Glenn Reynolds, the omnipresent Instapundit, has written an article about the Department of Homeland Security. While I agree with many of his critiques (this will help coordination between the FBI and CIA how, exactly?) There are a couple of points that bear more detailed examination.

For starters, he's resurrected the whole profiling canard just as recent events made it irrelevant; the dirty bomber wasn't middle eastern, he was hispanic.. and a citizen as well. I mean, do Glenn (and the others) think that the minds behind Al Qaeda are stupid? While it's true that many Muslims are middle eastern (and probably many "Islamists", focusing solely on them will simply mean that Al Qaeda will use operatives that don't look middle eastern, and that honestly isn't that hard. Sure, they might be able to find a greater number of possible bombers in the Middle East, but it's hardly exclusive, and the administration will simply have ensured that thousands of middle eastern men will be delayed and yet real operatives will easily slip through.

The other point that I have to disagree with Glenn's column is below:

Wars are won by destroying the enemy, not by playing defense. Now we've got a huge, multi-multi-billion-dollar government department dedicated to playing defense. (And one that, being a bureaucracy, won't ever go away, even if the war is won).

Many bureaucratic empires will be built, many budgets will be enhanced (the administration says that this reorganization won't lead to additional spending, but nobody believes that) and many meetings will be held. Will any of this do as much to protect us from terrorism as a daisy-cutter on Saddam Hussein, or the neutralization of Saudi Arabia's campaign to spread Islamic fundamentalism around the world? I doubt it.

Ok, first, this is a war against terrorism, not the Middle East. (At least, not yet). Eliminate Saddam and Saudi Arabia and you've still got terrorists, but you've managed to ensure the enmity of even more of the middle east. While Bin Laden may have started off as a Saudi national (as well as many of the 9/11 bombers), there's no reason to believe that Al Qaeda requires the support of either of these countries to function, either politically or financially.

Second, a question is raised by the idea of "attacking the enemy"... attack whom, exactly? This is a war against a concept, and I have never quite understand how exactly it can be won. Even if you reduced Iraq and Saudi Arabia to radioactive glass, there are many other nations that can play host to terrorists (even without their knowledge) and many more terrorists that will be missed by these attacks. It would probably even make things worse, because every third world country that might or might not have terrorist camps will wonder whether they're next. Even if every current terrorist were rounded up and shot, it still wouldn't kill the idea of attacking civilians in order to demoralize and psychologically traumatize the perceived enemy; as long as there are conflicts between nations and inside nations, terrorism will continue to exist. Terrorism is a tactic or a strategy... and I've never even heard of a successful attempt to contain either. At best you can deter it (as with nuclear attacks) or make it cost more than it's worth (which is meaningless to those with nothing to lose).

I'm not saying that Bush should simply give up, but there needs to be a hell of a lot more thought put into this than simply "let's/let's not eliminate Saddam and the House of Saud". There are questions at the center of this, questions that people aren't (including Glenn) aren't asking.

Eric Alterman seems to hit on something that a lot of the rest of us have known for a while: not only is the United States unilateralist, but it doesn't even care what the rest of the world thinks. On some level, this isn't really surprising, and the explanation is fairly simple: the United States has enough power that it can do whatever it wishes. The problem, however, is not that what the United States is doing is wrong (international relations is not a field of rightness or wrongness, no matter what the current administration might believe) but that it carries long-term implications that I don't think the administration or even the intelligentsia have fully thought through.

If the United States cannot be dissuaded from doing anything, if it isn't even willing to listen to the views of what would appear to be its closest ideological and historical allies, then the perception will be that the United States cannot be trusted. If Europe believes that the United States cannot be trusted, then anybody that does listen to the Europeans on the topic will also come to that conclusion, even if the historical record showing the United States has an notoriously short memory internationally and has an exponentially higher interest in domestic politics than international relations hasn't already convinced them.

Sooner or later, the United States will need the assistance of other states in order to forward its economic, political, or military agenda, yet why in the world would any other state trust the U.S. any further than it could throw it? And what if Europe decides that it can't afford to live under the American umbrella, and decides to become a political, economic, and military rival to the United States rather than an ally? This is very unlikely to be the case right now or in the immediate future, but people aren't stupid outside of the United States, and unlike the U.S. the people and governments of Europe can have a long memory indeed of past slights. The world will not remain unipolar forever, and those who are stepped on by the United States while it's on top might not be willing to help it out if and when things change.

On a more practical level, it also means that the United States will have a harder time convincing other governments to engage in activities that really do have a collective benefit. Why lower trade barriers, for example, when you know the United States will just backslide? (There are valid economic reasons for still doing so, but we aren't talking about reason here). Why engage in collective diplomacy, nation building or humanitarian efforts if you think the U.S. will pull out whenever it becomes slightly possible that domestic interests may be hurt? Why agree to obey the myriad of international treaties that keep interstate travel, communication, and business civil when you can't trust the other guy to be reliable?

Yes, it does matter that the United States is ignoring Europe. It may not make a difference today, tomorrow, or next week; sooner or later, however, the perception of the United States will hurt it deeply, in a way that it couldn't have possibly predicted.

Ok, enough of the Blogosphere's irrational fascination with Paul Krugman. (The explanation's pretty simple: Krugman consistently criticizes Bush, therefore he's wrong, and therefore economists don't like him). On to more interesting topics.

