the-rubber-stamp

Losing "friends" through weakness

2006-08-14T15:48:00.000-07:00

One recent miscalculation is particularly helpful in demonstrating that many on the left are incapable of grasping the enemy that we face in the war on terror. In the early days of the Israeli-Lebanese front of the war on terror many people were surprised to find that other Arab states were supporting Israel. As the war progressed this support waned. Liberals pointed to the change in the Arab’s attitude as a sign that the Israeli’s were using disproportionate force. This belief is 180 degrees out of line with the truth. The reason why Israeli’s neighbors turned their back on the Israeli effort is not because they were showing too much strength. It was because they were showing too much weakness. The Arab states abandoned Israel because they started to see the handwriting on the wall; Israel was not going to destroy Hizbolah and hand Iran and Syria a stinging defeat. Arab feared the backlash they would face from both their own people and an emboldened Hizbolah if they faced the losing side. Contrary to the mythology Israel alienated its newfound "friends" not because it was too aggressive, but because it was not aggressive enough.

On the "Arab street" it is very dangerous to show any sign of weakness. Saudi Arabia was one country that turned from supporting Israel to condemning it. The Saudi royal family, Honsi Mubarak and King Abdullah did initially not support Israel because they cared about the kidnapped Israeli soldiers, or because they feared for the residents of Northern Israel. They supported Israel because they wanted to see Hizbolah destroyed. Iran and its proxy Hizbolah are sworn enemies of those regimes just as much as they the enemies Israel. It is Iran’s ultimate goal to establish one Shiite Islamic state (caliphate) that spreads across the entire Middle East. In order to achieve that ultimate goal they will have to conquer any state ruled by a secular regime (Egypt) or another sect of Islam (Saudi Arabia). In the recent years we have seen an unprecedented amount of cooperation between the different sects of Islam in order to fight against the West, but that does nothing to lessen the undercurrents of hatred between the groups. The governments of those states understand that if Iran is able to dominate the Middle East, that cooperation will immediately come to an end. Iran wants to wage a war against the world. They are willing to do so with the cooperation of other Islamic states but they would much rather do so as the head of an empire that includes the territories and people’s of all of those former countries. That is why it is so vitally important to the leaders of countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan that they not show any sign of weakness that Iran can capitalize on. That is why it is vitally important to them that they do not throw in their lot with a loser.

Arab dictators need to fear showing weakness not only to Iran, but to their own people as well. The first goal of a dictator is to safeguard his own power, and thereby his own life. It is very easy Hosni Mubarak to publicly criticize Hizbolah for their imprudent actions toward Israel if they are being slaughtered. He can tell his people that it is good to distance himself from the actions of groups like Hizbolah as long as their actions end in disaster. He loses that luxury as soon as it seems like Hizbolah might actually win. There are sizable portions of the citizens in Egypt (and every other Arab country) who are eager to see Israel destroyed. These people pose a serious threat to Arab dictators and have assassinated or attempted to assassinate many in the past. Oasma Ben Laden expressed this view by saying that "when the people see a strong horse and a weak horse, they naturally gravitate toward the strong horse". As soon is became apparent that Israel was not going to take the steps necessary to annihilate Hizbolah is became political suicide, if not actual suicide, for an Arab leader to show support for the Israelis.

The media also pointed out that the Lebanese people originally supported Israel but moved toward supporting Hizbolah as the war progressed. The media claimed that this too was because of Israeli overreaction. This is the most laughable assumption of all. The reason that the Lebanese people originally supported Israel was because they felt that they were about to be liberated from a foreign occupier. They were celebrating because they thought that the tyrants that had ruled from for over twenty years were about to get their comeuppance. They only stopped once they realized that there would be no liberation, no comeuppance. They stopped speaking out against Hizbolah because they feared the retaliation they would face after Israel pulled out and left them at the mercy of Hizbolah. They feared that being on record as supporting Israel would be as good as a death sentence if Israel left Hizbolah intact. The Lebanese people have a figurative, and in some cases a literal, gun to their foreheads and they are telling us how much they adore the gunmen and hate the police officers who tried to rescue them.

Liberals and their allies in the media simply cannot understand the situation on the ground in the Middle East. They have shown time and time again that they are incapable of understanding the abject fear that people and leaders have of showing weakness. The idea that the Arab world was turned off by Israeli strength is nonsensical to the point of being silly. If the Israeli’s had shown enough strength to convince the Arabs world that they were going to get the job done they would have had their support all the way through to the obliteration of Hizbolah.

Since when is Profiling P.C.?

2006-02-20T15:19:00.000-08:00

I am officially confused. I just heard Chuck Schumer tell John Gibson (of Fox News) that he ardently opposes the selling of an America port to a company based in Dubai. He said that he opposes the sale because The United Arab Emirates is a country that is connected to terrorism and that his opposition has nothing to do with political motivations. I have to admit that I am skeptical. Why is it all of a sudden acceptable to say that an entire country is connected to terrorism? Why is it suddenly politically correct to imply that there is some connection between Islam and terrorism? What ever happened to the “the religion of peace”? What ever happened to the constant litany of warnings that we were at war with terrorism and not 99.9% of Islam? What happened was that it became politically advantageous for the Democrats to switch sides. As soon as the Democrats realized that they could win points by attacking the sale to Dubai they forgot all about that “religion of peace” business. This incident is just one example of why we cannot afford to entrust our national security to the Democrats.

Some say that the UAE is a special case because two of 9/11 Hijackers came from that country. But wait, didn’t Al Gore just tell an audience in Saudi Arabia that, "The worst thing we can possibly do is to cut off the channels of friendship and mutual understanding between Saudi Arabia and the United States." Fifteen of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia so certain Al Gore would have no problem with dealing with the UAE which only supplied two of the hijackers. If any of those things are true how can anyone have a problem with selling our ports to our good friends who subscribe to a religion of peace?

Does anyone else remember the debate about profiling before getting onto airplanes or subways? Do you remember when the Democrats told us that we were racists for thinking that it was more likely than not that the people posing the biggest threat would be of middle eastern dissent? During that debate the left told us that we could not focus our attention on any type of suspect because we could not tell who was more or less likely to become a terrorist. If that is the case, how do they know which countries are the most likely to have a relationship to terrorism? How can it be racists to think it would be a better allocation of resources to search the group that has produced every single suicide bomber ever and perfectly fine to discriminate against an entire nation for the actions of two of its citizens? It seems to me the Democrats just jumped onto whatever side opposed the President. I am not saying that this deal is a good idea. I am just saying that I am very skeptical when I hear the Democrats telling me that profiling men on the subway is evil but profiling against entire nations is just fine.

CPAC

2006-02-08T10:37:00.000-08:00

I will be spending the rest of this week at the Conservative Poltical Action Comitee conference in Washington. I will not be posting until I get back.

Iran a Year Later

2006-02-05T12:11:00.000-08:00

A little less than a year ago, in these very pages, I made some bold predictions about democratization in Iran. I revisit this topic to find out where things went wrong. I believe America has had ample opportunity to deal with Iran and has spent the better part of the last year squandering that opportunity. This has been a bipartisan failure of foresight and only quick, decisive and bipartisan action can remedy our mistakes before Iran becomes a nuclear power.

In Bush’s Iranian Dilemma I laid out a set of circumstances that made Iran ripe for democratic reform. These circumstances are every bit as real today as they were when I wrote that article. Signs of dissatisfaction between the Iranian people and the current regime are apparent to even the casual outside observer. The ranks of prisoners at Iran’s notorious Evin’s prison continue to swell as the Iranian government responds to dissent in the only way that it knows how. When the Iranian government found out that bus drivers in Tehran planed to strike they responded by arresting over 500 bus drivers, union members and their wives and children. Protests are currently being planned against this abuse, despite the obvious risk that such protests entail. Anonymous Iranian blogs are becoming more and more common and they are almost unanimous in their rejection of President Ahmadinejad and Iran’s reinvigorated belligerence.
If that is the case, why have we made so little progress in either undermining the mullahs or even stopping their rapid progress toward creating nuclear weapons? The answer is, shamefully, that we haven’t even tried. A measly 3 million dollars was devoted to supporting democratic reforms in Iran last year. This year we intend to spend 10 million dollars on that project. Neither of those numbers show any kind of serious commitment dealing with the grave threats that Iran poses to either its own people or the rest of the world. Senator Sam Brownback has advocated increasing this amount to 100 million dollars. Such an increase would allow us to put much more internal pressure on the Mullahs. Internal cracks are clearly starting to form in the Iranian dictatorship but it is going to take more than a minimal commitment to exploit those cracks.

Perhaps the greatest threat to the Iranian regime was our military action in Iraq, but that advantage has been squandered as well. Right this moment, February second 2006, our military should be able to scare the Mullah’s into (at the very least) retreating from their nuclear ambitions. We should be able to threaten the Mullah’s with an invasion and they should be more than willing to make any concession that we ask for. We made examples out of Afghanistan and Iraq and proved to the Arab world that no country can stand athwart American might. Libya couldn’t ran to hand over their nuclear program fast enough. Countries across the middle east from Egypt to Kuwait hurried to show us that they were making progress toward liberalization and democratization. So what went wrong? Why aren’t the Mullahs following suit? The fault for this failure lies squarely in the hands of men like John Murtha and Howard Dean. Murtha and Dean went out of there way to tell the world lies about how “the US Army is broken” or about “how we cannot win this war”. That sent the completely wrong message to the Iranians. It sent them a message that they have no reason to fear military action from the United States and that any threat we make to them is nothing more than bluster. Not to mention people like Cindy Sheehan and her followers who convinced the Mullahs that even if we had the strength to carry out a war to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons, the American people would have the stomach to support such a war. In order to use military force as a deterrent your enemy needs to believe that you have both the strength to destroy them and the willingness to use that strength. The liberals in America have went out of their way to convince the Mullahs and President Ahmadinejad that we have neither. Liberals have spent a good portion of the last year reminding us that dissent is not unpatriotic. I want to take this opportunity to remind them that while it may not be unpatriotic is can certainly be unwise. While it might not be unpatriotic it can certainly undermine our national security goals and force us into situations that everyone would have rather avoided.

A major part of my original article was a suggestion that we engage in covert action against the Iranian government. I am in no position to talk about whether or not this has occurred but the Weekly Standard has reported that “According to CIA officers in the Near East Division, the agency had more Iranian assets 20 years ago than it does today… According to one CIA case officer in the Near East Division, there's not even a presidential covert-action finding ‘that would allow us to sh--in the country.’” If this true than it is a situation that must be remedied immediately. In the President’s State of the Union Address he stated that he is very concerned with the plight of the Iranian people. He has also made it very clear that we will not tolerate a nuclear armed Islamic Republic of Iran. If the President is serious about these things I cannot imagine why he would not allow the CIA to carry out operations inside of Iran.

One year ago I predicted a bright future for the Iranian people and a diminished threat to the rest of the world. Things have gotten significantly more complicated and I am less optimistic than I was in that article. The Iranians appear to be headed toward the nuclear club at full speed and they cannot be allowed. It is unfortunate that we cannot muzzle the likes of Howard Dean and John Murtha, as that would be an aid in dealing with Iran. I continue to support the democracy building measures that I advocated in the past. But because of our failures and new circumstances those measures must be a part of a larger plan. Senator Brownback is right in asserting that we need to spend more money in support of democratic movements, but even this will not be enough. The President needs to start allowing covert action in Iran. I understand that there have been some serious problems in the CIA but I am not ready to believe that these problems are so severe that they would make it a liability rather than an asset. If that is the case than we are facing much more serious problems than I can address in this article. We need to move quickly to impose comprehensive and painful sanctions in time to make the Iranian people understand that their leaders are trading their prosperity for the ability to make war on the world. The are currently no sanctions on Iran regarding nuclear material. The Russians and Iranians continue to trade in materials that the Iranians will use to build a nuclear bomb. If we do not take these steps very soon or if these steps fail there is a very real possibility that we will need to pursue military actions. There may very soon come a time when we are faced with a war with Iran on the one hand and a nuclear armed Ahamdinejad on the other. Our dealings with Iran, to this point, do not fill me with a great deal of confidence that we will make the right choice. Hopefully we will do something to change that in the next few weeks.

Warmest Janurary in decades.

2006-02-02T20:53:00.000-08:00

Has it felt a little bit warmer to you lately? A friend of mine and an avowed believer in global warming happily pointed to the uncharacteristically warm January that we were treated to this year as a sign that global warming “must be happening”. The truth is that this situation can teach us a valuable lesson about global warming in general. By looking at some of the facts relating to January 2006 we can explore how global warming has been framed in order to raise hysteria and crush decent.

January 2006 was not just uncharacteristically warm, it was record setting warm. It was Warmest on record in Oklahoma, South Dakota, Green Bay Wisconsion, Kansas City, Missouri, Riverton, and Eppley Airfield in Omaha. It was second-warmest in Maine and in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was the third or fourth warmest in numerous other states. Temperatures in Bismarck, N.D., stayed above zero the entire month, and that has not happened since 1875. If I had a monopoly on information and I just fed you those and other similar facts in an alarming fashion you might very well believe that the earth was getting hotter and that we were about to experience a catastrophe. Of course if this were in the only information that I provided you I would be acting in an extremely disingenuous manner.

If I were to tell you those facts and only those facts I could possibly convince you that it was worthwhile to sign a document like Kyoto and sacrafice the US economy in order to cool off the earth. By giving you such a limited view of the facts I could create a bunch of Al Gore like robots who would run around and scare everyone else into submission. (Al Gore’s fanaticism and shrillness on the issue of global warming make him the perfect punch line of all sorts of jokes. But we all owe him a debt of gratitude for inventing T.V. Dinners and T.V. and Dinners…) Maybe now I will tell you the truth. Sorry to disappoint all of the alarmist robots and Kyoto fans out there e but this warm January does not prove that the earth is getting any warmer.

Here are some facts that I kept a secret. It was actually one of the coldest winters in a very long time in Europe. The warmth in America had nothing to do with a general warming of the earth. It was caused be a very specific series of events. According to Foxnews.com “The current warmth is caused by the unusual position of the Jet Stream, the high-altitude river of air that flows west-to-east across North America. It divides warm air from cold, with colder temperatures to its north and warmer temperatures to its south.Usually in the winter, it follows a lazy zigzag across the United States and Canada, allowing cold air into the U.S. where it dips south, Halpert said. But for the past month or so, it has instead flowed east in almost a straight line across the northern part of the country, basically forming a fence that has kept cold air out and allowed in milder air masses from the Pacific Ocean instead.”

What does this mean to you? Well it depends. If you are a hard working American it is great news. It means that we are not going to rush out and sign Kyoto; and your job will not be sacrificed for the “greater good” at any time in the near future. This is only bad news if you went out and bought stock in bathing suit companies or if you make your money by scaring people and whipping them up into a frenzy about the latest pseudoscientific scare. I have a message for any angry scientists who are going to post messages about how ignorant I am. We out here in the real world are sick of the scare of the week. We are sick of hearing about how we are all going to die because of eugenics or global cooling or one of any other calamity that will never happen.

Do No Evil!

2006-02-01T07:46:00.000-08:00

When you think about the great oppressors of humanity, one name that doesn’t reflexively come to mind is “Google”. But all of that is about to change. Google has decided to align itself with the Chinese government in their never ending quest to withhold the truth from their people. In an attempt to expand their markets and further enrich themselves the owners of Google have agreed to aid in the oppression of the Chinese people. The Chinese government agreed to allow Google to serve as a search engine in China on the condition that they agreed to censor material that painted the Chinese government in a negative light. Google whose motto is famously “do no evil” has entered into a partnership with one of the most evil regimes on earth and is set to do a great deal of evil.

A major part of the fall of the Soviet Union was the fact that President Regan held them accountable to the terms of the Helsinki accords. The Helsinki accords mandated that the Soviets start to increase their people’s freedoms and refrain from further civil rights abuses or be rejected from the modern world. The Helsinki accords put a clear choice before the Russian people. The people could clearly see that their government could choose between oppression, backwardness and misery on one side and freedom and prosperity on the other side. The Russian people saw that their government rejected the overtures of the free world and choose to live in the stones ages. Not soon after that the communist party had been relegated to the ash heap of history. The biggest mistake that we could have made would have been to facilitate the Soviets and allow them to maintain the illusion that they could have oppression and prosperity a little while longer. Right now companies like Google are allowing the Communist Chinese to keep that very same illusion. The Chinese people need to be given a choice. They need to be shown that they cannot have both oppression and prosperity. Google, amongst other internet companies and buisnesses, is allowing the Chinese to have a fake choice. It is allowing them to think they can continue to be a belligerent evil country and live in a comfortable manner.

Google has helped to build a wall between the Chinese people and the truth. Well I have a message to deliver to the owners of Google. It is a message from a man who knows a little something about freedom. It is the message I feel that he would deliver to the owners of Google if he were still alive. “if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity… if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate!... open this gate!... tear down this wall!” I also believe that he would once again predict that “this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.” The only question is which side of the wall will Google stand on. Will they align themselves with allies of freedom who will ride triumphantly over the fallen debris or will they stand on the side of the oppressors and get crushed as the wall comes tumbling down?

Finally some recognition

2006-01-30T21:21:00.000-08:00

The people over at Camp Cindy actually took note of my little parody piece and decided that I,”have shown nothing but contempt and ridicule for our efforts here”. I didn’t know that anyone over at Camp Cindy had a computer. Where do they plug the thing in? Maybe Hugo Chavez gave them a life time supply of oil to power portable generators which they will now lug around with them from place to place. That would make a great statement. Protesting for a better American while literally under the power of a foreign dictator. Or maybe (gasp) someone associated with the “sainted peace-mom” has tainted himself with the spoils of our capitalist greed and moved into a building with indoor plumbing, electricity and even internet access. Whats next for this fringe member of the Cindy team? Maybe this guy is going to try and hold down a job? Maybe he will decide that it is time to take a shower, step out of the 1960s and rejoin the real world. Cindy, let me give you some free advice. Personality cults (and your little group is every bit as much a personality cult as Kim Jung Ill in North Korea or David Koresh in Wacko) fail if the people have any contact with the outside world. You can only convince your worshipers that you are all knowing if they have no other source of information. This “Cindyamanaiac” with access to a computer is a threat to you and the lies that you have been pandering to the other “sheiites” for the last few months. You need to crack down like any good fascist and make sure that this threat to your power is eliminated. I am sure that your good pal Hugo can set him up with a “reeducation camp” and make him forget that there is a world outside of your loving embrace.

In any event, any publicity is good publicity. Check out my recognition at http://www.cindyforsenate.blogspot.com/ (update number 2)

Cindy Sheehan for Senate

2006-01-29T18:36:00.000-08:00

I am really pumped about the “Cindy Sheehan for Senate campaign”. In fact I am very tempted to send the woman a donation. I know what you are saying “But Howie you are an ardent conservative and Cindy, well Cindy is a raving lunatic. Why would you send her money?” The answer is that Cindy’s campaign will be absolutely priceless. Just take a look at how it got started.

There is Cindy, in Venezuela standing next to Hugo Chavez. Yes the avowed enemy of the United States and close ally of Fidel Castro. Cindy decided that the best time to announce that she would be running for Senate was moments after embracing him on national television. I believe that this marks the first time that the words “down with the U.S. empire” were stated to mark the beginning of a senatorial campaign. Apparently Cindy wants to be a senator of what her good friend Hugo called “the most perverse, murderous, genocidal, immoral empire in history.”

That’s why I am so excited about what we are going to see in the upcoming weeks and months of the Cindy for Senate campaign. This Tuesday night Cindy is going to take part in what has to be another first for a senatorial campaign. She is going to be standing outside while President Bush gives his state of the Union and she will be making noise by using “drums, pots pans and [and other] musical instruments.” She will be standing outside shrieking and yelling while the grownups are inside listening to the President of the United States. I couldn’t have scripted a more humiliating display for Liberalism and now this woman wants to become a United States Senator. By all means Cindy, please, the more often that you make a fool out of yourself on live television the bigger the smile that will sit on my face.

Cindy will be running against far left democrat Diane Feinstein because apparently Diane isn’t quite liberal enough for her. Despite what is obvious to normal people Cindy is convinced that Diane has secretly been in support of the Iraq war is up to her to set the Senator straight. I am almost giddy trying to imagine the campaign adds that will run in this campaign. The Democrats have awarded Cindy the title of “the moral compass of the American people” and decided that it is a sin to dispute her rantings. How is Feinstein going to be able to run against this woman? If she says that Diane was secretly in support of the war, then it must be true. I mean Cindy lost her son in the war; she couldn’t possibly be wrong or lying. How dare you even make such an insinuation? Its going to be nearly pornographic if these two start to trade barbs at one another in the media. Did you ever wonder what the democrats in power really thought of a wacko like Cindy? This might just be our one chance to find out.

But wait, it might get even better, can you imagine what would happen if she won? Cindy wouldn’t even need an apartment in Washington. She would just move her tent and camp out right in front of the Senate. She wouldn’t need a staff; she would just bring “Camp Cindy” and set up a new shanty town right there with her. It would save the tax payers millions. Are you sure that this woman isn’t secretly a Republican? Can you imagine Cindy on the senate floor arguing with a real Senator like Orin Hatch, Tom Cobrun or Sam Brownback? “"I am the moral compass of America. No one can disagree with me". She would be a one woman filibuster and that is just on the bills that she wanted to pass. The Democrats wouldn't need a party whip anymore. Remember, the tents at camp Cindy don't have showers. If she called you out to her office (tent) for a few minutes you better believe that you are going to vote however she wants you to.

The truth is that Cindy win is probably too much to hope for. The best that we can realistically expect is that she might bloody Feinstein a little and give the republican a fighting chance. Then again this is California we are talking about. Senator Feinstein can rip apart the liberal icon that Cindy Sheehan has become and alienate a large percentage of her base. She can do that because she can turn around afterward and say, ”I know I alienated a lot of you, but my opponent is a Republican and you know what that means. That means he wants to force women into back alley abortions, reinstitute slavery, and starve the old, sick and handicapped to death”. In most of the civilized world such rhetoric no longer works but alas, California (greater Rio Linda) is far from the civilized world.

Going out on a high note.

2006-01-19T18:21:00.000-08:00

Justice O’Connor is going to leave the court on a very high note. Maybe she heard all of the nice things that people were saying about her during the Altio hearings and she decided that she had better get her act together for the rest of her time as a Judge. Or maybe is as fickle as ever and we just got lucky. In any case Justice O’Connor managed to make an impact in her last week on the court, which I think will be felt for a long time to come.

Justice O’Connor is infamous for crafting the undue burden test that states that the government cannot put an “undue burden” (whatever the heck that means) on a woman’s so called “right” to have an abortion no matter what trimester it takes place. She created a monster which Justice Scalia famously noted would have to be torn down “door jamb by door jamb”. One of those door jambs came flying lose earlier this week. The lower courts had overturned a New Hampshire law that required a minor to inform her parents 48 hours before having an abortion. The federal courts seemed to interpret the “undue burden” test as the ”any burden” test. The courts have disallowed laws banning partial birth abortion (3rd trimester, last day of pregnancy, after labor has begun) and to be honest there are times when it seemed like the vagaries of the undue burden test would allow activist courts to strike down every single abortion law that was passed.

Now don’t get me wrong; I would still like to see the “undue burden” test that was made up by Justice O’Connor replaced by the democratic process. I would like to see whatever states want to pass laws that codified some version of an “undue burden” test do so and states that choose to be more or less restrictive to do that as well. However this is still a good start. In the case Ayotte v Planned Parenthood the Supreme Court reviewed a case in which the lower courts had deemed a law which required a minor to inform her parents before getting an abortion unconstitutional. These lower courts claimed that their decision was in the interests of the mother’s health but as Justice O’Connor’s decision makes clear, this was a cover for their true intention, to allow unfettered abortion on demand. Justice O’Connor wrote the opinion for the unanimous court. First she wrote that the statue did not put an undue burden on abortions. She established that “very few” women, either adults or minors, need to have abortions in a short period of time to protect their health. She lauded the parts of the law that allowed a minor to get permission from a judge to have the abortion if there was some difficulty in informing her parents. She did send the decision back down to the lower courts to do some tinkering to further protect a woman’s health; but even that cannot outshine the common sense that she established in this opinion.

The most important thing that the unanimous court wrote in this opinion is that “States unquestionably have the right to require parental involvement when a minor considers terminating her pregnancy, because of their ‘strong and legitimate interest in the welfare
of [their] young citizens, whose immaturity, inexperience, and lack of judgment may sometimes impair their ability to exercise their rights wisely.’” I couldn’t possibly have said it better myself. Supreme Court precedent is the bible of the pro abortionists and Justice O’Connor is one of their gods. To reject the opinion she wrote in Ayotte would be nothing short of heresy.

Bravo to Fox

2006-01-17T19:20:00.000-08:00

Bravo to Fox News. Their coverage of the Jill Carroll kidnapping shows that they still understand that they are American's first and reporters second. Their headline reads "Iraq terrorists make demands" and their sub headline reads "Thugs threaten U.S. Journalist". Sometimes taking sides is calling things right down the middle. In this case calling the terrorists thugs who kidnapped a journalist and are now threatening to murder her is calling things just as they are. Trying to sugar coat the situation and calling them insurgents or some other such nonsense would not be impartiality, it would be just plain bad reporting. The New York Times online called them "captors" that just doesn't have the same ring to it as "terrorists" or "thugs". Headlines on CNN and MSNBC also come up short calling the terrorists abductors and kidnappers. Kidnappers are terrible people and should be condemned but they do not often threaten to behead their victims unless mass murdering terrorists are released. I think this is just further proof of why Fox is the most watched of the cable news channels.

Why the democrats must fight

2006-01-08T17:18:00.000-08:00

If this morning’s (Sunday January 8, 2006) “Meet the Pres” was any indication Samuel Alito’s nomination process is going to be divisive, and arduous. Before I get into a discussion of why this is going to be the case let me make it very clear that it does not have to be this way. There is no doubt that Alito is qualified to sit on the high court. He has argued over a dozen cases before the Supreme Court, served as an assistant to the Solicitor General and for the last fifteen years has served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The American Bar Association, which rates every judge nominated as a federal Judge, has on two occasions given Sam Alito its highest rating.

Altio’s opponents will argue that they will oppose Alito, not because he lacks qualifications, but because they believe that he lack integrity. They claim that he will substitute his personal feelings for the law and write what can only be considered dishonest opinions. This argument is disingenuous. It ignores the fact that the ABA’s rating is an assessment of the nominees "integrity, professional competence and judicial temperament." After serving as a Federal Judge for 15 years the American Bar Association has once again unanimously given Alito their highest rating. The ABA is certainly not a conservative organization that is “right of the mainstream”. Even if Alito’s opponents are (for some reason) unwilling to accept the ABA’s assertion of his integrity there are other reasons to believe that the current attacks on his integrity are disingenuous. In 1990 the Senate unanimously approved Altio to serve on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. If he were truly the dangerous ideologue, who wanted to tear down the judicial system, roll back civil rights, oppress women, and generally destroy everything dear to America than this vote was nothing short of a reprehensible dereliction of duty. The same statements and documents that are currently being used to oppose Samuel Alito were available in 1990 and not one Senator voted against him. Many of the same Senators who are now saying that Alito is such a grave threat to America that he should be filibustered actually voted for him in 1990. I cannot imagine how these men who view themselves as such great defenders of America values could have been so negligent the last time around.

The most ardent of Alito’s opponents may make one last attempt at justifying their opposition by claiming that stopping Alito now is more important because he is being nominated for the highest court. I don’t see how this argument can be taken seriously. I cannot speak for anyone else, but if I were a senator I would not sit idly by when a dangerous ideologue was being placed on any federal court. I certainly wouldn’t have voted for him. I would venture to guess that they mean that opposing a Supreme Court nominee is more important to their raising money and energizing their base. Alito’s opponents may claim that when it comes to something as important as the Supreme Court we cannot stomach any partisanship at all. This is an impossible standard and one that the Senate has never made a pretense of enforcing. No one makes it to the Supreme Court Justice without having a career that touched on politics and no President would nominate a candidate if he didn’t think he shared a similar philosophy. No one can seriously expect any President to nominate a completely nonpartisan nominee. Alito has proven to be no further “out of the mainstream” than either Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Stephen Breyer who were both passed by large majorities in the senate. Ginsburg served as general counsel for the far left ACLU, and presented opinions that most people would consider far out of the “mainstream” in issues including lowering the age of consent to 12, and legalizing incest, polygamy and prostitution. Stephen Breyer was asked by Senator Ted Kennedy to work for as a lawyer for the Senate Judiciary committee. It is no stretch of the imagination to describe Ted Kennedy as one of the most liberal Senators. The point here is not to impugn Ginsburg or Breyer. It is to demonstrate that in the past nominees for the Supreme Court were not held to some super strict standard were any sign of having a person ideology would disqualify them.

Despite all of this it is beginning to become clear that this nomination will not sail through the Senate. On “Meet the Press” this morning (Sunday January 8, 2006) Chuck Schumer made it very clear that he intends to vote against Samuel Alito just like he recently voted against John Roberts. He also mentioned that he would not rule out a filibuster until after he found out how Alito answers his questions. (Which based on everything I said above is patently absurd) This is a piece of political theater and nothing more. What Chuck Schumer really means is that he is going to wait and see if Alito makes a mistake that he can exploit for his own political gain. Chuck Schumer knows to ,a very large degree, how Alito will act as a judge. Schumer has certainly read dozens of Alito’s opinions in preparation for these hearings. He has already looked over the first nomination of Alito and largely formed his opinion. Right now he is engaged in political theater in order to pander to his base, and he isn’t fooling anyone. Alito is not a “stealth” candidate. Schumer knows what he is getting himself into but he wants to keep the door open for a filibuster just in case Alito makes a mistake and Schumer can jump out with a headline like “Alito hates puppies.” Blocking one of President Bush’s Supreme Court nominees would be a major feather in Schumer’s cap as blocking Robert Bork was a major accomplishment for Ted Kennedy. Schumer disingenuously put himself in a position where he can capitalize on and misstatement made by Alito in order to curry favor with his base.

Speaking of Chuck Shumer’s base. The next guess on “Meet the Press” this morning was former NAARAL (pro abortion group) President Kate Michelman. She was shockingly honest in admitting that she and her supporters very strongly want their Democratic party (I mean their party, it is not a typo) to oppose any nominee that is not willing to openly declare himself proabortion and to swear that he will ignore the law and always rule in favor of abortion. She described this as “the most important” Supreme Court “battle” she ever fought. When Tim Russert asked her if she thinks that Alito should be filibustered she answered “He should be—he should be—should not be confirmed. If it takes a filibuster, it takes a filibuster.” With constituents like Kate Michelman and her associates is it any wonder that Chuck Schumer isn’t willing to close the door on a filibuster?

Over the next two weeks we will see the Democrats get ready to wage a battle that they cannot avoid. Their base will not allow them to back down without a fight. That is why the hearings are seen as being so important. If Alito is perfect the Democrats can react just like they did to Roberts. They can say “oh darn it, we were all read to go to war but this guy was perfect and there was nothing we could do”. If however Alito slips up and is anything less than perfect the Democrats will be forced into a war.

"Women's Studies"

2006-01-03T10:37:00.000-08:00

Recently colleges, as any good business, have created new fields of study to cater toward specialized groups of students. I searched on Google and read the curriculum of one of these new majors the “women’s studies” major. I was not impressed. I briefly debated writing an article criticizing this discipline, but instead I have decided to design my own “women studies” major. My goal is to create a major that repairs an unfortunate rift that has developed between some branches of feminism and Western Society. The purpose of the curriculum that I endorse is to create a new respect for and understanding of Western tradition in women who feel that they have been alienated from that culture. This is a bare bones outline of what this major will look like. I encourage anyone interested to pursue my suggestions, this applies both to teachers, University administrators and individuals who want to supplement their own, currently, deficient education. This is by no means an exhaustive or perfect list and you should feel free to add or subtract as long as the general theme remains the same. The general theme, once more, is to foster a love for our shared western tradition that is far more important than the petty grievances stressed by most “women’s studies” classes. This major is not intended to be taught in a vacuum, I am a major proponent of an extended general studies curriculum and more focus on our shared traditions. I intend for this Major to be combined with a strong core curriculum aimed at generating an appreciation for Western thought.

News sources- All students will be encouraged to read articles from the Independent Women’s Forum. This is an organization devoted to battling “women-as-victim… ideology of radical feminism.” And aimed at promoting “women's well being by advancing the principles of self-reliance, political freedom, economic liberty, and personal responsibility.” It is an excellent resource with well-written articles by a variety of authors from differing viewpoints. The one thing it is not is a vessel for the radical feminism that has become so entrenched in itself that it has not produced a new idea in two decades. I suggest the articles and ideas expressed on this website be incorporated into every class as applicable. WWW.IWF.org

Women of the Bible (Combating new age religion) - The branch of feminism that dominates Women’s studies majors presents religion as hostile toward women. This is managed through a series of misrepresentation and outright lies. In order to correct this, this class would focus on how women excelled by taking the idea of religion to heart and using the morality that has become the basis of our Judeo-Christian society. By studying women such as Miriam and Dinah young women can be taught that religion is not a sinister dead end that exists to hold women back, but a framework through which the most meritorious are rewarded. An important part of this class can also be to shine a light on the pagan religions that are increasingly popular to young women in America. This is not necessarily are religious endeavor but a great harm has been done to many young women as they have been indoctrinated into such nonsense as neo-paganism, Wicca (really just feminist paganism), and earth worship. A serious investigation of any of these so-called religions would lead to the realization that they are promoted by radical feminists as a measure of control over the minds and hearts of their followers and that they are out of line with everything that students have been raised to believe is important.

Women of the American Revolution; Sadly, in researching for this topic I discovered that there has been a lot of trash published on this topic. I was very disappointed to discover that many of the books in this area that reveal they are completely unfit to be read. They have been written with an agenda and that agenda is often at odds with reality. For that reason I believe that the best way to address this topic is by reading the letters that were written by actual women of the American Revolution, as this is a good way to avoid the prejudice of a modern author. Where possible it is best to discover the thoughts of these women through their own writing. As a student delves into the lives of these women they will see that although these women were not hell bent on destroying their traditional roles or challenging male dominated society they played important roles in the world and that their writing is often times brilliant. This class will introduce students to female heroes and role models who were completely comfortable with Western civilization .

1- A biography of Martha Washington. There are several including Martha Washington: First Lady of Liberty and Martha Washington, an American life. 2- A collection of the letters of Abigail Adams. Various are available both online http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/aea/letter/ and as several books including The Letters of John and Abigail Adams. 3- One or more of the many biographies of Abigail Adams. The truth is that an entire course could be taught about Adams and that would be left open to the specific needs of the school. Her writing is at least as brilliant as that of her husband and she was deeply immersed into the classics, an area which radical feminism is very uncomfortable. 4- Other books containing letters from women involved in the revolution. The more that a book sticks to the actual writings of the woman, or historical accounts the better.

Margaret Thatcher- Perhaps the most influential and brilliant woman in modern (or ancient) politics. She had such a great influence precisely because she was willing to integrate herself into western culture, not because of some radical rejection of it. I once again would promote the reading of works written in her own hand such as The Downing Street Years. The point of these classes is two fold. The history is important but it is more important to show that the greatest women achieved their greatness not by rejecting western society but by embracing it. In that manner it is more important to read the words of a woman like Thatcher than to get a detached historical account of her Prime Minister ship. That is a task for the historians and this a class for to teach Women how to embrace Western Culture.

This is just a very brief outline of the way such a major would work and it is aimed at creating general principals, which could be expanded at a later date. If there is such interest I will work on making a more workable major.

