They pose as free thinkers fighting the orthodoxies of both the left and right. They aren't really being honest, you see. It is just a pose. In fact, those homocons are damned liars, pretending to be "common sense" conservatives when they are really...GASP...plain old conservatives. The treachery, the treachery. Why, before you know it, some of those homosexuals will start claiming to be
Libertarians! Then where will we be?
[T]he neat, discreet look that homocons favor is part of a larger crusade against the things that make gay people distinct. To be virtually normal is to present your gender in the customary way. The many variations that don't fit this mold--bull dykes, sissies, trannies and fairies, to name just a few queer types--are an embarrassment to the gay right. And so are queers, proudly known as "sluts," who don't conform to the monogamous model. The gay right is not just an ideology; it's an attitude toward difference. Homocons may pose as nonconformists, but they push a single, morally correct way to be gay.
Clue for the boys and girls at
The Nation: There are a lot of heterosexual behaviors that are not generally held to be morally correct either. Wife-swapping, promiscuity, serial adultery, prostitution. I mean, really, heterosexual monogamy has about the same moral force as homosexual monogamy. In general, a sexual life that is based on monogamous caring is morally superior to a sexual life in which others are treated as mere sex toys.
But, of course, the left doesn't see it that way, in that the Left disapproves of relationships that ameliorate the relationship between the individual and the collective, that is to say, the State. People who are more concerned about, say, their partners than they are about their ideology, are a danger to the collective.
There is, after all, a reason why socialist states have tried to eliminate personal associations that the state did not control. Social man is atomized, and cut off from much social interaction when the personal becomes political. Indeed, the supreme irony of the Leftist ideal is that--even though it promises to unify man in an egalitarian brotherhood--by politicizing personal life, specific, personal relationships are subordinated to obedience to the collective, resulting in an atomistic society.
The queer community is the spawn of a marriage between socialism and bohemianism more than a century ago. This heady union, which begat gay liberation, has been all but ignored by the culture. We hear little about Edward Carpenter, the nineteenth-century British socialist who touted the revolutionary potential of "homogenic love," and what we hear about Oscar Wilde has more to do with his aesthetic genius than with his political program, which included sexual liberation. The key role German socialists played in fostering queer culture in the Weimar Republic was left out of Cabaret, and Spike Lee has yet to make a film that mentions the alliance between the Black Panthers and the Gay Liberation Front. Since the radical roots of gay liberation have been suppressed, young people coming out have only a glancing sense of where their community comes from. They aren't aware that queer culture is the waking incarnation of a socialist dream.
Nor would being aware of that fact make them any more well-disposed toward socialism. Free people tend to reject socialism because of the inherent faults in it, and the eventual poverty and slavery it imposes on those who live under it.
Gays aren't attracted to the left because they accept the entirety of the Left's political beliefs. They are attracted to it because it tends to be more congenial toward homosexuality, and offers a political base from which homosexual issues can be addressed. But, to the extent that gays are politically liberated and publicly accepted, their need to remain bolted to the left will be reduced. Other issues will then become relatively more important to gays, and a significant number of them will not be enchanted by the Left's political stand on those issues.
By the same token, to the extent that the conservative movement becomes more congenial to gays, the more gay conservatives there will be.
Until recently, there was no way for homosexuals to be out and successful. They might be closeted and famous or openly gay and under siege. But in the wake of the gay movement's success, there's now a place at the liberal table for a certain kind of homosexual. These recently rehabilitated outcasts should look and act like the other guests, except for a telltale tone of voice or a certain sparkle in the eyes. In other words, they must come as close as possible to expressing the heterosexual norm while identifying themselves as homosexual. This is where being out comes in. It maintains the boundary between straight and gay, allowing the pariah to enter society on terms that affirm the order.
Well...yes. Just as heterosexual prostitutes, or flagrantly promiscuous heterosexuals are not admitted into polite society. Heterosexuals who do not come close to the heterosexual norm aren't admitted into polite society either. The price for admission into polite society is a willingness to abide by standards of moderation and sobriety, or at least discretion. This standard is the same whether one is heterosexual or homosexual.