Atrios has been asking a lot of uncomfortable questions about the "dirty bomber", and they're questions that deserve answering. Even if this guy is an "enemy combatant" he's also an American citizen, and it's pretty obvious by now that the rights that those citizens enjoy are pretty much out the window at this point when it comes to this guy. While understandable, it's a pretty clear violation of the principles that the United States was built on. Not just the idea of individual rights, but the role of government in protecting those rights. Most of the liberal political philosophers (such as John Locke) whose works the United States' government are built on agreed that the entire point of government was to take action against those who declare a "state of war" with the citizens that granted their power to protect their rights to that government in the first place. There is little distinction made between the state of war against renegade citizens and foreign opponents; both are either violating or threatening the violation of the rights of the citizens, and are therefore fair game. Yes, this includes criminals.

Why does this matter?

Because it means that the sole reason that renegade citizens are treated any differently is because they are citizens. Their "state of war" with the state and the citizenry is no different, but as a member of the society they have rights that cannot be ignored. Whether this fellow is an "enemy combatant" or not is immaterial, because all criminals are at some level enemies of the state... that's why they're criminals. The only difference is that he has rights that must be respected whether the state wishes it or not; it's part of the deal by which the state gets its power in the first place. The state has no right to pick and choose what kind of enemy gets rights and what kind doesn't. The scary part is that up until this came out it seemed like the U.S. government understood this, but now it looks like all questions of rights and propriety are out the window. If a right isn't respected when it's inconvenient for the government, it isn't being respected at all. (How could it exist otherwise?) Yes, folks, that means that your rights are being ignored. Not just his. Not just the immigrants that are in holding because they have the wrong complexion, the wrong friends, and/or immigration issues. Yours.

Well, another Krugman column has come out, and the usual echo chamber response appears near instantaneously once again. Instapundit was right about one thing: bloggers are indeed fast. The question of accuracy, however, remains to be answered.

So, what was Krugman's latest column about? Bush and Trade policy, mostly. Most commentators I've read have noticed that Bush's record isn't exactly spotless (or even especially good) on these issues, and Krugman is hardly the first that has pillioried the administration for it. It's barely in question, so how does Ms. Galt respond and retain her anti-Krugman "blog cred"? By bringing up Bush's proposals for privatizing social security, the education bill, and, um, the war.

Yes, the war.

Somehow, the war on terrorism is the reason why Bush has had a dismal record when it comes to trade policy. I mean, it's not like incredibly domestic issues like social security and education have much to do with trade policy, and that's pretty obviously a case of evasion-through-non-sequiter...but the war? I knew that there were warbloggers that saw the world through that particular lens, but I had thought Jane would know better, with her MBA and numbers and graphs and all. Well, at least in that other post... this one doesn't seem to really have much to do with economics.

She then appears to attack Paul for being unpopular:

Except that we're appalled that Krugman is trying to imply that the entire field of economists is on his side against the Evil Bush Administration, while the economists I know are not only not with Krugman in his odd fight; they think he's laughable.

This is a fairly common assertion on Jane's part- that Krugman is an embarassment to the entire field. I do wonder whether a case of observer bias might be present here, but I'll have to take her word for it, as I haven't seen much in the way of citation of negative responses to Krugman's work outside of, maybe, the parts of the Blogosphere who would probably hate him anyway. In any case, it's entirely incidental to any critique of the actual column, so I'll simply let it be. If any economists wish to let me know about their position on Krugman's column, though, by all means go ahead. I'm especially interested in more liberal economists; the reaction of doctrinaire Objectivists I can predict without the necessity of confirmation. Besides, after too much exposure to the blogosphere, I'm starting to wonder if liberal economists exist.

One of the main points of Prof. Krugman's column, however, was a comparison of the Clinton administration and the Bush administration when it comes to trade policy. Again, most of the commentators I've read have been fairly complimentary on Clinton's record and critical of Bush's, yet Jane seems to be contradictory here, at one minute saying:

A-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha...He tried to contrast the power-hungry Bush White House, willing to do anything for political advantage, with the idealistic naifs at the Clinton Administration whose guiding principles were Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

and then later saying

Whenever anyone has asked me what I liked about Bill Clinton, I've always said NAFTA and Welfare Reform. I mean, I'm under the impression that he had those things forced on him by a Republican congress, but I'm glad he signed them.

this contradiction makes sense, even if it betrays a very odd perception of the dynamics of the time (I don't remember Clinton being especially anti-trade at any point... he may have backslid occasionally, but by and large his record seemed really good, which was part of the reason he enraged protectionists so much). Why does it make sense? Because, for some reason, as we've seen above, Jane seems to think that a column on trade policy must be about every aspect of his economic record!

How else to explain the Bush defenses I mentioned earlier, and parts like this:

However, I did not appreciate Bill Clinton's idealism in the form of thinking he could nationalize 1/8 of the economy into an enormous, sucking bureacracy. If there's one thing I think that the world doesn't need, it's more government agencies.