The real arguemnts in the wire taping debate

2005-12-30T13:27:00.000-08:00

In law school I learned that it is important to provide multiple arguments so that if one argument is rejected there are still others that need to be considered. This might be true in the abstract, or when standing before a judge, but in the real world it is confusing and can make people lose sight of your strongest argument. That is exactly was is happening right now in the New York Times’s desperate attempt to find some impropriety in President Bush’s wiretapping of conversations between US citizens and foreign terrorists. The President quickly came out with a defense based on common sense, statutory authority and the Constitution. Liberals were quick to attack the statutory and common sense arguments, and they have been successful in making sure that the bulk of the media attention focuses on these secondary arguments. Even talk radio hosts have fallen into this trap. While I personally believe the common sense argument to be, well, common sense I admit that the statutory argument is open for debate. However, the Constitutional argument has a long pedigree in American history and is by far the strongest argument. The argument that the President has sweeping powers under the Article Two of the US Constitution, which states "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States" is an argument that has accepted and argued by most (if not all) President’s in US History. It is a subject, which may be open to vigorous debate, but for the President to stand with his peers in a broad interpretation of Presidential war powers is certainly not a criminal act.

One we have established that the corner stone of this argument is the President’s constitutional authority we can move on to common sense arguments. The role that common sense arguments should play in this debate is whether or not common sense would dictate that Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution gave the President the right to act in this matter. The common sense argument that the President has a pragmatic need to wiretap these conversations and that in doing so he saved American lives should be the second step of an argument aimed at proving that the President had constitutional authority to act in this manner. It is a mistake to try and set the "common sense" argument on the same level as the Constitutional argument, it is a mistake that has given Liberals a chance to argue. Conservatives need to come out strongly arguing that the President had constitutional authority and make it very clear that common sense and necessity are proofs in this larger argument and not arguments in and of themselves.

It may come as a surprise, but I am glad that Congress is trying to fight the President on this issue. I think it is for the good of the country that the branches of government always try to limit the power of the other branches of government. But this should have been done in secret and it was unconscionable for this program to leaked to the media. Any benefit that might have come from the separation of powers and checks and balances cannot compare to the harm that was done by leaking this information.

The problem is not that Congressmen are trying to fight against the President for position or power. I expect Congressmen to claim that they have power and that the executive lacks power. When our founders designed a government based on checks and balances they hoped for this exact occurrence. They hoped that each branch of government would try to exercise the fullest extent of their powers and that the other two branches would try to stop them, in order to gain that power for themselves. The founders were afraid of vesting too much power in any one branch so they set up a system by which each branch would attempt to gain power by taking away the power of another branch. Any law that congress passed which seeks to limit the President’s ability to wage war is an attempt to legislate victory in this battle. Such attempts should be viewed with extreme skepticism and must be held up to arguments that the are unconstitutional. The problem is that the media has decided to back Congress in this fight and to misrepresent the facts to make it seem like it is clear that the President is in some way breaking the law.

The Future of Nato?

2005-11-18T10:36:00.000-08:00

This is a very important speech for you to watch. I would very much like to have a discussion about Former Prime Minister Aznar's speech so if you have any comments after watching this video or reading his speech please post them here.

http://www.aei.org/events/eventID.1195/event_detail.asp#

President Bush in Asia

2005-11-17T12:22:00.000-08:00

There President is adopting a two track process for moving past the arguments over the Iraq war. The first is to come out swinging defending the justness of the war and exposing the hypocrisy of its current opponents. The second is to continue to pursue a robust foreign policy and to support democracy is the far corners of the earth. Even as the liberals continue to be mired down in their squabbling over the intelligence that led to the Iraq war, foreign policy must go on. The President has started an ambitious tour of Asia in which he is showing that his grand strategy for foreign policy still has some life let in it.

President Bush recently began a tour of Asia in which he seeks to prove that he still believes “the best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world”. This week the President is in Asia preaching democracy to some of the most repressive and authoritarian regimes on earth. Not coincidentally these tyrannical regimes include China and North Korea, two of he biggest threats to our safety and national security. For too long Presidents and the State Department have taken a weak stance toward these countries and in doing so they have put our security in jeopardy. During the 1990s American foreign policy involved burying our head in the sand and allowing entire regions of the world to grow in dangers that would eventually have to be contained. We lost ten years in which we could have shaped a better world because the first President Bush and to an even larger extent President Clinton had no real vision of how America should act in a post cold war world. President Bush sr. acted as if we still needed to be constrained by the real-politick that was in fashion during the cold war and President Clinton acted as if we lived in some utopian paradise where we could drop bombs from over 30,000 feet in the air and gut the military in order to create the illusion of a peace dividend.

These two grand strategies did nothing to protect American security. They allowed problem spots to fester until President Bush took office to face a world that contained very serious security threats, even to the world’s lone superpower. The Middle East became a swamp that spread the virulent ideology of Islamic fundamentalism, Saddam Hussein crushed the Shia and Kurds, Momar Quadafi worked on Nuclear weapons and President Bush Sr. dithered with a humble foreign policy that was a relic of the cold war. The Far East inched closer and closer to being dominated by mad dictators in China and North Korea. The North Koreans built nuclear weapons, Al Quadea committed bolder and bolder attacks against American targets, and Clinton talked about Pax Americana. The current President Bush came forward after 9/11 and announced that he understood the mistakes of his predecessors and was going to adopt a stronger foreign policy that would look out for America’s best interest and long term security. Ever since the war in Iraq Liberals have been doing everything in the power to make sure that we put our heads back in the sand, cross our fingers and hope for a miracle. The best way for the President to combat these urging is to press forward with his bold foreign policy and continue to make the world not only a safer place, but a better one as well.

America’s expressed foreign policy has for along time been in direct contradiction with his policy toward communist China. It is far past time that we start make sure that our policies toward China come into line with both the general thrust of our foreign policy and our ideals and values. For far too long we have given China a free pass on in the name of misguided real-politik and economic concerns. We have done so at our own peril. That is why this week’s events were so heartening.

Right before the President’s trip was willing to break with our traditional attitude of appeasement in all things relating to China and declare that China “serious violator of religious freedom” that was a good start but things got much more interesting after the President arrived in China. The President reportedly admonished the Chinese for their repressive state and even went so far as to suggest that they attempt to follow in Taiwan’s footsteps. As you can imagine the communists did not appreciate the President’s speech but we have worried about offending them for far too long. It is about time that someone told the Chinese people "Modern Taiwan is free and democratic and prosperous. By embracing freedom at all levels, Taiwan has delivered prosperity to its people and created a free and democratic Chinese society” implying that they too can achieve prosperity if they are willing to throw off the shackle of their communist oppressors. Hardly a day goes by without hearing about some major infraction the Chinese make that either brutalizes their own people or threatens their neighbors or even us in the United States. If we are going to take our role as world hegemon seriously we cannot allow a tin pot dictatorship on the other side of the round to push us around.

Today the President was in South Korea taking a tough stance on the North Korean threat. President Clinton’s response to the North Korean desire for Nuclear weapons was appeasement, plain and simple. There is no room for appeasement under President Bush’s current foreign policy and he has three years left to make that crystal clear. The North Koreans must be made to understand that Nuclear weapons will not make them rich. They will not be able to brandish their big toys in order to gain concessions from the world. The only thing that nuclear weapons should get the North Koreans is the status of a world pariah, harsh sanctions and total isolation.

The first stop on the President’s tour was Japan. This was an important stop because Japan is another country that needs to be given a clear message. That message must be “it is about time that you become a normal country”. A normal country has long been code word in Japanese debates for repealing the section of the Japanese constitution that prohibits them from having an army. We were more than willing to give the Japanese a free ride during the cold war because we were afraid that they would fall to communism. Things have changed, we face a new set of global challenges and it is time for both Japan and the United States to step into the year 2005.

Hopefully if the President spends the rest of his presidency advocating a strong foreign policy it will start us down a path that will be irreversible no matter who replaces him in office.

Finally!

2005-11-11T11:25:00.000-08:00

President Bush finally came out and said what we have all been waiting for him to say. He came out and smashed his critics and defended the war on terror in exactly the words that we have always hoped he would. He took off the kiddie gloves and put on his boxing gloves and this is a fight that he is going to win. The President came out with facts and the hard truth to smash the democrats lies and mischaracterizations once and for all. The President clearly laid out and defend the desicion to go to war in Iraq. He clearly presented the costs and bennefits of the war and found, as any reasonable person should, that we must go on because there can be no victory against islamic fundamentalism other that true victory. I would cut out experts here but there is no way I could do the speech justice. If you read only one speech from Bush administration is must be this speech.

http://jewishworldreview.com/1105/bush_vets_day.php3

We are at war part 2

2005-11-10T19:45:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, November 9, 2005, suicide bombers attacked hotels in Jordan. They murdered at least 67 people and injured hundreds more. These attacks were another heinous act by our enemies. They may have been shocking, but they were by no means unpredictable. As a matter of a fact I predicted these attacks last August in an article on this blog titled “We are at war”. Its very unfortunate that our enemies will continue to murder innocent men and women and many people will still fail to understand the true nature of this war.

On August 19th 2005 Islamic Fundamentalists in Jordan launched missiles in an attack against American ships. On that day I warned that if we allowed the Jordanians to act like this was a criminal activity and arrest a small number of suspects that it would embolden the terrorists in Jordan and make sure that another terrorist attack happened there in the near future. Sadly, that it is exactly what happened. A few weeks past, and we lost sight of the August attacks. The Jordanians arrested a few suspects and we all pretended that things were settled. That is exactly the attitudes that leaves us vulnerable, it is exactly the attitude that the Islamo-fascists hoped we would take.

We are involved in a war against terror and we cannot afford to pretend otherwise. In President Bush’s speeches he makes it clear that he understands the global nature of this war, but much of the world has proven that they still don’t get the message. Numerous countries around the world have been attacked and failed to act in a manner appropriate for a country at war. Attacks have been attempted or carried out all over the world, in countries including; Australia, England, Holland, Spain, Bali, France, Israel, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon and much of the world remains silent. With every terrorist attack that goes by I start to feel more and more like we have returned to the 1980s paradigm. Is there really any such thing as a post 9/11 world?

In the supposedly “post 9/11 world” the world’s response to various terror attacks have been far too weak. Resort areas in Bali were attacked by an organized terrorist network and the response has been one of police actions. Police are overmatched, out funded and simply incapable of fighting a war against the international threat of Islamic fundamentalism. The Spanish were attacked and the citizens were convinced that they could appease the terrorist by voting in a left wing pacifistic government. (they are dead wrong) The Israeli’s are attacked time after time and the world invents some sort of fake separation between “that conflict” and ours. France was ripped apart by what amounted to a revolution and it took them fourteen days to mount an effective response. Even after those fourteen days only Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has recognized the true threat France will face in the upcoming months and years. The rest of the French leadership stubbornly and naively insists that this is only a problem of poverty, not ideology. The British have been attacked in numerous occasions and yet the MPs just voted down a bill that would allow the government to hold a terrorist for 90 days rather than the current 14.

Right here in America Democrats are still debating as to whether or not the war in Iraq was justified. They continue the same tired, old debates about Weapons of Mass Destruction. It boggles the mind how they can watch our enemies murder 60 people in Jordan and then question whether or not we were justified in taking the war to our enemies. They find out that Zarquai, a terrorist that retreated from Afghanistan into Iraq prior to the war, murdered another 60 people and then they question if the war on Iraq had anything to do with terrorism. That is scary, that is not just politics it is a downright refusal to accept the fact that we are at war.

In the 1980s we had an excuse to downplay the dangers posed by terrorism. We had to fight a war against the Soviet Union and we were forced to make hard choices. Every choice had to be made in light of the cold war so we could not choose the best answer to any given situation. Now we have no such excuse. If we do not start to take this war seriously, it is going to be impossible for us to win. If the world continues to ignore the scope of the threats that they are facing we are going to see a lot more Hollands, Frances and Jordans.

The good news is that there is some hope. The Jordanians marched in the streets proclaiming their desire to see Zarquai dead. The Dutch have made serious and painful reforms to try and pull their country back from the precipice. Even the French might be able to turn things around. Nicolas Sarkozy has refused to put on the blinders worn by the rest of the government and insisted that illegal aliens participating in the riots be deported. I don’t want to sound like a pessimist, but I need to stress this point very strongly. We cannot afford to continue taking a lackadaisical attitude toward the war on terror. The Western World needs provide a strong response to the threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism and it needs to do it now.

The Ultimate Irony

2005-11-03T09:32:00.000-08:00

As I read about the riots that have raged in Parisian suburbs over the last week one question stands out in my mind. If the riots continue or even worsen, will the Iraqi army be willing to travel to France to fight for French freedom? If the time comes that the French are calling for help to fend off the growing insurgency in their own country, will the Iraqi army answer their call? Today is Thursday November 3rd 2005 and riots have plagued Parisian suburbs for seven consecutive nights. On October 27th two Muslim youth were accidentally electrocuted after breaking into a power plant, sparking violence that has spread to neighboring towns and to this point shows no sign of slowing down.

You might be asking yourself “why have I heard so little about this story?” and I admit that, that is a very good question. The New York Times has yet to run a front page headline about this event. In fact this morning both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal buried the story on page A10 and featured nothing more than a short, superficial story. I will explore the reasons for this mistreatment after I provide a few more details about the riots in order to demonstrate that they are an important story that needs to be taken seriously.
As the riots continue to increase in intensity, twenty suburbs surrounding Paris reported that Islamic youth had engaged in acts including, burning down buildings and public buses and exchanging fire with riot police that attempted to control the situation. Some French officials such as President Chirac are responding to this in what we have come to view as a typically French manner by claiming that the situation could be solved by dialogue and understanding. But there is a growing sense that this strategy has utterly failed and that the French will need to adopt a new tactic or face the destruction of their country.

For thirty years the French of made every attempt to prove that they were an open and multicultural society. The French have been held up as an example of a society that does not judge other cultures or practices. They allowed stood out as the model for what liberals wanted America too look like. They spent the better part of three decades perfecting the liberal moral relativists paradise and in the last week it has come crashing down around their heads. Minister of Social Cohesion Jean-Louis Borloo admitted that “We cannot hide the truth: that for 30 years we have not done enough” to integrate the Islamic youth into French society and deal with their anger and feelings of Alienation. He was all but admitting that multiculturalism and an almost religious reverence for nonjudgmentalism is an unsustainable strategy that provides no security against fundamentalism. The Mayor of the town where the riots began admitted that the French attitude has created “"tinderboxes within its borders” and that the French “can't be surprised when they explode". That criticism of multiculturalism is as harsh as any ever uttered by an American conservative.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has more clearly recognized this problem and called the rioters "scum" while promising to take steps to "clean out" the affected areas. How’s that for multiculturalism? French lawmaker Philippe de Villiers, claimed that this is a sign of how important it is to "stop the Islamization of France," and that the problem was caused by "failure of a policy of massive and uncontrolled immigration.” The French recognize the severity of this issue and the Prime Minister has called emergency meetings to attempt to find a solution to the problem. The French understand that it threatens the very bedrock of the society that they have worked so hard to establish since world war two. That brings back the question, why has the America Media (to this point) paid so little attention to this story?

For many years now the Media has preached to us that multiculturalism is far superior to the “old fashioned” value based judgments made by conservatives. It is hard to remember a time when the media did not value diversity or promote sensitivity and acceptance as desirable goals. These stories reached fever pitch as paper after paper rushed to endorse the candidacy of John Kerry both officially on their editorial pages and in the text of their supposedly unbiased news articles. France was held up as a model of this even handed and strategy and the media attempted to convince us that their way of life was better than ours. Now that this myth is collapsing the Media finds itself incapable of giving the story the coverage that it deserves. They know that this story will reveal that the underlying assumptions in many of their articles were wrong and that the stories which they reported as fact where nothing more than their personal opinions.

The original question I asked, was “will the Iraqi army be willing to travel to France to fight for French freedom?” I think that the answer to this question is that they just might. The Iraqis are currently undergoing a training by fire that will very quickly establish them as one of the most effective counter-insurgency forces in the world. If the situation gets out of hand and French call out for help I think that the Iraqi’s will be big enough to forgive the French for refusing to help them during their time of need and prove that they are the bigger people.

“Happy Days Are Here Again”

2005-11-02T11:42:00.000-08:00

“Happy Days Are Here Again” Those were the words that were spoken by Senator Trent Lott as he walked off the Senate floor after hearing of Harriet Miers withdrawal. A mere three days later Senator Lott’s comments seem to be almost prophetic. Monday October 31st 2005 will be remembered as the day that President Bush’s second term was reinvigorated, and I think that “Happy Days are Here Again” would be an appropriate slogan for the reinvigorated administration. President Bush’s first term in office gave conservatives many reasons to be happy. The success of his tax cuts and the subsequent strengthening of the economy once again proved the truth behind supply side economics. America returned to a strong and responsible foreign policy that it had not seen since the Presidency of Ronald Regan. The benefits of this muscular foreign policy can be seen in the transformations of countries including Iraq, Afghanistan, The Ukraine, Kuwait, Lebanon and to a lesser extent countries like Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Libya. The President fulfilled a campaign promise by signing a partial birth abortion ban that was very important to his conservative base. President Bush ran for reelection in 2004 on the record of a very successful term both at home and abroad.

The first year of the President’s second term met with more moderate success. Our foreign policy continues to produce miraculous results, two Iraqi elections with participation near 10 million, but a series of misadventures threatened to hamstring the administrations domestic policy. In a period of months the President was struck by the unprecedented (though largely exaggerated) tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, various legal clouds surrounding members and allies of his indictments and the absolute failure of one of his nominates from the Supreme Court. Liberal commentators were already starting to float the idea that the President had become a lame duck and would quietly ride out the last three years of his presidency without any major accomplishments. On Monday October 31st the President managed to reverse course and prove all of these predictions to have been premature.

Three events allowed the President to regain the momentum that he had lost, and if treated properly can allow him to make his second term in office as successful as his first. These three events were; the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, the UN’s condemnation of Syria and head of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff’s October 18th promise for real immigration reform. There are issues that if treated properly will appeal to a both the President’s base and a broad section of the American people.

The President ran on a platform that promised the appointment of judges who would honestly interpret the constitution and refrain from using the bench to legislate. This is an issue that increasingly resonates with the American people. The coverage of the John Roberts hearings started to teach people that Judicial activism means a lot more than a judge who supports abortion, no matter what. I started to teach people that there are larger issues at play then the “right to privacy”. By nominating a true strict constructionist the President invigorated his followers who already understand the value a judiciary rooted in constitutionalism and gave himself a second opportunity to teach the rest of the country why that is so very important.

Judicial activism has steadily taken away our rights to self government and if it is clearly explained most Americans will find it repugnant. Even vocal supporters of Roe can surely find a case of judicial activism that will horrify them. Judicial activism is a danger to everyone no matter what their political views, because it is unpredictable and the justices who practice it are never held accountable for their actions. In the early part of the 1900s activist judges were mostly seen as enacting a conservative agenda, and for the last few decades they have been forcing liberal values onto the American people. The President should go right to the American people and explain to them that what is at stake with this nomination is not “women’s rights” or “worker’s rights” (or any of the other nonsense spouted by people like Ted Kennedy, and Chuck Schumer) but the future of our very democracy. The president cannot stress enough that the most critical right at stake here is our right to be free from the tyranny of an oppressive judiciary.

The President should explain that the theory of Judicial activism led to cases such as Dred Scott, Coker V Georgia (banning the death penalty as a punishment for rape) and Roper V Simmons (banning the death penalty for 17 year olds). Liberals, and more importantly moderates, need to be wary because the winds could change and they would once again be on the losing end of the equation. Through careful presentation the President can use the Alito nomination to regain popularity amongst large sections of the American people.

The second stage of the rebound platform should revolve around regime change in Syria. The UN passed a resolution that would force Syria to cooperate with the investigation into the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. If we were too force the Syrians to take this resolution seriously it would spell the end of the Asad regime. The chief suspects in the investigation include Bashar Asad’s brother, his brother in law and his former puppet President in Lebanon. The humiliation and showing of weakness that the Asad regime would suffer if it were forced to hand over top government officials, who coincidentally happen to be related to the dictator, would be a blow from which the regime could never recover.

This may sound easy, and in a sense it can be. But there is still work to be done. Left to its on devices the UN will fail to hold Syria accountable to the resolution. That is where the President comes in. He needs to take the case to the American people and make them understand the horrible crimes that Syria has committed against its neighbors over the last 25 years. He needs to demonstrate the role that Syria has played in helping and maintaining the terrorism in Iraq. Syria has been instrumental in allowing bathists and other terrorists to murder Americans and this is the President’s opportunity to tell the American people that he is going to put a stop to it. Whenever the UN starts act as if they are going to allow Syria to slip into the background, the President needs to make a grand speech on the floor of the UN to hold their feet to the fire. This strategy will satisfy the most hawkish amongst us who are just itching to see regime change in Syria and the “multilateralists” who think that only the UN’s blessing makes an international act legal. The vast majority of Americans would rejoice at seeing a man like Bashar Asad brought to justice.

The one issue that has really come to the forefront in the last few months is immigration reform. People are becoming increasingly determined to see that we have a fair, safe and effective method of controlling our borders. Republican congressman in both houses have started to push proposals that would fix immigration reform. On October 18th Michael Chertoff proposed a plan that would start to make our immigration reforms better for everyone involved. This is one area that the President has not yet shown he is going to take advantage of the opportunity, but now is the time for him to come into the forefront. The President needs to explain that immigration reform is about making things more equitable for immigrants who wants to come into America legally and safer for people who already live here. He needs to make the people understand that this not about xenophobia but safety and equity. But most of all he needs to grasp this opportunity and act.

President Bush is being given a rare second chance to make his second term as historic as his first. If we look to his first term for precedent we should be confident that the next three years will be very memorable and very successful. The President and Tom Delay might not always agree on every issue, but I think that one think we can all agree on is that “Happy Days Are Here Again”

Harriet Miers

2005-10-03T07:57:00.000-07:00

This morning the President Nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court of the United States. I know many of you must think that I just made a mistake and that I really meant to write the name of one of the dozen or so highly qualified and prove conservative candidates out there. I must have meant to right Luttig, or Jones, or Brown or another of the names we have heard so much about over the last few weeks. But no, I meant to type Harriet Miers and you were right to ask "who on earth is that?"

The honest truth is that none of us really know who she is. I mean anyone can go and look up her history and see her biography but know one really has any deep insight into who she is. Conservative groups have attacked this pick as a mistake. They say that the president is in a weak position and made a weak pick. I have to be honest and tell you that I do not know.

The only solution I can think of is that Harriet Miers needs to waive the Ginsburg rule and give us an unprecedented amount of information about what she will do on the court. John Roberts and even Ginsburg could refuse to answer questions and rely on their past qualifications. Harriet Miers does not have such qualifications and therefore should not be allowed to avoid answering any questions. Republican senators should force her to stand up and say "I believe that the constitution means what it says and nothing else." Republicans on the court must win assurances that Ms. Miers will not become another in a long line of stealth candidates to go very very wrong.

I do not think that right now is the appropriate time for pundits to jump on Miers as being the wrong choice. I do admit that we are sorely lacking in information about this woman but we have a remedy for this situation, we just need to make sure that our repbulicans senators take advantage of it. I, for one, would rather risk a democrat filibuster than accept a nominee who will not strictly interpret the constitution.

Finally a real comparison between Iraq and Vietnam

2005-09-29T11:53:00.000-07:00

From the day that US troops first rolled into Baghdad antiwar protestors have been trying very hard to find a way to connect this war to Vietnam. This week a strong connection between the two wars was obvious to anyone who was paying attention, but it was not the type of connection that the anti America crowd, the peace mongers and the people urging us to appease the islamofascists were looking for. The true legacy of the Vietnam War is the idea that a bunch of ill-informed, loud mouthed protestors will attempt to derail a war no matter what American interests, geopolitical realities, and the facts on the grounds dictate. The antiwar demonstrations this week showed that this legacy of ignorance is still the dominant culture amongst the peacemongers.

Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, the general who led North Vietnamese forces during the war had a warm place in his heart for his allies in America. He recently announced "I would like to thank them"[1] speaking of the American antiwar movement. A colonel, Bui Tin, who served under Giap said that the actions of his antiwar allies were “essential to our strategy"[2]. The North Vietnamese knew that they did not have to win any battles on the ground in order to win the war. In fact the most notorious battle of the entire war the so called “Tet offensive” was an American victory that smashed the North Vietnamese. Many military historians have written about the utter defeat of the North Vietnamese during Tet. “In fact, in strictly military terms, the two-month struggle known as the Tet Offensive was a disaster for the attackers. It ended with the expulsion of the North Vietnamese Army and the southern-based insurgent troops, known in the West as Vietcong, from each place they invaded.”[3] And “Viet Cong units not only did not reach a single one of their objectives… they lost some 50,000 killed and at least as many wounded… Tet was an unmitigated military disaster for Hanoi and its Viet Cong troops in South Vietnam.”[4] Tet was only a victory for the communists in the liberal media and the minds of peacemongers.

The communists lost battle after battle, but none of this could demoralize the communists, they knew that they did not need to win battles. All they had to do was demoralize Americans and home so that they would put pressure on the government to retreat from the war. Our army was fighting battles and winning on the ground in Vietnam, while the communists were fighting battles from the hearts and minds of American liberals. Actual military results were too complicated from the antiwar movement to understand so it became largely irrelevant. Giap notes this strategy, stating "Through dissent and protest [America] lost the ability to mobilize a will to win".[5] It didn’t matter that the American military routed the North Vietnamese every time they met in combat, we were defeated from within.

This is where we get to the strongest connection between the Iraq and Vietnam wars. America has yet to lose a single battle in Iraq and in particular the last few weeks have been a huge success. Yet peacemongers continue to protest in an attempt to make us “lose the ability to mobilize and win” and they continue to be covered by the media as if they have something relevant or important to say.

The United States has seen a string of victories in Iraq over the last few weeks. Coalition forces recently tracked down and killed Abu Azzam, the man who according to President Bush, is the second most wanted al Qaeda leader in Iraq. Iraqi forces are growing both in strength and efficiency and are starting to take over responsibilities for the security and future of their own country. U.S. Forces have even begun to hand over major Iraqi cities like Najaf to be controlled by Iraqis. Najaf is of particular importance because it was the site of very heavy fighting for the last few years. This is a sign that real progress is being made. In recent fighting in Tal Afar Iraqi’s made up a majority of the coalition forces for the first in since the liberation.[6]

The next few weeks leading up to the election over the Iraqi constitution will be a test of our resolve. The terrorists see that there window of opportunity is closing and that Iraq is on its way to stability and security. Just today suicide bombers murdered 60 Iraqis and 5 Americans. The terrorists will not win this war, they cannot win this war. They have been losing ground since the fall of Baghdad. They have been routed from every city where they have taken refuge, their leaders have been captured and killed and their time is running out. Within a year the Iraqis will have an established constitutional government. That will mark the final death bell of the insurgency. Even if they can manage to survive up until that point, the election of a permanent and legitimate Iraqi government will destroy whatever little support they might have left. The only question still in doubt is whether or not the American people can stand fast despite the murders that will take place over the next few weeks. If we can keep the upcoming violence in perspective we will emerge from this next election in the best position of the last 5 years. If the peacemongers can use the difficulties of the upcoming weeks to break the spirit of the American people, then the entire world will be placed into a precarious position.

[1] http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/2/10/222651.shtml
[2] http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/2/10/222651.shtml
[3] http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues04/nov04/presence.html
[4] http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/4/18/192250.shtml
[5] http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/2/10/222651.shtml
[6] http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/09/20050928.html

Don't Judge Delay just yet

2005-09-28T13:29:00.000-07:00

If the Democrats had the least bit of honesty they would come out and make a press statement that sounds something like this. “We admit that we cannot win elections. Every year we lose more and more seat in congress and governorships. We lost a presidential to a man that we tried very hard to depict as an idiot, a liar, a racist and even a murderer. It is hard to deny that our message no longer resonates with the mainstream American people. The charges that we have lost tough with America’s tradition, ideals and values are pretty for us hard to deny. But we come out here with a message for the party faithful. Do not lose hope. Democratic elections are but one avenue to power in America. For years we have used the Supreme Court to force our agenda onto the American people. We have used the Judiciary to pass laws that could never have passed the legislature. In the face of our most recent electoral defeats we have come up with a new strategy to further our agenda. We will, from this point forward, be using partisan prosecutors to indict our opponents in order to throw a monkey wrench into the inner workings of the US government. Our party faithful can solace in the fact that we will do everything in our power to subvert the will of the people and interfere with Congress’s attempt to carry out the agenda that they were elected to perform. We can do this because our allies in the media will report a mere indictment as if it is a guilty verdict. It doesn’t even matter if the case never goes to trial. We can ruin a man’s life even if the judge throws out the case long before it ever gets into a courtroom.”

That press statement would of course be a direct reference to today’s indictment of Tom Delay by Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle. The indictment is on a charge that he took campaign contributions from a corporation which is illegal in Texas. The indictment alone is enough to force Delay to step down from his role as Majority Leader, even before the case goes to trial. The media’s reporting of this case is enough to make a person think that Delay is guilty of some crime long before that has been decided. An indictment is meaningless, it does not show any sort of wrongdoing and should not be mistaken for doing so. Lawyer and talk radio host Mark Levine has read the indictment and finds that it barely even accuses Delay of wrongdoing “there no information about DeLay committing acts in furtherance of a conspiracy, there's no information about DeLay entering into a conspiracy.” The indictment is available to read and it is clear to anyone who cares to read it, that it does not link Delay to any crime at all. I ask you to read the indictment and not make any judgment about Delay until you actually see some facts. Don't think that this grand jury was quick to indict Delay. It has taken him six grand juries to find one that would indict Delay. Five other juries thought that the charges were sheer nonsense.

Ronnie Earle has made other big time indictments that never went anywhere. We should all remember that Ronnie Earle launched a long campaign to attack Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson. The trial turned out to be a joke when Earle dropped the charges as soon as the trial went to court. Like in this case Earle never presented any evidence and was content to hurt his opponent by indicting them. Earle has been long accused of abusing his power as a prosecutor to attack his opponents. In case you didn’t know Earle is an elected democrat with a notorious liberal streak. He even bragged at a fund rasier that he would "take Delay down". That doesn't sound like an impartial man just looking for justice. In fact it turns out that Earle has a long history of indicting conservative politicians and then failing to produce strong evidence of get a conviction. We now have one party that moves to enact the American will through the democratic process and one that attempts to subvert the democratic process by any means imaginable. Do you think that is what the founders had in mind? I don’t.

No Big Surprise From Foggy Bottom

2005-09-21T14:53:00.000-07:00

On the night of September 19th the mood at Foggy Bottom (otherwise known as the US State Department) must have been euphoric. It is an understatement to say that things really haven’t been doing their way over the last couple of years. They have become something of the black sheep of US cabinet level agencies. The State Department is the butt of countless jokes and snide remarks about their inefficiency and general ineptitude. In that light, they must have been pleased to no end when it seemed that they had reached a deal with North Korea. Late on Monday night September the 19th the State Department proudly announced that it had signed a deal with North Korea that would result in the end of the North Korean nuclear weapons program. Press releases were sent to every news organization in America boasting of the State Department’s biggest success in decades. Editorialists at newspapers all across the country quickly began to type a fresh batch of editorials about the power of diplomacy. They had been waiting for years to write that the power of diplomacy delegitimized the use of force, unilateral or otherwise. Left wing pundits couldn’t wait to run out and tell everyone that if we had just given Collin Powell and the UN a little more time, we could have reached a peaceful settlement with Saddam Hussein and avoided the messy business of the Iraq War. Unfortunately none of those editorials will ever see the light of day and those pundits will never have the opportunity to tell all us about how diplomacy is so much more effective than war.It took the North Koreans all of 24 hours to renege on their deal and announce that they were not going to follow treaty they had signed the night before. The North Koreans showed just how weak diplomacy is by saying that they were not going to follow their end of the agreement they had signed the previous day. The other five countries that had signed the agreement could do nothing other than sit in their seats disappointed with the collapse of months and months of work. Sitting here today this case cannot be seen as anything other than definitive proof of just how week diplomacy really is. Treaties are only as dependable and the nations that sign them, which means that any treaty with a country like North Korea will never be worth the paper that it is printed on.

We did not need to wait for this stunning overnight reversal in order to see that we cannot depend on piece of paper to ensure our security. Treaties have a long history of being completely ineffectual, and violated with impunity.

Perhaps the most infamously ignored treaty is the 1928 Kellogg Briand Pact. The treaty swore “a frank renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy should be made to the end that the peaceful and friendly relations now existing between their peoples may be perpetuated”. This treaty was signed by the leaders of America, Germany, Japan, Italy, France, England and Poland amongst others. I don’t think that I have to offer too much support for my claim that no one took this treaty too seriously and that every country I mentioned has violated its terms at one time or another.

The allied powers met at Yalta in February of 1945 to decide the future of the newly liberated European nations. The Yalta treaty included the promise that they would help all “peoples liberated from the domination of Nazi Germany and the peoples of the former Axis satellite states of Europe to solve by democratic means their pressing political and economic problems”. The Communists were willing to sign this treaty even as their tanks rolled into what would soon become their empire. The Soviet Union’s deceptions and violations led to 50 years of brutal oppression in Eastern Europe. The world was naïve enough to rely on a piece of paper to ensure security and millions of people suffered behind the Iron Curtain.

For my final example of a treaty that to do much of anything I turn, to America’s last major treaty with North Korea, the called “Agreed Framework”. As spectacularly as the September 19th theory blew up in our faces, the “Agreed Framework” was even worse. The Agreed Framework was signed in 1994 as an attempt to prevent the North Koreans from developing nuclear weapons. By most account America was hours away from launching a war on North Korea to prevent them from developing Nuclear weapons which they could use to threaten America and the rest of the world. This strategy would have entailed considerable costs and burdens but it would have prevented the situation that we have today, a dangerously unstable mad man with the most powerful weapons one earth. Mere hours before we could take this step to guarantee our own security Jimmy Cater rushed into North Korea and negotiated a treaty to the widespread adulation of liberals world wide. It was a great surprise to America when a decade later the North Koreans announced that they had used the reprieve given to them by the treaty in order to build Nuclear weapons. America put its faith in a piece of paper to prevent the North Koreans from creating Nuclear Weapons and as was predictable the piece of paper did absolutely nothing to prevent the from acting in what they perceived to be their national interest.

At first blush treaties seem to be an easy answer to serious problems. It appears that we can make avoid messy situations by negotiating treaties with aggressors and other purveyors of evils. The only problem with this theory is that the cheap fix doesn’t really work and the costs that come down the road are almost always far more expensive than the costs with dealing with the situation at the beginning. It is a disastrous act of self deception to believe that a bunch of signatures on a piece of paper can be a substitute for real security. Signing treaties with countries like North Korea and Iran is putting our safety in the hands of psychopaths and we should never make the mistake of confusing such arraignments with real solutions.

Capitalism can help avoid another tragedy

2005-09-01T21:30:00.000-07:00

America is currently enduring one of the worst tragedies in American history. The images that are coming out of New Orleans are some of the most harrowing that I have ever seen. I am a big fan of Zombie movies, those movies are supposed to depict the end of the world. Directors pay a lot of money to shock and disturb us with images of “hell on earth”. Nothing that any director, of even the most terrifying of horror moves, has ever made comes close to being as distressing and horrifying as the images that I am watching on TV at this very moment. It is counterintuitive to think that something so horrible could happen in a major metropolitan city and not affect the rest of the country, and in fact this tragedy will affect the life of every citizen in America.

It is impossible not to have noticed that gas prices have risen even more sharply than usual in the last few days. The disaster that struck New Orleans has forced a significant numbers of the United States’ refineries to shut down. Therefore there is less usable gasoline available in the US. As anyone who has taken the most basic of economics classes can tell you, if supply decreases and demand remains constant price will increase. It is such an obvious rule that I almost didn’t think it was necessary to write it here. This is a problem, it will hurt millions of Americans but the unfortunate truth is that there is little we can do to solve the problem. The President made an effort by releasing 6 million barrels of oil from the federal reserve but that will only soften the blow, not avoid it. While we cannot fix the problem, there is something that we can do which would make the problem much worse.