Though the largest gay political organization, the Human Rights Campaign, has been known to endorse Republicans (most notoriously Al D'Amato), the movement as a whole is bound to the Democratic Party, and so are the majority of gay voters, about 70 percent of whom chose Al Gore in 2000. The reason for this allegiance--regardless of class interests--is queer humanism. As long as this tradition and the community that embodies it remain intact, homocons will have a hard time claiming the mainstream. The gay right exists, just as Jews for Jesus do, but it stands apart from the ethos that marks gays as a people. You can't really be a queer humanist and a homocon.
Well, no of course not. Because "authentic" queers must be leftists. Just like "authentic" blacks, or "authentic" feminists. Those that do not toe the ideological line cannot be authentic. They are simply traitors.
I am reminded of the French Revolution, whose original leaders were guillotined by their revolutionary successors for the crime of "inauthenticity". To the left, authenticity is very serious, and departures from it must be...punished.
Why should progressives care about the queer community? Not just because it has long been part of the left, but because it may not always be. As homophobia becomes a less formative force--at least for the most fortunate gay people--all the old ways of thinking are up for grabs. The flexibility that marks gay culture is bound to express itself in politics, and a time is coming when the most dynamic gay voices will find a much broader audience. The Netherlands may be a special place, but Pim Fortuyn's success prefigures an era when the creative energies of gay people can take them very far. The message they send could help renew the left--or strengthen its enemies.
And this is the key, isn't it? Notice the last sentence, and the reference to "enemies". There you have the leftist idea of political opposition. Political opponents are not people of good faith, but who simply happen to disagree with you. They are, as Goldstein writes, the enemy.
And we all know what the Left does to "enemies" when they get the power to do so, don't we? At best they are "re-educated".
Final note to the folks at
The Nation: The Soviet Union collapsed. You might want to inquire as to why.
(
Review) PEGGY NOONAN has some suggestions for the president to consider while setting up the New Homeland Security Department.
First, put RUDY GIULIANI in charge of it. Second, dump the word "Homeland". As Noonan puts it:
The second thing Mr. Bush should do is change the name. The name Homeland Security grates on a lot of people, understandably. Homeland isn't really an American word, it's not something we used to say or say now. It has a vaguely Teutonic ring--Ve must help ze Fuehrer protect ze Homeland!
--and Republicans must always be on guard against sounding Teutonic.
The "homeland" thing has been bugging me, too.
(
Review) NICK KRISTOFF says that the specter of nuclear war over Kashmir may have receded for the moment, it hasn't receded very far.
But while Don Rumsfeld's relentless squinting at leaders here and in New Delhi may help stave off war for now, it still threatens just down the road. And that threat makes Pakistan an eerie place, with the flavor of the languid European summer of 1914.
Well.
That doesn't sound very good.
But you gotta love the "relentless squinting" remark.
(
Review) More on
The Al-Muhajir Confinement (Yes,
Glenn, it DOES sound like a Ludlum title) from JOHN PODHORETZ. He seems a bit conflicted about it, too.
(
Review) JONAH GOLDBERG argues that "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla's rights may have been violated, but that it also may be the right thing to do.
I'm very iffy on this "enemy combatant" stuff. My first inclination is to question any government policy that infringes on civil rights. At the same time, I recognize that terrorists are a different kind of enemy, and a scrupulous attention to civil rights may have the effect of increasing the death toll from terrorism.
I'm still thinking this through.
(
Review) RYAN LIZZA writes in The New Republic that, thanks to GEORGE W. BUSH the "Era of Big Government" is back.
(
Review) JOHN DERBYSHIRE writes in NRO why the Islamofascists hate us:
There's a response that I get rather often from Arab readers to this line of talk. It goes more or less as follows: "What do you expect? Of course the Arab world is politically backward. You Americans installed those regimes! You maintain them! The people of Saudi Arabia etc. would love to get rid of their horrid despotic rulers, but America won't let them! If Saudis tried to overthrow their monarchy and establish a popular government, the U.S.A. would move in to stop it! It's all America's fault! "
The first thing to be said about this argument is that a lot of intelligent-sounding Arabs (and Pakistanis, and assorted others) believe it — I get half a dozen e-mails a week along these lines. The second thing to be said is that, taken as a thesis in political science, it is dog poop.