This is a point of ideology, obviously, and doesn't seem to fit Bill's performance after '94, but the more important question is what the hell it has to do with a discussion of Bill vs. George on trade? Practically all the arguments that Jane made against Bill and in favour of George were about issues other than trade, and seemed to mistake the point of Prof. Krugman's column. She laughed at the idea that the Clinton administration was more "moral"... but obviously was basing that on everything but trade. She argued that Bush had better economic credentials, and based it on everything but trade. She laughed at Krugman's assertion of Clinton's "economic idealism"... yet based it on everything but trade (and a "record breaking farm bill" that she neither cites, nor even names, thus neatly avoiding any possibility of comparison of the two... and had already excused the presidency from having any impact over farm bills earlier in the entry).

After a bit more Clinton bashing (although this was actually valid; criticizing Bush on subsidizing non-carbon energy sources and leaving Clinton alone and veering off the trade question was a bad move on Prof. Krugman's part), she gets to her big finish:

Krugman could have written an interesting column -- one that rightly indicted the Bush administration for protectionism -- about the way that swing politics has shaped the political landscape. The only major accomplishments of Clinton's Presidency, after all, were conservative pet causes: NAFTA and Welfare Reform. (If you have other major accomplishments you think I've neglected, feel free to name them. But I don't want to hear about how his lack of major items is the Republicans fault. First of all, Presidents rarely accomplish anything major after their first term, and second of all, it's an insanely boring and pointless argument. The Dems would have done it if they could. Washington is a swamp.) Bush seems hamstrung on economic policy, even though he has some decent free market credentials. What's going on here?

I'm inclined to agree, Jane, at least about this particular concept. (Certainly not on the idea that those were the only two accomplishments of the Clinton administration, and trying to explain away Republican intransigence by saying "everybody does it" is a rightist canard that nobody outside of that community actually believes).
Jane could have written a much better critique, as there are holes in Prof. Krugman's argument. Clinton does indeed have a mixed record... as Krugman was careful to point out in several of his books and in his old Slate column, the "strategic traders" that Clinton had in his inner circle were basing policy advice on economically dubious or nonsensical ideas. (Those "policy entrepreneurs" I mentioned in earlier posts.) He should have pointed that out in order to show that there's no reason to believe that any administration is going to stay entirely "on message", and they shouldn't be characterized as such. Jane could have ripped Krugman a new orifice for this glaring inconsistency in the subject that he was actually talking about (trade policy).

Yet, instead, we get social security, education, that silly "Clinton moral? hah!" bit, a mythical farm bill that Clinton should be blamed for (despite her giving a pass to Bush for the same), complaining about government (unless it's Bush's pet project, or the aforementioned education system), and a smidgen of valid critiques of Clinton's energy policy. And yet, at the end, she seems to agree with Prof. Krugman on Bush's sorry trade record, rendering the whole entry somewhat contradictory in-and-of itself.

This has nothing to do with economics (although I'd still love to hear from other economists on how they feel about Krugman's columns). This just doesn't make sense from a logical standpoint, and stands in shocking contrast to some of her other entries, including her response to my earlier entry. Why range all over the map when the answers you need are right in front of your face?

A rather tortuous chain of blog visits led me to The Rittenhouse Review today, which has a great analysis of Bush's speech and Ridge's irrelevancy, silly accounting company name games, and The Madness of King Horowitz. It also features one of the most extensive blogrolls I've yet seen; even if the content weren't good, it'd be useful simply as an incredible collection of links. By all means, check it out.

The Privateer, not a big fan of my site (or, apparently, the moderate stance of the U.S. State department) has apparently decided that a new report from Honestreporting.com is proof positive of the BBC's bias. Sadly, a quick exploration of their archives shows that Honestreporting themselves are hardly the picture of fair and unbiased reportage and scholarship. The report itself is also extremely flawed, using a bogus "methodology" that quotes a litany of particular incidents instead of any attempt at examination of systemic anti-Israeli biases. Some of the attempts to prove bias were also suspect in-and-of themselves: honestreporting admitted that the definition of the term "terrorist" is controversial, and then proceeded to adopt the definition that best fit their own position and berated the BBC for not doing the same.

While a scholarly examination of bias in the BBC would be a useful exercise (similar to the kinds of examinations that FAIR excels at), honestreporting doesn't seem to even want to bother. Sorry, Privateer, but you should pick your sources more carefully.

I like Friedman's new column about the conflict between the different "sides" of the Bush administration, and the need for the U.S. to start throwing its weight around in order to solve this conflict. Conservatives often complain that liberals accuse the U.S. of isolationism when it does nothing and playing "globo-cop" when it actually acts, but that's not quite accurate: the problem liberals usually have is that the U.S. acts unilaterally and usually only for its short-term (or most simplistic) domestic interests. Too often the governments avoids either benefiting its long term interests or the interests of its allies if it looks like it would require a degree of foreign involvement and risk beyond the absolute minimum possible. War or no, however, that particular strategy won't work in the Middle East, and the sort of "foreign policy" that many conservatives have been supporting lately (squashing Iraq) shows little sign of actually changing anything.

There is another factor in why the U.S. is accused of being ham-handed in its foreign policy, however, and it's also the only issue I disagree with Mr. Friedman on: the status of Yassir Arafat. Friedman asserts that "[t]he right way to shrink, or eliminate, Mr. Arafat is for Palestinians to do it themselves, and the only way they are going to do it is if they see him standing in the way of a real opportunity". For some reason, a lot of American commentators seem to think that if only certain conditions can come true, then any given group will naturally come around to their way of thinking and do what they wish.