There are lots of people, even some very smart people, who are calling for price cap to be put on gasoline. When I heard this on television I was almost shocked. At this time of crisis it is out obligation to think clearly and rationally and to avoid doing things which would only exacerbate the problem. President Nixon tried to solve a problem of high gas prices by instituting price controls and met with absolute disaster. According to the Wall Street Journal Nixon’s policy of price controls led to “shortages, rationing, inflation and an economic crisis” Is that what we really the response that we want to promote in response to our current problems? The late 70s were marked by long lines to get whatever gas was available and gas stations closed because they had simply run out of gas. Does anyone seriously think that the laws of economics have changed in the last 30 years?

It doesn’t take an economic genius to know that an artificially low price will lead to
shortages. This idea is stated on Wikipeida “if the price is set too low, then too little will be produced to meet demand at that price. This will cause an undersupply problem (also called a shortage).” This is a graph that illustrates the law of supply and demand.

The market will always try to force production to the intersection of the lines because that is the point where the highest profit is obtained. If the price is too high the demand will go up and pull the supply with it, dragging both to a lower price. If the price is too low the demand would normally rise forcing the supply to rise and meet that new demand dragging the price to a higher point on the graph. However, if the government artificially holds down the price the lines will not be able to move to a new point. The demand at the new price will be higher than the supply at that price and we will be faced with shortages.

Its basic economics, really very simple. It is impossible for me to understand how any intelligent person could be urging price controls.

Is there any reason to think that we are any more capable of managing the free market today then we were in the 1970s? If the answer to that question was yes we would quickly act to eliminate all of those little messy economic problems like scarcity, poverty, and hunger. Free markets aren’t perfect but they have made America the wealthiest and most prosperous nation on earth. Our understanding of why free markets are always superior to controlled markets led us to victory from the darkest days of depression and even cold war. There is absolutely no valid reason to betray those principals today.

Do We Really Want to be Victims?

2005-08-26T07:34:00.000-07:00

I do not understand how anyone can doubt that the left is trying to revise our history and remake our culture. I see direct evidence of these almost daily, while just going out my daily routine. Today I was at an event that drew over 300 people at which a speaker with some credentials states that it is inappropriate to use the name “Mrs.” Because the name relates to the word mistress and is therefore offensive to modern liberated women. Many people do not understand the truly grave consequences posed by allowing this revision of our language. So called “postmodernists” of all stripes have attempted to “deconstruct” our language as the first part of their radical plan to destroy our ideals and values.

Language mirrors our ideas. Our circumstances create our language and our language then acts as a factor in the creation of our culture. There are famous examples of this such as the fact that Eskimo’s have many different ways to say snow and that other cultures have words for the things that occur most in their lives. You can learn a lot about a culture by studying their words. That is why it is so important that we pay attention to what people are saying about our language and to the changes that people are trying to make. Changes that are made to our language are not harmless, they say a great deal about our culture and will have a great affect on how future generations of Americans will view themselves and their ansectors.
By establishing the word “Mrs.” as being offensive toward women he was trying to rewrite American history so that our language and culture are male dominated. Women’s groups such as NOW have been trying to use this trick for years. They have attempted to replace the world “women” with the word “wimin” for very similar reasons. Feminists cannot find any legitimate basis to claim that America is now a male dominated culture or that women have any specific claim to victimhood and any point in US history. In reality America has been the most open and fair society in the history of the world. As Americans we have good reason to be proud of the progressiveness of our forefathers. Women in America have always live under better circumstances than women in most of the world and their rights have progressed at a much faster rate than those of women in almost any other country.

We should take a few moments to consider the implications of the claim that the term “Mrs.” is offensive to women and that therefore we should never use the term. If that is true than it says a lot about the intelligence of ever generation of women before the current one. Prior to the 1960s there was no idea that the Mrs. should be offensive to women. Taking that into account a person who says that the term “Mrs.” must be avoided because it is offensive can only give two possible answers. Either that any woman who lived before the 1960s ware ignorant of the meaning of the word “Mrs.” and women of our day found some secret store of knowledge that informed then how offensive the world truly is. Or that women who lives before the 1960s did not value their independence and had no problem being considered mistresses. Both of these assertions are patently absurd, although they are both assertions that modern day feminists would have you believe. There are countless hundreds of American women who lives before the 1960s who made a huge impact on the world and will forever be remembered for their contributions. At every point in American history where our country needed courage and patriotism women rose to the occasion and served their country with strength and bravery. Women like Anna Bailey, Betty Zane, Deborah Sampson, Molly Pitcher and Margaret Corbin will forever be remembered as a revolutionary war heroes. Betsy Ross designed the flag that we use until today. There are numerous women who acted heroically in the civil war such as Sarah Edmonds. Marie Curie won a Nobel Prize in 1903 only one year after the prize was first given. Modern day feminists wants to convince us that these women were ignorant or less independent than they are, that is a claim I flat out deny.

Modern day feminism is not about redressing past wrongs (as very few such wrongs actually exist) it is not about rights or equality. It is about having something to yell and scream about. We are developing a victim culture, were anyone who can prove that they were wronged is given preferential treatment in a misguided attempt to right that wrong. Anyone who can convince the world that they are a victim is rewarded for that accomplishment. So now these feminists are reaching for the brass ring that we have created called victim-hood. The problem is the young girls who are not in on the conspiracy might actually believe the rhetoric and start to think that they are victims. While we should be doing everything we can to ensure that women maintain their connection to their rich heritage of accomplishment and patriotism we are tearing down that heritage and the effect on women will not be positive. I would wage that we will soon find that the disadvantages of victim-hood outweigh its advantages.

Why Cindy misses the point

2005-08-22T17:59:00.000-07:00

Clashes between the parents who have lost children in the war on terror have given us a window into the hearts and minds of conservatives and liberals. These people are put into situations of extreme emotionalism and they are expressing their beliefs, often times through tears, without pretense. During the 1960s it was very clear that the anti-war movement was colored by anti-Americanism. Students at universities across the country made no attempt to hide the fact that there antiwar stance was closely tied to their views about America. Ever since that point peaceniks have tried to shed that image and pretend that they are only against this specific war or action and really do not hate America or American values. Cindy Sheehan and her fellow protestors have blown that myth out of the water.
Ever Since Cindy Sheehan made her appearance at the President’s ranch in Crawford other parents who lost their children in Iraq or Afghanistan have been rising up challenge her voice. How could this be? Don’t they know that “somebody's gotta stop those lying bastards”? Didn’t they hear Cindy tell the Veterans for peace that all our soldiers did in Iraq was “kill innocent people”? Didn’t they know that were only defending a “filth-spewer and warmonger”? And most importantly don’t they need someone to tell them why their sons died? Aren’t they just burning up with rage to know what purpose their was for their kids deaths’? Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe all of these other parents know something that Cindy doesn’t and that makes all of the previous questions irrelevant, not to mention disgraceful lies.

The parents who have come out to openly refute Cindy Sheehan’s shrill bitterness understand that their sons and daughters are fighting for the United States of America and that is enough for them. Unlike Cindy they understand that the values that make America what it is are worth defending. They know that specific details such as Saddam’s Links to Al Qaeda (he had plenty) and Saddam’s WMD (he at the very least had programs) were never anything more than a very small piece of the puzzle. They know that their children are fighting to protect our very way of life and that is enough for them. They know that their children are fighting enemies on the battlefield who wish they could kill Americans. They know that their kids are fighting to kill people who want destroy our values and ideals. The parents who are standing in direct opposition to (the soon to be) Ms. Sheehan know exactly what their sons were fighting to them it was a cause worth fighting and even dying for.

This is a message that has been repeated over and over again by the counter protestors. Parents of heroes who sacrificed their lives for our country are organizing the “You Don't Speak for Me, Cindy" tour. Gary Qualls, a father who lost his son in Iraq said, “If I have to sacrifice my whole family for the sake of our country… I'll do that" Kathy Dyer, a mother who lost her son in Iraq, said that she wanted to tell the world that if her son were alive he would have said “It has been with the greatest pride I have served … fighting to preserve freedom”. Even Cindy’s own family has rejected her views on the war by saying “The rest of the Sheehan Family supports the troops, our country, and our President, silently, with prayer and respect.”

A major factor that determines whether or not someone supports the battlefield of the war on terror in Iraq is their domestic politics. If Someone thinks that our values, or liberties and our culture is worth defending than they will have no choice but to support fighting to defend those ideals in Iraq. If someone thinks that those ideals are essentially worthless they could only defend a war if they knew that their lives were in eminent danger (ie from WMDs). What it really boils down to is, what is a justification for war? Can we only fight when we are certain our very lives are in imminent danger, or can we fight to protect our values, ideals and way of life.

We are at war

2005-08-19T14:15:00.000-07:00

This morning we were once again rudely reminded that we are fighting a war on terror. It should once again be as crystal clear as it was on the morning of September 11th that we are fighting a war against evil itself. No one should doubt for a moment that our lives our freedom and out children’s future are at stake in this war. And most importantly we must have universal acknowledgment that to back down and let the forces of evil claim victory would be catastrophic and unconscionable.

There has been some discussion of whether or not to change the name of the war on terror to something less inflammatory. The terrorists weighed in very heavily this morning, they think that we are at war and if we fail to acknowledge that we are fools. The terrorists enjoyed attacking fools for decades. They laughed as we failed to acknowledge the acts of war they committed by attacking us all over the world. The terrorists initiated battles in Israel, Bali, Tanzania, Germany, Libya, Lebanon, Yemen and numerous other battlefields. It took the horrors of 9/11 and over 3,000 murdered Americans for us to finally wake up and say “oh my God, we’re at war.”

In the last 4 years the terrorists have struck our allies all over the world. It has been a return to their tactics of the last 3 decades. The same monsters who attacked us have chosen their battlefields well. They prefer to attack countries that do not understand the nature of this war. They prefer to wage war on battlefields in Holland, England and Spain because they know that their attacks will not be met by B2’s blowing the holy hell out of their homelands or by troops knowing on their leaders doors. We must never allow this to happen in America. Out safety depends on making sure that the terrorists know that we understand this is a war.
If we were to respond to the barbaric attacks that took place in Jordan as a “legal matter” and attempt to arrest the people responsible we would be making a huge mistake Terrorists are willing to die for their cause, we will not be able to deter future attacks by arresting a few of the people who fired rockets at our ship. We won’t even be able to deter attacks if we strap the monsters into “Old Smokey” down in Florida and put their electrocution on broadcast television. Anything but an exponential response that is devastating to terrorist infrastructure will only encourage more attempts to murder innocent people. We have Seal teams and Delta forces that we could send into Jordan to utterly uproot and destroy any terrorists in the county. We have some of the bravest, most well trained (and well armed) men and women in the world who have one goal in life, to kill the monsters that threaten American lives. We need them right now more than ever. We need to use them to make sure that every terrorist on earth knows that whenever they attack Americans there will be hell to pay.

I am sitting on an airplane listening to the media coverage of the attacks and I hear that the Jordanians are questioning Egyptian and Iraqi suspects. That is fat out unacceptable. A terrorist attack like this one is not carried out by a few lone individuals. Terrorists used military grade ordinance in a coordinated attack an American warship. That kind of terrorist attack takes dozens if not hundreds of people to coordinate. It takes money and training, we have learned from Al-Queada training manuals captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan that these attacks are complicated affairs involving a lot of people. We need to root out and go after all of these people and we need to do it now while the trail is still hot. If we allow some the Jordanians to hand us a handful of terrorists, we will be coming a huge mockery of justice. We will be sending a message to dozens if not hundreds of terrorists that you can attack America and get away with it. What we need to do is end every terrorist on earth a message “if you are involved in an attack on Americans in anyway whatsoever you will die an honor-less and pointless death”. Short simple and sweet. Some people have speculated that Syria might be invovled in this attack. If that is the case then they must also be taught the very same leson.

Critics (peacemongers and other vultures) are sure to come out of the woodwork and claim that these attacks are proof that we are losing the war on terror and that what we are doing in Iraq didn’t make us safer at all. Those people couldn’t be more wrong. What they fail to understand is that we are at war with these people. We are at war with an enemy that is devoted to our destruction and it is totally unreasonable to assume that they will not continue to attack us until they are broken and defeated. If they didn’t pose a very really threat to us than we would have a reason to attack them now would we? When we are winning the war on terror the left screams that we are attacking innocent people and that we are not fighting a war but pummeling innocent people. When we get attacked, when murderous thugs try to kill Americans they change their tune and claim we are fighting a war that we cannot possibly win. It boggles the mind how the very same people can make both of those arguments.Conservative or Liberal, Republican or Democrat everyone has to agree that we cannot allow anyone to try and murder Americans. Whether you support higher taxes or lower taxes, prayer or sex ed, whether or not you think there are emanations from penumbras that give us secret rights you must not sit back as Americans are attacked. Right now, today Friday August 19th 2005, America has a chance to make the world safer for generations to come. In order to do that we must ignore the shrill voices of people like Cindy Sheehan and her followers. We have to recognize that anyone whose political views directly threaten the safety and security of American citizens ir more than just a nutty sideshow freak. They put all of our lives in danger.

The Fallacy of the "Chicken Hawks"

2005-08-16T07:41:00.000-07:00

"Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel. " -Liberal Hero Cindy Sheehan

The other day someone on an AOL message board decided to reach into the playground style insult book that has become trademark of the left and call me a "chicken hawk". This is not an isolated situation. When confronted with rock solid evidence that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein, and indisputable facts about the necessity of the Iraq war they return to their old reliable insult of questioning the sincerity of intelligent people who support common sense policies but have never actually served in the armed forces. This insult is so childish and baseless that I almost feel silly for wasting my time refuting it, but for anyone who is interested I will show how little sense their argument actually makes.

Do you respect Police officers? Do you think they are doing a good and important job? Are you a cop? OH MY GOD! You can't be serious. You think Cops are doing a good job and deeply respect them but your not a cop? You must be a coward and a hypocrite.

Do you respect Fire Men?? Do you think they are doing a good and important job? Are you a Fire fighter? OH MY GOD! You can't be serious. You think Fire Fighters are doing a good job and deeply respect them but your not a Fire Fighter? You must be a coward and a hypocrite.

Do you respect teachers? Do you think they are a doing a good and important job? Are you a teacher?

I think everyone gets the point.

How powerful is the media?

2005-08-14T19:29:00.000-07:00

The Media has more control over our day to day lives than most of us would like to admit. If you don’t believe me just ask yourself what are the most important things that are going on today? Is it Cindy Sheean’s antics? Maybe it is the amount of time that President Bush spends in Crawford? Is it the non story involving Karl Rove? Is it the supposed troubles that our armed forces are facing in Iraq? How about the Nataliee Halloway story? Or John Robert’s confirmation battle that isn’t set to begin until next month? Why did you answer what you answered? Was it because you honestly think that these are the most important things facing the world today, or is because they are the things that take up the most time on the news? Do we think that these are the stories that are important to us because they actually are, or because CNN tells us that they are? In this article I will cover some of the stories that the media has not paid any attention to and give some explanation for why they have been so totally ignored.

There is a storm brewing down south, no it isn’t another hurricane (that would have made the news) I am talking about a storm of repression. I am talking about very real threats to our security that the media is doing us a major disservice by not publicizing them As the rest of the world moves toward freedom and democracy a bunch of old leftists who reached the height of their popularity toward the middle of the last century (Castro and Ortega) are teaming up with some new blood (Chavez) to take one last shot at creating a “communist paradise” (read “oppressive, barbaric hell hole) right off the cost of America. Every day these three evil men are furthering their plots to roll back the freedom that many South Americans have fought and died to attain over the last century; yet I am sure that there are many people reading this blog who had no idea that this was going on. Daniel Ortega (a man who is every bit as evil as Saddam Hussein, Kim Jung Ill and Osama Bin Laden) is doing everything possible to regain power in Nicaragua. He has virtually taken over the Judiciary and is going to extreme lengths to take usurp the countries democratically elected leadership and regain control of what used to be his country. A good friend of his, Hugo Chavez, has become an apprentice to Castro, and is using his oil wealth to support anti US movements. He is trying to spread communism to his neighbors and foster revolutions in countries such as El Salvador.

So why is the media keeping it queit? The answer to that is simple; throughout the Cold War the left has tremendous sympathy for any far left dictator that they could find and they are loath to admit that they were wrong. Or perhaps even more sinisterly they still have those very shame sympathies.

Communism was thoroughly repudiated by the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. It no longer presents a serious ideological threat to the United States but this was not always the case. During the height of the Cold War there were elements of the American left that very strongly supported communism and believed that America should adopt communism. These people happened to be very heavily represented in the media and in Hollywood (also in universities but we can attribute that to kids being stupid). These people in the media knew that communism could never win at the ballot box the American people were far too smart and knowledgeable of their self interest to vote for communism. (Of course the Media would tell you that the people were too stupid to vote for communism and they alone knew the truth, but I think that the voices of 100s of millions of people in the former Soviet Union cast the final ballot in that vote.) Since the American people would never voluntarily accept communism these leftists jumped on the bandwagon of any tin pot dictator who professed to be a communist. They dreamt that these dictators would be successful and that communism would spread across the globe and eventually capture the United States. Now it is too late for them to turn around and admit that they were wrong, and anti-American for some many years, so they choose not to cover the events in South America at all.

Another story that has been thoroughly underreported is the scandal over at air America. Air America is the liberal answer to talk radio. They are currently under investigation by the State of New York for taking a million dollars in illegal funds (read; stealing) from “charities” such as the boys and girls clubs of New York. Why is the media keeping this one so quiet? When Air America first burst onto the scene is it was a media darling. They wanted it to succeed and now that it is floundering in sea of corruption they are trying to “lend a helping hand” by covering up the truth. The meida created a narrative in which Air America was the good guy, and now they are too ashamed to admit that they had it all wrong. The media isn’t concerned with tell the truth, they are far more interested in keep their stories straight and not looking like they were ever wrong.

I think it would be worthwhile for us to pay more attention to how much influence the media has in shaping our public dialogue.

FAMILY OF FALLEN SOLDIER PLEADS: PLEASE STOP, CINDY!

2005-08-11T12:49:00.000-07:00

FAMILY OF FALLEN SOLDIER PLEADS: PLEASE STOP, CINDY!

The family of American soldier Casey Sheehan, who was killed in Iraq on April 4, 2004, has broken its silence and spoken out against his mother Cindy Sheehan's anti-war vigil against George Bush held outside the president's Crawford, Texas ranch.

The following email was received by the DRUDGE REPORT from Casey's aunt and godmother: Our family has been so distressed by the recent activities of Cindy we are breaking our silence and we have collectively written a statement for release.

Feel free to distribute it as you wish.

Thanks Ð Cherie In response to questions regarding the Cindy Sheehan/Crawford Texas issue: Sheehan Family Statement: The Sheehan Family lost our beloved Casey in the Iraq War and we have been silently, respectfully grieving. We do not agree with the political motivations and publicity tactics of Cindy Sheehan. She now appears to be promoting her own personal agenda and notoriety at the the expense of her son's good name and reputation. The rest of the Sheehan Family supports the troops, our country, and our President, silently, with prayer and respect.

Sincerely, Casey Sheehan's grandparents, aunts, uncles and numerous cousins. Developing...

Phony Baloney Plastic Banana Good Time Rock and Roller

2005-08-08T12:18:00.000-07:00

A few articles back I alerted you to the shenanigans of the peace-mongers, and it is my sad duty to inform you that another one has reared her self righteous, media seeking head. I almost feel bad about exposing the dirty secrets of the a woman whose son sacrificed his life to defend my freedom, but this woman’s recent actions have been so despicable that I have to believe, any hero who would be brave enough to sacrifice his life in order to defend this country would not want his mother to walk around demeaning his sacrifice or slandering the reputation of his country and its Commander and Chief.

Cindy Sheehan has recently made the news by slamming President Bush over the supposed grief and agony that she feels over the loss of her son in the Iraq front of the war on terror. Whose heart wouldn’t go out to a grieving mother whose son, a true hero, fell on the battle field? How can I sitting behind a desk and typing on my lap top really understand what is going through this woman’s mind? At least that is what we are all supposed to believe. We are supposed to give this woman our sympathy because of the tragedy she has endured. This woman has my sympathy and her son has my deepest thanks and honor. But that doesn’t mean that I cannot spot a lying, publicity hound when she is staring me in the face.
Cindy Sheehan appear seemingly out of nowhere clad in peace symbols attacking President Bush for his management of the war on Iraq. This would lead the casual observer to think that her son is a recent victim of the war. It would lead you to think that we are seeing the raw emotions of a woman who lost her son and is now on a campaign to make sure that no more young boys lose their lives. However, this simply isn’t the truth. He sons tragic death actually took place over a year ago and at the time Mrs. Sheehan’s reaction was far different. In fact as you will soon see, at the time she was singing a different tune entirely.

Cindy has been demanding an audience with President Bush. She wants him to explain to her why her son had to sacrifice her life. It is an extreme request to demand a meeting with the President of the United States with all of his obligations. Yet President Bush actually took time out too meet with her last summer. Matt Drudge posted some quotes that Cindy made to local newspapers after the meeting. She said “I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis. I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of faith” and “'That was the gift the president gave us, the gift of happiness, of being together”. Does that raise a few eyebrows? Are you less ready to go to bat for this woman?

This woman should be ashamed of herself, I am sure her son the true hero would be. Do you want to know what would be interesting? Follow the money. See if she has been in contact with George Soros, Air America or Moveon.org. Lets see if Ms. Sheehan is just a slimy self promoting peacemonger or if she is even dirtier than that.

An answer that it is long overdue

2005-08-05T15:47:00.000-07:00

If you turn on your television right now and find a story about Supreme Court Nominee John Roberts it is almost a certainty that you will hear a high ranking democrat or a “woman’s rights” advocate ask “we must find out if John Roberts thinks that Roe V Wade is the law of the land”. This exact same question has been asked so many times we can say with a high degree of confidence that it is on some list of democrat talking points intended to malign the President’s nominee. The brilliance of this question is that it distorts the truth and makes it impossible for John Roberts to honestly answer the question; in fact it makes it nearly impossible to understand exactly what the question is asking.

In asking “does he consider Roe V Wade the law of the land” the questioner attempts to distort the truth and lead listeners to a patently false conclusion. On impulse it seems like a rather simple question, but if you stop to think about it for a moment it’s meaning is far from obvious. Lets examine a few of the possible meanings to this question and offer an appropriate answer to each.

It seems highly unlikely that the question is asking, “Does he believe that Roe V Wade is legislated law?” because that is a factual question that you or I can answer without any of the fancy credentials required to sit on the Supreme Court. Roe V Wade is not legislated law. It is not a matter of what anyone thinks or believes it is a matter of simple fact. Roe V Wade is a Supreme Court case and as the Constitution clearly states, “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States” no other branch can legislate law. So as a simple fact Roe V Wade cannot be a law in the traditional sense of the word. If the question is really asking, “Is Roe V Wade a law on the books?” then John Roberts should answer, “no”.

The question might mean, “do you think that the basic framework of Roe V Wade, ideas such as the trimester system, should be followed as some sort of faux law?” In which case the answer is once again a matter of fact not opinion. The entire abortion framework established in Roe V Wade only lasted until 1989 and the case Webster V Reproductive Health Services. In this case the court ruled that State Governments were allowed to place certain restrictions on Abortion in any trimester so long as they did not represent an “undue burden” on women seeking an abortion. This decision negated the concrete trimester structure established by Roe and opened every new law passed by the states to review by the court. This case muddied the water and made it very hard to determine what laws would or would not be allowed. The one thing that it did made clear was that no one was expected to consider Roe V Wade “the law of the land.” Roe V Wade was further gutted in the case “Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania V Casey” This case negated just about all of the remaining aspects people commonly associate with Roe V Wade. It openly and entirely abandoned the trimester system which opened the door to things like partial birth abortions. Under Roe V Wade it was always unconstitutional to give truthful information the may dissuade a woman from having an abortion, it was always unconstitutional for a person other than a doctor to provide that same information, it was unconstitutional to make a woman wait 24 hours before getting an abortion. Under Casey it became far less clear and each case was to be decided on a case-by-case basis using the ambiguous “undue burden standard”. Some times each of those situations have been ruled constitutional and sometimes they have not. If the question means to ask “Does Roe V Wade provide a clear legal framework that determines how to live in the real world?” the answer is clearly “no”.

The question might mean “do you think that people should follow whatever ambiguous and arbitrary abortion laws are currently in effect, or practice civil disobedience?” The answer to that question should be “of course they should follow the current laws.” Followed by a nod an a wink to anyone who notices it.
The question might mean, “Based on your judicial philosophy do you think that the court reached the right decision in Roe V Wade?” In which case John Roberts should answer the truth “Based on my judicial philosophy I would strictly interpret the constitution and shy away from judicial activism or legislating from the bench.” In other less politically correct words “it was not correctly decided.”

Finally the question might mean “if a case came up in which you had the potential to drastically alter the abortion laws in the Untied States would you do so?” In which case John Roberts should answer “it has been a long standing legal tradition not to answer questions that could cause a judge to prejudge a case that might come before him on the court. This is a tradition that has been honored by numerous Supreme Court Justices including, most recently, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”In any event I think it is clear that we cannot be exactly sure what the question that has so saturated the airwaves means. The question is asked in an attempt to evoke an emotional reaction from women who have already been brainwashed to believe that the Supreme Court’s judicial activism is the only thing that prevents them from being barefoot, pregnant and chained to the stove. The next time that this question is posed John Roberts (or any conservative pundit) should stand up and ask “well that depends on what you mean.” Once the “women’s righter” regains her composure and clarifies the question (if she can) they can answer it very easily.

The desperate need for intelligent design

2005-08-04T10:57:00.000-07:00

The battle over American history and tradition is once again being dragged into the national spotlight. To the objective observer it would appear quite uncontroversial to say that America was founded with a strong base in Judeo Christian values. An alien looking at the earth from outer space would read the Declaration of Independence and see that we justified our revolution based on the “the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God”. They would continue reading that same document and see that we never asserted that men had any rights other than those “endowed by their Creator” and would have no doubt that our revolution was one based on religious principals. This impartial observer would move on to the Constitution and they would see that in their efforts to protect the religious principals on which this country was founded the founders codified a law stating that no one in the future would ever be able to make a law “prohibiting the free exercise" of religion. That alien could then listen to the inaugural address of the first President of the United States. In which he devoted a large portion of the speech to speaking about religion. He began that “it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect” and continued to demonstrate that he was not a religious extremist “I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my fellow-citizens at large less than either.” And finished “No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency”. If you were to then tell this alien that America had to be a secular State and that we had always been a secular country and that it was only in modern times that people were trying to introduce religion into public life, he would think that you did not know your American history very well.

Earlier this week President Bush commented that he thought it was appropriate for our public schools to teach the theory of “intelligent design” along with the “Darwinian theory of evolution”. This has caused waves of distress for one reason and one reason only. Liberals have long controlled our system of public education and have used it to brainwash children into believing an American history that never happened, a set of American values that do not exist, and a version of world history that is patently anti-American. They are now having fits because someone in a position of power has finally said that it is time we try and take back our educational system and teach our children the truth. The theory of intelligent design teaches that evolution happened pretty much the way Darwin said it happened but a higher power (God!) played a roll in guiding the process.

This is a theory that works very well with traditional American values and to treat it as if it is some type of intellectual leper is a disgrace. Traditional Darwinianism has led people to believe all sorts of disgusting things. While this may not be the intent of scientists who teach it, we must realize that children only know what they are taught and if schools only teach Darwin and completely neglect any sort of moral teachings our children will only internalize the amoral lessons that Darwin can teach. Without any moral component or temperance one can read Darwin as saying that human beings are no better than animals and that there is no reason for us to act any differently. Such a deluded person could argue that “men do not have any inherent or unalienable rights, it is a fluke of nature that we can, speak, think and use our thumbs” but there is no logical reason to assume that such a coincidence would confer upon us any set of rights. I have personally (on more than one occasion) heard people suggest that human beings should strive to live more like bonobos. (a particularly vile and animalistic monkey, that behaves about as differently from civilized human beings as a tick or a leech) Without any sort of moral guidance kids who believe themselves to be reasonably intelligent, at least in the area of science, can degenerate to the area where they would have us give up society in order to fling feces at one another.

Obviously a person that believes human beings have no more intrinsic value than cockroaches is not fit to be a voter in a democracy. The entire point of democracy is to establish self governance for the benefit of all mankind. These people cannot even recognize that there is such a thing as a fraternity of mankind. That is why it is so imperative for the future of our democracy that we allow, and in fact encourage, our teachers to include subjects like intelligent design in public schools. The next time you tell someone “you have no right” or “I have a right” stop and ask yourself where that right comes from. Ask yourself where American tradition posits that those rights originate. Then ask yourself if you are comfortable with your children learning that they have no rights and that their entire existence can only possibly be explained as an unhappy coincidence rendering them no more worthy of rights than any other animal.

More on the Culture War

2005-07-31T20:24:00.000-07:00

If the nihilistic side in our culture war has one thing going for it, it is its ability to convince otherwise well meaning people to support radical and extremely destructive positions. There is an old cliché that “the greatest thing that the devil ever did was to convince the world that he did not exist” and that is just another of the many lessons that our counter culture learned from the prince of darkness. There are many kindhearted (but not overly intelligent) people who find themselves siding with the counter culture on issues ranging from gay marriage to abortion, thinking all along that they are looking out for the best interests of the poor, the defenseless and the misunderstood. These people in their naiveté cannot see the truly sinister motives that lay behind such egalitarian causes. The nihilists do not care about any poor, disadvantaged group except in situations where they can manipulate them and use their plight to further their own agenda. Gay marriage, the giant impregnable fortress of doom being built between church and state, and abortion on demand are not ends in of themselves they are means to achieving the nihilist’s true goals of destroying the tools by which we preserve our morality and pass down our tradition.

Nihilists have long wanted to remake the world in their own twisted and sickening image. Fortunately society (in tandem with God) has set up numerous barriers that will stand in their way. The entire drive toward modern society has been that of putting stumbling blocks in front of the. In fact if it were up to the nihilists we would have done just about anything other than climb out of the primordial ooze to build cities, write constitutions and invent car air fresheners. Our earliest ancestors knew that by inventing institutions to pass on our most important traditions and protect our morality they would be able to keep the nihilists down. From the very earliest days of our development humans knew that we had to oppose the nihilists and took some ingenious steps to ensure that their utter disdain no for the nihilists ideals would be preserved in their progeny.

Institutions such as marriage, the family, churches and numerous others did an invaluable job in keeping the nihilists reminding generation after generation that it was their solemn duty to oppose nihilism. Is it any wonder that these are the very institutions that the nihilists are targeting? Nihilists have always targeted those traditional institutions. The first (crude) tool that the nihilists used to attack marriage was to make divorce more commonplace and societally acceptable. This attack took centuries to reach its current level but is now becoming a crisis. The divorce rate is climbing steadily higher, the nihilists rejoice as families are broken apart, all the time convincing well intentioned people at this is healthy and “really the best for everyone”.

Another more recent attack was the “free love” movement of the 1960s and 70s. A family cannot survive “free love”. Our country fought an extremely dangerous and bloody war against one of the gravest threats imaginable. We often for get that at some points it got so bad that students openly revolted, taking over colleges and even attacking our armed forces. I am not using hyperbole, this was in fact a war. The “silent majority” rose up and smacked down the rebellion but there were a few years when our country was in fact at war.

The most recent attacks, gay marriage and abortion on demand, have a little bit more nuance but when examined with any amount of scrutiny are just as openly an attack on our traditional institutions. Gay marriage on the surface may look like a kind hearted attempt to protect poor defenseless sexual deviants, but the true repercussions of changing the definition of marriage are far more grave. The legalization of gay marriage is the first step toward the normalization of a lifestyle that is the antithesis of the traditional family. Once the basic idea is normalized it will open the door for all of the next logical steps. Ever since gay marriage has been legalized in Massachusetts we have seen the consequences of that action. A billboard has sprung up in Boston that displays suggestive imagery and promotes a website that features homosexual pornography. A text book is given out in sex-ed (which is bad enough normally) that gives detailed and graphic instructions for how to conduct homosexuality. Once such deviant lifestyles are normalized it is impossible to maintain a logical biases for discriminating against them. It is only as long as they are regarded as immoral that we can remove them from the public sphere.

Under the federalist system the states are supposed to be “laboratories of democracy” in which we can see how new and experimental ideas play out. Gay marriage has been tried in Massachusetts and the consequences have been troubling and even dangerous. The experiment has failed and we dare not try this experiment in another state. The war in Massachusetts has already moved on to a new issue. Activists are fighting to change the text on birth certificates to read “parent a” and “parent b” and not “mother” and “father” if that is not an attack on the family, then I have no idea what it could possibly be.

The war has been moved from fighting against the legal institution of marriage to the biological fact of mother and father. The nihilists would be thrilled if we would dissolve families altogether and allow our children to wander in packs and fen for themselves. No responsibility for “parents” (no consequences of sex) and no one to protect out weakest of people (a whole new world of easy victims.) We must draw the line here. We cannot lose another inch of ground in Massachusetts, and we cannot even start to lose any ground in the rest of the country. This is not about kindness, it is about war and it is a war that we must win.

There are monsters under the bed

2005-07-28T18:31:00.000-07:00

How many American College students can identify Rommel, or Hirohito? How many American college graduates know who Kaiser Wilhelm was? How many American students have a really good grasp of what happened at Iwo Jima, or Normandy? I have in the past written of how dangerous it will be for us to continue to let our educational system to devote countless hours to the muckrakers, the Indians, and civil rights while ignoring the history of the battles between good and evil in the world. Conservative commentators have long warned that it does not bode well for our society when every high school is forced to endure textbooks that call our founding fathers hypocrites for owning slaves and killing the Indians and almost no one ever learns about how America has time and time again faced off against the greatest evils in the world and won.

I am sure that a handful of my readers think that I am making a big deal out of nothing and are wondering who will really get hurt by our children learning this skewed and more politically correct (read anti-America) version of History. I was reminded of the answer to the question while I was conducting an interview with two people in Taiwan. My intention was to write an article about how the Taiwanese live in constant fear of their evil neighbors, but over the course of the interview I stumbled onto something even more disturbing.

I have always been fascinated by the mindsets of people living in countries that are in close proximity to very real and very evil enemies. As Americans we often forget that there are millions of people who have to face evil every single day of their lives. Since the end of the cold war there are far fewer free countries that can really claim to be on the frontlines of the war between freedom and oppression, and good and evil, than at any other time in human history. In the 1980s hundreds of millions of people knew what it meant to wake up in the morning and stare evil in the eye all day long, today it is far more rare. Now that people in the western world is starting to recognize that terrorism and evil are going to be a part of their normal lives, they will once again have to learn how to relate to that evil. There are a few countries that can look at and take lessons from. These countries include; Israel, South Korea, and the subject of this article Taiwan. Some nations such as Israel respond to evil by confronting it and understanding its true nature. Other countries such as Taiwan, as we will soon see, respond by digging their heads into the sand and pretending like nothing is going on.

I had the opportunity to interview two people in Taiwan, an American and a native of Taiwan. The American is a businessman name Aaron who was lived half the year in America and the other half of the year in Taiwan for the last thirty years. The girl is a young Taiwanese woman who recently graduated with an MBA. I asked the two of them questions about what it felt like to live on the border with a country that has openly announced its intention to conquer and oppress them.