There's lot's more in the article, and it's all good.
(
Review) MARK STEYN, in his own inimitable style, takes on the Bush Administration's apparent willingness to abandon principle at the drop of a hat if they can theorize any potential political gain by doing so.
So here he is six months later jettisoning principles all over the swing states. I object to the farm bill, and the steel tariffs, and the softwood lumber duties, all of which impose costs on American consumers. And the more Republican sophists explain the logic behind them, the less sense they make. The steel tariffs, a wily GOP insider told me, aren't just about boosting Bush's chances in Pennsylvania and the like, but rather about getting union support for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Er, OK, if you say so. But why complicate matters? Instead of abandoning core principles, wouldn't it be easier to, say, give some speeches? If you can't sell the country on the need for additional domestic oil resources when you're at war with a bunch of Islamofascists from the Middle East, when can you? Wouldn't it be more efficient to fly to Alaska and do a walkabout with all the locals who are itching for the drilling to start? And, while you're at it, give a speech out on the ugly barren wasteland the eco-loonies have declared inviolable while getting pecked to pieces by the world's biggest mosquito herd, whose needs apparently outrank those of the American people.
Ever since September 11th, Bush defenders have said he feels that, with the country at war, he needs to take the high road. But sticking it to your opponents once in a while is the high road compared to selling out every basic conservative principle for the tenuous possibility of some barely related political advantage.
Abandoning one's principles at the drop of a hat is a pretty good prescription for a one-term presidency.
(
Review) PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH writes that the devil is in the details when it comes to the new Department of homeland security. It's a good idea to have such a department, but it must be done properly:
Reorganization of the bureaucracy could go a long way towards better preparing the United States in the war against terrorism. To the extent that serious substantive and procedural questions about the new Department of Homeland Security are thoroughly answered, and to the degree that such a Department encourages the consolidation and efficiency of the country's war against terrorism, its creation could be of assistance in making the world safer for Americans, and less safe for those who wish us ill. To the extent, however, that the Homeland Security measure further bureaucratizes the security structure, fails to address jurisdiction problems, and fails to take a proactive stance against terrorism, this new reorganization will not be worth the reams of paper that will record and legislate it.
That's the bottom line. Hopefully, the former will turn out to be the case, instead of the latter.
(
Review) An open letter condemning the war on terror has been released by the Usual Suspects. I would deconstruct it, but its the same Lefty cant, so why bother?
SHAMELESS PLUG: My newest op/ed should be up on TechCentralStation tomorrow.
(
Review) The Ohio Supreme Court has reinstated a lawsuit that Cincinnati filed against gunmakers in an attempt to recoup the cost of gun-related violence.
Chief Justice Thomas Moyer disagreed, saying the alleged injuries Cincinnati suffered were too far removed from the conduct of gunmakers to give the city the ability to sue gun manufacturers.
"In many instances the weapon used in a crime is never recovered," Moyer said. "How, under these circumstances, can the city prove that the weapon involved was either illegal or in the hands of an unauthorized user?"
Of course, the purpose of such gun lawsuits is not to prove such claims. The purpose is merely to use the law to drive gun companies out of business.
Shakespeare was right.
(
Review) Oh, by the way, the ABM treaty died today. Good riddance.
(
Review) SGT STRYKER is bored. He decides to play "The Sims" computer game. Hilarity ensues.
Thanks to
Pejman for pointing this out.
(
Review) LARRY ELDER weighs in on the BONO/PAUL O'NEILL poverty tour of Africa:
Bono, like many spread-the-wealth-they-have-so-little-because-America-has-so-much types, leads with his heart, not his head. Throwing money at countries with failed leadership not only fails to change the underlying reasons for poverty, but also simply allows failed governments to remain in power. In 1993, the U.S. Agency for International Development said, "Much of the investment financed by USAID and other donors between 1960 and 1980 has disappeared without a trace." Five years ago, the Cato Institute's Doug Bandow wrote, "Since World War II, the United States alone has contributed more than $1 trillion (in 1997 dollars) in bilateral and multilateral assistance. . . . Many aid recipients have been losing ground economically. An amazing 70 (countries) are poorer than they were in 1980; 43 are worse off than they were in 1970."