Sadly, politics and statecraft is not yet as predictable as "a+b+c=the people get fed up, bad leader gone". Many Americans may think this is commonplace due to their own experiences and their identification with the Roman Republic (who also threw out their kings). As much as some pundits like to think that you only need to set up the right conditions and the desired conclusion will naturally follow, it simply isn't that easy. This happened in Iraq: the United States kept on thinking that sooner or later the people would overthrow him, missing the obvious point that "the people" only rarely overthrow a dictator who holds all the cards, and may even support him if he's seen to be a better choice or a closer ally than another, more ominous threat.

So it is with Arafat: despite the grievances that many Palestinians have, I don't see any reason why they should dump him simply because the Americans are really, really, really hoping they are. Without an alternative there is only chaos, and most of the alternatives probably seem worse to the Palestinians, even the ones that the United States would support. (And, of course, this ignores the xenophobia that taints the region; the United States' and Israel's opposition to Arafat goes a long way towards explaining his popularity and longevity).

This, then, is one of the biggest problems with American foreign policy: this expectation that American conditions (a monarchic or despotic leader and an oppressed population) will lead to American results (a successful revolution and a stable democratic government), and the belief that it is an intrinsic and punishable flaw in a population which doesn't follow this pattern (again, witness Iraq). Friedman's point is valid: it takes more than annoyance at a leader to get results.. sometimes, raw power politics is needed. He needs to remember, however, that Israel and the United States' dislike for Yassir Arafat will not necessarily lead to a Palestinian rejection of Mr. Arafat. Much as they'd like to hope, it's by no means certain.

I seem to be prey to (or beneficiary of ?) a lot of nameless posters lately. I'm not sure whether that's by choice or whether YACSS is on the fritz, but it's too bad, because the comments I've read by said nameless posters are often really good ones. One wrote a response to that whole Jane Galt thing that I found echoed my own response (albeit somewhat less charitable).

Jane's post demonstrates one of the down sides of blogging: 3,879 words (Methodology: MS Word word-count tool, tables excluded) to support an irrelevant premise. She has done a convincing job of demonstrating a correlation between CO2 emissions and economic growth, a point which should come as no surprise to anyone.

But as the previous commentor notes, correlation does not imply causation. Two correlated phenomena CAN imply a relationship with a third causal phenomenon, as is the case here: economic growth and CO2 emissions have both been related to energy consumption. But Jane makes a false causal connection between the two and furthermore treats it as the only causal factor, with all of the "how much would we have to cut our standard of living to get back to 1950 emission levels" reasoning.

Energy consumption is related to economic growth and so is technological innovation, and energy consumption can be affected by technological innovation. This is the point most of MY little green buddies argue: energy conservation is what you do to buy time while you're developing new energy technology. And is Jane really so pessimistic as to take the position that future economic growth must necessarily decline just as surely as fossil fuel extraction must necessarily become less efficient?

If this comment weren't already too long, I'd also make the case that p.c. GDP is a poor measure of standard of living.

Jane makes much of the importance of having the data to back up your arguments, which is admirable. But what they teach scientists and apparently fail to teach MBA's is that working out the logic of your arguments first saves you from a lot of unproductive data analysis later.

Or, in other words, the numbers don't mean squat if the underlying premises by which those numbers are produced and/or analyzed is flawed. No surprise there: metric assloads of crank "scholarship" (up to and including the Bell Curve) were based on numbers built on ludicrous concepts.

Am I accusing Jane of this? Not really; my big beef was that she seemed to be pulling numbers out of the air, and was making a lot of bald assertions unsupported by anything even remotely resembling citation- which is strange, as the Internet is by far the easiest place to find citation mankind has yet invented- and I don't accept assertions of "trust me, I know more than you" any more than anybody else in this sometimes-untrustworthy medium. Besides, I don't appear to need to accuse her; the comments section attached to that post is bloating up to sizes I doubt YACSS ever planned for. (Good stuff, too).

I'm also rather perplexed by a few of her other unquantified assertions. The one that said energy can't be transported or stored, for example: isn't the storage of non-carbon-based energy the entire point of fuel cells? I've even seen designs based on (of all things) flywheels... friction is a problem, but we're talking about CO2 here, not lost energy... the energy that is produced will reduce CO2 even if it doesn't increase overall energy efficiency. Same question about the idea that variable strength pressure-based generation is useless... couldn't you simply back up these systems with carbon-based systems, and still cut emissions way, way down? Even if a windmill only worked 40% of the time, that's 40% of the time that you're not burning coal, oil, or what-have-you, and with the transport abilities we do have, a windmill in one area could support a solar panel in another, which could support a tidal mechanism elsewhere, and a geothermic somewhere else. Carbon could be reserved for occasions where none of the other ones are taking up the slack. Heck, you could even use a marketplace mechanism for this simply by ratcheting up a carbon tax and therefore having carbon only appear when energy from elsewhere gets too expensive. (Or using the emissions trading scheme... the carbon you've "spent" could be made up for by a windmill/tidal/whatever somewhere else in the world, leaving total energy consumption at the same level).