The American was far more concerned than the Taiwanese girl with their neighbor across the strait. The American (who describes himself as apolitical) noted that he considered it a very real possibility that an invasion force would endanger his business. The girl on the other hand said that the fear of a Chinese invasion had very little effect on her day-to-day life and that she and her friends did not really think about it all that much. She claimed that the most of the young Taiwanese people were not really all that into politic and did not spend all that much time thinking about the possibility or the consequences of an invasion. This is a change from just one generation again. Taiwan has a rich history over the last 50 years of standing up to evil dictators and fighting against oppression. The older generation in Taiwan continues to elect politicians who make it very clear that they will stand up to Taiwan and show considerable braver under pressure. For a period of time I was left absolutely dumbfounded and incapable of explaining how this girl could so totally fail to understand the predicament in which she lives.

Then I started to notice a disturbing trend in the answers the girl gave about her education. The girl said that she never really learned about the great wars of history. It is hard to blame someone for not understanding geopolitics, even when their lives are in mortal peril, if no one ever made an attempt to teach them. I was shocked and appalled when I learned that the girl did not even know who Hitler was. The girl could not see the monster living across the strait because she had never learned about the many monsters that have wrecked havoc across history. Take any statistic or fact that you hear about how the people in Taiwan view China with a huge grain of salt because if this girl is any example of the norm, having been so direly failed by their educational system, the Taiwanese youth may be in no position comment on good and evil.

As an aside, the one thing that both interviews could agree to was that they would not trust America to protect Taiwan in the case of an invasion. They didn’t say this because they think that our army is overtaxed or because they think that America does not have the fortitude to fight a major war in Asia. They would not trust American because of the favorable trade status that we give to China. That is how our allies view us. It is unconscionable that we have such good economic relations with one of the most evil nations on earth our allies cannot trust us. Liberals often try to figure out why the whole world supposedly hates America. They point to our unilateralist and overbearing nature. What if they have it all wrong? What if the countries that should be our closest allies cannot trust us because we are not resolute enough? What if no one can trust us because our moral compass is not quite clear enough? We need to send a clear message to the world by standing up to evil.

Early on I mentioned that some people might not understand why I was so indignant about the state of education. I hope that by now it has become a little clearer. If we do not want our children to forget the monsters of history, if we want them to be able to recognize evil when it is staring them in the face, we need to teach it to them.

Peacemongers

2005-07-25T09:08:00.000-07:00

Hanoi Jane (Fonda) doesn’t read my blog. Not that I am surprised or disappointed. A mere day after I explained why it is so imperative that we never back down from evil, Hanoi Jane has announced that she is going to be starting a cross-country bus tour to promote appeasement in Iraq (as well as to promote her book “My Life So Far”). I ended my last post with a question, wondering why we have failed to learn any kind of lesson from the long and disastrous history of appeasement. I think that a large part of this answer has to do with the nature of the Peace-mongers who get the appeasement movement started.

Peace-mongers are self-promoting vultures that make up the lowest levels of humanity. Let me take a moment to explain what I mean by Peace-mongers. I am not referring to people who would prefer peace to war; anyone would prefer peace to war if given the choice. I am not referring to intelligent people who disagree with the ideology behind one particular war or one facet of how a particular war is fought. The people I am referring to are the people who would “bear any burden and pay any price” to see peace right here and right now. The people who would rewrite history so that “we looked evil in the eye and we blinked”. I do not believe that these people actually want to be enslaved, oppressed or massacred by evil hoards. I think that they are so obsessed with themselves and their own gratification that they cannot stop to think for one moment that appeasing evil has never worked. People often question why so many people involved in the organizing of these events are celebrities, to me the answer has always been obvious. They are doing it for the free publicity. Some high paid PR guru in Hollywood decided that there was no better way to get his stars noticed than to have a huge Mardi Gras in the middle of NY or DC while pretending to be benefiting some kind of cause. (This also explains the animal rights movement) Ordinary people, who might be otherwise sane, love to join in these movements because it gives them an opportunity to party in the streets and act like children while pretending to care about a cause. College students have been a favorite target of Peace-mongers because they would probably have been out partying anyway and by pretending to care about some kind of a cause, even a vapid and idiotic one, they can feel like they are not totally wasting their time. I refer to the Peace-mongers as being vultures because when a war is being carried out successfully and is popular they back off and wait for a better opportunity.

People often forget that prior to the Afghanistan war the “anti war” movement was on the move protesting against the Afghanistan war. They expected an unmitigated disaster and wanted to get in on the opportunities for shameless self-promotion and gratification on the ground floor. References were made to how the Soviets had tried and failed to capture Afghanistan and predications were made that we would fail just as spectacularly. Protestors in New York and Washington gleefully marched and danced to the fact that America would soon be enmeshed in a quagmire and they would have endless opportunities to appear on TV, sing and dance in the streets, and generally have an all around good time. A few weeks later the Afghanistan war became one of the most successfully fought wars in history and the protestors and opposition vanished. It just wasn’t as much fun to dress up in silly costumes and have big parties in the street, all the while pretending to be standing for something, when America was actually winning the war and the all of the grown ups would look at you like you were an idiot.

Today the Iraq war has made itself into a big fat target for these Peace Mongers. Peace-mongers (almost by definition) are ignorant of or simply do not care about geopolitics. Trying to make them understand that fighting terrorism in Iraq plays an important roll in world security is impossible. In their mind “death of American soldiers= excuse to party”. An attempt to reason with such people is a complete waste of time. They don’t care about developments in Lebanon, Kuwait, Ukraine or anywhere else in the world, unless of course those developments lead to the death of more Americans and give them an excuse to have even more parties. In the eyes of peace mongers the future of human freedom and the continued prosperity of the free world can never measure up to their own selfish desires.

Do your part to protect the constitution

2005-07-24T15:02:00.000-07:00

I don't do this very often, the last time I did it was for a petition to direct Congress to save Terri Schiavo. Now it is time for you to do your part to protect the constitution. Below is a petition from townhall.com to inform your senators that they should vote to confirm John Roberts.

http://www.townhall.com/action/ProtectOurConstitution2.html

Stand up to evil or else

2005-07-23T21:22:00.000-07:00

If evil is not confronted it grows stronger and more ambitious. People often quip that the “soft sciences” don’t have laws. Well in political science that is as close as we come. Every time that evil has gone unopposed, or has been lightly opposed, it has reared its ugly head in new and more distressing ways (Yalta, Munich). I am as confident in this law as I am in any of the laws of physics or biology. Just as I am confident that gravity will hold my feet firmly to the ground I am confident that powerful, evil men who do not suffer consequences for their actions will wreck havoc beyond the worst imagining of those who failed to oppose them. Recent events in Sudan and China has only underscored that this rule still governs the universe.

Secretary Of State Condoleezza Rice was surprised when she and America’s diplomatic representatives were harassed and even physically accosted in the presence of Sudan’s President; she shouldn’t have been surprised. We have known for a decade that the ruling government has been one of evil. Sudan has been home to Islamic fundamentalism and terrorists including Osama Ben Laden, been suspected of trying to build weapons of mass destruction and committed genocide. This is a country that we have known for a long time is a hotbed for evil. Unfortunately because America has never taken decisive action against Sudan they are no long afraid of America. They feel that they can do anything, even assaulting a Secretary of State. It is a pattern that we have seen in the past. Bad guys “test the water” with a small sign of aggression (Hitler invading Poland, Stalin lying at Yalata, or the series of terrorist attacks carried out against American interests throughout the 19980s and 90s) and if that aggression is not met by force they take it as a sign that the good nations of the world are either scared of them or do not care enough to confront them.

A token sign of resistance is as bad, if not worse than no resistance at all. Bill Clinton made a token sign of confronting Sudan when he fired cruise missile at terrorists training camps and what was believed to be a chemical weapons factory in retaliation for the terrorist attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Within hours of the attacks the government had responded in a fashion that could only be seen as openly mocking the United States "bin Laden is safe and no damage has been done to any of his companions". As soon as the Sudanese government realized that the only response to terrorists attacks that killed 258 people and wounded over 5,000 others would be to have cruise missile launched at empty buildings in the middle of the night they began to feel invincible. Things only got worse from that point onward.

Since that time the Sudanese government has participated (if not orchestrated) a genocide that has led to the death of over 180,000 people made more than 2 million people into refugees. The world (America included) has failed to respond to this genocide with anything resembling the force that it deserves. The killing has subsided but reports are that this has only happened because most of the people that the militias (and the government that backs it) wanted to kill are already dead. A few countries sent peacekeepers that had the usual rules of engagement that prevented them from actually being able to help anyone. Many countries stuck their heads in the hand and pretended like nothing has happening. America was justifiably preoccupied with fighting against other very real threats in Afghanistan and Iraq and while that does not excuse it from taking any action it would have benefited greatly from some real help from its NATO or even UN allies.

Another example that we are watching develop is the impending crisis in China. Ever since President Nixon reopened diplomatic relations with China in we have been ignoring and even tacitly rewarding their acts of evil. China has made no moves to fix its deplorable treatment of its citizens or to grant freedoms to the countries that it occupies. The Communists continue to oppress and brutalize anyone they can get their hands on and we have started to reward them with lucrative trade deals. (Which by the way has done nothing to lessen the poverty that plagues much of the country.) People who support this engagement have cooed about how this was going to deflate their evil and painlessly bring China back into the light. These people have had an abrupt and rude awakening over the last few weeks. The pentagon has reported that China has been on a program of expanding and modernizing its army at breakneck speed. In the aftermath of this announcement a top Chinese general made an announcement that if America were to interfere with the Chinese invasion of Taiwan they would not hesitate to Nuke America or its forces. This surprised some people, but not anyone who has ever studied history or learned what I call the most ironclad rule in political science; if you don’t stand up to the bad guys today you will have to do so under worse circumstances tomorrow.

The left’s response to the Sudan crisis was to have rallies, sell little bracelets, and to try and “raise awareness” about the situation. I am sure that if the bad guys in Sudan even heard about this they found it quite amusing, and only further convinced them that the good countries of the world were incompetent cowards that would never be able to challenge them. The international community and well-intentioned people on the left share the delusion that evil can be contained by understanding, awareness and a few really cool peace songs. If we learn anything from history or political science it must be that those things never work. In every area in the world we throw out ideas that fail ever time they are applied and has never once gotten the desired result. So why can’t we do the same thing in this area where we face life and death consequences for our failures?

God Bless the Patriot Act

2005-07-21T08:57:00.000-07:00

“We have 19th century legal responses to 20th century legal problems”. Australian Prime Minister John Howard uttered this statement in the aftermath of today’s terrorist attack in London. The Home Secretary of England David noted that some civil liberties might need to be curtailed for some people in order to effectively combat terrorism. Even as we Americans bicker over the renewal of the Patriot Act we will very soon see new Patriot Acts springing up all across the free world. No one can afford to rely on 19th century legal responses to combat 20th century terrorists. It is completely irrational to hamstring our anti-terrorist forces with rules that are more stringent than the local police face. As I sit here and watch events unfold in London after the second terrorist attack in a month I understand how important it is that Congress vote to extend the Patriot Act.

For all the hand wringing and complaining about an intrusion on civil rights there is actually very little in the Patriot Act that one could find objectionable. In fact most of the provisions of the Patriot Act only bring anti terrorist forces up to par with other crime fighters. Before the Patriot Act a search warrant for a terrorist would only allow the FBI to tap a single cell phone and if a terrorist were to change cell phones the FBI would have to go through the process of getting a new search warrant for every new phone. This could happen every day and would make it impossible for the FBI to gather information. Under the Patriot Act the warrant applies to all cell phones that the terrorist may use. A similar law has been in effect in regards to regular criminals and the Mafia for some time. In fact the most controversial aspect of the entire Patriot Act is Section 216, which lowers the standard of proof in order to get a warrant from being “probable cause” to being "relevant for an on going investigation" involving terrorism. It does not allow the government to conduct a search and seziure, or to snoop without any sort of warrant, but it does lessen the burden of proof nessecary to obtain a warrant, which has caused groups including the ACLU to complain that the act allows the government to spy on anyone it wants. That is obviously hyperbole.

Another provision of the Patriot Act that really gets under the collar of its critics is the idea that law enforcement officials do not have to tell terrorists that they are involved in an investigation. This seems like a common sense intiative. Terrorist cells could react to the knowledge that they are being watched by going into hiding or by carrying out preemptive suicide bombings. To alert people who are suspected of terrorism that they are being suspected would clearly endanger both national security and human life. As sensible at this provision seems the Patriot Acts critics claim that it allows the government to spy on anyone they want and not tell them about it. It should be easy to understand that these criticism is sheer nonsense.

The most important thing to know about the Patriot Act is that it has led to the arrest of terrorists, the prevention of terrorist attacks and the saving of American lives. By the year 2005 it is estimated that over 400 people have been arrested because of the Patriot Act, of which many either plead guilty or were convicted of terrorist activities within the United States. The amount of damage that 400 suicide bombers could wreck in the United States is unimaginable. Since the Patriot act was put into play we have foiled many specific terrorist plots. We foiled a terrorist attack in the Manhattan Subway, we stopped an attempt to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. We even discovered a plot to build an Al Queda camp in Oregon. These are just a few of the examples that we know about and I am sure that there are many examples that we do not know about. The Patriot Act has made the American people demonstrably safer.

The countries of the free world will soon be passing their own versions of the Patriot act, it would be unconscionable if we were to allow our own to expire. Grand Terrorism is a 20th century phenomenon and it needs to be fought with 20th century methods. I would urge anyone reading this who think that they oppose the Patriot Act to read it, or at least to read the parts that they think are the most objectionable before they make up their minds.

Restoring the Court

2005-07-20T08:33:00.000-07:00

It seemed like the consultations and discussions would be as endless as they were pointless. President Bush proved that he has the patience of a saint for listening to the opinions of over 70 Senators, including the likes of Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy. In the end the President took a page out of Tommy Franks's Iraq war playbook and offered a feint, letting pundits and reporters get word that his appointment would likely be a woman, and specifically a woman named Edith Clement. While the special interest groups went on the offensive to rip apart poor Edith, the President announced that he had nominated John Roberts. The special interests were left with millions of worthless fliers and e-mails attacking Mrs. Clement. Many sites have already taken down links that were just posted yesterday, but seeing the attacks the left had planned for Clement gave the President an idea as to how they would try to defame Roberts. It only took them about half an hour to make up new talking points attacking John Roberts but their original eagerness to attack Mrs. Clement was a tip off that they planed on attacking whoever the President nominated. Left Wing special industry groups had raised fifty million dollars to fight the President's Nominee in the weeks before he was announced. What would these groups have done if the President had nominated someone they supported? Would they have sent the money back? These groups were already firmly committed to fighting the candidate, in order to justify their existence and 50 million dollars in donations, even if he had been a nominee they approved of. These facts should cause a concerted observer to reexamine their attacks on John Roberts to see if they actually have any substance or if they are just smear tactics and fear mongering that would have been thrown at any nominee.

Now that the President has done his job it is time for the Senators to do theirs. They owe it to the American people, who elected them and the President, to give Roberts an up or down vote in a timely manner. In the past many Supreme Court Justice got an up or down vote in as little as 2 or 3 days. That was the tradition in the Senate and with some exceptions was honored for nearly 2 centuries. Here is a list of dates that people were nominated and the date that the Senate acted on that nomination. http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/SupremeCourtNominations.pdf This was because the Supreme Court had not become as highly (and wrongfully) politicized as it has today. The Senate has an opportunity here to take a step back toward returning to Senate tradition and toward restoring the Supreme Court to its former apolitical place.

The people elected the President so that he could exercise his executive powers, not so that an obstructionist Senate could hold him back. Chuck Schumer, for reasons I cannot possibly understand, has predicted that it will take months to nail down exactly what Roberts believes. Apparently both he and his staffers do not understand how to use Google. In the 18th and 19th century the Senate was able to debate and vote on a judge in a day or two, but today it will take Chuck Schumer a month. It took me about an hour to read up on Roberts, his background and his judicial philosophy. It leads me to wonder if there are not other reasons why Chuck has already predicted that this will be a war that might take months and months. One could almost venture to guess that the Democrats are going to go out of their way to create a "quagmire". We can reasonably expect that the Democrats are going to ask Roberts a bunch of questions about his political ideology and try to pass these off as legitimate questions for a Supreme Court nominee. The truth is that such questions are irresponsible and irrelevant to that matter at hand. What is important is the nominee's judicial philosophy.

The President makes it clear that he is appointing Roberts because of his fidelity to the law not because of his political ideology. The President stated "When a president chooses a justice, he's placing in human hands the authority and majesty of the law" and that he was trying to appoint "a person who will faithfully apply the Constitution and keep our founding promise of equal justice under law". After all we all agree with the constitution don't we? Conservatives and liberal all still want to live under the system of law established by the constitution. So the only real issue up for debate is whether or not Justice Roberts would really do as advertised. I would not have a problem with a justice with extremely liberal political views if I believed that he was going to do his job and strictly interpret the constitution. So to, the liberals should not have a problem accepting a nomination no matter what his political views so long as they believed that he was going to honestly interpret the text of the constitution.

Chuck Schumer as already announced that he is going to prepare a list of questions that will test how "mainstream" (read liberal) Roberts is politically. Such questions are completely out of place in the vetting process. "Liberal" justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg refused to answer questions about her political philosophy even though everyone knew she was extremely liberal. Yet the Senate overwhelmingly approved her. (even the conservatives) That should be the model for this nomination. Conservatives were certainly not happy with the appointment of Justice Ginsburg, she had made a career out of making extremely liberal remarks while serving as the lawyer for the ACLU. Yet Republicans on the Senate rightly showed that disliking a person's political ideology is not a valid reason to deny them a seat on the Supreme Court. This time it is up to the Democrats on the Senate to show the same kind of respect for the constitution and fairness toward the President. Unfortunately Senate democrats include the likes of Ted Kennedy, Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer and Robert Byrd, so I doubt that we are going to get off so lucky. They will continue to politicize the court and prevent it from becoming the independant interperter of the constitution that it was always meant to be.

The end of Liberty

2005-07-17T10:07:00.000-07:00

The Wisconsin State Assembly recently passed legislation that will prevent the University of Wisconsin from advertising or distributing the so-called “morning after pill”. The Assembly decided, “Taxpayer-funded educational institutions have no business dispensing emergency contraception.” A seemingly perfectly reasonable stance for a state assembly to take. After all if the majority of the people in the State have no ability to control (by way of their elected representatives) the projects to which their tax dollars are devoted than it is starting to feel like 1776 all over again. Unfortunately I have a queasy feeling in my stomach that even if this bill were to pass the Governor who has threatened to veto it, it would find its way to a state Supreme Court in no time at all. In a move that foreshadows this, the state’s Attorney General (A Democrat) has already stated “the bill not only discriminates against female students but also raises numerous constitutional concerns.” These are signs that if the left cannot convince the voters or the democratically elected representatives that they want to fund abortion pills they will force the pills down their throat by using specious arguments about “due process” and the “equal protection of the law”. This is not merely an issue that pertains to the University of Wisconsin (where it seems like a clear case that the State Government has the right to ban the use of the pill) the issues of whether to allow the pill to be sold with out a prescription will be decided by the FDA this September. The issue at stake here is whether or not the American people and the elected branches of government (the State Legislature in Wisconsin or the Executive in the United States) can decide issues as grave the allowance or lack thereof of a pill that induces a chemical abortion without the interference of the courts.

The idea that some constitutional right is being trampled by disallowing free access to an pill that both causes an abortion and acts as a contraceptive is absurd. The supposed rights to both the use of contraceptives and abortions are laughable in their own rights. Lacking any real constitutional bases to mandate such practices the Justices involved in the case decided to great creative. One such attempt was the “right to privacy”. This supposed right (which is not enumerated in the Constitution) cannot possibly be applied to all cases or we would live in anarchy. We cannot legally commit, rape, incest, adultery, embezzlement or any other crime just because we do so in the privacy of our own bedroom. No one worried about “bedroom police” when it is announced that a CEO has been busted for insider trading, which could have very easily been carried out from the privacy of his own bedroom. No one would cry foul if a man who raped his daughter was arrested even though the crime occurred in the privacy of his own bedroom. The extremely selective application of the “right to privacy” (which once again is purely the invention of the Supreme Court and has no basis in the constitution) serves to prove that it was nothing other than an invented excuse that allowed the Court to impose its belief (in the widespread use of contraceptives and abortion on demand) on the American people.

The language used to create this “right of privacy” further shows how it is built on a foundation of sand. Justice Douglas the man who basically invented the idea of a “right of privacy” explained that he was acting within constitutional grounds because “the specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance.” I’m not making that up. It is actually what the Justice wrote. What he was trying to say in English is that the Bill of Rights was just a few suggestions that hinted at all the rights that the Founders really wanted to protect and that it was up to him to decide what the writers of the Constitution really wanted and to impose those values on the American people. It’s actually kind of scary when you think about it. Justice Kennedy made himself into a king, but used fancy pontification and meaningless drivel to ensure that no one would know what he was really saying. The Bill of rights said exactly what it intended to say and there were no emissions or leakage of any sort that was left over to create new rights that could only be sniffed out by Supreme Court Justices pretending to be royalty. If we want to establish new rights, it must be done in a way that reflects the will of the people, not 9 people sitting in the Supreme Court.

According to Justice Kennedy we have a right to privacy because “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” Do you follow that? I certainly don’t. In truth it doesn’t actually mean anything at all. It is just meaningless ranting intended to justify the unjustifiable. The key of a representative democratic government is the right for the majority to vote for representatives who will create laws that will serve the public interest. Whether or not our elected officials decide to restrict access to a “morning after pill” (and I hope they do restrict it severely) we cannot allow the Supreme Court to impose such a decision upon us. That would be the true death of our liberty. Women might hail the Court’s actions as providing for their liberty but they will fail to realize that a tyrannical court that invents new rights for them today can just as easily take them away tomorrow. We have put our collective faith in Democracy for the last 200 years and for women to turn their back on Democracy for what they (wrongfully) believe to be their short-term interest would be a grave mistake.

American Prestige

2005-07-15T10:07:00.000-07:00

There is a popular myth that American prestige has lessened during the term of President Bush. I seek to demonstrate that this in fact a myth. American prestige began to decline during the administration of the first President Bush, and continued to do so under President Clinton. America was very popular under Clinton but popularity and prestige is not the same thing. In the aftermath of the cold war the people of the world wanted a more hands of leader because the started to think that they no longer faced on significant threats. They were wrong, they needed and continue to need a strong involved “sheriff” whether they like it or not. It is important for the hegemonic power in the world to have prestige; it is irrelevant whether or not that country is beloved. It is only under the command of the current President Bush that America has regained the respect of its allies and more importantly its enemies.
Every President puts his own unique stamp on American foreign policy during his time in office. Each man elected to that office has his own unique views as to the role that America should play in the world. They make their own determinations about the issues ranging from the time when it is appropriate to use force, the ways in which force should be used, and acceptable levels of casualties en route to reaching a goal. The last three presidents have each had their own distinct grand strategies for foreign policy and I would like to examine each of these grand strategies by looking at one event that best defines how each played out in the real world. I will explore the conduct and repercussions thereof of; President Bush during the Gulf War, President Clinton in Somalia and President George W Bush during operation Iraqi freedom. I think that these three events will give us an insight into each presidents foreign policy ideals and the consequences of each event will allows us to weight the relative strengths and weaknesses of each President’s strategy.

The first President Bush showed a willingness to use American power to protect the free peoples of the world when he reacted to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. But in that same war he showed that he was unwilling to take the final step, to follow the way through its conclusion, regime change. We will never really know if the reason he did not do this was to maintain stability in the region or because he was unwilling to suffer the American causalities that would have come with the march to Baghdad. This action, or inaction sent a message to the world screaming, “right now America does not have the resolve to fight the tough fight”. At the end of war, President George H. W. Bush urged Iraqis to rise up and revolt against Saddam Hussein. In a move reminiscent of the Bay of Pigs, the President then neglected to support this rebellion leading to a wholesale slaughter of our allies by the Iraqi regime. This loss of faith proved to be a stumbling block before the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Local opposition groups were hesitant to side with the United States because they remembered that we had lacked the courage or will to follow through with our promises in the past. This slaughter eventually grew so bad that we had to go back into Iraq and establish no fly zones over the northern and southern portions of Iraq. Our failure to do the right thing in the first place forced us to establish a stopgap measure and put our pilots in danger every day to. These over flights had to continue all the way until operation Iraq freedom. Needless to say this did not impress anyone with our strength.

During the decade following our failure to ouster Saddam Hussein he proceed to mock us and flaunt his disrespect for the United States. He even went so far as to mass another invasion force on the border with Kuwait. Saddam Hussein felt confident that he could defy America and the rest of the world and build WMDs. In 1995 several senior Iraqi officials defected to the United States; they revealed that Iraq had manufactured and weaponized VX gas and were working on a biological warfare program. Saddam eventually admitted that he over 4 tons of VX , 8,500 liters of anthrax, 550 artillery shells loaded with mustard gas, over 107,000 casings for chemical weapons, 25 missile warheads containing botulinum, aflatoxin, and anthrax, 500 parachute-fitted bombs for WMD delivery and at least 157 aerial bombs filled with germ agents. He also allowed terrorist organizations including Al-Insar Al Islam and Abu Nidal to operate out of Iraq. These are both terrorists organizations that had struck America and its allies and they were given safe haven and protection by the emboldened Saddam Hussein. The maniac had no fear of the United States and felt that he could get away with anything that he wanted. (editorials.arrivenet.com/pol/article.php/1983.html)

President Clinton was more similar to the first President Bush than many people realize or feel comfortable admitting. He also took dramatic steps to decrease American prestige around the world. The key illustration of this is our actions in Somalia. President Clinton sent troops to Somalia in order to try and mitigate a humanitarian crisis. After a short period of time it became apparent that the job would not be easy. We met fierce resistance from general Aideed, whom we now know had training and support from Al Queda and Osama Ben Laden. Eventually Aideed’s forces shot down a US Black Hawk Helicopter and killed 18 solders. In response to this we retraced out troops from Somalia. The rest of the world saw our retraction and decided that we would not be willing to use our armed forces to intervene in a foreign country again. This phenomenon became known as the “Mogadishu line” and the world decided that America would not be willing to cross the Mogadishu line. And for the most part they were right, America was hesitant to cross that line under the Clinton Administration. A UN official was asked when if ever American forces would cross the Mogadishu line and he answered “Nowhere in the world. You never cross the Mogadishu Line, that means you never put your soldiers at risk. And we saw that last year in the war in Kosovo. That war was fought by NATO only from 15,000 feet, where no pilots would be in serious danger.” (http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/s220053.htm) Which in part explains our weak reactions to events such as the bombing of the Cole. We believe that Somalia is still a haven for Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. These signs of weakness spurred Osama Ben Laden to say that he would have an easy time recruiting people to fight American because “when people see a strong horse and a weak horse by nature they will like the strong horse". At the end of the first Bush presidency mad men and dictators felt they could balk America’s will. By the end of the Clinton presidency two bit thugs and terrorists like General Aideed and Osama Ben Laden felt confident that they were safe from American reprisals.

When President George W Bush was elected, at first it seemed as if he was going to follow in the footsteps of his father and President Clinton. He called for “a humble foreign policy” and sounded very much like a realist. Then September 11th happened and everything changed. The President was converted into what people have called a neoconservative or a neoReganite. He began to understand that the only way to protect America’s position in the world was to use our strength to fight evil and protect freedom across the world. Since that time we have smashed our enemies in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have killed uncounted thousands of terrorists and enemies of the United States. We have put the fear of American power back into the bad guys in a way that has been unheard of since the time of President Regan. In light of these developments countries that had formerly ignored American influence and actively supported our enemies began to get back on the right path. Libya and Pakistan both made serious moves get back in line with American desires. Both countries took steps to combat terrorism and Libya turned over its WMD programs to the United States. The burgeoning knowledge that America will no longer turn its back on its allies aided democratic revolutions in countries including Lebanon and dramatic democratic reforms in countries including Egypt, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. For the first time in over a decade the people of the world once again respect American power and we are moving in the right direction toward a free and secure world.

Cold War Part Deux

2005-07-12T15:49:00.000-07:00

Neocons have been accused of being warmongers who are always looking for a new enemy and a new war to fight. That is why it is with a heavy heart that I must be the one to alert you that our relationship with the communist dictatorship in China is very similar to our relationship with Stalin in the late 1940s. Right now we have all the right ingredients for another cold war. George Keenan’s X Article outlined the reasons behind the first Cold War. A careful reading of that article reveals that a very similar situation exists today between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This is not to say that a hot war with China is inevitable, after all we never had a hot war with the Soviet Union. My argument is merely that we are facing an adversary that is similar in nature to the Soviet Union and it would be foolish if we did not take comparable steps in combating it. In this article I will summarize Keenan’s X article and show how many of his points can be applied to the PRC just as easily as they were applied to the Soviet Union 60 years ago.

Before I begin there is one issue that I must address and that is the supposed reform currently taking place in the PRC. I know that there are many people are a reading this article who will instantly discredit me because they believe that Capitalism has already begun to spread throughout the PRC and that where Capitalism goes Democracy is sure to follow. As much as I sympathize with this view I believe that it is overly optimistic. Even if the PRC does not roll back the reforms (it has already curtailed reforms if it felt they were getting out of control and can easily do so again) there is no guarantee that capitalism will bring democracy. Democracy is inherently antithetical to a dictatorship but capitalism is not. Capitalism obviously cannot thrive to the fullest extent under a dictatorship but the two systems are not necessarily antithetical to one another. Look at Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and even China today and you have examples of quasi-capitalism under a repressive dictatorial regime. Even assuming the best-case scenario and the people of China will be emboldened by economic reforms and attempt to overthrow their government and establish a democracy there will still be great cause for concern.

In the USSR Perestroika happened in the context of an already broken and defeated country. The Soviets entered into economic reforms from a position of weakness in a desperate gamble to cling to whatever vestiges of their quickly fading strength that they possibly could. Our containment policy had thwarted Soviet expansion and they were at a low point in military power. After their spectacular failure in Afghanistan, invading a neighboring country was not a viable option. After the Helsinki accords, and the knowledge that President Reagan would enforce them, the Soviets were even limited in their ability to respond to domestic revolutions. They knew that human rights violations would lead to economic reprisals that they could not afford. Perestroika was only the final step in tearing down a brutal oppressive regime that had put down numerous revolutions over a fifty-year period; it did not bring down the Berlin wall, all on its own.

In this case China is beginning its version of Perestroika at the time of its greatest military might. The PRC is entering into economic reforms as a calculated measure to increase their strength and bolster their future expansionist aims. China has yet to be defeated while attempting to occupy a neighbor and had entered into no agreement similar to the Helsinki accord. The Chinese continue to commit numerous barbaric human rights offenses with little or no consequences. The government sees its economic reforms as a way to build up greater power, but as a step toward giving it away. If the government were to feel vulnerable that would only make it more dangerous. Even if the most unexpected of miracles were to take place the Chinese people were to follow in the footsteps of the Georgians, Ukrainians, Lebanese and numerous others that have fought for their freedom, catastrophe could still strike. The communist party is not going to willingly step down and accept that a democratic government is going to take over. To do so would not only be to accept a dramatic loss of power but would also most likely mean that many of them would be placed on trial and either imprisoned or executed. Even if you believed that by trading with China and treating them like an ally we are speeding up their demise, to do so without taking adequate precautions would be very dangerous.

We are currently in the most dangerous of all periods envisioned by Keenan in his X article. He begins his article by arguing that a socialist state will never truly trust the intentions of the capitalist countries of the free world. But he cautions that “If the Soviet government occasionally sets its signature to documents which would indicate the contrary, this is to be regarded as a tactical maneuver permissible in dealing with the enemy (who is without honor) and should be taken in the spirit of caveat emptor.” As I noted above, this is very much the situation between China and the United States today. The clues that Keenan advises us to look at in order to see through the charade are that “Basically, the antagonism remains. It is postulated. And from it flow many of the phenomena which we find disturbing in the Kremlin's conduct of foreign policy: the secretiveness, the lack of frankness, the duplicity, the wary suspiciousness, and the basic unfriendliness of purpose.” He continues in almost prophetic fashion to point out that “When there is something the Russians want from us, one or the other of these features of their policy may be thrust temporarily into the background; and when that happens there will always be Americans who will leap forward with gleeful announcements that "the Russians have changed," and some who will even try to take credit for having brought about such "changes.” To me that sound a lot like the multitudes of voices screaming about supposed capitalist and democratic changes in China.

Today the Chinese need our help in furthering their economy so they have made moves which seem to indicate a change in their basic philosophy. But on closer inspection it is clear that; “the antagonism remains” and that we should be disturbed by the PRC’s “conduct of foreign policy: the secretiveness, the lack of frankness, the duplicity, the wary suspiciousness, and the basic unfriendliness of purpose.” On March 14th 2005 the supposedly democratizing PRC passed a law which authorized the government to use "non-peaceful means" against "'Taiwan“. In the past the Chinese had made vague assurances that they would only initate hostilites if the Taiwanese first made some attempt to change the status quo. The new law reneges on even that vague promise by stating that force will be used if “that there is no hope for unification”. A statement which does not require any action by Taiwan. It gives the Chinese government carte blanche to declare “that there is no hope for unification” and invade at the communists whim. We still have great reason to be concerned with Chinese foreign policy and agression.

The Washington Times (http://www.washtimes.com/specialreport/20050626-122138-1088r.htm) recently reported that under the cover of greater economic cooperation the Chinese have been rapidly modernizing and expanding their armed forces in an attempt to threaten other countries in their region and ultimately the United States. The article cites concerns at the Pentagon that China could launch an invasion of Taiwan in as little as two years. The Pentagon report is quoted as saying that despite recent indications to the contrary they believe that Chinese will resort to "to extreme, offensive and mercantilist measures when other strategies fail, to mitigate its vulnerabilities, such as seizing control of energy resources in neighboring states." Such a sentence would not have been out of place in the X Article.

Chinese military buildup has been focused on new ships and submarines, which would play a key role in an invasion of Taiwan. Despite the arguemnts that we have entered into a new era of honesty and openess with the Chinese Air Force Gen. Paul V. Hester, head of the Pacific Air Forces asserts that we cannot even be sure the full extent of the Chinese buildup because they have taken steps to hide it from us. The article further accuses China of obtraining much of its techology by spying on the United States and copying some of our senstive techonology. It sounds to me like it would be very much appropriate to accuse China of “secretiveness” and “lack of frankness.”

The X Article notes that the Soviets lived wrapped up in the myth of “foreign antagonism”. Every action by every other country was immediately viewed as hostile because of necessary friction between free and enslaved peoples. According to Keenan a communist government will need to act in this manner in order to justify their own existence and prevent popular revolt. If the people in the country were not convinced that they were constantly under the threat of revolt and destruction by some insidious evil they would never submit to having their freedoms usurped by the government.