Africans are not poor because of hideous colonialism, or because the West has exploited them and taken all their money. Africans are poor because their government leaders have been either Marxists, or warlord/thugs. No matter how much money we give them, African nations will always be grindingly poor until they institute the rule of law, and free-market economies.
No amount of bleeding-heart charity will ever make it otherwise.
(
Review) LARRY KUDLOW says that ALAN GREENSPAN is following the right monetary policy course by keeping cash flowing into the system.
I think he's right. The current recovery is weak for a variety of reasons, many of which I've discussed previously here. Increases in productivity have also kept inflation at bay. For the moment, a loose monetary policy is the best way to go.
(
Review) Well, this is interesting. It seems that there is a version of "The Weakest Link" in Arab countries. Like the U.S. and English versions, it is hosted by a sharp-tongued lady.
Arab men, evidently, are not amused by sharp-lounged ladies. Not amused at all.
(
Review) A former president of the Southern Baptist denomination refers to the Prophet Mohammed, founder of Islam, as "a demon-possessed pedophile".
Hilarity ensues.
(
Review) JANE GALT has an excellent little essay on her blog about Japan's current economic problems.
Japan's current economic crisis illustrates some of the fundamental problems with traditional Keynesian economic analysis. I could go into a lot more detail, but why? She's already done a fabulous job of it.
(
Review) JOHAN NORBERG explains why Sweden serves as a living example of how welfare state socialism kills an economy. All that stuff about how the Swedes can be affluent and have socialism at the same time is a bunch of hooey. You can be affluent, or you can have socialism. Pick one.
(
Review) JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA writes about the death penalty for First Things, in a rather lengthy--and very good--essay, entitled "God's Justice and Ours". Among other things, he says:
If I subscribed to the proposition that I am authorized (indeed, I suppose compelled) to intuit and impose our "maturing" society's "evolving standards of decency," this essay would be a preview of my next vote in a death penalty case. As it is, however, the Constitution that I interpret and apply is not living but dead--or, as I prefer to put it, enduring. It means today not what current society (much less the Court) thinks it ought to mean, but what it meant when it was adopted. For me, therefore, the constitutionality of the death penalty is not a difficult, soul-wrenching question. It was clearly permitted when the Eighth Amendment was adopted (not merely for murder, by the way, but for all felonies--including, for example, horse-thieving, as anyone can verify by watching a western movie). And so it is clearly permitted today. There is plenty of room within this system for "evolving standards of decency," but the instrument of evolution (or, if you are more tolerant of the Court's approach, the herald that evolution has occurred) is not the nine lawyers who sit on the Supreme Court of the United States, but the Congress of the United States and the legislatures of the fifty states, who may, within their own jurisdictions, restrict or abolish the death penalty as they wish.
Good stuff.
(
Review) Flashbunny has a cool flash presentation that describes the falsity of the "gun show loophole".
(
Review) As DAHLIA LITHWICK writes in Slate, there are a lot of troubling things about the case of JOSE PADILLA, aka ABDULLAH AL-MUJAHIR. As she puts it:
The prospect of indefinite military detention is alarming. For starters, al-Muhajir is an American, and by detaining him without the right of habeas corpus, the state has denied fundamental constitutional rights. The "legal precedent" cited by the government for placing him in military custody applies only when military tribunals are at issue. It's not a legal basis for indefinite military detention without the opportunity for trial. (Eugene Volokh has a good, fast rundown today on the pros and cons of military trials and detention.) In fact the reason al-Muhajir has been shunted into the military system as opposed to the civil one has nothing to do with affording him the lesser protections afforded to POWs or "enemy combatants" before military tribunals. It's about stuffing him into a secret system from which no civil court can yank him back.
The only consistent pattern so far in our choices about where and how to detain suspected terrorists seems to be that we allow them to go to civilian trial only when we think we have enough evidence to convict them, while those with flimsier evidence are locked up indefinitely and denied access to counsel.