In any case, my focus is on politics, not economics, although there's no getting away from the fact that the two are intricately linked and I must betray an interest in economics as it relates to political interaction and debate. Given the choice, I'd prefer to talk about the political implications of something like global warming rather than bury into the numbers. That being said, the Internet is not the place to make statements of fact you can't back up, and citation or explanation is usually pretty bloody easy.. thanks to linking (and little javascript windows like the comments one on this page) you don't even need to clutter up the main screen doing it, so that those who don't want to wade through the math and graphs and methodology don't have to. I dislike playing the scapegoat, but I'm always in favour of verifiable arguments. This isn't about ego... I'm willing to put up with the one in order to ensure the other.

So- we're back here again. This isn't overly surprising considering the bus bombing, but it does raise the question of what exactly the Israelis hope to accomplish at this point that they couldn't have done during the earlier blockade. Arafat apparently tried to make some changes to the PA to take the heat off the Authority and by extension himself, but at this point I don't see it making a difference. Even if Arafat were truly inclined towards peaceful negotiation and rapproachment, how could he hope to accomplish anything when most of the terrorist organizations seem to save up the larger attacks for the times when Israel is negotiating with an arab leader and/or the United States?

In some respects, this highlights the problems of any war on terrorism, whether it's the United States or Israel waging it. Both countries have been fixating on leaders (or figureheads), figuring "cut off the head and the body will fall" or at the very least that nothing can happen without the support and planning of the leadership. Considering there's no way that Israel and the U.S. couldn't know that the cell structures of modern terrorist organizations are specifically created so as to avoid that situation, and considering that they would also know that control "from the top" is difficult at best and impossible most of the time, why does the rhetoric continue to circle around the leadership? Even if Arafat was complicit in some terrorist bombings, blaming him for all of them just doesn't make sense: there's no possible way he could stop them even if the P.A. was spectacularly efficient, and even if he headed up the organizations that carry out the bombings (the connections seem loose at best for most of them) getting rid of him wouldn't solve the problem.

Every time I hear someone talk about "getting rid of Arafat" I wonder whether they've throught through what that would mean. Yes, somebody sometimes remembers that what would replace him probably wouldn't be a better spokesman, but perhaps a more militant one.Still, most people seem to be forgetting that the possibility also exists that no other spokesman will appear. Who would want the job of getting all the blame for bombings that you can do little about, especially if you're one of the extremists who's more interested in the bombings themselves? A real possibility (that people acknowledge about most of the region but is ignored in regards to the Palestinians) is that no leadership will arise at all, and that the whole thing will break down into violent anarchy. Israel is worried that Arafat's continuing leadership will only encourage more bombings, but it's pretty obvious that a violent, anarchic West Bank would not only be an ideal breeding ground for terrorism, but a possible deathtrap for the Israeli army. It would also be the perfect P.R. tool for anybody trying to use Palestinian suffering for their own political ends, and the spectre of Arafat-as-Martyr is a danger that the punditocracy seems to only briefly acknowledge before going back to the old "should we get rid of Arafat" question.

Then again, maybe "get rid of Arafat" is actually veiled language for something more ominous. Not necessarily on the part of the Israelis (whose lives depend on the outcome) but the "moral clarity" types who think that if only you shoot enough visible terrorist analogues like Arafat, the real terrorists will give up without a fight. This isn't necessarily the case, but I do wonder sometimes.

By the way... I think my point has been adequately proven. Unless I discover that Jane's post is in turn responded to with equal length and severity by a member of the "left-wing echo chamber" that is.

I think, if such a thing ever became necessary, that I'd be willing to sacrifice the validity of a throwaway sentence in a short entry in order to prove the fundamental argument that my site is built on. Thanks, Jane.

Edit: Or perhaps not... my little anonymous comment-writing friends (as well as the contrarian posters on Galt's comment section) seem to point at a much more complex situation that I had first thought. There's no denying that Jane's site is far, far better known than mine (one of the reasons I was so surprised she even deigned to respond to me) and therefore would be more likely to prompt public responses to her posts, and there's also no denying that many of the responses are positive, but the situation is, as usual, more nuanced than the simple "libertarians run the show" argument. I'm still awaiting that lengthy rebuttal, but I have to admit to being pleasantly surprised.

I didn't realize that my site would provoke such a lengthy and harsh (over?)reaction. (I mean, graphs? Even she seemed to be a little embarrassed.) Having just skimmed over this before heading to bed, I'm not about to post a lengthy response... except to highlight one thing:

For standard of living, I've used per-capita GDP. Yes, I know it doesn't capture all the intangibles of clean air and such, but our air is cleaner than it was in 1950, we live longer, etc. It is, as far as I am concerned, an adequate proxy.

I'm not quite sure about that; the typical objections to GDP as a complete measurement spring to mind here, especially when it comes to an issue like the environment that is usually used specifically to criticize GDP as an effective indicator of both the costs and benefits of economic activity. The whole "destroying buildings and rebuilding them again as a benefit to GDP despite being almost an almost completely useless waste of labour and capital" bit.

More tomorrow... or perhaps Monday. It is indeed a well-though-out and argued piece about the economic price of environmentalism, and I'll give her credit for that.

(If her attacks on Paul Krugman were so objective and well-reasoned, instead of glib and insulting, I might actually be swayed by them.)

By the way, Jane... considering that Krugman has on occasions criticized the Reagan, Clinton, and Bush administrations for what he saw as policy screwups, what reason do you actually have for believing that he'd go lightly on a "fairytale Gore administration"?