This principal can explain recent actions of the Chinese government that would otherwise be incomprehensible. In early 2005 a group of historians in Japan published a textbook that many claim was insensitive to its World War Two Victims. The Chinese overreacted to this, to say the least. The people were whipped into a frenzy and the Japanese embassy was attacked by mobs of people. Japanese-themed or owned shops and malls were attacked an vandalized. Japanese people living in China were attacked and several were reported as injured. The protests could not have happened without the consent of the Chinese government. The Chinese government has been very sucessful at hodling down protests and revolts over the years since Tianmen Square. Even a media source as liberal as NPR has “argued that the controversy is being allowed by the PRC government partly in order to further a multitude of political goals.” [1] A state controlled Chinese newspaper called the printing of the textbook “aggressive action." And indicated that the government would take steps to block Japanese ascension to the UN Security Council.[2] While several countries were angered by the textbook (including Australia, Taiwan and South Korea) the Chinese response was the only one that actually caused the Japanese to demand an apology. The Japanese of have claimed that the Chinese protests, “are primarily motivated by hostile or racist anti-Japanese sentiment”.[3]

China has blamed sources including, America, Japan and even the Vatican for supposed “antagonism” for worsening its problems with Taiwan. Unable to tell its people that their Tiwanese neighbors are living better, happier lives and enjoying their freedom from Chinese repression the government has attempted to blame the rest of the world for their impossibility of reconciliation. In what sounds like a joke to the free people of the world the vice minister of the Taiwan affairs office in China called on the people of Taiwan to “He urged people across the Straits to launch an all-out fight against secessionist forces.”[4] This is not a serious request for the people of Taiwan to raise up arms and fight against their democratically elected government. The man is a communist not an idiot. He said this to the people of China because it was essential that they view the government of Taiwan as usurpers. When he suggested that the people of Taiwan unite just as they did to fight Japan in World War Two he is appealing to the communist mythology that has been planted into the head of mainlanders, not to the free people of Taiwan. The Chinese millitary recently stated that American presence in the Tiwan strait "complicated security factors" and blamed America for “meddling in a domestic Chinese matter”[5] The Chinese government has even warned the Vatican to “not [to] interfere with China's internal affairs" on the issue of Taiwan.[6] China has manipulated the issue of Taiwan to paint a picture for its people. They have created a false reality in which the aggressively anti Chinese world and a small band of evil secessionist have balked the will of the Chinese people in Taiwan and prevented reunification. The is an extremely dangerous lie to promulgate, it more than anything else prevents true cooperation and peace between China and the rest of the free world.

Zhu Chenghu, a major general in the People's Liberation Army recently announced “China is prepared to use nuclear weapons against the US if it is attacked by Washington during a confrontation over Taiwan”.[7] This comment is telling on many levels. There is very little realistic expectation that America is going to be attacking China anytime soon. We have a fleet in the Taiwan Strait but that will only come into play if the Chinese launch an attack on Taiwan. The Chinese are showing the same paranoia about “foreign aggression” that Keenan indicates is trademark of communist regimes. Even more telling is the threat that China would be prepared to use nuclear weapons against the United States. Zhu’s words sounds as if the are coming right out of the cold war. He stated “We Chinese will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian. Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds. . . of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese.” The sounds very much like the policy of MAD that dominated the thinking during the cold war. Even if Americans want to burry their heads in the sand and deny that we are involved in a cold war with China, the Chinese military is under no such illusions. No amount of trade or cooperation should be enough to obscure the fact that a senior Chinese military official has announced that his country would consider murdering tens of millions of American citizens.

Keenan notes that another essential facet of the USSR was that “There were to be no forms of collective human activity or association which would not be dominated by the Party”. This is an internal version of the last paragraph. The communist party can continue to rule the country so long as there is a threat lurking in every shadow and a monster under every bed. For all of the supposed weakness of the PRC’s communist party this is still the case in China today. The Chinese government has declared that the Fulan Gong, a religious group is "threat to social and political stability" and called it and similar groups “''heretical organizations''[8] Members of these groups have been and continue to be arbitrarily arrested, tried in mock trials and then tortured or killed. Despite allowing a limited amount of association in some economic areas the communist party has maintained a tight grip on the majority of human association. China has still banned the Vatican from having any official dealings with Christians inside of China, insisting that allowing the Vatican to have influence inside of China would “undermines its sovereignty.” [9] The Chinese government would not lose sovereignty if allowed the Vatican the right to operate within China, no democratic government has ever made such an outrageous claim. What would be threatened is the need for total power and control of the citizens’ daily lives that Keenan points out is characteristic of a communist dictatorship.

It is for all of these reasons that I wish to echo with Keenan in arguing that “It is clear that the United States cannot expect in the foreseeable future to enjoy political intimacy with” (and here I make a change) the Chinese regime. I paraphrase him in starting It must continue to regard the Chinese as a rival, not a partner, in the political arena. It must continue to expect that Chinese policies will reflect no abstract love of peace and stability, no real faith in the possibility of a permanent happy coexistence of the socialist and capitalist worlds, but rather a cautious, persistent pressure toward the disruption and, weakening of all rival influence and rival power. But there is significant room for optimism. Like Keenan I see in the very core of communism (as in all ideologies that restrict human freedom) the very seeds of its own ultimate destruction. As I noted above many people believe that we are already seeing some of those seeds take root. If that is the truth than it is all the more imperative that we stand firm and ensure that the liberation of the Chinese people happens in an orderly and efficient manner. The only way to do this, as was the only way to do a similar task in the USSR, is to approach the Chinese from a position of strength and patience and too make it clear that we will not back down and allow them to bully or (god forbid) conquer any of the free nations of the world. The Chinese’s current form of war, which includes the purposeful devaluation of their currency and buyouts of foreign countries, is no less a threat to the world than the invasions which might be waiting just over the horizon. That is why I am arguing that we must begin a new policy of containment in our dealings with China. Some American lawmakers have already seen the need to act in this manner as can be seen in our demands that Europe uphold the arms embargo, that Israel stop selling weapons to China, our demands that China revalue its currency and attempts to block the takeover of UNOCAL. It is not the time to let our avarice stand in the way of our good judgments. Yalta happened because the good men and women of the world could not see Stalin’s bad intentions. They gave him far too much leeway and he turned around spat in the world’s face. We cannot afford to make the same mistake in dealing with the Chicoms.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_history_textbook_controversies
[2] http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-03/26/content_428314.htm
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_history_textbook_controversies
[4] http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-07/12/content_459286.htm
[5] http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/04/07/news/china.html
[6] http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/4/5/132144.shtml
[7] http://news.ft.com/cms/s/28cfe55a-f4a7-11d9-9dd1-00000e2511c8.html
[8] http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGASA170112000
[9] http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/4/5/132144.shtml

The Next Supreme Court Justice

2005-07-08T10:22:00.000-07:00

As soon as conservatives admit that they are gearing up for a big battle over the next Supreme Court Justice we have already lost the war. Fighting for a judge with “conservative values” would be fighting to win a battle while admitting defeat in the war. Liberals demand that the President appoint a judge who is “pro choice, pro civil rights” and holds a host of other “progressive” social values dear to the left. As soon as conservatives turn around and ask for a judge that has conservative values (pro life, pro gun rights or anything else) they are missing the point. Conservatives should never be willing to allow the Supreme Court to usurp the political powers of the legislature. That is unconstitutional and it gives a tremendous advantage to liberals who aim at remaking American culture and social norms in their own image. The text of the constitution clearly protects many specific values that can never be challenged as long as the Supreme Court justices see themselves as being bound by its words. Once they are given the leeway to decide cases based on their own whims, nothing is sacred. Liberals would gain far more from the appointment of an archconservative that will base his jurisprudence on his values than by a person who is personally to the left of Michael Moore but will base his rulings on the text of the constitution.

The greatest liberal victories of the 20th century (right to die, right of sodomy, right to murder ((abortions)) restrictions on capital punishment, the severe restrictions placed on religious freedom, ect…) have all been the direct result of Justices ignoring the text of the constitution. None of these “progressive social reforms” could have come out of Congress. They do not reflect the opinion of the majority of Americans. They certainly do not reflect the history and tradition of this country. Many had been legislated in the opposite manner at the time the Court decided that they were mandated by the constitution and in fact some had been the law for decades or centuries before. Most of these reforms could not even have passed an impartial Supreme Court as being constitutional. They were the decisions of 5 or 6 Supreme Court Justices who felt that it was their duty to fix the mistakes made by our founders and to prevent the average people and their elected representatives to further interfere with what their utopian dream. The appointment of a Judge who seems likely to rule based on conservative social values may (you never know how someone will vote once they get on the court) protect us from such forced liberalization for a decade or two but he will further the idea of Justices ruling based on personal preference rather than the constitution. The appointment of a judge who will rule based on the actual text of the constitution would be a true step toward protecting American democracy from judicial tyranny for centuries to come.

The true shame is that the move toward “judicial legislators” is an invention clearly not intended by the constitution or our founders. It is a move made by radical liberals who understand that it is there only chance to have an impact on a largely conservative country that has time and time again repudiated their ideologies in the court of public opinion. The “right to have an abortion” or the “right not to be made uncomfortable by hearing a benediction at a High School graduation” simply do not resonate with the American people. They have only become accepted because of the passivity of the average person in the face of perversions carried out by the Supreme Court. The constitution clearly says, “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.“ not even a inkling that any of those powers should be shared by the Supreme Court. In the Federalist Paper number 47 Madison states “There can be no liberty where… the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers”. Later in that same paper he states, “Were the power of judging joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control, for THE JUDGE would then be THE LEGISLATOR. Were it joined to the executive power, THE JUDGE might behave with all the violence of AN OPPRESSOR.” To concede that the best we can expect is one Justice who judges based on Conservative values is to accept a huge defeat. Several of the more astute conservative commentators have already made this point. In his July 8th article Charles Krauthammer proclaims that we do not need a Supreme Court Justice that will rule based on social issues other conservative or liberal. Rather we “What we need is a nominee who has a judicial philosophy -- grounded in constitutional principles that provide legal guidelines that politicians and citizens can understand and live by.” Supreme Court Justice Scalia and others have echoed similar statements. The point is that the “litmus test” for selecting a justice cannot be how conservative or liberal they are on social issues. It must be whether or not they will respect and uphold our constitution.

Ken Waltz

2005-06-30T07:45:00.000-07:00

Howie Slugh and Daniel Solomon

Ken Waltz, a past President of the American Political Science Association, is most well known for his theory of neo-realism. In which he describes the causes of war. He argues that bilateralism leads to peace and multilateralism leads to war. This theory won him great respect and accord amongst the political science community. Waltz has recently espoused a new theory, this time he has attempted to tackle the issue of nuclear proliferation. The first half of his theory is that nuclear deterrence worked and has in large part been responsible for the peace between great powers since World War Two. We are going to focus on the second half of the theory. This is the part of the theory that indicates that this deterrence is desirable. He is quoted as saying "more may be better," contending that new nuclear states will use their acquired nuclear capabilities to deter threats and preserve peace.[1] Waltz concludes that America should not be overly alarmed by a glacial spread of nuclear weapons because those weapons will only be used for defensive purposes. He goes so far as to say that nuclear weapons cannot even be used to blackmail other countries. We take issue with five specific facets of this argument, its moral equivalence, the existence of nuclear blackmail, inherent contradictions with his original neorealist theory, the unique nature of Islamic fundamentalism and the possibility of nuclear accidents.

Moral Equivalence

Waltz demonstrates a total lack of moral clarity by arguing that America should not worry about glacial proliferation. In a speech at Yeshiva University on Wednesday, December 15 Waltz mentioned that he would not find it distasteful if Iranian nuclear weapons put a crimp in America’s style. By making peace and stability goals in and of themselves he ignores the reality of just wars. When making this argument Waltz places all types of war on an equal level. He does not make the moral distinction between the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the American liberation of that same country. He equates the American invasion of Afghanistan with the Nazi invasion of Poland. We are not denying that deterrence will work; we are merely asking whether or not that is a good thing. Giving states that do not respect human rights the power of deterrence is a recipe for disaster. If Slobodan Milosevic had nuclear weapons a NATO intervention in Yugoslavia would have been impossible. If Hitler had nuclear weapons no State would have dared to intervene on the Jews behalf.

Three of the worlds major human rights violators, Iran, Iraq and North Korea are also, not surprisingly, three of the countries most commonly associated with the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The specific topic of Waltz speech at Yeshiva University on Wednesday, December 15 was nuclear proliferation in Iran. He once again made the claim that we do not have to worry about their proliferation because the weapons will only be used for peaceful means. Try explaining that to the Iranian people. In a on June 7, Human Rights Watch published a document titled Like the Dead in Their Coffins: Torture, Detention, and the Crushing of Dissents in Iran which among other human rights violations documented how “The Iranian authorities have managed, in the span of four years, to virtually silence the political opposition within the country through the systematic use of indefinite solitary confinement of political prisoners, physical torture of student activists, and denial of basic due process rights to all those detained for the expression of dissenting views”[2] Allowing Iran to gain a credible deterrent threat against the United States hammer the final nail into Iranian dissent.

In the late 1980s the Hussein initiated the Anfal campaign under which he committed acts of genocide against Kurdish people living in Northern and Southern Iraq. In this campaign he was responsible for the murder of at least 50,000 Kurds. During this campaign Saddam committed war crimes including the widespread use of chemical weapons including sarin gas, mustard gas and nerve agents. [3] In April 1991 following the Gulf War Saddam once again perpetrated genocidal attacks against the Kurds and Shiites. In this campaign he murdered between 40,000 and 100,000 Kurds, and between 60,000 and 130,000 Shiites.[4] Saddam finally relented partially because American took steps to protect the Kurds including setting up “no fly zones” over Northern Iraq. If Saddam were to have obtained a nuclear arsenal, as many signs indicating he was attempting, he would have been able to return to slaughtering the Kurds.
North Korea, a county that currently operates death and concentration camps, has been able to utilize Waltz’s strategy and deter American intervention. North Korean concentration camps are thought to contain 200,000 and to include “gas chambers where horrific chemical experiments are conducted on human beings“.[5] A high level North Korean defector recently gave testimony about the horrors that he had witnessed. “I witnessed a whole family being tested on suffocating gas and dying in the gas chamber, The parents, son and a daughter. The parents were vomiting and dying, but till the very last moment they tried to save kids by doing mouth-to-mouth breathing.”[6] This is the future advocated by Ken Waltz. Waltz sees no problem in the fact that a country exists in which “imprisoned women are often forced to abort fetuses and prisoners are routinely executed in public, often in the presence of children. Pluralism and civil society are nonexistent. There is no religious or press freedom“.[7] Glacial proliferation is a situation which provides regimes such as North Korea the means to preserve situations such as this one.

No single group benefits more from a world in which peace is preserved solely through nuclear deterrence than terrorists. No one, not even Waltz, claims that nuclear deterrence can prevent events such as the attack on the USS Cole, The Marine barracks in Lebanon or even September 11th. The only thing that nuclear deterrence can prevent is American retaliation for such attacks. If Afghanistan had been a country that benefited from the protection of nuclear weapons, Operation Enduring Freedom would have been an impossibility. In a world that permitted glacial proliferation, Osama Bin Laden would still be free to finance, and orchestrate terrorist attacks and there would be nothing that America could do to stop him.

Despite the current claims to the contrary, if Saddam Hussein had ever participated in glacial proliferation he would have instantly transformed Iraq into a safe haven for terrorists. Iraq provided the terrorist Abu Nidal, and his organization, safe haven between the years 1970 and 1983. He even returned there at some point before his death in 2002. The only reason that Nidal was expelled in 1983 was because Saddam believed that by doing so he could gain American support in his war against Iran.[8] Perhaps more disturbingly Saddam did not seem overly anxious to take action against Ansar al-Islam, “an al-Qaeda affiliate active in Iraqi Kurdistan since September 2001”.[9] 650 members of this group operated out of northern Iraq. It is not a stretch of the imagination to assume that if Iraq had the ability to deter American intervention Al Zarquai would not have been the last terrorist to consider Iraq a safe haven.
Iran, whom Waltz specifically mentions as a possible candidate for proliferation, is another country with a long history of supporting terrorism. The 9/11 commission found that “Tehran operatives maintained contacts with al-Qaeda for years and may have provided transit for at least eight of the 19 men who wreaked havoc in the United States with hijacked airliners on September 11. Al-Qaeda and Iranian operatives struck an accord in late 1991 or 1992 to provide training for assaults on Israel and the United States, and terrorist leaders and trainers went to Iran for instruction in explosives.”[10] Iranian support for terrorism and anti-Americanism is not a new phenomenon. In 1979 Iranian students took 52 Americans hostage. If glacial proliferation had already reached Iran those people would have been as good as dead. If Iran knew that it could have used a nuclear threat to deter America, negotiation would have been nearly impossible. The Iranians could have murdered all of the hostages and known that they did not have to fear retaliation. When considering the implications of Waltz’s theory it is important that we ask ourselves whether or not allowing Iranian proliferation is an acceptable sacrifice for stability.

We believe that while professor Waltz may be correct in assuming that nuclear proliferation would prevent war, we think he is incorrect in assuming that they would cause peace. If countries such as pre-liberated Iraq, Iran and North Korea were to proliferate, or continue proliferating, nuclear weapons it would make peace an impossible dream for countless millions of people. While Waltz is unconcerned that nuclear proliferation will “put a crimp in America’s style”[11] tens of millions of oppressed people world wide consider that prospect a cause for grave concern. By equating one war with another and one country with another Waltz commits the unconscionable sin of moral equivalence.

Nuclear Blackmail

Ken Waltz claimed, in his speech at Yeshiva University, that is was impossible for one country to blackmail another. This is simply a-historical. In 1994 America discovered that “North Korea was preparing to remove some fuel rods from a research reactor which they'd been operating at Yongbyon. [The] fuel rods contained five or six bombs' worth of weapons-grade plutonium.” [12] As soon as America heard this they immediately changed their policy toward North Korea. Prior to 1994 America severely restricted its economic and political ties to North Korea. Restrictions existed on “US imports of most North Korean products. Sales of most US consumer goods and financial services to North Korea. US investment in most North Korean industries. Direct financial help from US citizens to North Koreans. US ship and plane transport of cargo to and from North Korea. Commercial flights to and from North Korea.”[13] Kim Jung Ill was able to use the threat of nuclear proliferation to change American policy to become more favorable to him and his country. The Clinton Administration assured that if North Korea would halt its nuclear weapons program they would be richly rewarded. Under the Agreed Framework the Clinton administration promised the North Koreans; two light water nuclear reactors, 500,000 tons of oil per year, and a movement toward the normalization of trade and diplomatic relations between the two countries.[14] North Korea was able to get all of these concessions without doing anything to moderate the very policies which caused the economic and political restrictions in the first place. Kim Jung Ill was able to use nuclear blackmail to force America to accept the Agreed Framework, a deal extremely favorable to North Korean interests.

Neo Realism

Waltz’s original theory of Neo Realism casts serious doubts on his explanations of the Israeli Egyptian war of 1973 and the wars between India and Pakistan. This seems to present a serious problem for Waltz’s argument that States act rationally and do not go to war with States that have Nuclear weapons. He attempts to answer this problem by saying that States which attack nuclear powers only attack their non-vital interests and nuclear powers will only use nuclear weapons to protect their vital interests. The only problem is that this presents an inherent contradiction to the very theory that made Waltz famous. In order for one State to truly know that another State will only attack peripheral targets, and not threaten their vital interests, there needs to be a high level of communication and trust between two States. This concept of accurate understanding and trust between two States is contradictory to Waltz’s description of Neo-realism and the security dilemma. Waltz describes a situation titled the security dilemma, “Rational countries living in the state of anarchy and the security dilemma would be suspicious of and hostile to each other because of their tense relations, although that was not their original idea.”[15] No state ever wants war, whether or not nuclear weapons are in the picture. Each state is merely forced to build up its defensive arsenal so that it does not fall into a strategic disadvantage vis-à-vis its neighbor and then a misunderstanding leads to war. According to Waltz, "With many sovereign states, with no system of law enforceable among them, with each state judging its grievances and ambitions according to the dictates of its own reason or desire - conflict, sometimes leading to war, is bound to occur. To achieve a favorable outcome from such a conflict, a state has to rely on its own devices, the relative efficiency of which must be its constant concern."[16] Unless Waltz wants to claim that nuclear weapons do far more than deter aggression, such as change basic human nature, his explanation for the wars between Israel and its neighbors in 1973 and India and Pakistan force him into contradicting his original theory.

Pan Islamism

Waltz’s claim that using a nuclear weapon is suicide is only accurate assuming that no person or entity affiliates or will affiliate themselves with a movement that supersedes the state. Waltz’s argument that States, being rational actors, would never threaten their own survival by attacking using a nuclear weapon; only works so long as leaders give their ultimate commitment to their States. If a leader ever acknowledges commitment to a higher calling, such as Islamic fundamentalism, it would not be suicide for him to use nuclear weapons in an offensive manner. The Mullah’s could theoretically launch a nuclear assault on America, confident that our retaliation would only be against Iran. In this case they could consider their sacrifice as leading to a net gain for their cause. Iran would be destroyed but Islamic fundamentalism would live on in Syria, Saudi Arabia, and numerous other countries. If any nuclear empowered government were too truly associate with a supranational movement, such as Islamic fundamentalism, it may actually become rational for them to use nuclear weapons.

Samuel Huntington in his famous essay “The Clash of Civilizations” describes that this situation of supranational affiliations is actually taking place right now. He postulates that a condition is developing in which countries are grouped “in terms of their culture and civilization.”[17] Instead of the highest actors being countries he writes that “Civilization identity will be increasingly important in the future, and the world will be shaped in large measure by the interactions among seven or eight major civilizations.”[18] If the Mullah’s see themselves as a part of the “Islamic civilization of Islam” as opposed to just Iranians it would be no more irrational for them to commit suicide than it is for any suicide bomber to do so today. An Iranian nuclear assault would be no different from a Palestinian committing suicide to further his cause in Israel or a Kamikaze pilot killing himself to further his cause in WWII. Huntington explains that “Groups or states belonging to one civilization that become involved in war with people from a different civilization naturally try to rally support from other members of their own civilization.”[19] If there ever came a point in time when the Western civilization seemed poised to overtake the Islamic one, how could one state not respond with a nuclear attack? To sit idly by and watch as your civilization is taken over would become the new suicide. Waltz is correct in assuming that States are rational actors, however we believe that there are situations in which rational actors might decide to commit suicide to further their cause.

Nuclear Accidents

Ken Waltz in his theory of glacial proliferation asserts that no rational actor would ever provoke another nuclear state into a nuclear attack. Unfortunately Waltz fails to consider the possibility of an accidental provocation that would be out of the control of the hands of any rational actor. In such a situation an accident or misunderstanding would take place that would force one side to launch a nuclear assault on its adversary. If these accidents are the case than it is certainly in our best interest to limit the number of countries that have access to nuclear weapons, not to maximize them. And even more so it would behoove us to limit such countries to democracies in which it is somewhat more difficult to launch a nuclear strike. We will cite several examples surrounding the Cuban Missile where such a near miss took place. On October 28th in 1962 an American U2 experienced navigational difficulties and disappeared over the Soviet Union. Other U2s were sent to protect the wayward plane and bring it back safely. The problem is that all of the U2s has already been loaded with nuclear air to air missiles. At that point it was no longer in the President’s hands. “Physical control over firing the weapons was entirely in the hands of the individual fighter pilots.”[20] The fate of the world was removed from the hands of any sort of rational actor and put into the hands of a pilot in the head of battle. For a short period of time, even after this incident, U2s continued to fly over Russia. An American air force base “Vandenberg Air force Base in California” launched a routine tests of an ICBM but the Russians had no way of knowing that it was not a nuclear attack. A simple misunderstanding could have led to nuclear war. There are cases in which an accident or misunderstanding could lead to war without requiring the participation of a rational actor, rendering Waltz’s model for glacial proliferation untenable.

Conclusion

We have illustrated that there are five specific facets of Ken Waltz’s argument that we find particularly troubling, its moral equivalence, the existence of nuclear blackmail, inherent contradictions with his original neorealist theory and the unique nature of Islamic fundamentalism. Recent historical events have confirmed and hardened our belief on these points. Afghanistan did not have nuclear weapons and today they are a free people who no longer harbor terrorists. Iraq had not yet benefited from proliferation and their recent elections have shown that they are on the path to freedom. Libya did not have the ability to deter American interests and therefore was forced to capitulate to its demands. The world appears to be a significantly safer place than it was five years ago; not because the administration accepted Waltz’s argument, but because they flat out rejected it. If one wants further demonstration of this principal he only has to ask himself if he is more satisfied with the current situation in Afghanistan or North Korea.

[1] http://www.wwnorton.com/college/titles/polisci/waltz2/
[2] http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iran0604/
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam%27s_Iraq
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam%27s_Iraq
[5] http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,2763,1136483,00.html
[6] ttp://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,2763,1136483,00.html
[7] http://www.hrnk.org/resources-links.html
[8] http://lexicorient.com/e.o/abu_nidal.htm
[9] http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=5571
[10] http://iafrica.com/news/worldnews/337147.htm
[11] Waltz at YU December 15 2004
[12] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/kim/themes/lessons.html
[13] http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/sanction/nkorea/99-09-18.htm
[14] http://www.armscontrol.org/documents/af.asp
[15] http://www.uscc.gov/researchpapers/2000_2003/pdfs/secur.pdf
[16] http://www.towson.edu/polsci/irencyc/anarchy.htm
[17] http://www.alamut.com/subj/economics/misc/clash.html
[18] http://www.alamut.com/subj/economics/misc/clash.html
[19] http://www.alamut.com/subj/economics/misc/clash.html
[20] Essence of Decision Second Edition Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow

Israel and China

2005-06-26T11:59:00.000-07:00

Note: This article was written in mid December and was intended to be placed in the YU political science journal the Clarion. This Clarion has still not been published and recent events have made this article somewhat outdated. Just this week Israel decided to follow the advice laid out in this article and stopped selling weapons to China. I am publishing this article to explain some of the reasons that I believe went into this decision.

Daniel Solomon and Howie Slugh

In the year 2004 total Israeli Exports to China rose by 51% to a total of 314 million dollars. Experts estimate that the total will increase 400% by 2008 reaching a staggering total of 2 billion dollars. These figures are indicative of a growing trend of cooperation between Israel and China. Trade between the two states includes medicine, electronics, communications, conductors, software, environmental technology, plastics and packaging.[1] Unfortunately the relationship becomes more complicated when you take into account that a percentage of this trade is in the form of weapons. China is a brutal repressive regime that grants its people little or no freedoms. How can a state that proudly proclaims itself “the only liberal democracy in the middle east” sell weapons to an authoritarian communist regime? Supporters of Israeli policy describe a situation of an isolated, besieged state in which homeland security and the finance thereof is of preeminent importance. In this article we will discuss the strengths and weakness of this argument. We will discuss this issue by asking several key questions. How economically dependant is Israel on trade with China? What are the Moral issues involved in trading with the China? What are the strategic issues involved in trading with China, including what impact does Israeli actions have on American, Israeli relations. Our conclusion is that Israel has no pressing need to trade with China and that the negative repercussions of these deals are high enough that they should be discontinued.

Israeli economic troubles can be linked to specific obstacles that have since been removed; making trade with China less important to establishing a vibrant economy than previously assumed. Throughout Israel’s history its economy has been impaired by wars, terrorism and a constant influx of refugees. It is this climate that motivated Israel to the conventional wisdom that it had to prop up its economy by any means necessary, including dealing arms to China. In light of recent developments it is time to reevaluate this traditional understanding. Between the years 1949 and 1973 Israel was engaged in 3 major wars with its neighbors. This ensured that Israel could not turn its full attention to economic development. Free from the constraints for war the Israeli economy started to make a turnaround in the 1980s. “In 1985, inflation fell to 185% (less than half the rate in 1984). Within a few months, the authorities began to lift the price freeze on some items; in other cases it took almost a year. In 1986, inflation was down to just 19%” [2] The recovering Israeli economy faced another obstacle with the fall of the Soviet Union and the influx of immigrants. In 1990 314,800 Soviet Jews immigrated to Israel. In 1988 unemployment was at 6.4 percent and with the new wave of immigration it rose to a high of 11.2 percent in 1992.[3] It is argued that the high level of education amongst these immigrants eventually strengthened the economy. By 1996 Unemployment at fallen to 6.5%. As soon as Israel conquered this second economy hardship they were struck with a third catastrophe in the form of terrorism. The second intifada gave Israeli leaders a new cause for concern. According to the BBC terrorism resulted in a 10-15% loss in per capita income between the years 2001 and 2003.[4] There was a 75% decrease in the number of attempted suicide bombings in 2004.[5] This has led to another economic reovery. The GDP in 2004 rose by a total of 1.3% as opposed to -1.1 percent change at the height of the second intifada in 2002. Foreign investment Israel grew to 4.8 billion dollars a 47% increase from 2003.[6] The inflation rate was a mere .07% a sharp decline from rates as high as 5.7% as recently as 2002.[7] Private consumption in 2003 was at 1.3% and rose to 4.1% in 2004.[8] The Israeli economy has overcome the obstacles of war, immigration and terrorism and barring another catastrophe and with continued U.S. assistance it appears that Israel is on the path to economic recovery with or without the help of China.

One threat to the Israeli economy posed by selling weapons to China is possible negative effects on American Israeli relations. In 2003 the Bush Administration approved a supplementary aid request from Israel that included $1 billion in military aid and $9 billion in loan guarantees explicitly aimed at aiding the economic recovery. This aid is important to maintaining and strengthening the recovery. According to Professor Zvi Sussman of the School of Economics at Tel Aviv University, “If the aid were reduced or eliminated, a sharp reduction in government spending would be required.”[9] Israeli arms deals to China is such a pressing issue that former Israeli Prime Minister Barak once stated he fears that if nothing is done it may “become an obstacle in our relations with theUnited States.”[10] Two of the most prominent threats to Israeli American relations were posed by the Israeli sale of the Phalcon radar and satellite defense systems to China. In 2000 Israel planned to sell the Phalcon, an early warning, radar system to China. Then Secretary of Defense, William Cohen is quoted as saying that he opposed the arms deal “because of the potential of changing the strategic balance in the region”. [11] Israel eventually canceled the deal only after facing pressure from the United States including sanctions proposed by Congress.[12] Currently The United States is accusing Israel of attempting to conceal a weapons upgrade that it sold to China. They have specifically accused Israeli Defense Ministry director-general Amos Yaron of this deceit. Sources claim that U.S. Defense Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith has indicated he will never deal with Yaron again. [13] The Pentagon has demanded an apology from Israel and the dismissal of Yaron. Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Ben-Yisrael, the former chief of the Defense Ministry's Defense Directorate, said "We have pledged not to sell any weapon that could hurt U.S. defense interests. We don't sell to China because we don't want to hurt our relations with the United States." [14] The Jerusalem post quotes a senior Bush Administration official as saying "Something is going badly wrong in the military relationship" between America and Israel and that the dispute can now only be resolved "at a high level."[15] Israel cannot afford to take the risk of hurting its relationship with the U.S. associated with selling weapons to China.

One of the reasons arms deals threaten American Israeli relations is because of their gross immorality. The sanctions were originally put in place because of China’s actions at the Tiananmen Square massacre and are kept in place because of continued Chinese brutality towards and repression of its own people. H.CON.RES.512 currently being discussed in both Houses of Congress notes that “the ban has remained in force due to China’s continued violation of human rights” and decries the attempt of the EU to lift the sanctions.[16] In the Forty Eight years that China has occupied Tibet “the Government of the People's Republic of China continues to commit widespread and well-documented human rights abuses in Tibet” [17] In 1996 80 monks and nuns were fired upon for displaying a picture of the Dali Lama.[18] H.RES.157, which documents Chinese human right’s violations in Tibet, passed the house 398-0.[19] The Communist regime has gone to great lengths to crush the Falun Gong, estimates range from 35,000 people detained[20] to thousands dead and hundreds of thousands detained.[21] The sanctions include a provision that states they will end when “China’s progress in instilling certain human rights standards warranted a change”[22] In September 1997, the World Health Organization’s Regional Committee for the Western Pacific reported "more than 50 million women were estimated to be 'missing' in China because of the institutionalized killing and neglect of girls due to Beijing's population control program that limits parents to one child." [23] It is very troubling for a country that claims to have a special relationship with the United States and to be the standard-bearer of human rights and democracy in the Middle East to undermine these sanctions.

Some argue that Israel can gain a strategic benefit from trading with China. On the contrary Israeli arm sales to China threaten Israeli security. Far from establishing mutual respect and trust China has continued on a course of action that threatens Israeli safety and security. The CIA reports that China has aided Iranian efforts at developing Ballistic Missiles potentially capable of striking Israel. The supposed strategic benefit from dealing weapons to China has not dissuaded them from this practice, “such assistance during the first half of 2003 continued to include equipment, technology and expertise.”[24] China has also been linked to fundamentalist Islamic groups such as Al-qaida. Pentagon officials revealed that large quantities of Chinese ammunition were found in the Tora Bora formerly occupied by Osama bin Laden.[25] There is also speculation in the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal of a pact between Beijing and the Taliban which included aid to the Taliban during Operation Enduring Freedom. [26] Our critics will argue that the economic interdependence amassed between Israel and China will cause China to moderate its actions. A similar argument was used to support dente and increased trade between the US and Russia at the height of the Cold War. Left unchecked such a proposition would have been disastrous.

In his new book The Case for Democracy Natan Sharansky argues that normalizing trade with Russia, without demanding any human rights reform, would have only served to allow them to continue their repressive domestic, belligerent foreign polices. Sensing this necessity Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson and Congressman Charles Vanik proposed the Jackson-Vanik ammdenment directly tying trade to a tangibble measure of human rights, emigration. He forced them to decide between their repressive policies on one hand, and the money needed to maintain their regime on the other hand. They chose to maintain their repressive policies and suffered eventual economic collapse. This is the true method with which to force moderation in represive regimes. State Rep. Mark B. Cohen of Philadelphia, asserts that "The genius of Jackson-Vanik was that it found a constructive long-term way to help solve the problems of late 20th century victims of communism without use of military force.”[27] Selling weapons to China will not be an effective method of moderating China, rather it will give them greater latitude to continue down their present course.

On careful evaluation of the evidence, we have come to the conclusion that it is not in Israel’s best interest to continue to sell weapons to China. We answered our original questions by stating; Israel is not economically dependant on trade with China, selling weapons to China is highly immoral and that such sales have a net negative strategic effect including threatening relations with the US. In light of these facts we recommend that Israel should make tangible human rights reforms and a moderation of foreign policy preconditions for all future trading agreements. This will allow Israel to protect its own interests while simultaneously reaffirming its unique status as America’s number one ally in its quest to spread democracy to the far corners of the world.

[1] Arutz Sheva
[2]http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2001/1/Facets%20of%20the%20Israeli%20Economy-%20Inflation%20-%20The%20Ris
[3] http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Economy/unemploy.html
[4] news.bbc.co.uk
[5] Americandaily.com
[6] suntimes.co.za
[7] http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/is.html
[8] standardpoor.coil
[9] http://www.meforum.org/article/258
[10] http://www.amenusa.org/china7.htm
[11] http://www.theestimate.com/public/04072000.html
[12] http://www.amenusa.org/china7.htm
[13] http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/breaking_13.html
[14] http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/breaking_13.html
[15] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1103963959779
[16] http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c108:12:./temp/~c108kJUMoP::
[17] http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c108:1:./temp/~c108QfAwb3::
[18] http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGASA170591996
[19] http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:h.res.00157:
[20] http://www.meforum.org/article/258
[21] http://www.faluninfo.net/displayAnArticle.asp?ID=8669
[22]http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:M9_zknKKeb4J:www.fcnl.org/pdfs/China_Sanctions.pdf+weapons+sanctions+china+tiananmen&hl=en
[23] Western Journalism Center/FreeRepublic, September 29, 1997.
[24] www.cia.gov/ciareports/721_reports/jan_jun2003.htm#iran
[25] http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25732
[26] http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25732
[27] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson-Vanik_amendment

How much shoud we fear China?

2005-06-21T22:40:00.000-07:00

It seems that you cannot travel ten feet without seeing a magazine that shouts that we are about to enter the age of China. In the last two weeks I have had the occasion to look at many magazine newsstands (in search of the Weekly Standard) and every time I entered one of these stores it seemed like I was immediately surrounded by cries that America is doomed, and that our only hope is to make way for the burgeoning Chinese hegemony. One of my college professors made it sound like it was time to get into crash positions and brace for the inevitable red tide. Even my fellow blogger, the brilliant Cerebral Pixie, has gotten into the fray http://cerebralpixie.blogspot.com/2005/06/whats-all-this-hype-about-china.html This post is actually a very long response to her most recent article. But I have to ask myself, are things really that bad? Is it really time that we retreat back into the shadows and allow a giant, evil communist country to take over the world? What happened to "the great, confident roar of American progress and growth and optimism"? Doesn’t anyone still believe that we are going to “leave Marxism-Lennism on the ask heap of history?” I for one still believe that the march toward human freedom is one that can never be stopped. I look at the growing Chi-Com threat and see a threat which we will be able to beat back and counter just as we have done time and again in the past.