But even in the face of all this unconstitutional jiggery-pokery, the more alarming prospect is letting men like al-Muhajir walk.
That's the kicker, isn't it? These are dangerous guys, and letting them walk around free because we can't convict them exposes thousands of Americans to peril.
I don't have any answers, either.
(
Review) NIKOLAS GVODSEV has written an excellent analysis of the types of change needed to keep NATO relevant in the post-Cold War world. A must read.
(
Review) Historian VICTOR DAVIS HANSON says that, instead the language of democratic confidence, not fear of terrorism, is needed. Rather than ROBERT MUELLER throwing up his hands and saying terrorist attacks are inevitable, what needs to be said is something like, "We pledge to make sure there are no more September 11ths -- but if we are wrong, let the world know that this time the consequences for those who committed or abetted such murder are going to be too terrible to contemplate."
In other words, show some stones, people.
(
Review) THOMAS FRIEDMAN says that the Iranians, in general, want to re-open ties with the US. According to Friedman:
Last year the Iranian hard-liners decided to completely renovate the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, which had not been touched since Iranian students took it over in 1979. The idea was to turn it into a museum for the revolution. The museum opened last Nov. 4, but nobody came, so now it's closed again. Most Iranians don't want a U.S. Embassy museum. They want a U.S. Embassy.
In short, I don't know what the final outcome will be, but I do know this: If Secretary of State Colin Powell were to announce tomorrow that he was ready to fly to Tehran and put everything on the table--an end to sanctions, Iran's nuclear program, its support for Palestinian terrorists, diplomatic relations--he would light this place on fire.
The Islamic Republic, of course, has much to answer for. But some sort of rapprochement may be in order, especially if the Iranians can be turned away from terrorism and channeled into more...productive pursuits. One thing is sure, after 20 years under the Mullahs, the Iranians seem to have come to the conclusion that there
are worse things than the Shah, after all.
(
Review) A majority of Palestinians believe the aim of their 20-month-old uprising should be to eliminate Israel and not just end Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, an opinion poll released Tuesday showed.
Anyone who believes the Palestinians have any other goal besides the elimination of Israel is a fool.
(
Review) Senator CONRAD BURNS (R-MT) wants the US government to take control over ICANN, so the the Feds can control the DNS system.
Is there anything that government leeches don't want to get their hands into? I mean, ANYTHING?
There isn't a dime's worth of difference between the Republicans and the Democrats, except they want the government to control different things. Neither party really believes in liberty any more.
(
Review) The Republicans killed the Federal Hate Crimes bill on the floor of the Senate today.
Good.
First, hate crimes are local matters, not federal matters, so it's none of the Federal Government's business. Second, hate crimes increase prison sentences based on what the perpetrator was thinking. So, if you rob and kill someone for their money, you get a lighter sentence than if you rob and kill someone because you had impure thoughts.
I don't like the idea of the government prosecuting people for their thoughts.
(
Review) *Sigh* House Democrats are suing GEORGE W. BUSH in an effort to block the president from withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
Never mind that we got the Russians to agree to scrap the damned thing. Never mind that these are some of the same people that predicted leaving the ABM treaty would get us in all sorts of hot water. They don't want it scrapped because it means we can legally begin building a ballistic missile defense.
And defending the US from a missile attack is the last thing these people want.
That's the left for you. Morons and moral idiots.
(
Review) Well, it looks like the outgoing Clinton Administration staff
did vandalize the White House after all.
(
Review) RICHARD COHEN says that we cannot afford to ignore Europe in our war against terror. We just can't.
Oh, really? Well, why not?
I mean seriously, it's not like we need any military assistance. And, considering that the Europeans probably couldn't organize a successful panty raid at a girl's dormitory, it wouldn't be much use to us even if we wanted it.
The Europeans have spent the last 50 years getting their own little European Union built, while relying on US protection. Because we were willing to send our boys out to various pestholes around the world while keeping the Commies at bay, they could create their little Euro fantasy land, in which all problems could be solved by talking them out.
You know, really getting into one another's heads, man.