Environmentalism, Enron, and Terrorism; I can just imagine how the usual suspects are going to interpret Krugman's latest column.

Well, threats to ideological purity aside, I really liked this line:

But because the administration continues to listen only to the usual suspects, that window of opportunity is closing fast. And bear this in mind: Whatever he imagines, Osama bin Laden can't destroy Western civilization. Carbon dioxide can.

Anti-environmentalists usually argue that the odds are pretty slim that our CO2 emissions can be responsible for global warming. If they're right and the environmentalists are wrong, then the most we might lose from conservation is a few years' worth of growth. (Nonsensical Galt articles about having to turn off all our appliances aside). If they're wrong and the environmentalists are right, then we've just doomed our sorry asses. Somehow, I think most people would be willing to give up some growth in their 401(K) for a little peace of mind.

(That is, if hired-gun "scienticians" weren't muddying the waters so much).

Sully has an quotation from Lou Dobbs that I find rather revealing. Check it out:

...the enemies in this war are radical Islamists who argue all non-believers in their faith must be killed. They are called Islamists. That's why we are abandoning the phrase, "War Against Terror". Let us be clear. This is not a war against Muslims or Islam. It is a war against Islamists and all who support them.

Ok, so let me get this straight. It's a war against "Islamists", not Muslims. The former are our enemy because they are taught to hate us, but the latter aren't because... it doesn't? I had thought it was the same religion... so who are we fighting? Are we just fighting Wahhabi Islam, and if so what happens if somebody over here happens to believe in that particular type of Islam? Do we lock them up, simply shoot them, or is the term "Islamist" more to do with where the person is instead of who they are? Does it have something to do with conversion, and should we therefore just start arresting those Muslims who try to convert people to their religion? (What does that mean for Christians? Do we have to shut down all the outreach centres because of "Christism"?

The right side of the web (and the punditry) has been working overtime trying to portray Muslims as bloodthirsty medieval scum who should be wiped off the face of the earth or (at the very least) "reeducated". David Horowitz seems to be trying to build a career on this concept; Ann Coulter has already built a reputation. This isn't exactly surprising, and any American who knows a moderate, intelligent Muslim knows was a load of nonsense the entire thing is. The statelessness of the "war on terrorism", though, is starting to turn it by degrees into what its critics were (unjustly) calling it earlier: a war on Islam. There is no doubt that the right side of the punditry has declared war on Islam (or at least the parts that they don't like), but CNN trying to maintain these sorts of counter-intuitive distinctions between Muslims and "Islamists" reminds me of the little boy sticking his finger into the dyke. It just goes to show (as if the wag-the-dog enterprise of shoehorning Iraq into the warn didn't) that after Afghanistan, this war is becoming a farce.

The Poor Man had a different take on this NRO article than I have. He was mocking conservatives' constant demonization of the left and their invoking of "the culture wars" in order to characterize pretty much everybody who didn't like the system and worked against it as evil power tripping com-yew-nists spending daddy's trust fund money.

As well he should.

That wasn't what I wanted to mention, though. What got me was the revisionism in play in that article about Vietnam. I don't know when exactly conservatives (and libertarians!) got it into their heads that Vietnam was a noble enterprise that was foiled by the evil hippies, but whenever they get the opportunity it seems like they pull out all the stops to convince everybody that that disasterous war was actually something to be proud of.

Now, there's no denying that many, if not most of those who were involved in the conflict were blameless, risking their collective asses for what they thought was the right thing (or at the very least in order to keep themselves intact and get home). There is a difference, however, between attacking those soldiers who are actually fighting in a war and attacking the war itself. It's telling that conservatives seem to think that those who criticize the latter are criticizing the former, because it is in fact their own argument that "only cowards and fools question the Vietnam war" that violates what would seem to be a very simple distinction. Owens himself even perverted the words of one of the great English liberals, John Stuart Mill, in order to perpetuate this:

My own attitude toward the first group is summed up by an observation of John Stuart Mill, the quintessential nineteenth century liberal. "War is an ugly thing," he wrote, "but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse.

Ahem. (N.Z. Bear, pay attention). Owens, you ignorant slut! There is no comparison between those who would think that nothing is worth a war and those who think that this particular little "police action" in the South Pacific is worth the river of bodies that flowed back from a former French colony that the United States Government foolishly decided would be easily taken over, embroiling the "beacon of freedom" in a ludicrous war that it somehow managed to lose despite itself! Admittedly, it's a great tactic... by equating those who would question a particular past war with cowardice and pacificism, it's no great stretch to extend that particular definition to anybody who questions any aspect of the current "war", which (somehow) fits that definition even more loosely than the Vietnam war did.

Besides, if Owens had actually read Mill (and it's pretty obvious he was just cherry-picking for quotes) he might have noticed the parts in On Liberty where Mill celebrated and defended not only the rights of people to buck the conventional wisdom, but the necessity of those people! As Mill said again, and again, and again, whether the conventional wisdom (or the state's inculcation of such) is right or not, society requires people to question that conventional wisdom constantly, in order that it be replaced (if wrong), reinforced (if right), or refined (if somewhat wrong and somewhat right). The sort of ignorant Victorian raging against WrongThink that passes for conservative commentary about radicalism is precisely the kind of thing that Mill was speaking out against. I'm pretty damned sure that if Mill were alive during the sixties, he would not only have support those "dirty hippies" against one of the dumbest wars the United States has ever been involved in ,he would have grabbed a sign, a tie-dyed shirt, a huge blunt, and shouted with the rest of them, if only so that those defending convention would know exactly what freedom really means (and it isn't the freedom to agree with Mackubin Thomas Owens!)