China’s short term goal is simply regional hegemony. I understand that Communism is an inherently expansionist philosophy and that communism and capitalism can never coexist. But even a monster the size of China would have to achieve the relatively simple goal of regional hegemony before they could set out to conquer the world. America has been uniquely successful at establishing a “Pax Americana” (even more so then the British empire) largely because of a lack of direct threats in the region. We have not had a major war with any of our neighbors since the beginning of our “unipolar moment”. We are at peace with all of the countries that directly border us. This allowed us to increase or prosperity without fear of invasion. Our major wars were fought on another continent, at times of our choosing. As I implied above, England was also very successful at establishing a Pax Britanica, mostly because none of its enemies bordered it either. (the English channel)

The same cannot be said for China. It has enemies everywhere it looks. A list of its neighbors include, Taiwan, Japan, Russia, South Korea and India. All of which are major world powers (at least two of which have nukes) that both hate and fear the Chinese. None of these nations are going to sit idly by and watch as the Chinese strive to dominate south East Asia. At this point it is believed that every a country as small as the SOVERIGN NATION of Taiwan has an army so technologically advanced that it would be able to repel an invasion by the antiquated Chinese army. That does not bode well for the Chinese aim at world domination.

Some will argue that the Chinese do not intend to take over the world by warfare; they are going to do it by economics. In one of my earliest blogs I pointed at the sheer impossibility of such a task. I was discussing the idea that Japan was poised on the brink of overtaking the US a world hegemony throughout the 1980s and I stated

Those who argued that Japan would one day unseat the US as Hegemon would be at a loss to explain the security features of that world. Once America acknowledged Japan as the Hegemon America would also stop acting like a Hegemon and Japan would have been caught with its pants down. There would be nothing left to protect them from China, to stop Saddam Hussein from building weapons of mass destruction or to fight against Alqueda. Only today is Japan starting to build up a military but even now it is nowhere near ready to face any one of these threats while the US is proving that is can do all three and dozens more. As we argued in the past the US is a unique Hegemon because of its power in both the military and economic realms. Japan may have approached American economic power but it made no attempt to challenge its military might.

The same exact argument holds true to China. But China also faces the additional problems of being surrounded by countries that hate it. China’s neighbor’s interests are no better served by allowing it to become an economic hegemon than they are by allowing it to become a military hegemon. If there every comes a time when it seems that China is in fact ready to dominate the economies of south east Asia in a meaningful way the other countries in the region will step up to the plate to take steps to balance Chinese preeminence.

In the article I cited above, CP points out another grave problem facing Chinese domination. Liberalization has in no one accompanied the greater privatizations. We have perestroika without glasnost and that is a recipe for disaster. People may have greater economic freedoms but the government still treats them like expendable slaves. CP points out that they are experiencing grave environmental and health crises. They also face crises because they have little or no political freedoms. They have none of the freedoms that we associate with good governance or happy, healthy human beings. I for one have a hard time believing that a populace with no freedom to think will be able to match economic pace with the United States. I cannot imagine that a country that can send you a reeducation camp for expressing a creative idea will be able to keep up with the most creative and forward thinking nation on earth. How can a country that limits access to the internet, and illegalizes text messaging ever hope to compete in a globalized market? It cannot and it will not.

China’s current growth rate is unsustainable without real democratic reform. Such reforms would mean the end of the Chinese threat, because it would mean its integration into the fold of “Pax Americana”. Either China will collapse under the weight of its iliberty or it will liberalize and become our ally. Either way; China will not be able to become a world hegemon anytime soon.

Time to protest Gitmo

2005-06-20T10:34:00.000-07:00

I think that we owe Dick Durbin a debt of gratitude. Yes he did demean the memory of such horrors as the holocaust and Stalin’s Gulags. Yes he did insult every person who survived some of the worst evils of our time. But in doing so he alerted us to a grave injustice in the world that needs to be corrected. It is unimaginable that we should sit here and ignore the fundamental wrongness of the events that take place each and every day at Gitmo. No, I have not gone insane. I’m not complaining that the terrorists and murders that are being held at Gitmo are being treated too poorly. Quite the contrary, the debate raised by Senator Durbin’s comments has made it clear that the terrorists are treated way to well. Now that Senator Durbin has started a chain of events that has alerted everyone to the high living standards at Gitmo, it is our duty to protest until they are treated like the monsters that they are.

One would assume that our soldiers would be given better food than the murderous terrorists that they helped put behind bars. Unfortunately this is not the case. Prisoners at Gitmo are given meals such as; Baked Tandouri Chicken Breast, Mustard-Dill Baked Fish, Lyonnaise Rice, and Fish Amandine. The terrorist’s meals are estimated to cost $12.68 per prisoner. (http://www.feedsfarm.com/a/4549310/gitmo-food-far-costlier-than-u.s.-prison-fare) American Solders in Iraq are fed MRE or Meals Ready to eat. These meals cost about five bucks. This is a situation that should not be allowed to continue. Our soldiers put their lives on the line in the most difficult of circumstances to protect us and terrorists who sit in prison cells all day are given better food than they are. That is a disgrace. I propose that in response to Senator Durbin’s brining these facts to light we protest that these meals should be switched. Ideally the extra seven dollars should go toward providing our soldiers better food and the terrorists should be reduced to MREs. I know that this is not practical because of conditions on the battlefield, but it is still disheartening to learn that terrorists murders are provided with better food than our soldiers.

The costs of the terrorists meals is more than 4 times the cost of meals fed to prisoners here in America. It is high time that Senator Durbin protest against the mistreatment of our prisoners right here at home in American. After all if they are being fed food that is only 1/4th as expensive at the food served in a place that treats prisoners as bad a concentration camp or a Gulag, they cannot possibly be getting very much food at all. If Senator Durbin honestly thinks that Stalin or Hitler fed their prisoners the menu served in Gitmo, then he is more ignorant than I can possibly imagine.

Senator Durbin complained that the prisoners in Gitmo are being tortured by being exposed to temperatures that are sometimes to hot and sometimes too cold. Now I fully sympathize with the terrorists who are living in Gitmo where the average temperature this week is projected to be in the mid 80s. I live in Washington Heights New York, where the temperature over the next few weeks is also expected to be in the mid 80s. Even worse than that, my college (which owns the apartment) will not allow me to have air conditioning and my windows don’t work. It gets pretty hot in my room at night, yet I have never once felt that I was experiencing the same horrors experienced by victims of the gulags or concentration camp. Even more extreme than that; our soldiers, who spend most of their days outside in heavy gear, that are in Iraq will face temperatures of over 100 degrees this week. Yet I have not heard one soldier complain that he feels like he is suffering through the holocaust. If Senator Durbin wants to do some good he should start a campaign to get our soldiers portable, personal, air conditioning units so that they don’t have to suffer through extreme heat.

Prisoners at Gitmo are given Quoran’s, the very same book that, through fanatical interpretations, caused many of them to become terrorists in the first place. Is that really in our countries best interest? We can discuss religious freedom all we want, we can stress over and over again how Islam is really a peace loving religion. But these are the very same people that we assert misunderstand the Quoran and believe that it commands them to commit murder. Is it really in our interest to allow terrorists to have access to the very book that they openly admit, they believe, encouraged them to murder Americans? Forget how the Quoran’s are treated, even though they are treated with the utmost respect, the bigger issue at play here is whether or not it is safe to provide Islamic Fundamentalist terrorists with the Quoran in the first place. Liberals have done us a great favor by alerting us to the fact that these people who have perverted Islam into a thing that praises evil have been allowed to have Quorans, I think we should protest against this access.

Senator Durbin may not understand it, but he did in fact expose a grave problem. The terrorists that we are holding at Gitmo are being treated far to well. In fact in some ways they are treated better than our soldiers, American prisoners, or even myself. People are talking about closing Gitmo, and right off the bat that might sound like a good solution to some of these problems. Close Gitmo and send all of these murders to cheaper, harsher prisons or send them off for rendition. (Under which prisoners are sent off to foreign countries that allow torture prisoners in the interrogation process.) However, I think that solution is too extreme. We can solve many of the problems at Gitmo by merely slashing their funding and starting to treat the terrorists like the monsters that they are.

The consequences of Schiavo

2005-06-16T16:41:00.000-07:00

Liberals everywhere rejoice. Dr. Thogmartin the medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Terri Schiavo announced that she was blind, her brain had atrophied and there was (in his opinion) no chance that she would have made a full recovery. Liberals everywhere rejoice; and prove once again just how badly you missed the point. The important arguments in this case were never about the likelihood of recovery, and obviously not about whether or not Michael beat his wife. Those were always on the periphery, and the uncertainties is those areas only highlighted the extreme absurdities of the case. The main discussion in this case was over the inherent value of human life. The question was whether or not a human being, no matter how compromised, enjoys a basic right to life. Its is a question that has long ranging implications and consequences that will far outlive the discussions of Terri Schiavo and the specific details of her case.

Terri Schiavo’s parents were, understandably, very concerned over her recovery, but that was never the core issue for the majority of the people who fought to preserve Terrri’s life. The question at the heart of the issue was “can there be more to a human being than blindness and an atrophied brain?” Can any level of disabilities reduce a human being to the status of a piece of meat, thereby forfeiting the “right to life” guaranteed in the constitution? Or are we as human beings afforded a certain level of dignity and respect, no matter how compromised we are? Should human life be preserved no matter what? Perhaps, (get ready, I’m about to annoy a lot of liberals) we humans are “endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights” unalienable even if our creator has seen it fit to place us in a Persistent Vegetative state with a very slim possibility of recovery. I guess that in order to make that argument you need to accept that we have a creator.

Well meaning liberals (yes there are a few confused souls out there) who fought for Terri’s “right to die” need to take a moment to consider the long term consequences of their actions. Now that liberals have begun to hail Terri’s apparent blindness as one more vindication of her “right to die” they need to ask themselves “what does this mean for blind people all over the world?” Should they also be accorded with a “right to die”? We have not gotten to that point yet, but sadly that is not incomprehensible as a future development. This case is the latest in a long line of cases (as I describe in an earlier article) that establishes that external circumstances can cause a person to forfeit their right to life. The average utopian liberal may not realize that they have struck another blow against the universality of the “right to life” but that is exactly what they have done. I cannot stress enough that this causes us to enter into extremely dangerous territory.

In the past Americans rejected dangerous philosophies such as Eugenics that sought to devalue human life over night. We were repulsed by casual arguments that some human begins were simply not as worthy of life as others. Even through Americans rejected such movements as the abominations that they were; we have allowed very similar arguments to creep back into the public discourse. Abortions advocates (look at Planned Parenthood’s web cite) have candidly argued that some babies would be better off not being born at all. Arguments about “quality of life” for unborn children with serious diseases may resonate with “compassionate, sensitive people” but we can never get that even such arguments still place a judgments on the worth of a human being and the universality of his “right to life”. What would these very same people say about children who were already born, with serious illnesses? Would they tell you that those children would be better if they had never been born? Would we be better off? Is it really such a stretch to imagine Planned Parenthood coming out and saying that if you decide that made a mistake by not having an abortion and your 6 month old autistic child is too much trouble for you raise you should have the right to consider “quality of life issues” (both your own and your child’s) and honor his “right to die”? That is an idea which sends shivers down my spine, and the fact that I think it is a very real possibility for the very near future scares me to death.
If you think that I am being overly grim, remember that even the medical examiner admits people in a Persistent Vegetative State are alive; there is no dispute that we choose to allow a living woman to die. I hope that anyone who thinks they are being kindhearted and understanding by supporting the growing right to die movement (pro abortion, pro euthanasia, or pro murder for Terri) understand that there actions have consequences and those consequences are in no way kindhearted.

Will the real Natan Sharansky please stand up.

2005-06-07T19:14:00.000-07:00

The orange shirted anti disengagement crowd has recently appropriated Natan Sharansky as one of their own. Friends of mine who like to give me a hard time for my weak stance on disengagement (http://therubberstamp.blogspot.com/2005/02/real-peace.html#comments) and used Sharansky’s supposed condemnation of the disengagement as proof that I should reject the plan entirely. This is a difficult attack for me because Natan Sharansky is one of my heroes both because of his tremendous personal heroism and because of his brilliant mind and ideology. Those who sought to cause even more trouble used Sharanky’s criticism as an attack on President Bush and his supposed support for Ariel Sharon and his plan. They used Sharansky’s criticism to claim that the President was weak in the war on terror, had no regard for his democratic ally in Israel and The bulk of these criticism came based on the headlines which read “Natah Sharansky quits government over disengagement”. Such articles, while possessing shocking titles, had very little in the way of real substance as to what Natan Sharansky actually found objectionable about the plan and how he viewed the President’s involvement in the plan. In this article I seek to further clarify the situation in greater detail.

Natan Sharansky, as opposed to what an incalculable number of orange clad firebrands, does not utterly reject the idea of disengagement from Gaza. He has not sided with those who so loudly exclaim “Jews do not expel Jews” or those who insist that it would be an affront to God,
In fact in an interview with Middle East Quarterly on November 24 2004 he explicitly stated “I was against the disengagement plan not because I believed we should stay in Gaza” but because he did not believe “that the depth of our concessions match[ed] the depth of democracy on the other side.” And “If disengagement were linked to democratic reforms, I would be all for this plan. “ He restated similar sentiments in an interview in the far left magazine “Mother Jones” on March 30th 2005, in which he was asked why he did not support disengagement and responded, “Well, I'm not opposed to the idea that Israel should make very serious concessions and stop controlling the lives of the other people. But I am opposed to the current peace process plans because they are not based on introducing democratic reforms”. These are not the words of a man who believes that disengagement is heresy or sheer folly. They are the words of a man who has serious reservations about the current plan but supports the ideas espoused by President Bush. The President is not, conspiracy nuts aside, forcing Sharon’s hands about the specific date and method of disengagement. He is pushing for the establishment of a democratic Palestinian state, but would be just as satified with Sharansky’s version of the state as he is with Sharon’s. The President, Sharon and Sharansky all agree; a democratic Palestinian State is an extremely laudable goal, they only disagree on how to get there.

Sharansky’s reservations are in no way contradictory to my own. In fact, his comments very much mirror my own comments from a few months back. Despite the accusations of my critics I separated myself from those who whole heartledly support Sharon’s current disengamgent plan as far back as Feburary 9th 2005, when I stated “Any real peace will be predicated on true democratic government, Liberal institutions and laws, and perhaps most importantly a complete overhaul of the educational system. There may not be many more flashy headlines like yesterday [announcement of ceasefire]. There is no need to see Sharon and Abbas shaking hands on the White House lawn in the next few months.”

Critics of the disengagement of rushed to assert that the first Palestian elections were not perfectly democratic and that many of the leaders elected, including Abas, has terrorist links.
Every time a new poll points out that there has been any showing of support for “political parties” associated with terror critics have screamed that the democratic process is dead. I have always held that this was a simple minded criticism which confuses the final goal of establishing a democracy with its earliest part, a contested election. To say that any misstep represents the death of the entire grand adventure is to issue it a premature burial. As I stated “We have to recognize that the democratic election of Abu Mazen and the ensuing cease fire are not the end of the process they are the very beginning.” Sharansky supports this point by saying “If we see these elections as the end of a democratic process by itself, then it's a major mistake. But if we see them as something which gives those countries the opportunity to start an important process, then they should definitely be welcomed.” The fact that Abas is not perfect cannot force us to act as if he cannot be a part of the solution as all. To confuse him for a fait accompli would be a mistake, but it would an equally egregious mistake to discount his ability to be a first step. Sharansky articulates this point “If we embrace a leadership that embraces reform, or if we refuse to give any legitimacy or support to a leadership that refuses to bring democracy and reform, then there is a serious chance for success.” Abas has been far from perfect, my critics can point to dozens of instances in which he hasn’t done what they would like. But they would have to ignore the fact that he has made small first steps such as firing police chiefs who were unwilling to oppose Chamas, and dismissing cabinet members who were associated with Arafat. You can point at that these are very small steps and pale in comparison to his missteps but he has only been in power for a year. It took a decade to fully democratize Germany and Japan, to assume that we can do the same here in only a year is asking too much.

An important step toward democratization is education reform. It is a step that the President and Natan Sharansky has both endorsed and it would be sensible for Sharon to make it a prerequisite for disengagement. Sharansky stated that a prerequisite for disengamgent should be “that the education for hatred in Gaza's schools will be stopped, that free enterprise will prosper, and that dissent will be permitted.” This is an issue that is central to President Bush’s roadmap to peace as he outlined it on June 24th, 2002.

Critics who have accused me of being a blind devotee to the disengagement are wrong, but I also want to reaffirm my belief in the roadmap and the ultimate value of Palestinian democracy. I agree that we are at the early stages of along process and that real progress will take time. I understand Sharansky’s objections to Ariel Sharon’s plans and I agree that many of them are right. However, that does not mean that I will be donning an orange T-shirt and proclaiming that Sharon is the next Hitler any time soon. The plan for disengagement is not perfect; it is moving too fast and asking too little. It is not ensuring democratic reform as strongly as it could or should be. All of these reservations and ideas for improvement do not equal a guarantee that the current plan will fail, they do not even equal a complete condemnation of the plan. Sharansky is arguing in order to strenghen disengagment not weaken it. How surprised are all of his so called allies going to be the day that we do see democratic refoms in Gaza and he returns to support pulling out of Gaza. The "orange revolution" is not one big happy family as they would have you beleive. They feel free to quote anyone, who for any reason, has any doubt about the disengagment. I wouldn't surprised if someone used selective quotes from this article to make it seem like I would fight to the death to prevent one man from being forced to leave Gush Katif. When people mention the strength and numbers of the "orange revolution" it is important to remember that this is far from a cohesive group. How ironic that I, a ideologue who very rarely cannot see the different between nuance and nuisance, should be making this argument.

Where is my Stalin T-shirt?

2005-06-03T13:51:00.000-07:00

Who do you think uttered the following words, "We will make our hearts cruel, hard, and immovable....we will not quiver at the sight of a sea of enemy blood. Without mercy, without sparing, we will kill our enemies in scores of thousands; let them drown themselves in their own blood! Let there be floods of the blood of the bourgeois - more blood, as much as possible."? Who do you think claimed that one of the goals of his life was to create "two, three, many Vietnams”? If you are a liberal you may have answered Donald Rumsfeld, President Bush, or Paul Wolfowitz. I think you will be surprised to learn that it was none other than your very own “revolutionary hero” Che Guevara. Over the course of the last few weeks I have had the misfortunate of running into, what seems like, dozens of people sporting “Che Guevara” T-Shirts. At first I tried to control myself, but not being known for my self control, I quickly began to trade verbal barbs with these hapless “revolutionaries”. When sitting next to a “cool young progressive” on the sub way I commented “hey, cool T-shirt, I left my Hitler Youth T-shirt at home”. On Memorial Day I ran into a vendor a central park who was proudly selling “Che T-shirts”. I told the man that I would be more inclined to buy a t-shirt that featured a more successful mass murder such as; Hitler, Stalin or Mao. The man did not take kindly to my remarks and accused me of being ignorant of the history. He stood up for Che as being “a great revolutionary who was murdered by the CIA.” To clarify any questions of historical fact I will include a brief summary of some of the high (and I use that term very loosely) points of Che’s career. Then I will proceed to explore how a thug who hooked up with a tyrant (Fidel Castro) to become a moderately successful mass murdered has become an icon of the Left.

The role of Che as an adventurous revolutionary is simply not reflected in the historical record. The actual history of Che reveals that he is a common thug who would be no more memorable than a common gang member if it were not for the dumb luck of being the right hand man of Fidel Castro. Stories about Che range from the funny, he wasn’t a practically skilled tactician, to the disgusting, he was a sadist. According to A Cuban-American writer, Humberto Fontova, the average Cuban American views Che as "a combination of Beria and Himmler." His character is perhaps best reflected in his now infamous last words, not the mythological “you can kill me but never the communist revolution” drivel that most people associate with him, but the last words that the Bolivian soldiers heard him say before his capture. “Don't shoot! I'm Che'! I'm worth more to you alive." Che Guevara was a gutless coward who, as I will mention in the next paragraph, was only able to show considerable bravado when executing defenseless prisoners. But once he was confronted by actual adversity he, like so many other sadists, was shown to be nothing more than a coward. I certainly would not be going too far if I were to assert that Che was an enemy of human freedom.

Che the Sadist.

As far as historical fact is concerned Che is most well known for his role as the head of Castro’s secret police in Cuba. He was known in Cuba as a ruthless executioner who preferred to shoot his victims in the back of the head. In the first three months of the “Cuban revolution” Che is reported to have ordered 568 of Castro’s poltitcal opponents to be murdered by a firing squad. According to Che’s own accounting he order over 2,500 men, bound gagged and lined up against a wall and shot, in Janurary 1959 alone. Che’s name is virtually synonymous with the La Cabana prison in Cuba, of which he was appointed the head. Those who managed to survive La Cabana describe the prison as a dungeon where prisoners were forced to live in subhuman conditions, were tortured and summarily executed. He reportedly took his methods from those executed by Stalin at the Katyn Forest in 1940. One on occasion the wives and families of some of the prisoners were protested outside of the prison and the brave men under Che’s command attacked these women and children, beating them with rifle butts.

Che can rightfully be given credit for setting up the Cuban labor camps at which countless hundreds of dissidents have been condemned to labor, torture and death. He can honestly claim responsibility for helping Castro create the “modern” state of Cuba from which hundreds of men and women flee every year. He can honestly claim responsibility for setting up a puppet state that would offer its people no freedom and keep them tied to the whims of either the Soviet Union or their own dictator.

Fans of Che are proud of the work that he did in supporting the Palestinian cause. Che represented Cuba and visited countries such as Egypt and Syira, proclaiming his solidarity with their fight. On one such visit he toured Gaza to show his support for the then nascent PLO. Che is not only a hero to the American left, he is also a favorite of Palestinian terrorists.

Che the fool/fraud

The “bay of pigs” invasion of Cuba is seen as a total failure. In fact, one aspect of the assault did succeed. The Cuban dissidents set up a distraction on the other side of the island. Che, the supposedly brilliant rebel, was completely fooled. He led over a thousand troops to the Western side of Cuba and waited out the battle in relative safety. At one point Castro sent Che to aid some communist rebels in the Congo. He was soundly defeated, his forces were killed or captured and he fled back to Cuba. Not only was Che unable to his allies in the Congo to victory, he wasn’t even able to communicate with them. They spoke Swahili and he did not. A large part of Che’s mystique surrouds his exploits during the Cuban civil war. One of Che’s most famous victories was “the battle of Santa Clara.” Any liberal will tell you that Che led his brave rebels right through the territory of Batista to fight against the evil American imperialists that were raping their Cuban homeland. What more they will tell you, none of Batista’s troops even had the courage to attack the great Che. People who were actually present offer an addendum to this story. Prior to the battle, Che sent a $100,000 bribe and a note to Batista. The rest of the account may be factual, but it doesn’t quite have the same impact once the whole truth is known. This is not the only battle that is less impressive than the “great American progressives” would have you believe. According to US estimates the entire “civil war” featured a total of 182 deaths. There are actually records that report Che’s men fired weapons into the air and barked fake orders into radios to make battles seem more intense than they were. When Che went to China to visit Mao, one of his communists brothers, Mao refused to meet with him. Its sounds like a joke, it sounds like no one could take Che seriously, but the sad truth is that there are millions of young communists who do.

All of that has been said before, the history of the sham that is Che Guevara is not exactly a secret. What has been less thoroughly discussed is, why do so many on the left have it so wrong. American public schools (and some private schools) do not teach American history in any sort of an accurate manner. They are taught a revisionist version of American history that turns America into a greedy imperialistic power and makes no mention of the true evils if the world. Whether it is guilt for the supposed crimes that we have committed or some vestiges left over from the Vietnam War era (during which many of our current educators learned it is cool to hate America) our teachers fail miserably at instilling a sense of pride in American students.
It is almost shocking the caricature of America that is created by the current educational system. Most college students can tell you that our founders; had slaves, “massacred the Indians”, “stole” Mexico and Canada from Texas. Far fewer can describe the grandeur of America. More students learn about how imperialists America tried to capture the Philippines than about the battle of Normandy.

A side effect of this is that later in life these students may come to idolize a man like Che Guevara. After all if they really believe the drivel that their educators teach them about the evils of America, why wouldn’t they seek out a dashing revolutionary who stood up against their evil ancestors?

Book Review

2005-05-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

(A book review I wrote for class. Expect me to really start posting again next week)

The Ultimate Terrorists: A Book Review

In this paper I will review Jessica Stern’s book The Ultimate Terrorists. I will analyze Stern’s findings on the nature of terrorism and her prescriptions for how to prevent or mitigate the effects of future terrorism. Stern describes some of the most dangerous terrorist groups and attacks pre-911. She uses this information to predict the likelihood of a chemical or biological weapons attack, and from what group such an attack would most likely occur. This book is insightful and at times provocative, including gripping descriptions of the likely results of a terrorist attack using Weapons of Mass destruction. The book has some value to the field of security studies because it clearly identifies some of the threats which America has largely ignored in the post cold war world and offers pragmatic solutions for how to deal with those problems. However, the book will never be considered highly influential because it fails to lay out a specific thesis. The book appears to be an anthology on all things related to terrorism without a central motivating theme. Contributions that have had long lasting impact on the field of Security Studies have generally contained clear theses, for instance George Keenan’s X-article advocating containment. Stern’s book offers no such thesis.

The beginning of the book defines the terms that Stern will need to use in order to discuss terrorism. Stern defines terrorism as “an act of violence against noncombatants with the objective of exacting revenge, intimidating, or otherwise influencing an audience”. [1] This is an important definition because it allows Stern to distinguish between terrorism and other types of violence such as war. Stern specifically chooses this definition because it is broad and does not limit terrorism to the actions of any specific group or motivation. This is an important distinction because it will help guide the way in which terrorism will be studied and the steps that will be taken to combat it. The accepted definition of terrorism will determine whether or not terrorism should be combated as a crime or an act of war.[2] Stern then proceeds to define the form of terrorism to which much of her book is dedicated, terrorism utilizing weapons of mass destruction (WMD). WMD terrorism is terrorism that uses weapons which are inherently terrifying, inherently indiscriminate and inherently random. This form of terrorism includes the use of; nuclear, chemical, radiological, and biological weapons.[3]

Stern focuses a lot of her attention on WMD terrorism because those are the types of weapons to which a modern society is particularly vulnerable. Stern argues that a combination of five elements make it particularly likely that WMDs will be used in terrorism. First, is the fact that the motivations of terrorists have been in transition and now many aim to kill large numbers of people rather than to fulfill their traditional political ends. Second, is the fact that terrorists are becoming more religious. Religious groups are more likely to use WMDs because it less likely that even such an extreme action will alienate their constituencies and because they may see such mass destruction as an emulation of God.[4] Third, the break up of USSR has left many WMDs poorly guarded or in the hands of impoverished people who may be tempted to sell them to terrorists.[5] Stern quotes a Russian chemical weapons scientist as saying “many specialists in the field of chemical weaponry do not have enough sources of income to support their families and are ready to go anywhere to earn money”.[6] Fourth, states that have been known to sponsor terrorism are beginning to proliferate WMDs and could very easily give them to terrorists.[7] In 1997 the US estimated that between 20 and 30 hostile States had begun proliferating Chemical or Biological weapons. Including; Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and Syria.[8] Fifth, advances in technology have made it cheaper and easier for terrorists to acquire WMDs.[9] People sell “how to manuals” that describe how to create WMDs, and these manuals are readily available over the internet.[10] Stern believes that in the current world climate there is good reason to study WMD related terrorism.

Stern believes that terrorists will seek to use WMDs because they generate a higher level of fear than conventional weapons. Stern goes out of her way to show that WMDs may not, in fact, pose the greatest threat to the largest number of American people but still believes that they hold great utility for terrorists because of the amount of fear associated with them. There are many other more mundane dangers, such as swimming, that are statistically more dangerous than WMDs.[11] People have been desensitized to common dangers such as driving to work or indoor air pollution so they spend little time worrying about them. WMDS are so exotic and destructive that their danger is greatly exaggerated in the minds of the average person. [12] Stern offers a second explanation for why the level of fear a WMD attack is so disproportionate to the actual risk from such an attack. She explains that people are horrified by horrified by weapons such as poisons or toxins that can have delayed results. People can witness the destruction of a suicide bombings and within minutes know the aftereffects of the attack. In the case of a WMD attack people will have no such relief. They will continue to fear invisible, harmful after effects that can linger and invade their bodies over the coming weeks or years.[13] The exotic nature of WMDs causes them to be a potentially useful tool for terrorists whose aim is to create fear.

Stern discusses the case of the Aum Shinrikiyo terrorist group as the prototype of a modern terrorist group. Aum Shinrikiyo was a Japanese cult of religious fanatics that were bent on facilitating the coming of Armageddon. The cult focused on the use of WMDs and was able to purchase the weapons from Russia. The cult also had ties to North Korea, and Iran. The group carried out a number of different attacks using WMDs with carrying degrees of success. Members of the cult have confessed to carrying out attacks using biological weapons, including botulism and anthrax, at the Diet, the Imperial Palace and American military bases in Japan. These tactics proved totally unsuccessful. Shinrikiyo then moved on to Chemical weapons. They used chemical weapons in an attack on a Japanese resort that resulted in 7 deaths and 600 illnesses. Shinrikiyo’s most high profile attack was their release of sarin gas in a Tokyo subway leading over 5,000 injuries. According to the CIA the cult was attempted to obtain nuclear weapons from Russia and was planning chemical attacks on the United States.[14] Stern uses the case of Aum Shinrikiyo to highlight some of the key aspects of modern terrorists and to show just how serious of a risk they pose.

In this final section of her book Stern discusses practical, inexpensive steps that can be taken to mitigate the threat posed by modern terrorism. The most critical suggestion that Stern offer is that we must allocate our resources properly in order to combat terrorism. She notes that it would be most efficient to aim at preventing law technology chemical or biological attacks because those are the most likely to occur. Simple things like stockpiling antidotes to some common WMDs or training first responders how to deal with such attacks could save thousands of lives. Stern also mentions common sense laws like restricting access to manuals that describe how to conduct WMD attacks, banning the possessions of biological agents, and investigating individuals suspected of being involved in terrorism and monitoring their communications. Greater cooperation between the agencies responsible for analyzing data on possible threats would be far more efficient than the system that existed in 1999, when the book was written. She notes that deterrence a traditional strategy may be possible but it would only be useful against State sponsors of terror. In order to reduce the threat posed by “loose nukes” in the former USSR Stern advocates close cooperation between the United States and former Soviet satellites, including positive incentives and tighter border controls, to secure such material. She cites a case called “Project Sapphire” in which the United States cooperated with Kazakhstan to secure nuclear material as proof that this is a practical, implementable idea.[15]

The Ultimate Terrorists can be a useful tool for a student of terrorism or a policymaker seeking a quick overview of the subject. Stern demonstrates that she clearly has a great deal of knowledge regarding terrorists, terrorists’ methods, and how to combat terrorism. Stern’s personal experience and knowledge add to the value of the book, as she can quote people that she has personally interviewed on the topic. She does not merely list the facts about the loose nukes in Russia; she uses quotes from Russian military personal and governmental officials to put a human face on the danger. For instance she notes that one Russian expert said that some nuclear weapons are protected by “Aunt Masha with a cucumber”.[16] This method of explanation is more memorable than an academic mentioning of how poorly the weapons are guarded. One can readily forget a statistic about how well weapons are guarded, but Aunt Masha with a cucumber is an image that lingers.

She makes a convincing case that her ideas for fighting terror; such as better training and intelligence coordination, will have a high utility for a low cost. Stern goes into great detail when describing the effects of WMD weapons attacks, in order to show just how costly they would be. The book opens with a description of the aftereffects of a nuclear bomb being detonated in New York City that manages to make an abstract threat seem very real.[17] These sections of the book are entertaining, if at times a little graphic. In light of the horror and costs of a successful WMD as illustrated by these descriptions, spending what Stern estimates to be ten-billion dollars on prevention is a bargain in comparison.[18]

Stern compiles key aspects of the history of terrorists and major terrorist attacks in a manner that can aid those seeking to better understand the subject. She does this in order to prove that the chances of terrorists using WMDs are increasing. The book was published prior to 9/11 and does not take a narrow view, considering Al-Queda the only terrorist threat in the world. It gives a fair amount of attention to other serious terror threats such as Aum Shinrikiyo.[19] Her assessment of Iraq as State that poses a major threat of becoming a WMD proliferator[20] is an important reminder that this was a commonly held belief prior to the Iraq war. In this regard a book published pre 911, may be more unbiased and more useful than one published today.

The main weakness of Stern’s book is that is lacks a coherent thesis that ties the rest of the ideas together. The book cannot be distilled into one central theory or argument about terrorism. The book contains many interesting and insightful themes, as I noted above, but they seem to be put into the book merely because they are topical. The ideas taken as a whole do not point to any definitive statement about the future of terrorism. At points Stern seems to be arguing that WMD use is becoming increasingly likely, and that our main focus should be to combat WMD terrorism, but at other points she lists reasons why it is highly unlikely that WMDs will be used in terrorism. After reading The Ultimate Terrorists, a reader is left with the sense that he missed something, Stern’s argument.