But, back here in the real world, there are nasty people who need to be whacked, and evidently, we're the only ones with either the strength or the will to do it. If the Euros don't want to help, then fine. They can all get back to staring at their own navels in Brussels, and pretending that the sonorous and self-righteous phrases that CHRIS PATTEN and his ilk periodically generate out of Belgium actually matter. They can concentrate on the "European Project", and stay out of everybody else's way.
(
Review) WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY writes that every air traveller in America knows that airline security is an oxymoron.
Or perhaps that airline security workers are morons. He recounts the following amusing tale from DAVID BRENNER (who has been on a bit of a rampage about this himself):
"Brenner speaks of the tall man with a moustache who checked in carrying a magnum automatic pistol, fully loaded. He got by the inspectors in the matter of the firearm, because he had a permit exactly describing and authorizing the weapon. The searcher then turned to a manicure set and removed from it a clipper, used to trim the traveler's moustache. He was told he would have to give up the clipper and have it mailed to his home address. This made the man with the moustache indignant. He demanded to know the reason for it. He was told that the moustache trimmer could be used as a weapon in any effort to take control of the plane. Surely, he protested finally, if he wanted to take over the plane by force, he would use his magnum pistol, not his moustache trimmer. And anyway, why would he try to take control of the plane, since he was already in control of the plane, serving in his capacity as captain?"
(
Review) WILLIAM SALETAN says not to worry about the prospect of a radiological conventional bomb. Not because one won't blow up somewhere, but because it's really not as dangerous as the panic:
"The dirty bomb is bad, but the radiation it spreads is limited and can be cleaned up. Unlike a nuke, it doesn't have a physical chain reaction to magnify its destruction. It requires a human chain reaction. It requires ignorance, fear, and panic."
So, for God's sake, get a grip on yourselves, people.
(
Review) Economist BRUCE BARTLETT comments on the recent moves by the Manhattan District Attorney to indict corporate officials who relocate their companies out of NY state:
"Last week, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau raised the stakes dramatically in the debate on corporate tax inversions. He is now threatening to criminally prosecute corporations that reduce their New York taxes by relocating their legal residences to a foreign country.
"The message to other corporate executives with companies based in New York could not be clearer: Those who try to save taxes for their shareholders by reincorporating abroad run the risk of going to jail. The effect was suddenly to criminalize a public policy debate that has been going on in Washington for some months. It also makes a mockery of the longstanding and well-understood difference between legal tax avoidance and illegal tax evasion.
"In a famous 1947 case, the great Judge Learned Hand strenuously defended the right of all taxpayers, including corporations, to use all the legal resources at their disposal to pay as little taxes as possible. 'Nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: Taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions,' Hand wrote. 'To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant.'"
We must dump the income tax system. It gives the government to much knowledge about us, and too much control over our lives.
Once you have agreed in principle that the government has the right to exact whatever part of income from you that it chooses to take, then you have, in principle, given the government the power to take every penny you earn. If you don't agree, then just look at how tax rates have increased over time.
(
Review) The editors of the NY Post are advocating a "shoot first, ask questions later" policy in dealing with terror-supporting nations.
All things considered, I agree.
(
Review) Well, it looks there'll be no nuclear war on the Indian subcontinent for the present. They may be crazy, but, evidently, they aren't stupid.
(
Review) Even after discounting PAUL KRUGMAN's automatic inclination to despise nearly everything about the Bush Administration, the central point of his column in the NY Times today is valid: GEORGE W. BUSH is willing to sacrifice principles for political advantage.
Certainly, in economic terms, the Bush Administration has utterly abandoned any principled free trade policy. Despite all the criticism of BILL CLINTON for driving his policies almost entirely by poll, the fact is that, when it came to economic policy, the Clinton Administration--while far from perfect--has the courage to cross traditional Democratic constituencies like Organized Labor when it came to free trade. Clinton took quite a lot of heat over NAFTA, for example, and he pushed it through anyway.
As Krugman puts it:
"As analysts at the Cato Institute point out, the Bush-Cheney energy plan may have been conservative in the sense that it was anti-environmentalist, but otherwise it was stuffed full of things free-marketeers are supposed to abhor: expanded government power to seize private land (for transmission lines), large tax incentives for energy sources that don't pay their way at market prices (nuclear power in particular). The energy plan wasn't about principles; it was about payback.