There's nothing that irritates me more than seeing a great political theorist like Mill being perverted by exactly the kind of people he was raging against. God forbid Owens should ever find out how much Mill admired utopian socialists.

Oh. Yes.

Thank you Poor Man.

I've been wondering where I could find those. Now I know....

(those who can't fill in the second part don't deserve to know the end of that sentence.)

I discovered by following my referrers that N. Z. Bear came out with a list of lefty bloggers today. Nice stuff, and a list I'll probably come back to when I finally get around to updating my permalinks. I'm not sure about this characterization, though:

Demosthenes/Hegemon: Straightforward lefty commentary with a particular focus on refuting the CW of the libertarian/conservative blogosphere; insults light to nonexistent.

I'm not quite sure how to interpret this- "Straightforward" can mean a lot of things, and the Bear said that he was going to play nice today so it could be a veiled insult or a bass-ackwards compliment. I'm a pretty optimistic guy, though, so I'll assume the best. (I'll have to get cracking on this "insults light to nonexistent" thing, though. I've got a reputation to build!)

Anyway, thanks for the link, N.Z. Bear.

TVH mentioned in my comment section about "left-wing echo chambers", and named off a few left-wing sites/blogs. Needless to say, he's missing the point.

The "Echo Chamber", at least in the way I refer to it, is the reinforcement effects of dozens and dozens of bloggers saying the same thing; they reinforce their own beliefs through the constant repetition and agreement. There's no way left-wing blogs (or even sites) can possibly do this, because the rightist juggernaut is always there to throw it off. Look at TVH's own site; MWO has a "watch" site already, and why is that? There are dozens of other, equally strident right-wing sites that do pretty much the same thing... do they have watch sites? Libertarian Samizdat is both big and ideological... does it have a watch site? (The name of a site is a misnomer.. there's nothing "subversive" about libertarianism online. Far from it).

As I've been saying since my first entry, there is a severe imbalance in the relative prominence of right-wing vs. left-wing commentary over a variety of different media, and the mythical "left-wing" journalism that right-wingers are always complaining about doesn't change that. I think half the reason MWO is so scary to so many people is because it bucks the trend, and watch site aside they can't really score a hit on it or even label its anonymous proprietor as some sort of leftist extremist. That's nice, but it's not parity.

From Sullivan:

It seems to me that the Bush administration has long held the sensible skeptical position (which does not preclude taking human impact on global warming seriously). The difference between them and Al Gore is that they don't take this as a certainty or buy the notion you have to throw the economy into reverse to prevent it.

So, it's ok to acknowledge that global warming exist and that it's very likely anthropogenic... as long as you don't (gasp) do anything about it.

Here's a fiddle, Andrew: Rome is calling, and it's piping hot.

Eschaton pretty much nailed the problem with the "leftists should be civil" argument; the right succeeds by not being civil, so why should the left let itself be walked all over? (This, of course, goes back to MWO and their somewhat hostile tone, which has been criticized a lot lately).

Honestly, there's a place for both demagoguery and reasoned debate. The latter is definitely the best choice... if all sides agree that it is and stick to it. It's like a prisoner's dilemma, though, because demagogues will usually crush a reasonable opponent simply due to the wider variety of "improper" rhetorical techniques they can bring to bear; if they're really good, they can even fold reasonable arguments into heated rhetoric and therefore employ the best of both possibilities. (It's also much better at drawing uninterested observers into things, because you can appeal to their prejudices, interests, and stereotypes).

One side of the debate decided to give up reason a very long time ago, and it's time for the other side to do the same. MWO is a start, but it's only a start; much more needs to be done, and a lot of thought is necessary when it comes to both integrating the different quarrelling factions of the left and ensuring that rhetoric can be met with rhetoric; that every time the dark side pulls out another one of their lame comparisons, ad hominem attacks, rude rejoinders or hand-picked "experts" the forces of light are prepared to respond in kind with the truth. (And, yes, that partially involves deciding what to retain and what to discard; as long as parts of the left leaves huge targets available due to their ignorance or willful denial of the tactics and objectives of the right, nothing productive will be done.)

I've said before that "some of them hate us". There's more to it than that. Some of them hate us, they are not afraid to say it, they'll use any means necessary to convince people they're right and they play to win. As much as that provides an impetus to keep going, it also shows that we need to learn from them.

Oh, one other point: Glenn, when you say "advantage, blogosphere"... who are you referring to? MWO is a communal weblog, but is a blog nonetheless; as is Alterman's site, Tapped, and MWOwatch. Unless Glenn is trying to say that the Blogosphere is or should be solely conservative (which it isn't), what's the point of that comment?