I would not recommend Stern’s to President Bush. The book may have been highly useful in the pre 9/11 world but today policy makers are inundated by reports about terrorism. There is nothing so outstanding about this book that should give it precedence over the 9/11 commission report or the Senate’s Intelligence oversight report on 9/11. Such reports have already presented the President with a plan of action that contains many of the suggestions made by Stern, such as better coordination for intelligence agencies. While a reader can lament that the reforms presented in Stern’s book could have had a great impact a decade ago, it is impossible to turn back the clock and find out.
Works Cited

Stern, Jessica. The Ultimate Terrorists. Harvard University Press. Cambridge England, 2000.
[1] Stern 11
[2] Stern 12
[3] Stern 12
[4] Stern 70
[5] Stern 8-10
[6] Stern 49
[7] Stern 8-10
[8] Stern 49
[9] Stern 8-10
[10] Stern 51
[11] Stern 32-33
[12] Stern 35
[13] Stern 37
[14] Stern Chapter 4
[15] Stern Chapter 8
[16] Stern 96
[17] Stern 1-4
[18] Stern 129
[19] Stern 60-65
[20] Stern 106-109

Guest writer

2005-05-11T17:02:00.000-07:00

Here is an article by a dear friend of mine. Lauren Goldglantz. Be kind in your comments to her, after all she is a girl. :)

BUSINESS AND STYROFOAM
By: Lauren Goldglantz

What led me to write an article about Styrofoam was actually influenced by my speech class a few weeks ago. We were told to give a persuasive speech about a topic that we cared about or something that meant a lot to us. One of the first things that popped into my mind was Styrofoam- a product that I’ve prided myself with knowing so much about. For years I’d been aware of the growing use of Styrofoam and the effects that it has on our environment and our health. It might sound lame, but I became so excited to do my topic on Styrofoam and educate my class about this dangerous product.
To begin with, Styrofoam is actually a trade name given by DOW Chemical Co. for a product called Polystyrene foam. Foamed polystyrene starts off as tiny beads, softened by heat, a blowing agent is used to expand the beads, and then it is shaped accordingly. Polystyrene emits Benzene and Styrene into the air and more importantly, into our food. Both are known human carcinogens. The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) states that “eating or drinking foods containing high levels of Benzene can cause vomiting, irritation of the stomach, dizziness, sleepiness, convulsions, rapid heart rate, and death”. The International Agency for Research on cancer (IARC) conducted a number of tests on animals and styrene exposure, claiming that “animal studies show that ingestion of high levels of Styrene over several weeks can cause damage to the liver, kidneys, brain, and lungs. When Styrene was applied to the skin of rabbits, it caused irritation”. These effects come from a product that a majority of people use almost every single day. In 1986, Styrene was found in 100 percent of all samples of human fat tissue taken as part of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Human Tissue Survey. “Researchers found that Styrofoam cups lose weight when in use, meaning that Styrene is oozing into the foods and drinks we consume. It then ends up stored in our fatty tissue, where it can build up to levels that can cause fatigue, nervousness, difficulty sleeping, blood abnormalities, weakness, headache, anxiety, and depression”. More chemicals come out of Styrofoam if it’s heated in a microwave. Why am I mentioning all these medical effects about Styrofoam? Because I’m sure most of you had no idea how bad this stuff actually is for you.
Not only is Styrofoam terrible for our health, but it is also extremely hazardous to the environment. It is not biodegradable, and can leak toxins into the groundwater under our overstuffed landfills. The National Bureau of Standards Center for Fire Research identified 57 chemical byproducts released during the combustion of Polystyrene foam. “The process of making polystyrene pollutes the air and creates large amounts of liquid and solid waste”. A 1986 EPA report on solid waste named the Polystyrene manufacturing process as the 5th largest creator of hazardous waste. “By volume, the amount of space used up in landfills by foamed polystyrene is between 25 and 30 percent”- this is from the Polystyrene Fact Sheet created by the Foundation for Advancement in Science and Education in Los Angeles, California.
Not all Styrofoam is added to our overflowing landfills. A good percentage is often dumped into the environment as litter, where it breaks up into smaller pieces. Animals, thinking that it’s food, choke or die of clogged digestive pathways. So, not only is Styrofoam extremely harmful to our health, but it’s also bad for the environment and animals as well.
You might ask yourself why I’m mentioning all these dangers of Styrofoam, and what it has to do with business. Well, being on the meal plan at Stern, both dining halls in midtown offer no choice but to use this hazardous product. My point is that most businesses and universities purchase Styrofoam, regardless of what negative effects it has. The main reason why they do so is because it is cheap. It is known that the cost of manufacturing paper cups is actually 6 times more expensive than Styrofoam cups, making it a more financially attainable choice. Even so, I think it is wrong not to offer other alternatives. Each year, Americans throw away 25,000,000,000 Styrofoam cups, and in 500 years from now, the Styrofoam cup would still be sitting in a landfill. From all the money that businesses have and that get donated to universities, you would think that they might want to do something environmentally safe and purchase a product that doesn’t emit chemicals into our food. With all the Styrofoam containers, plates, cups, and bowls at the Stern dining halls, you could imagine how much chemicals and waste we add every single day. One thing that I had noticed at one of the dining halls is that they offer paper cups with recycled insulating sleeves for coffee or tea. This is a great idea and I commend whoever placed the order for this instead of the three size variety of Styrofoam cups at the other dining hall.
Students at California State University recently petitioned to remove all Styrofoam from campus and they made art exhibits with used Styrofoam depicting how Styrofoam harms the environment. These students also used their local media to spread their cause. Styrofoam was not banned from the university, but their efforts were a good start. Even though businesses and universities purchase Styrofoam on a regular basis because it saves them money, I can’t help but wonder why that’s their first priority. Especially in today’s society where it seems that more people are taking greater notice of the problems of the world, why not try to change such an obvious problem. Students pay enough money as it is for school, and you might think why is it so hard to ask for a safe product in our dining halls- not something that’s extremely harmful to the environment and our health.
There is a proposal to the US Congress to eliminate Styrofoam as a food packaging material that I had recently found on the internet. The document is authorized to be copied only to be sent to the Congressmen and Senators in your State. The link is http://www.comfortncolor.com/HTML/Styrofoam.pdf. I urge everyone who understands the seriousness of this product to sign this petition. Speak up to the university, and make them aware of the harmful effects this causes and demand that they change. You should refuse to use Styrofoam and tell others not to use it as well, but if you don’t do anything, you are not only killing the environment, but you are killing the animals and yourselves as well.

Sudan Rally

2005-05-09T16:16:00.000-07:00

When we say “never again” it must mean something. It is one thing if Jews want to have a pithy catch phrase or slogan to express their indignation, it is another if they want to actually be expressing their desire to make a difference and prevent genocide. I, for one, suggest that we take it to me “never again” will we never allow another Munich or Yalta. That we will take real tangible steps to ensure that evil is met with force rather than diplomacy and appeasement.

On May 8th 2005 I attended a rally that was aimed at stopping the genocide in the Sudan. I expected to hear common sense ideas and plans that would be able to save lives. This idea is not really all that far fetched. We, unfortunately, have a lot of historical cases of Genocide which we can explore to understand what is and is not effective in combating evil. Certainly we can learn some pertinent lessons from history. I was not expecting anyone to make major policy insights, merely to sight past methods that were effective at stopping genocide. I was sorely disappointed. While the speakers drew heavily on imagery of past genocides, and mentioned a laundry lists of failures at preventing genocide they were mute on the times when we successfully overcame evil. On the eve of VE day there was not one word uttered about how the American armed forces were instrumental in stopping the horrors of the holocaust. No one invoked the memory of how NATO bombers put an end to Slobodan Milosevic’s ethnic cleansing. No one even mentioned how American troops have been able to protect the Iraqi Kurds from genocide over the last decade. I left the rally with no better idea how the organizers wanted me to battle genocide, and I was not the only one.

Throughout the speech I asked my fellow attendees what they were hearing and I found that they were just as befuddled as I was, whether they knew it or not. One speaker mentioned that we need to take “action” to prevent the genocide from continuing and that an important step was to set up no fly zones or Sudan. Upon hearing this I asked my neighbor what actions the speaker meant? She admitted that she really had no idea. So I pressed onward, “Could he possibly have meant NATO bombings?” Her response was a seemingly surprised “No.” But then how did he intend to enforce the no fly zones? How did he expect to stop the militias from massacring innocent people? I asked numerous people and got no satisfactory answers. There were vague references made to sending humanitarian aid to the victims but no one had any detailed idea for how that would be accomplished. Numerous past attempts, highlighted by our spectacular failure in Somalia, prove the logistical nightmare of sending humanitarian aid into a war zone and no one was ready to offer a serious solution to that problem. One speaker mentioned writing letters to Congressman but offered no advice for what to write in those letters. There was also a call for the introduction of a UN declaration to condemn the genocide. Another nice vague idea which is practically impossible once we remember that China sits on the Security Council and Syria sits on the human rights council.

Most of the protestors seemed to think that the main purpose of the rally was to raise awareness for the genocide. Excuse me for being a cynic, but people are dying. What is raising the awareness of New York college students going to do to prevent innocent people from being murdered? The most ardent of protestors insisted that this was only a first step and that latter steps would follow. They declined to tell me what those next steps would be or how soon they would take place. No one would be comfortable estimating how many people will have to die between this first stage of the plan and the following stages. To be honest I had a feeling that many of the people I asked did not have any idea what the next stages would be.

I do not want to come off as a bitter critic of this rally. It is very important that the world take real steps to fight evil. I agree with the ideals of the organizers of the rally that we cannot tolerate evil “not now, not ever”. But if people are going to plan a rally, with the potential to do so much good it is a shame if they fail to capitalize on it. The rally could have been used as a platform to spread common sense ideas about how to fight genocide. A useful tactic would have been to remind the world that our national interest is at stake in Sudan. Sudan is a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism that housed Osama Ben Laden and Alqueda for the better part of a decade. President Clinton launched cruise missiles into Sudan in order to respond to a perceived chemical weapons program. When advocating a bombing campaign or military invasion of Sudan it would have been relevant to bring up the fact that America should be motivated by national security interests in addition to humanitarian ones. Not to mention the fact that genocide is bad for the open, globalized world order that America considers its national security. Genocide destabilizes regions and governments and causes more trouble in the future. One of the main purposes of the rally was to get media coverage. An optimal situation would have been use that outlet to remind the world how they have combated evil in the past and to demand that they do it again.

Exploring the Jewish Origins of the Neocons

2005-05-04T13:52:00.000-07:00

Ever since the lead up to the Afghanistan war it has been in vogue to talk about Neoconservatives and their influence on the Bush Administration. Neoconservatives or simply, Neocons had supposedly taken control of American foreign policy and were leading us to war in Afghanistan and later in Iraq as well. Critics saw a neocon, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle or Leo Strauss, behind every foreign policy decision that the Bush administration made.

In the area of foreign policy, Neocons are marked by optimism about America and its place in world affairs. They are comfortable with the fact that in the post cold war era, America is the most powerful nation in the world. They have no qualms about advising that America use its unique geopolitical position to take an active role in leading the world down a path that is hospitable to American interests and values. They believe that a world superpower has an obligation to play a leadership role in world affairs or it will quickly lose that status of world superpower. Neoconservatives believe that basic human values are universal, therefore while they would support multilateralism they would allow for unilateralism when it supports those universal human values. A core value of Neoconservativism is their belief in the power of democracy and human freedom, an idea which will become important later in this article.

As a Jew it is interesting to note that the founders and many of the followers (although not nearly all) of this “Neoconservative persuasion” are Jews. The so called Godfather of neo-conservatism is a Jew named Irving Kristol. Another of the “Godfathers” of neo-conservatism is Norman Podhortez another Jew. The persuasion draws heavily on the ideology of Jewish philosopher Leo Strauss. Current Neocons include prominent Jewish figures such as; Charles Krauthammer, Eliot Cohen, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz. The two leading Neoconservative magazines are Commentary which is published by The American Jewish Committee and The Weekly Standard which is ran by William Kristol, the son of Irving Kristol.

What accounts for number of Jewish intellectuals that play a key role in the Neoconservative persuasion? Is it merely a coincidence that Irving Kristol started a persuasion which would eventually interest and convert many Jew from both the left and the right? Or is there some facet of the Neoconservative ideology that is attractive to Jews? Neo-conservatism has never been definitively linked to a specific association or even a specific political party. It has always been considered more of an ideological affinity rather than a concrete association. So it seems reasonable to assume that there must be some ideological reason to explain the strong ties between Judaism and Neoconservativism. The question is; what is that link?

In order to answer this question we need to answer a more fundamental question, what is the core principal of Neoconservativism? The foreign policy which most people associate with Neocons is not in fact a basic premise of the persuasion. It is in fact an outgrowth of one of the true pillars of the ideology. As Irving Kristol himself attests “there is no set of neoconservative beliefs concerning foreign policy, only a set of attitudes derived from historical experience”. Implicit in the Neoconservative idea that Americans should feel comfortable about spreading their values is the assumption that those values are pure and desirable. Neo-conservatism was founded in the 1960s and early 70s in the height of the “counter culture revolution” as more and more American people began to condemn America and its values as corrupt, decadent and immoral. According to former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Jeane Kirkpatrick, during the 60’s and 70’s “the Neoconservative was born from a reaction to the counter-culture values… that constituted a sweeping rejection of traditional American attitudes, values and goals.” The “Counter Culture” rejected the laws and values that had been created through democratic norms since the revolution in favor of what they considered a greater degree of personal liberty and freedom. Irving Kristol was uncomfortable because he saw his fellow liberals beginning an attempt at repudiating the values that the American people had democratically established over the last 200 years. Kirkpatrick asserts that Necons believe that “while not totally perfect the U.S. was a successful society which provided freedom and decent standards of living to most of its citizens.” The fundamental debate that gave origin to Neo-conservatism was one over the definition of Freedom. Kristol believed that because of the “counter culture revolution” Americans were beginning to understand the idea of liberty in a way that contradicted the values fostered by his early Jewish education.

Both neoconservative and Jewish ideologies saw freedom, not as complete liberty from any responsibility or morality; but as the freedom to find and accept the most appropriate laws and morality. Neocons believe that America is not about the pursuit of liberty for liberty’s sake. According to Adam Wolfson an editor of the National Interest, this as a “cramped understanding of liberty” in which it is only “a narrow privatized liberty that is secured” and “everything is permitted- except a say in the shaping of a public ethos.” Neoconservatives believe that the founding fathers of America fought a war against England for the right to have self government, not for the right to live in a nihilistic state. President of the Portuguese Political Science association Joao Carlos Espada describes how Kristol’s acknowledgement of the importance of the “Judeo-Christian tradition” over arbitrary consensual morality as being what drew him to neoconservativism. Neocons see the American experiment in democracy as an experiment in the pursuit of a government by the people under which the people will be free to create laws by which they can live good, moral lives. Irving Kristol therefore, sees no contradiction between his ultimate support for human freedom and his advocating the censorship of obscenity and pornography. To a neoconservative there is nothing contradictory between democracy, freedom and censorship.

A very similar idea to this one is found in Judaism. The holiday of Pesach celebrates our liberation from slavery in Egypt, but we are not celebrating the opportunity to be totally free. We are celebrating the opportunity to choose to accept the yoke of heaven and to worship God in a way that we believe is best. Upon their exit from Egypt the Jews did not descend into immorality and enjoy their freedom by demanding the right to control every aspect of their lives. Instead they choose to run to Mount Sinai and accept God’s laws.

For both Jews and Neocons the true benefit of freedom is the good that virtuous people can do once they are free. I now return to my original question, why were Jews so instrumental in the formation of Neo-conservatism and why have the ideas of Neo-conservatism appealed to so many Jews? The two share a very similar framework for how to use the basic human right of liberty to lead a virtuous life. They share a belief, which is best stated by Joao Carlos Espada, that the most successful societies were ones in which “liberty and morality were not confronting one another”. Both Judaism and Neoconservativism agree that freedom without moral boundaries really isn’t freedom at all.

"War on Crime"

2005-04-27T22:07:00.001-07:00

When President Bush nominated Alberto Gonzales the left reacted with something akin to revulsion, that should have been sign enough that he was the right man for the job. In the few short weeks since his appointment we have discovered exactly why they reacted so violently against him; it was because he has the moral clarity and strength of character to do a good job. Their objections to Gonzales had little to do with torture or past performance and a lot to do with ideology. Not merely the fact that he did not share their ideology but the fact that by doing his job well he would be actively combating their worldview. Gonzales has done a lot to battle crime in this short tenure as Attorney General and that makes the left uncomfortable. Their ultimate Attorney general embraces moral relativism to such an extent that he is completely ineffectual.

Liberals would much prefer a world in which crime runs rampant and everyone is forced to acknowledge their dependence on government. They cannot accept the idea that there are a few evil people in the world and if they are combated and stopped by an active Attorney General the problem of crime will be greatly reduced. It is heresy to them to suggest that better law enforcement is a more effective answer to “the war on crime” than more welfare and more abortions. The idea that criminals are evil people who, because of their evil actions, deserve to be locked up (or gosh even killed) cannot be accepted by people who are flabbergasted at the very mention of the words good and evil. In their eyes the police should be the very last resort used only to “help” people who are very “misguided” or “psychologically” disturbed go to a “rehabilitation facility” at which they can be “rehabilitated” so that they will be able to rejoin society.

In their mind Operation Falcon in which over 10 thousand fugitives many of whom were violent criminals were arrested was totally inappropriate. They (not surprisingly) responded to the arrest those fugitives many of whom were murders, rapists and other violent criminals with cries that their civil rights were being abused. They do not mean that the criminals civil rights were being abused because of the specific manner in which they were arrested; but because of the mere fact that they were being arrested. In a world where there is no right and wrong, where moral relativism and multiculturalism reign it is inexcusable to punish anyone, or for that matter to hold them in any way accountable for their actions. Their ideology would be better served by a world in which everyone is allowed to exercise his most base desires and the chief methods for preventing crime are lax laws and huge positive incentives.

"Counter Cultures" revisited

2005-04-22T14:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday on an airplane ride home from school I had a chance to reread two articles by my personal favorite writer, Irving Kristol. Both of the articles “Counter Cultures” and “Pornography, Obscenity And The Case For Censorship” speak about a topic that (those of you who regularly read my blog know) is one I am personally passionate about; the battle between the orthodox moral majority and the growing “counter culture” steeped in moral relativism and nihilism. This is a war that is being fought every day on American soil, it is a war that is every bit as important and dangerous as the war on terror that is going on around the world. The war on terror is a war for our lives and this is a war for our souls. It is a war that will shape the very future of our country.

Kristol notes that one of the main tactics used by those devotees of counter culture “is to disestablish the family as a central institution in of human society.” The leaders of the “counter culture revolution” need to do everything they can to separate people (especially young people, especially young girls) from any sense of tradition or belonging in order to invalidate the “traditional” ideas of right and wrong and morality that they learned from their parents. Counter Culture (and all of the evils that go with it today) come to fill the void of a person who feels alienated, conveniently that same counter culture actively acts to tear down anything of real meaning and artificially create that sense of alienation. When one reads these words numerous proofs jump to mind. I do not need to explain how abortion, gay marriage, supreme court nominations and numerous other current debates really revolve around the sanctity of the both life and the family as a unit.

In 1994 Kristol wrote that the counter culture of today would try and inoculate people with art that has “the ethos of a carnival. It is cynical, nihilistic, and exploitive; it is candidly sensationalistic and materialistic.” I don’t think that I need to go to great pains to convince you that this prediction turned out to be right on the mark. Anyone who has turned on a radio and inadvertently (or on purpose) happened to hear any modern music already knows that this is true. In fact just a yesterday when I asked a friend of mine what rap music was all about he answered “bling, cars and women”. Doesn’t take sound a little bit like music that is “cynical, nihilistic, and exploitive… candidly sensationalistic and materialistic”?

Our modern counter culture has been so successful that we do not even notice how often we are exposed to it on a daily biases. We are blissfully unaware how often we are exposed to endorsements of an ideology that most of us find repugnant if not downright evil. We choose to overlook how often we use our radios and televisions to invite people we find to be vile into our homes. For example, while I was sitting in the dentist chair waiting for a check up I heard a song called “Babby Momma”. This is a song that actually celebrates unwed teenage pregnancies and advocates “I think it should be a holiday” celebrating promiscuity and children born out of wedlock. The x-ray technician was surprised that I was so disgusted by the ideas in the song. Not that I should be surprised, I was exposed to a great deal of the same music, mostly while I was in high school. Any time that I mentioned that a song (for instance “It wasn’t me”) was objectionable I got mostly blank stares. There is an old cliché “the greatest victory of the devil was to convince people that he doesn’t exist” counter culture happily learned from this lesson and went to great lengths to convince us at the devil in their “entertainment” does not exist.

I fear that many people do not realize that those blank stares are a sign that we are losing this war. I fear that most people cannot see that a large majority of our youth is only a hairsbreadth away from what Kristol predicts as the ultimate end of this counter culture revolution “a celebration of irrationalism and a derogation of reason itself.” If you think that I am wrong I urge you to take a closer look at the world. Either talk to your children or look at yourself and your peers if you are still a child.

The most common criticism that I am likely to receive is that people are not influenced by the songs that they listen to, movies that they watch or book that they read. That is patently absurd. I am not arguing that people let “MTVs Spring Break” convince them that promiscuity and immorality are virtues but I will argue that constant exposure to such values will make people see the world in a new light. Over time it will begin to shift the moral certitude that a person had about what was absolutely right and absolutely wrong. It will allow less things to be completely objectionable and create more “shades of gray”. While the television show is not actually thinking for the person it is quite possibly having a large impact on their decision making process.

Once again Kristol echoes my thoughts “We all know that the ways in which we use our minds and imaginations do shape out character and help define us as persons.” When a person is put in a difficult situation and forced to make a moral decision he cannot pinpoint ever influence that is being weighed in his mind. He may not rationally take into consideration the “advice” or values that he encounters every single day in the culture that he views, but I have no doubt that those are all a part of his decision. Think back and remember the last time that you made a serious decision with serious moral consequences and try to pick out all of the factors that you considered hen making that decision. I have a feeling that many people will be unpleasantly surprised.

In order to claim that no one was ever hurt by what they ready, listen too or watch you also have to accept that no one was ever helped by those same influences. A proposition from which I think almost everyone would want to distance themselves.

As long as we continue to let modern counter culture to go unchecked we will continue to see the emergence of a society that looks nothing like our highest aspirations. We will continue to see the rise of moral relativism and the destruction of the institutions that make our democracy possible. Democracy “depends entirely on the character of the people who govern”, if we do not take the modern counter culture seriously, in a few generations we may have a serious problem finding anyone of character to govern.

A lesson that must be learned

2005-04-18T09:12:00.000-07:00

What comes to mind when you think about Holland? Free drugs? Legalized prostitution? Multiculturalism and moral relativism? How about Islamic fundamentalism and a war for the very identity of the state? The last will soon become the dominate image in our minds. The image of the liberal paradise and bastion of tolerance, is dissipating and being replaced by the image of a country fighting to maintain its basic liberties, culture and heritage. Before you start to feel bad for the Dutch remember that they are the architects of their own fate. For decades they were content to live in the sewer and now they are shocked to find that there are vermin in their midst.

In the last few years Holland has seen the fruits of their excessive tolerance. The Dutch wore as a badge of courage the fact that they were one of the most open societies on earth. People were allowed to say or do whatever they wanted without rational limits. Now those limits are being imposed on them in an irrational manner by the Islamic fundamentalists. Muslims currently make up over 1/16 of the population in Holland (1 million out of 16 million) and due to higher birth and immigration rates they are growing exponentially faster than the native population. Unsatisfied with the governments hands off approach the fundamentalists amongst them have decided to take matters into their own hands. Terrorists groups have begun to spring up in Holland. All of a sudden the Dutch people are not quite as free as they thought they were. In fact in an ironic twist they are actually less free than Americans. People who open their mouths to criticize any aspect of this growing threat are threatened or killed. Pim Fortuyn, a politician who urged immigration reform, was murdered by terrorists. As was Theo van Gogh, who made a film that was critical of Islamic practices toward women. Writers and politicians who criticize Islam are rushed to safe houses, or empty jail cells for their own protection. Mosques and Churches have been vandalized or even bombed as the tensions escalate. The threats that had been given so much leeway and room to grow over such a long period of time are finally starting to surface and now the Dutch are going to have to reap what they sewed for so long.

Holland failed to take steps to safeguard its freedom and now it stands to lose everything. Total tolerance and acceptance of any ideology no matter how vile is not a way to protect freedom, it is the ultimate way to condemn it. According to Gerard Van As, a member of the Dutch Parliament, “From the 60s in the Netherlands, we have seen we were almost too tolerant. We accepted almost everything here in Holland. They call the Netherlands almost a breeding place for criminal organizations.” (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1345678,00.html) Now we know that it was also a breeding ground for terrorist organizations. The Dutch minister of immigration, Verdonk, said that the Netherlands had been "naïve" in failing to deal with deep divisions in Dutch society. She is quoted as saying, "For too long we have said we had a multi-cultural society and everyone would simply find each other. We were too naïve in thinking people would exist in society together." (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1345678,00.html) This is not a process that took place over night, it has taken nearly 50 years for things to get this bad. So why didn’t the Dutch fight back? Why didn’t they recognize the fact that they were slowly but surely losing their country to a fanaticism that even they would find repugnant? The sad truth is that when you attempt to stand for everything you end up standing for nothing. When you claim that you will fight to defend any freedom (even those that a perverse or obscene) you have the power to defend none of them. Why should the Dutch have stood up to fight the criminals and terrorists? To defend the free flow of pot? To make sure that they would have unencumbered access to harlots? The bad guys were smart, they did not threaten any of those things until now. Until they were already so strong that there is little the Dutch could do to fight back. For the bulk of the last century the criminals and terrorists accepted the traditional “live and let live” attitude of their Dutch neighbors as they got stronger and the Dutch got weaker. Now that they are strong enough to dominate the country their true colors are shinning through and it is too late to do anything to stop them.
Luckily, we Americans have not yet fallen so deeply into this trap. There are many Americans, notably the ACLU and some Supreme Court justices, who would like to see America become more tolerant and multicultural, like Holland, but I think that by now any rational person can see that this would be a grave mistake.

I see what is happening to the Dutch, I know that they are going to have a long bitter struggle ahead of them and to be honest I find it very hard to have any sympathy for them. For the last fifty years they have been a country bathed in filth that tried to attract tourists by promising them the ability to indulge in any immoral or despicable practice that their evil inclination desired. Some of that evil stuck, and now they are only suffering because they have to deal with the monster that they created. That makes it very hard to feel bad for them. Did they really think that they would be able to house any hostile, evil ideology that wanted to visit and never have to deal with the consequences of that action? If they did it was a grave error in judgment. What is important for us to learn from this situation is that just because we are tolerant of evil, there is no reason to believe that it will be tolerant of us. Just because we don’t see the consequences of our actions it doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. I am sure that when the Dutch decided to legalize drugs and prostitution they did not realize that would eventually lead to the disintegration of their society into a war with fundamentalist Islam. They were merely shortsighted. If we want to survive, shortsightedness is a flaw that we cannot tolerate. We must do the right thing because we know that it is the right thing and it will prevent us from getting into unpleasant situations in the future.

I don’t honestly believe that every young idealistic kid who talk about tolerance or legalizing drugs and prostitution is necessarily evil. Some are, but others are just idiots. The add slogan “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” is nothing but a pipe dream. The bad guys do not like to be contained, and are very good at using any power that is granted to them. Ideas spread; if evil ideas are fostered then they too will spread. Ours actions have consequences, there is evil in the world and if we let it into our lives we are going to have to deal with it. Maybe things will work out. Maybe the Dutch will pull together and fight for their culture and heritage. But if they do that I can assure you that after this war they will recognize that they need to protect their freedoms from the evils of the world. One way or another the days of nihilism being the dominant ideology of the Dutch is coming to an end.

Cookie Monster Under Fire

2005-04-12T17:30:00.000-07:00

Over the years liberals have targeted many voices that were not in line with their ideology. Under the banner of supporting political correctness liberals have attacked and attempted to silence men like Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and Trent Lott. This time the left has gone too far. No, I am not talking about the mudslinging campaign currently aimed at Tom Delay. The left is currently involved in a far more insidious plot to silence a voice that has avoided being co-opted into a politically correct stance for decades. I am talking about a blue haired, crazy eyed “cookie monster” that has continuously defied the lefts cabal against fatty foods by publicly proclaiming his love for cookies. Being a minority (blue cookie monsters are seriously underrepresented on television) has protected Cookie Monster from scrutiny for most of his professional career. But alas in a politically correct rage the left has turned its attention to censoring this childhood icon that wanted nothing more than to enjoy his baked goods in peace. I am no libertarian but even I agree that a man or a monster should be allowed to eat his cookies in peace.

It’s interesting to note that the liberal elites at PBS think that America’s children are nothing but mindless sheep. The PC police have deemed Cookie Monster, with his poor eating habits and famous catch phrase “C is for cookie and that’s good enough for me”, a poor role model for kids. They warned him to clean up his act or else. Let it be noted that Cookie monster has done nothing wrong, in fact even some of the more upstanding citizens on Sesame Street such as Big Bird and Elmo have been known to enjoy a sprinkle or black and white cookie from time to time. Cookie Monster has always been known more for his “googley” eyes than his mettle and has unfortunately caved under the pressure. In an opening act of capitulation the Monster came out and announced that his true name was “Sid” not Cookie Monster. He has already started to descend down the slippery slope as he sells out to the PC police. Has begun to admonish kids “Cookies are a sometimes food” because they make you fat. I feel bad for Cookie Monster and am disappointed that he did not have the courage to stand up for what he believes in. I wish that Cookie Monster had been able to stand tall and defend his ideals. Who can imagine what stone will fall next? Will the Ninja Turtles be forced to give up Pizza in favor of salad? Will Garfield be forced to engage Odie in intellectual dialogue rather than kicking him off the table? Will Calvin be forced to reconcile his differences with Susie in order to further a sense of equality between the sexes? How much of our culture and our heritage will we allow the PC police to steal from us? How much will we allow them to white wash out culture to ensure that not a single person ever has to use his own judgment or think for himself?

I grew up watching Cookie Monster eat cookies, plates and anything else in range and I managed to avoid becoming obese. I would like to think that I was smart enough to understand that Cookie Monster’s digestive tract was nothing like mine. I would also like to believe that any child would be able to see that it would be impossible for him to act anything like Cookie Monster and survive. Childhood obesity (and the diabetes that all too often accompanies it) is a major problem but to blame it on Cookie Monster is a farce. I can say with a relatively that no child is going to listen to Sid warn that “Cookies are a some times food” and be saved from obesity. If we want to deal with the true causes of childhood obesity it will require far more effort than merely pushing around a Muppet that is incapable of defending himself. The issues that (to my best guess) reside in the background of childhood obesity relate to familial issues which coincidentally are the issues that the left and their PC police are the most reluctant to tackle. The most effective way to protect children is to foster a culture in strong family’s are responsible for their children’s future. Families in which a mother and a father spend time raising their children (even if that means one parent make concessions in his or her career if possible). Working toward a family that is protected from the many attacks that have been fostered against it over the years such as the acceptance of divorce, gay marriage and even premarital sex that leads to single mothers, would do far more to protect children than censoring Cookie Monster.

I suggest that Tom Delay and Cookie Monster get together to protest against the slanderous attacks that have been aimed at them over the last few weeks. It is not a time for us to be divided. It doesn’t matter if you are a blue monster fighting to protect your cookies or a conservative senator trying to protect your senate seat, you cannot allow yourself to succumb to the shrill attacks of the left. Keep your eyes open, maybe one day soon on CSPAN we will see Sid (Cookie) Monster and Tom Delay come out in a unified front. If that ever happens, it will be the PC Police branch of the Democratic Party’s worst nightmare.

Democracy Pays Off

2005-04-11T10:05:00.000-07:00

Scholars of international relations debate explanations for the phenomom of the democratic peace. There are many theories amongst the scholars who agree that it is highly unlikely for two democracies to go to war. One of these theories is the "normative theory" which states that since democratic students are used to using nonviolent methods of conflict resolution on a personal level they expect their leaders to do it, whenever possible, on an international level as well. I think that we often fail to see how differently the citizens are democracies relate to the world than citizens of autocracies do. Being raised in a mature democracy that respects the rights of its citizens and extols justice as a virtue produces dramatically different human beings than being raised in an oppresive autocracy that deny its citizens have rights and if anything, extols corruption. We can see a first hand example of this situation in the recent tensions between Japan and its neighbors.

Japan recently printed a new set of history textbooks that offended their neighbors. The new text books seem to show insensitivity to the evils that Japan inflicted on its neighbors during world war two. What I want to explore is how two of Japan's neighbors reacted to the priniting of this textbooks. This situation gives us a unique oppertunity to see just how differently free and enslaved people react to the same stimulus. Japan's new text book primarily offended the democratic South Koreans and the Autocratic Chinese. Their differing reactions to this seemingly identical stimulus shows a deep insight into both socities.

The Chinese and South Koreans reacted to the new Japanese textbook in ways that are in line with the normative theory of the Japanese peace. The Chinese reacted by rioting, attacking the Japanese embassy and pushing for a boycott on Japanese goods. The South Koreans reacted through diplomatic channels and formal complaints. The Chinese people could not possibly have been expected to react through proper channels because they have never experienced the proper channels, in fact they proberably don't even know that the proper channels exist. The only methods that have ever been available to the Chinese people were extralegal methods, so those are the methods that they chose in this situation. The Chinese people couldn't trust their government to deal with the situation because they have no reason to beleive that their government would ever act in their best interest. The Chinese live in an opressive, hopeless state and their range of options to external stimululs are extremly limited. Rioting, boycotting Japanese goods and attacking the Japanese embassy is proberably not the most appropriate or effective response to being offended by a Japanaese text book. It has already proven ineffective as tensions continue to rise between the two countries, the harsh response from China is equally likely to harden Japanese resolve as to make them apologize. But this innefective methods was the only option available to the opressed Chinese so it is the option they were forced to choose.. The South Koreans on the other hand have a full range of options at their fingertips.

The South Koreans who live inside of a legal framework could understand that they did not need to lash out at the Japanese but that they could wait and allow their leaders to deal with the situation in a civilized manner. The South Koreans know that their leaders are responsibble for their actions so they can expect them to act in their best interests. The South Koreans were not less offended by the Japanese than the Chinese but they had a larger range of options open to them and were therfore able to chose a response that was both more appropriate and will ultimatly prove more effective. Some South Koreans did protestbut it was a small minority and they protested and did not riot.

This does not prove that the normative theory of democratic peace explains why democracies do not go to war with one another. But it does seem to demonstrate that people who live in democracies are more willing to use nonviolent means to solve problems. There does seem to be at least a strong logical correlation between the reaction of China and a more warlike posture and the reaction of South Korea and peace. It as at the very least something to think about.

Jews Against Genocide

2005-04-08T10:35:00.000-07:00

I recently attended a conference titled “Jews Against Genocide” whose main function was to discuss possible actions that could be taken on campus to combat the genocide being perpetrated in Darfur, Sudan. We need to be sure that any actions we take are the most efficient and save the most lives both in Sudan and any future genocides. To take any half measures would be a waste of time and effort. Many of the suggestions that were given seemed to regard aid, either through donations or through the petitioning of the government to provide aid. This is a strategy that has been attempted many times in the past and has proven to be horribly inefficient if not an outright failure. I can still remember the drive to raise money for Kosovo that was held by my high school. I also remember the fact that throughout all of history there have been only two successful ways to end genocide; either by force or by letting the murders kill until they are tired of murdering. No amount of aid could have prevented or stopped genocides from the Holocaust to Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda or countless others. Perhaps more importantly all of the aid that was sent to any of the aforementioned countries did not do one thing to prevent future problems such as the problems that developed in Congo following the Rwandan genocide. I am not saying that aid is totally unimportant; it can do a semi-decent job of rebuilding a country or a people after they have suffered genocide. Assuming that it isn’t stolen, and that the aid workers aren’t murdered. If we fail to prevent genocide or fail to effectively come to the rescue of the victims it becomes incumbent on us, as world hegemon, to provide aid to clean up our own failures. But I see no reason to accept those failures without a fight. It would be far more efficient and beneficial to the world if we could actively prevent future genocides rather than to clean up after the forces of evil have done their work.

The most important overarching goal for any group aimed at preventing genocide has to be UN reform. The UN was the group specifically created to prevent future genocides and it has failed demonstratively. Rwanda served on the human rights council during the Rwanda genocide and Sudan is on that very same council today. The United Nations had a broad mandate, to prevent the horrors of the holocaust and it has always been handicapped. It has been handicapped by not being given the military power to carry out its mandate and it has been handicapped by including nations that have no interest in carrying the UN mandate. The UN is known for impartiality in the face of genocide, sexual abuse, and utter failure. The UN was on the ground in Rwanda, there is no doubt that Dalliare and his peacekeepers could have prevented the Rwandan genocide. The UN’s internal weaknesses prevented him from doing his job. Millions of lives could have been saved had UN peacekeepers been a respectable force. There are various ideas on how to reform the UN including (my personal favorite) actually holding countries accountable for their actions and kicking them out of the UN if they do not live up to its ideals. This would leave the UN free to deal with actual crisis without having to consult the bad guys. A reformed UN could do more to prevent genocide than any amount of aid.

Military force is far and away the most efficient cure to genocide. If an organization decides to write a petition to the President of United States to prevent genocide it should be a petition seeking military intervention. NATO’s military prowess was a key factor to ending the genocide in the Balkans. For decades American military might was the only thing that stood in-between Saddam Hussein and his goal of eradicating the Kurds. Imagine a counterfactual in which instead of using NATO to bomb Milosevic we had sent over aid and doctors? Imagine a counterfactual in which instead of invading Germany the allies continued to send the Red Cross to inspect death camps? Those ideas are nightmares. NATO and the United States military are the most efficient means for combating genocide, any movement toward protecting the innocent people in Sudan would be best served if we were to move to eradicate the evil that was threatening them.