"And if the administration won't take a stand on principle, who will?"
That is a very good question.
(
Review) I mentioned yesterday that I was troubled about the Bush Administration's decision to transfer custody of JOSE PADILLA--aka ABDULLAH AL-MUHAJIR--to the Department of Defense as an "enemy combatant". The editors of the Washington Post are equally troubled, and they state the case succinctly and accurately:
"The government's dilemma here is real. People bent on bringing terrorism to the United States, even U.S. citizens, must be stopped. Prevention may require acting before a suspect has actually committed a crime, or while the evidence is highly classified. It seems suicidal to argue that the government should have to release people bent on detonating dirty bombs.
"Yet the government's actions in this latest case cut against basic elements of life under the rule of law. If its positions are correct, nothing would prevent the president -- even in the absence of a formal declaration of war -- from designating any American as an enemy combatant. Without proving the correctness of the charge before a court, the military could then detain that person forever. And having done so, it could prevent that detainee from hiring a lawyer to argue that the government, in fact, has it all wrong. If that's the case, nobody's constitutional rights are safe. The administration owes the country a more thoughtful balance; Congress's role -- the patriotic thing to do -- is to help find it."
Padilla's a bad guy, no question. But he IS an American citizen, and I'm uncomfortable with the Bush Administration arrogating the power to nullify a person's citizenship.
(
Review) So, the FBI has picked up ABDULLAH AL-MUHAJIR, the artist formerly known as JOSE PADILLA, as part of an FBI plot to blow up a radiological bomb somewhere in the US. Now, the story about this has an interesting twist. According to MSNBC, "a Justice Department official, who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said that under U.S. legal rules, al-Muhajir can be held indefinitely as an enemy soldier."
Now, this guy is an American citizen, who has now been turned over to the DOD, to be held without charges, and without bail. So, just out of curiosity, how does a US Citizen lose his right to a lawyer, to a hearing, or to have charges filed? I got a copy of the Constitution around here somewhere that says criminal defendants have rights that the Government must respect.
This troubles me a
lot! Can the government just declare me to be an enemy combatant, and strip me of my rights? Uh, no, I don't think so.
But that's what they're doing to Padilla/Muhajir.
(
Review) DON FEDER writes, "you can always tell it's an election year when Democrats begin demagoguing on Social Security."
I don't know what bothers me worse, that the Democrats pull out the stops on the "Mediscare" tactics, or that so many people just accept their claims with a sheep-like acceptance.
(
Review) Hindsight is not, as JONAH GOLDBERG points out, 20/20:
"Take the current brouhaha over the September 11 attacks. It's funny how so many people can pay lip service to the idea that hindsight is 20/20 while simultaneously arguing about what actually happened. There are folks encamped on every square of the blame game, from those who see 9/11 as inevitable and unpredictable to those who say it was not only preventable but that it was so obvious that it could only have happened if the president of the United States was in on the murderous conspiracy. And yet, with few exceptions, these folks declare with secular piety, 'We all know that hindsight is 20/20.'"
(From
Review) DANIEL PIPES has written a fascinating article about the impact of the 911 attacks in the Muslim world. Is a fairly long and comprehensive essay not only about that impact, but also build into the historical roots of Islam's hatred of the West. He extrapolates from this the policy implications of Muslim anger, and the appropriate U.S. policy response:
"The implication is clear: There is no substitute for victory. If the U.S. government wishes to weaken its strategic enemy, militant Islam, it must take two steps. First, continue the war on terror globally, using appropriate means, starting with Afghanistan but going on to wherever militant Islam poses a threat, in Muslim-majority countries (such as Saudi Arabia), in Muslim-minority countries (such as the Philippines), and even in the United States itself. As this effort brings success, secondly Washington should promote moderate Muslims. Not only will they represent a wholesome change from the totalitarianism of militant Islam but they, and they alone, can address the trauma of Islam and propose ideas that will ease the way for one sixth of humanity fully to modernize."
Good stuff.