As soon as we need to send a check to “Doctor’s Without Borders” we are admitting that we need doctors. That is fine in a case such as a Tsunami, but is a huge admittance of failure in the case of genocide. It means that the bad guys have already gotten their way. We should never need Doctors to protect people from genocide. We should never allow genocide in he first place. We don’t have to, we are the world hegemon and we sit on two security bodies, the UN and NATO which have the power to prevent genocide. It may sound silly but even an organization such as “Mercenaries without borders” or “Bombers without borders” that would seek to prevent genocide and allow us to save doctors for situations in which we really need them. In order to combat evil we must have the stomach to obliterate it. A petition asking the president to put pressure on NATO to start bombing the Sudanese government until the genocide is prevented would do much more good than a petition asking for more aid. Aid workers are murdered, aid money is stolen; giving charity to genocide victims does more for us than it does for the actual victims. Nothing can get into the hurt of Darfur to protect innocent women and children as well as precession guided bombs. To those who want to help combat the genocide in Sudan I say, write up a petition asking the President to call for NATO to bomb Sudan and I will be the first name on the list.

Remeber Iraq

2005-04-01T10:46:00.000-08:00

March was very quietly an exceptionally successful month for the burgeoning democracy in Iraq. The news out of Iraq over the last few weeks may not have sold as many newspapers as headlines about terrorists murdering Americans, but it has been both encouraging and vindicating for those of us who have supported the war from the very beginning. As Iraq continues to move forward with the day to do mundaneities of normal life in a democracy it will continue to drop from the headlines. As the people of Iraq embrace their new freedom and join the free world, the liberal media will move on to other stories. The bitter fight to establish democracy in Iraq will fade into the history books as did the bitter fights in Japan and Germany. A decade from now it will seem obvious that Iraq is a thriving democracy, the novelty is already wearing off. The world will move on, and people's interests will turn to new stories such as the Terri Schaivo case, the economy and immigration reform, but it would be in our best interests to never forget the miracle that took place in Iraq. To remember the lessons that we learned about the human drive for freedom, to remember who supported freedom and who stood against it. A few months ago liberals were ranting to whoever would listen that Iraq was a lost cause. The Iraqis choose to ignore the Democrat's grim predictions and continuted fighting for their country. It turns out that the Iraqi people were right and now that the toughest times are behind them they can go on about running their country. There are still many lessons that we can learn by looking at Iraq today.
Last month (March) was the least bloody month in Iraq in over year, since Feburary 2004. The dire predictions that Iraq was going to degenerate into a quagmire have not materialized. The number of troops wounded was also the lowest total since March 2004. The Iraqi election, American perseverance and the natural human drive for freedom have broken the back of the terrorist insurgency. “A senior military official in Baghdad said on Friday total attacks against U.S.-led forces had fallen more than 20 percent since the Jan. 30 election.” (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050401/ts_nm/iraq_deaths_dc_1) On some of the days leading up to the election terrorists attacked US troops 100 times each day. In the last few weeks attacks have fallen to less than 30 a day. No one ever claimed that democracy would take root in Iraq over night, but the fact that we have gotten so far in just a two short years is a testament to the fact that democracy is versatile enough to take root in any country of the world.

Early predictions that the Sunni would boycott any involvement in the government have also failed to materialize. Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al-Samarrai, a power Sunni cleric, in the read the edict during a sermon at a major Sunni mosque, said joining the Iraqi security forces was now necessary to prevent the country from falling into "the hands of those who have caused chaos, destruction and violated the sanctities." (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,152149,00.html) This is just one more piece of evidence that when granted an opportunity to have a stake in their countries future everyone will take the chance. There have been delays in the formation of the Iraqi government, not because no one wants to participate but because everyone wants to participate. By allowing for an active and vigorous debate the Iraqis are proving that they are quite ready for democracy.

The majority of the world has forgotten the dramatic changes that took place in Germany, and Japan in the 60 years since World War Two. The lessons that should have been learned from the successful democratization of those two countries went unlearned. We must not allow that to happen again. |t is imperative that we celebrate the steps taken toward a better future in Iraq and ensure that we never forget, we were right.

New World Order Revisited or "Silly rabbit democracy is just for Americans"

2005-03-30T11:23:00.000-08:00

“ Repression will not stop the democratic process.” That sounds like a quote straight from the mouth of President Bush. Critics of the Bush Doctrine would claim that it must be the voice of a westerner, most likely an American, because in their opinion democracy is a uniquely western ideal. The critics of the Bush Doctrine would be wrong once again. (They must be getting really tired of being wrong all the time) Those words were uttered by Vyacheslav Sivchik, the leader of the democratic movement in Belarus. Not a westerner by any stretch of the imagination. Events around the world continue to prove that as President Bush stated "We are confident that the desire for freedom, even when repressed for generations, is present in every human heart, and that desire can emerge with sudden power to change the course of history."

Anyone who is simply willing to pay attention to the people of the world will understand that they have an intense desire for democracy. Intellectuals and actors can sit in America and claim that Democracy does not have a universal appeal, but the oppressed people of the world will do everything in their power to repudiate that claim. The argument over whether or not the values of freedom are universal is not an only argument between conservatives and liberals, each side has allies. Conservatives have allies such as Vyacheslav species of Belarus, Ayad Allawi of Iraq, The late Prime Minister Hariri of Lebanon, and Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. Liberals have allies such as Bashar Assad of Syria, Mullah Omar of Iran and Syrian puppet Omar Karami in Lebanon. I suddenly have another reason to be very proud that I am a neo-con. The left in America claim that they can speak for the people of the world, but those people do not need anyone to speak for them. They have spoken loudly and clearly and their message is “We want freedom and we want it now!”

Democratic movements in such unlikely countries as; Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Georgia, The Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus have testified that there is no place on earth that is incompatible to the ideals of human freedom. Everyone is familiar with the miraculous Orange revolution in The Ukraine and Cedar revolution in Lebanon. The crowds that spent 14 days on the streets of Lebanon quickly became one of the most touching and recognizable images in many years. The anti Syria rally in Lebanon that drew a million strong made the front page of every newspaper in America. Recent developments in Kyrgyzstan and Belarus and Egypt have been quieter but no less dramatic.

In Kyrgyzstan the people rose up to overthrow their president who had become increasingly autocratic and was accused of massive fraud in the most recent elections. The people made it very clear that they people did not merely want to exchange one autocrat for another. The New York Times quotes a Kyrgyzstani man as saying, “We hope the new government will be different and that everything will be transparent” http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Kyrgyzstan-Angry-Poor.html The next time someone accosts you with the argument that “America has no right to force Democracy on another country”, don’t waste your time arguing with them. Instead tell them to go argue with the people who risked their lives for democracy in Kyrgyzstan.

In Belarus “Nearly 1,000 people rallied outside the offices of President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday demanding the resignation of the authoritarian leader who has quashed dissent and opposition parties in the former Soviet republic.” http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Belarus-Protests.html It’s a start. The oppressive regime was able to destroy the rally and arrest the leaders, but it is still a start. A 1,000 people looked at their neighbors in Georgia, The Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan and responded “We want to be free too”.

In Egypt popular support has forced President Mubarak to allow the first multipary elections. Groups such as “The Kefaya” which William Saffire described in his recent article for the New York Times magazine have been protesting that they have had enough of the authoritarian regime. They have strongly protested against an undemocratic hand over of power from Mubarak to his son. In response to these protests “Mubarak has proposed multi-candidate presidential elections in place of the usual referendum on a single candidate chosen by parliament, which the ruling party dominates.” (http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L30691739.htm) Democracy is clearly on the march in Egypt, I guess that Ted Kennedy would tell you that Egypt is part of the west.

If democracy is a uniquely western ideal, there a lot of confused people around the world. Someone needs to tell the tens of millions of people around the world who have taken steps toward democracy in the last 5 years that they don’t really want democracy after all. It is far more likely that as the president stated although “The chances of democratic progress in the broader Middle East have seemed frozen in place for decades... at last, clearly and suddenly, the thaw has begun."

To all the Democrats In Name Only out there

2005-03-27T14:51:00.000-08:00

Here is a letter that I encourage any of my readers who happen to live in Conneticut to send to Senator Joseph Lieberman. That does not mean that this blog is worthless to the anyone who lives outside of Conneticut, it will also be useful to show to any other confused conservatives that think they are a democrat.

Dear Senator Lieberman;

I want to take this opportunity to thank you for being a sensible Democrat at time when it has become quite unfashionable to do exactly that. Your stance on morality (as you once again reiterated on Meet the Press (Sunday March 17th) is both refreshing and heartening. Your support on issues such as; the war on terror, national security, morality, religion in politics, and many others has proven that contrary to my intuition lunacy is not a perquisite for becoming a member of the Democratic party. We clearly do not agree on every issue, but the issues that we agree on seem to out shine the issues on which we disagree. Alas I feel that in light of the events of the last few years (and even the last few days) it is time for you to cross the aisle and become a Republican. Ask yourself, do you feel more comfortable being interviewed by Sean Hannity or Al Franken? Do you think that you belong in the party of Karl Rove or the party of Howard Dean? Which do you enjoy more, the movies of Michael Moore or Charlton Heston? How long can you allow inertia to drag you along with a party that is increasingly hostile to everything that you believe in?

You may be attracted to the Democrat party of old, but that is not the party that exists today. The Democrat party of old nominated candidates such as FDR and Harry Truman and the Democrat party of today nominates candidates such as John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. If you are not disgusted by the recent actions of the Democratic Party (support for Partial Birth Abortions, attacks against the ten commandments or any mentioning of God, and a lack of will to save Terri Schiavo's life then I have severely misjudged your character.

The Democrat party of old, simply no longer exists. By no fault of your own you are associated with the party that denigrated the Iraq war, decries any attempt to allow religion in daily life and clamored for the death of Terri Schiavo. I know that on these and many other issues you cannot reconcile your position with that of the Democratic party. You may cherish being the party that protects the environment and is perceived (falsely so) as protecting the poor; but note it is also the party that rejects objective morality, national security and the absolutely intractable value of human life.

I understand that you grew up idolizing Democrats such as Scoop Jackson for their courage and determination to defend human rights. I recognize that Scoop Jackson was a hero and that his example should serve as a role model for all politicians, both Republicans and Democrats. Unfortunately, (or perhaps fortunately) the Scoop Jacksons of the 21st century appear to reside in the Republican party. Even Scoop Jackson was unable to change the direction of the Democrat party. He will always be remembered as a positive voice amongst the chaos, but he (and you) could have been much more. You are already being referred to as a D.I.N.O (Democrat in name only) perhaps it is time that you do what is best for both yourself and the country and remove in the name.

This is not a joking matter, by changing parties you can have a dramatic effect on American politics. 75% of Jews voted for John Kerry despite overwhelming evidence that President Bush was the candidates more in line with issues that are more vital to contemporary Jews. I would not hazard to guess who you voted for in the presidential election, but your scathing criticisms of John Kerry from the primaries loom fresh in my mind. If you were to switch parties you could take a large portion of that 75% of Jews with you. You will not be one man crossing the aisle, you can be the start of a transition that is long overdue. I think it is time that you decide to become a valued member of the Republican family rather than a pariah in the Democrat party.

How did it ever come to this?

2005-03-24T15:04:00.000-08:00

How did we ever get to this point? Some of the elements of the Terri Schiavo case are so bizarre that they are funny in a macabre sort of way. A husband demands that his wife’s parents not “force her to live”, and only half of America is troubled by these comments. American opinion is torn apart by the question over weather or not an innocent woman’s life should be saved. In order to pass a bill aimed at saving a woman’s life Republicans in the senate had to compromise and say that they were not trying to save any other, future, women’s lives (God forbid). Courts all over the country feel that it is their obligation to balk Congress and allow an innocent woman to die. The Supreme Court banished a crying family without even listening to their pleas for their daughter’s life. Note that this is only a month after they decided that it was cruel and unusual to execute 17 year olds who have committed murder. A group of people were arrested for trying to provide water to a woman on dying of thirst. The liberals are actively working to prevent a mother from even putting a damp washcloth on her daughter’s lips. The media is so desperate to see a woman starved to death that they feel it their obligation to print stories about how pleasant and dignified it is to starve to death. The media is so desperate to make it seem like the American people support murdering an innocent woman that they would blatantly lie in and claim that Terri Schiavo is “brain dead” when no doctor has ever made such a claim. I think that we need to take a hard look at America today in order to try and understand some of these wacky situations. I believed that over the last sixty years we have been slowly embarking down a path toward where we stand today. No single step has been enough to get us here, but taken as a whole many different events have made the events depicted above a reality.

This case has one again highlighted the evils that can be perpetrated by people who have lost a sense of moral clarity. This muddying of the waters of moral clarity has began long before I was born but it appears to be reaching a crescendo. A general principal of liberalism has long been movement away from a culture of personal responsibility. I will not argue that a man like FDR could have ever imagined the depredations going on today. But there is a link between entitlement programs such as welfare, unemployment and Medicaid and the current climate of moral confusion.

FDR may have had the best of intentions (and I will assume that he did) but the lesson that people have learned from his programs is that people do not need to have a sense of personal responsibility. The lessons that people should have learned is that life is so precious that we need to do distasteful things (entitlement programs) in order to prevent even the littlest bit of human suffering. Entitlement programs have taken on a life of their own and are seen as good things themselves. Based on that interpretation people begin to lose sight of the value of every individual human being. People cease to exist as individuals endowed by their creator with certain rights and responsibilities and become statistics supported by the State. If a person views it as his right, to be supported by entitlement programs he no longer views himself as having the same value (or obligations) as the rest of society. As soon as a person accepts mitigating factors (race, poverty) to affect his self-worth, how can he be expected to view others as objectively valuable? If a person does not view his own life as being objectively valuable and sacred, there is no reason for him to respect the rights of other’s lives. Entitlement programs were the first step toward our current state of moral befuddlement because they weakened the idea that every individual is created equally capable, important and valuable based simply on their humanity.

The war over “the right to die” and euthanasia that began in the 1970s was another step down the path toward the farce that we are witnessing today. Advocates of “the right to die” may have been well meaning individuals who wanted to end the pain and suffering of terminally ill people. They may have never envisioned that their argument would eventually be applied to a woman like Terri. Most of them probably never guessed that their work would grant “the right to die” to a woman who was not terminally ill and had never clearly expressed her desire to die. Unfortunately by adding the words “right to die” into our lexicon these people eroded the concept of the completely unassailability of the sacredness of innocent human life.

A group that I cannot give the benefit of the doubt, which has done more than any other group to condemn Terri to death, is the pro-abortion crowd. The pro-abortion crowd is the first that introduced the idea that we can decide which lives have the right to be protected based on how convenient their existence is to us. The arguments over exactly how much consciousness Terri might have, would never have been unimaginable if the pro-abortion crowd had not fought so hard to eliminate so many children from the category of “being alive.” It is possible that the early pro-abortionists were not so deranged that they would want their arguments in favor of slaughtering fetuses to apply to a grown woman, but that is a hard argument for me to make. Some people may actually believe that fetuses are not alive and that life is only sacred once it is born. Some people might actually be so brainwashed that they do not understand that those fetuses so blithely killed will eventually become people. If the American people were to ever return to the idea that every life sacred it would spell disaster for the pro-abortion groups. No one who believes that life is sacred could ever condone abortion or even listen to arguments that try to finagle the exact day, hour, minute or second when life really begins. The pro-abortionists cannot allow Terri’s life to be saved based on arguments that life is scared, or their battle will be lost.

While all of that has been going on, another development has taken place to confound any sense of moral clarity in the United States. The founders of the constitution took great pains to ensure that every person would have religious freedom and that the State would never institute any one religion. It is a great misunderstanding that we have taken this protection of religion to be an attack against religion. The founders never intended that any person expressing a religious belief would be laughed at or ridiculed as a simple minded fool. On the contrary the recognized the power and importance of religion and too steps to safeguard all religions. People, especially religious people, have been convinced that as soon as any religion or religious motivation creeps into politics it will be the end of their religious freedom. Due to this (largely irrational) fear, young people are raised to fear and revile any mention of religion in the political sphere. I can excuse some people for being afraid of religion but this too has had unforgivable side-affects. Without the will of a creator to lend sanctification to life it becomes much harder to defend. If the only reason that life is sacred is because of some human calculation, human calculations can also removes its sacredness. Do the religious kids who protest against having the Ten Commandments on public property really want to see Terri Schiavo murdered? I don’t think so. But I also know that it seems that many of them would rather see her starve to death than admit that maybe, just maybe, God would rather see her live.

I think we can trace how, through an unfortunate procession of events, an innocent woman lies in bed being slowly tortured and murdered. No one group (with the possible exception of the pro-abortionists) actually enjoys seeing murder, their influence on society has lead us to become a culture that is very tolerant of death. It is no small wonder that appeals have been incapable to overturn what it has taken decades and decades to establish. The only way that we can prevent a tragedy like this one from ever taking place again is to work to combat all of the factors that have contributed to it. Through better education and true religious tolerance we can once again move toward a culture of life.

In the quest for true equality

2005-03-22T13:09:00.000-08:00

The firing of Michelle Zipp, offers a unique insight into the way that the nihilist have been able to co-opt feminism for their own sinister purposes. For years the left has hailed the creation of “adult entertainment” for women as a victory for equality and women’s liberation. After all if women can enjoy “adult entertainment” then we can all be one big happy equal family. In the last few weeks this has been exposed as the great lie that it truly is. Efforts to “free women” by integrating them into nihilism and moral relativism are nothing than a clever attempt to subjugate and degrade them in a way that the so called “chauvinists” in the past could never have imagined. Irving Kristol understood this fact decades ago. He wrote essays on the topic including Men, Women and Sex (which I STRONGLY suggest you read.) in which he states the myth of identicalness (rather than equality) by the leftists’ method “had ruined many lives” and led to “confusion and disorientation”. The supposed empowerment granted to Michelle Zipp was proven to be a sham as soon as she voiced an opinion that her masters did not approve of.

Mere weeks after Michelle Zipp announced that she was secretly a conservative she was fired from her job as editor and chief at an obscene publication. Many people would have pointed to Zipp and claimed that her job was a sign that the left had empowered women and raised them to the same heights of women. Following her casual dismissal it is apparent that she was never anything more than a pawn. She was manipulated by the “powers that be” in the American left, so that they could convince women to buy into their system. The left has an interest in co-opting the interests of women both to gain political power and for more nefarious purposes. The far left, the vanguard of nihilism, moral relativism and immorality could never hope to shape America in its perverse image without the acquiescence of a majority of the American women. The left found an ingenious way to achieve this goal; by pretending to empower them.

As soon as Zipp’s bosses realized that their pawn was starting to take her powers seriously and might actually threaten their plans they panicked and fired her. With all due respect, Zipp’s article was not a serious political piece. It was an entertainment piece that happened to mention politics. I highly doubt that there is a real danger that life long liberals are going to vote Republican because of Zipp’s article. She was not fired because she wrote about politics but because, as Zipp stated in a letter to Matt Drudge, the left is afraid of women in power with minds of their own. The “adult entertainment” industry can only tolerate empowering a woman as long as she buys into the left’s agenda. They would never do so if they thought that she might actually seize the power to actually do some good.

The far left does not object to a woman in power as long as she is willing to admit that at the end of the day her guiding principals are nihilism, and moral relativism. If a woman in power were ever to advocate morality and serve as a good role model for women she would strike a double blow against the left. First she might convert some women to Republicans, and more dangerously, she might prevent some women from allowing the nihilists to take advantage of them. Those are two dangers that the left cannot tolerate so they had no choice but to fire Michelle Zipp.

There is good news. The world is starting to wake up and realize the nihilists trick. Larry Summer’s statements about the differences between men and women has launched a period of investigation into this subject. Even a liberal like Maureen Dowd admitted that there are in fact differences between men and women. What is empowering for a man, can be just another form of subjugation for a woman. Michelle Zipp has an opportunity to stand up for the true cause of woman’s rights. If she chooses to continue fighting against the people who fired her and their ideology, there is a lot of good that she can accomplish. In a few decades young women will be presented with two routes to empowerment. One will be the conservative path symbolized by woman like Condoleezza Rice, and possibly a reformed Michelle Zipp. Note that not only conservatives can take the conservative path, it is also the path that (for the most part) has been utilized by Hillary Clinton and Maureen Dowd. The fact that they used the conservative path of self respect and real equality to gain their stakes in the world does not mean that they need to have conservative ideals. I would rather have to face, and even combat, a woman like Hillary Clinton in the world of ideas then have her subjugated to the will of the nihilists. And the other will be the liberal path symbolized by “adult entertainers” and the old pawn Michelle Zipp. Note that not only women with liberal ideals can be manipulated down the liberal path. A woman with conservative who mistakenly buys into the liberal system and seeks advancement through their means can also be lost.

Culture of Life

2005-03-20T10:27:00.000-08:00

As an Orthodox Jews I strong believe in the Talmudic idea “He who destroys a life is as if he destroyed an entire world; and he who saves a life is as if he saved an entire world.” (Sanhedrin, 37a) As an American I strong believe in the idea that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” (The Declaration of Independence) That is why the entire debate over the situation involving Terri Schiavo is so alien to me. My entire background as a Jew, an American and a Neocon, screams that innocent life must be protected at all costs. This morning I heard numerous guests, making the rounds of the Sunday morning talk shows, attempting to politicize this issue. It is amazing to me that they fail to recognize the fact that when an innocent woman’s life is at stake the issue should transcend politics.

Pundits have argued that Republicans in Congress are betraying their support for State’s rights by supporting sending this case to a federal judge. This argument puts attempts to save an innocent woman’s life in the same category as Social Security reform or school vouchers. The pundits fail to realize that based on Judeo-Christian values, “the saving of a life pushes off everything else” (Talmud Yoma 84) The Republicans in Congress feel the need to do whatever it takes to save this woman’s life. While they may judge themselves as lawmakers based on what they do to protect State’s rights, they will judge themselves as God fearing human beings based on what they do to save Terri Schiavo’s life.

Battles over how much power should be relegated to the Federal government vis-à-vis the states will carry on for decades is not centuries, if Congress fails to act Terri Schiavo will starve to death in a 7-14 days. We cannot afford to lose sight of Congress’s true purpose. American law was not created as an end in and of itself. Congress does not sit in Washington and argue because it is trying to construct a perfect code of law that we can show off to the rest of the world. Congress exists because as our founders understood “That to secure these rights, (Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”. (Declaration of Independence) The reason that government was established and continues to be upheld is because of the role that it plays in protecting people’s lives. It would have been an unforgivable sin, and negation of the primary role of government, if Congress had allowed an innocent woman to suffer an agonizing death for political reasons. (state’s rights) I have no hesitation in proudly proclaiming that my desire to protect innocent human life outweighs my desire to further the cause of state’s rights.

Conservative’s and Liberals have different agenda’s for how America should look, that point is undisputable. We do not merely disagree over minor legislative issues, it is clear that we have differing opinions as to what should be the core values of American society. My one hope is that we can move in a direction where we all honor the idea that no matter what our specific values it should be our overarching goal that we can “live by them” (Leviticus 18:5) and not die by them. It is with a great anxiety that I write, it is becoming more and more apparent some of my friends on the other side of the ideological divide cannot even agree to that simple ideal. (Some liberal have come down on the right side of this issue and they deserve credit for that decision.) If you want to argue that entitlement programs, redistribution of wealth or isolationism are in America’s best interest that is one thing. But as soon as allowing the murder of an innocent woman becomes an issue, it is something else entirely. Liberals can argue that they do not see a fetus as a human being, they can argue that embryonic stem cells are not alive, but there is no way that they can argue that Terri Schiavo is anything other than a living human being.

We all too often forget that Congress and not the courts is the legislative body of the United States. If the law currently allows for an innocent woman to be murdered and tortured in a way which we would never consider treating Saddam Hussein or Osama Ben Laden then the law is obviously broken. It is Congress that must take steps to fix this problem immediately and it is to the great merit it has taken steps to do so. The current agreement in Congress would only deal with this one specific case. That is an acceptable agreement, for now, as long as it saves the life of the innocent woman about to be murdered. But in the near future it is imperative that the Senate join the House in recognizing that the law needs to be reformed so that a situation like this one will never arise again. Congress needs to act as a whole to make sure that American law reflects core American values and principals. If it fails to do that, the law will be meaningless.

If there is a political question in this entire issue it is wether or not we want to move toward a culture of life or a culture of death. I for one am very pleased that Congress has chosen to move toward a culture of life.

Important.

2005-03-18T14:24:00.000-08:00

I don't usually do this on my blog. But I think it is important that you click on this link and read this cite.
http://www.terrisfight.org/press/030705actionitems.html make sure u sign the petition at http://www.justicecoalition.org/petition2.htm

Social Security 101

2005-03-18T14:21:00.000-08:00

I have found that it is almost impossible to have a serious discussion about the future of Social Security. I cannot hope to explain to you how people formed their views on Social Security. It seems like people believe a mixture of superstition, rumor, and outright lies. One possible explanation for this ignorance is that it has become such a big political issue so quickly, and people have never really had a chance to absorb any of the rudimentary facts. Young people have been subjected to arguments about the definition of the word crisis and complicated mathematical arguments about the future of social security without many people learning the very rudimentary details of the issue. I am going to take this opportunity to explain the truth behind some of the more interesting superstitions surrounding Social Security. The aim of this article is that the people who read it can have an intelligent discussion of Social Security. I will not be arguing (or even mentioning) issues such as privatization or price indexing.

Myth #1 The Government pays people Social Security.

Truth: The Government does not pay anyone Social Security. Every penny that you get out of Social Security is a direct result of money that you paid into the system. (Not the actual money that you paid but a consequence of it.) The federal government takes your money and invests it, your payout is an amount of money equal to the amount you paid into the system and the interests that that money earned. There is a something called a social security calculator under which you can figure out your benefits based on how much you paid into the system. It uses a formula too complicated for me to describe (or really understand) but rest assured, Social Security is not charity.

Myth #2 Social Security was designed to protect poor people.

Truth: There are many programs intended to help the truly poor, Social Security is not one of them. According to Socialsecurity.gov Social Security was never meant to be the sole source of income in retirement American workers should be saving for their retirement on a personal basis and through employer-sponsored or other retirement plans. The ultimate proof of this is the fact that a poor person does not pay enough into the system to get paid back enough money to live in retirement. A 22 year old who worked until he was 67 earning an average of $30,000 a year (a person not considered poor) would only get $1,163.00 a year. A person who makes 10,000 a year will only get 600 bucks a month.

President Roosevelt never intended for Social Security to be the sole source of income for retired poor people. According to FDR himself, It proposes, by means of old age pensions, to help those who have reached the age of retirement to give up their jobs and thus give to the younger generation greater opportunities for work and to give to all a feeling of security as they look toward old age. The intent of social security is to act as a safety net which would ensure that reckless people (who had earned money and supported themselves) could not waste all of their money and go into retirement penniless.

Myth #3 Since as you just wrote I pay for Social Security, and the government puts every penny that I give them into a bank account. It will be there waiting for me to retire

Truth: The money that you pay into Social Security today is money that goes to pay todays retirees. Once again quoting Socialsecurity.gov, Social Security is largely a "pay-as-you-go" system with today's taxpayers paying for the benefits of today's retirees. In 1950 there were 16 workers paying for every retiree collecting benefits. Today 3.3-people pay into the system for every retiree and by the time I retiree (I am 21) it will be 2-to-1. According to Socialsecurity.gov At this ratio there will not be enough workers to pay scheduled benefits at current tax rates.

Myth #4: There is a Social Security surplus that can be used to pay out any difference between the amount of money coming in and the amount of money Social Security is owed to retirees.
Truth: In Theory there is a 1.5 trillion surplus because to this point Social Security has taken in more money that it has ever paid out. The result is that the worker-to-beneficiary ratio has fallen from 16-to-1 in 1950 to 3.3-to-1 today. Unfortunately the government has borrowed that 1.5 trillion dollars and replaced it with US treasure bonds which are basically glorified IOUS. In theory the 1.5 trillion could provide a period of a cushion before the country defaults on its payments but even if the government is somehow able to come up with the 1.5 trillion (by either cutting other programs, raising taxes or borrowing money) it is not a permanent solution.

Myth #5 There has been a plan proposed by someone, on either side that threatens to eliminate the benefits of retires born after a certain year.

Truth: Its just not true. I cant write a whole long paragraph about something which just has no basis in reality. The only plan that threatens the benefits of future retirees is to do nothing.

That was an incomplete list of just a few of the commonly believed myths about Social Security. I tried to keep this a discussion of the very basic truths about the Social Security system, not about the current partisan debate. I did not talk about private accounts or price indexing, both of which are plans that I support. There can be no informed debate about the issues involved in Social Security until everyone understands at least some of the basics.

Iraqi WMDs

2005-03-15T18:13:00.000-08:00

The last remaining solace of the left is crumbling before their very eyes. As opponents of the Bush doctrine watch the Democratic Domino Effect, that is its legacy, they console one another with the constant refrain “Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.” When confronted with news that Egypt plans to hold free elections they murmur “well at least we didn’t find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq”. In the face of unprecedented steps towards peace, and more importantly security for Israel they respond “Good for Israel but where were the WMDs?” When over a million Lebanese patriots rally for the cause of freedom they respond “that’s great, but we can’t forget there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.” Unfortunately, for them, in light of recent revelations it seems like they are going to lose the ability to utter even that pathetic childish retort.

In all fairness the argument that there were no WMD programs in Iraq was never all that credible to begin with. The argument that just because we did not find WMD programs, there could not possible have been any WMD programs has an emotional appeal but very little intellectual substance. It is the same thinking that causes a baby to cry every time his mother leaves the room, “if I don’t see it then it must not exist.” There have been sensible dissenting voices throughout the course of this entire argument. Experts such as John Loftus have long argued that it is very likely that at least elements of WMDs or WMD programs had been moved to Syria and Lebanon. Since last October the UN has announced that it "continues to be concerned about the widespread and apparently systematic dismantlement that has taken place at sites previously relevant to Iraq's nuclear program." Leaving the left asking, what nuclear program? Even in the buildup to the war Collin Powell showed satellite photos that showed tractor trailer trucks moving from Iraq to Syria and eventually to Lebanon. These pictures have taken on a far greater significance in light of the most recent revelations.

On March 13th 2005 the very voice of the left, the New York Times ran a story confirming that large quantities of machinery had been removed from key weapons instillations. (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/international/middleeast/13loot.html) Machinery, that according to the Iraqi Deputy Minister of Industry, Dr. Araji, was “equipment capable of making parts for missiles as well as chemical, biological and nuclear arms“. I am not talking about a few crates here and there. Government officials and civilians working and living near weapons facilities observed that “they came in with the cranes and the Lorries, and they depleted the whole sites". Nor am I talking about only one or two cites, the UN recently reported that they had found that over 90 cites had been cleaned out. One cite that had been cleared out was “Al Radwan”, which according to Dr. Araji had been a manufacturing plant for Saddam’s uranium enrichment program. Another cite was called “The Nida factory” which had been, during the 1990s, implicated as being a part of Hussein’s nuclear program.

Remember before how I mentioned Seattleite photos of trucks driving from Iraq to Syria? Witnesses reported seeing the machinery loaded onto trucks and driven away. The time of these supposed thefts corresponds to the time of our satellite photos. What a remarkable coincidence, I would expect a coincidence of this magnitude to have been widely reported. I would expect it to be the top story of every evening news show. Unfortunately to this point it has been largely muted. It is very much to the credit of the New York Times that they were willing to run with this story.

Even though the story has been muted it must have come to the attention of at least some of the president’s critics. Surely some of the leftists who have been screaming or sporting bumper stickers about the president’s lies read the New York Times. Can we expect any apologizes? Can we expect Michael Moore, Barbra Boxer, and Ted Kennedy to tell the world that with the dissipation of last semi valid criticism they now support the war? In an ideal world, that would be exactly what would happen. Unfortunately I am sure that they are going to make up some new criticism that will be as weak and unfounded as any past criticism. After all this is not the first major event that should have convinced the world that there were in fact WMD programs in Iraq. “The Associated Press reported in June 2004 that "in a secret operation, the United States last month removed from Iraq nearly two tons of uranium and hundreds of highly radioactive items that could have been used in a so-called dirty bomb." (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04193/344163.stm) We found Uranium in Iraq 6 months ago? No couldn’t be. If you don’t believe me check the source. And if the left was able to ignore the fact that governments such as England, Russia and even Egypt claimed that Iraq had WMDs, should we really expect a newspaper, even the NYT to change their minds? I almost expect to hear Ted Kennedy come out and say “So there were WMD programs in Iraq, but….”

The Soldier vs the Artist

2005-03-14T13:31:00.000-08:00

A recent incident (which I will discuss later) caused me to reflect on Zell Miller’s now famous speech from the Republican convention in which he stated “For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.” It is astonishing how often this simple truism is forgotten, especially in a haven of bohemian “values” such as here in Manhattan.

On Sunday morning March 13th, I was set to attend a concert for my “sense of music class”. On the subway ride to the concert, I never expected that I would be sitting here writing about the political ramifications of the concert. Yet, here I am. A few moments after sitting in my seat, I was shocked out of my early morning sleepiness when my professor read a letter written by the concert director. She had written that it is important to attend a concert such as this one because “the discipline of art form..[is] an alternative solution which is chosen in preference to the hasty demise of combat” and that we can seek alternatives to war and hostility because “all cultures are separate and yet united by their varying expressions”. She may not have known it but she was coming in direct opposition to Miller. If I thought that this counterargument was limited to one woman, or small sect of people I would not bother to explore it any further here. Unfortunately I think that the view that being a part of the arts is more honorable than being part of the armed forces is more widespread than that. I think that far too many people live under an illusion that artists create and soldiers only destroy and that destruction is always inferior to creation. I am going to take this opportunity to explore the actual argument; who is in fact more honorable the solider or the artist?

I think that it would serve our purposes to spell out the real terms of this argument. A person who argues that an artist is holier than a solider is arguing; by sitting in a room and entertaining people he is somehow more honrable than soilders who risk their lives in order to protect the libtery of those very same people. When I say it like that, it sounds like the height of arrogance, and in fact it is. That is why the director needed to spell out the second part of her argument. She believes that the arts can actually protect liberty by stressing certain commonalities and helping us to overcome our barbaric natures and achieve a utopitan state. The argument rests on the basic assumption that art can in fact offer an avenue through which peace and stability can be achieved. Otherwise art cannot be compared to millitary force at all. Libtery is a prequisite for art and unless art can in fact do something to ensure libtery one cannot seriosuly argue that art is greater than its own prequisite.

Even agreeing with the concert director’s argument that music can act as a great unifier, I still doubt that it can be a true garuntor of peace. I can agree that music as the potential to connect us, if it is freely disseminated. If it is allowed to reflect the true will of the people. I wholeheartedly agree that out understanding of and relationship with other free people’s can be enhanced through the arts, but I think it is essential that everyone remember that without what the concert director disdainfully calls “sanctioned violence” there would most likely be no free people to connect with. The only ideas that can emanate from a dictatorship are those ideas that the ruling party espouses. Do we really want to unite our culture with that of Batthism, Wahabbi-ism or Communism?

I think that me and the concert director can agree that we want to become unified with the oppressed people, not their dictatorial regimes. Mao’s Cultural Revolution led to the suppression and mass murder of countless artists, for the crime of trying to connect with the rest of the world. Stalin had a warm place in his heart (and a cold place in the ground) for the USSR’s artists. He was able to ensure that the voice coming out of the Soviet Union was his voice, and in no way reflected that of his people. Music can be a great unifier but only if people are free to create it, and only the millitary can ensure that freedom.

The arts have an important role to play in the world, but it is an entirely different sphere than that of the military. There are numerous factors that can play a role in strengthening alliances amongst the free peoples of the world, economics are the most popular amongst these but arguments advocating the arts are also prominent. It is the absolute height of arrogance for an artist to argue that his contribution to the cause of world peace can replace that of the solider.