I tend to agree with Atrios: despite Instapundit's apparent support, I remain somewhat unimpressed with http://www.mediawhoresonlinewatch. So far, the new MWO watchblog usually 'refutes' the liberal talking points that MWO brings up with conservative/libertarian talking points of their own. It helps that MWOwatch benefits from the echo chamber's support, but I don't see them dragging down the popularity of MWO any time soon. They also seem oddly inconsistent: sometimes they argue that they are correcting MWO's falsehoods, sometimes they argue that they are simply writing "a conservative response", and sometimes can't seem to decide between the two. At best, I imagine they'll just be a tool for conservative pundits and bloggers to use when MWO cuts a little too deeply.

Besides, the obvious point remains: if MWO were so inaccurate, partisan, and unimportant, why would it warrant a watchblog?

Ok, enough stupid pissing matches, it's time for a little analysis. Eschaton highlighted a press release from the Cato instutute about how the new investigatory powers are "no big deal". An obvious question would seem to arise: how exactly is it in the cause of individual liberty and freedom for the state to be able to investigate someone's activities, without warning, at any time, even in the current security environment? The answer, of course, is pretty simple: Bush and Ashcroft are on "their side" and therefore should be defended.

Well, ok, it's a little more complex than that. The problem with the libertarianism in the United States right now is that they're caught in the grip of a conflict between two of the foundations of their belief structure: their friendliness with conservatives and wholehearted support of the United States as the closest thing they have to a libertarian society, and their deep distrust of the federal government. There are, of course, nuances to the whole thing; too often, however, nuances are the servants of conflicts between simpler emotional drives rather than an attempt to moderate the same. As the Cato institute is in effect a libertarian advocacy organization with Ph.Ds and footnotes, it isn't surprising that they'd behave similarly.

This is a symptom of a growing "axis" of political affiliation. Most categorization of political ideology usually goes along two axes: egalitarianism vs. elitism, and an individualist perception of society vs. an organic perception of same. In the United States, however, there is a new axis growing that, while more simplistic, is incredibly important to understand the new three-dimensional political structure. It is one's opinion of America and its action- in other words, nationalism. It's the foundation of the "litmus tests" I mentioned earlier; those that fall towards the "anti-American" side of this new axis are the ones who fail the litmus test, and those who move towards the "pro-American" side are the ones who pass it. The growing number of liberals online who wholeheartedly support the United States and bitterly hate Islam are, from what I've seen, staking out a position along this new axis, whereas the leftist critics who criticize the United States and its allies and/or support their opponents (which is much rarer, but does exist) are staking out a much different position. The problem right now is that this axis is at least partially geographical (why exactly should a Frenchman or German support the United States if he thinks the actions of the U.S. are by-and-large odious?) and its presence as a litmus test has eliminated any reasoned debate over whether U.S. actions are justified or not. It has descended into mere namecalling on the pro side and proxy warfare (anti-Americanism posing as anti-Israelism) on the left.

That's also why I am uncomfortable with the notion that critics of Israel are necessarily anti-Semitic; the important part is the connection with the United States, not the particular racial or religious identity of the Israelis. (Notice how nobody remembers that Israel and the United States had extremely strained relations for a while after Israel was created? They're too closely associated, nowadays). Indeed, some right wing critics of extremist Palestinian supporters may well have it neatly backwards: instead of anti-Americanism being anti-semitism in disguise, anti-Semitic propaganda may have more to do with whipping up support against the "real enemy", which would be the United States. (the blood libel on those posters at SFSU is a good example; very few university students are going to seriously believe what those posters said is true, but what a way of shocking people! Morally odious, but perhaps not for the reasons some believe.)

So why does this matter? It matters not only because it colours how people look at the issues, but because of where we are (the Internet) and where most of its users live (the United States). It's bad enough that the Internet and it's newest medium, the "blogosphere" is very libertarian/conservative; since it's also largely American, it is extremely unlikely if not impossible for a debate to ever arise between anti- and pro-Americans that doesn't descend into the pro-American majority engaging in the sort of namecalling and ambush tactics that majorities can employ to drive out "unbelievers" and dismiss them as cranks as advocates of evil, especially after one loony faction of anti-Americans (a subset of fundamentalist Islam) physically attacked the United States last year.

As long as the United States remains the world's only "hyperpower" (in the words of some) and "imperial power" (in the words of others) this axis will remain. It predates 9/11 and will remain long after the current "war on terrorism" is over (whenever that is). The question, in the end, is how it will change politics both online and in real life.

Jane Galt has gone over the numbers detailing the economic impact of Kyoto (or one version of them, anyway, I've seen several) and has come to the conclusion that Kyoto simply costs too much, so it shouldn't be ratified. Some choice comments:

But serious carbon controls, the kind that would really dent global warming, would take us back to approximately the economic level last seen when global warming was not a problem. That's 1850. But say we're willing to accept a slower growth of global warming. 1900? Ouch. 1950? Doesn't sound so bad? Turn off the appliances, baby: your dishwasher, air conditioning, washer-dryer, and refrigerator are a major factor in global warming. Get rid of the second car; hell, half of you get rid of the first car. No air conditioning at work, either. That computer sucks a fair amount of juice; so does that plane trip you took to visit Mom -- and the Hawaiian vacation you were planning. Ever wonder why those resort communities in the Catskills and Poconos are dying? Because people can afford to go somewhere better, these days.

Huh? Yeah, maybe, or maybe the technology in question will be forced to become significantly cleaner and/or more energy efficient. And so what if people get rid of the second car, and some get rid of the first (or simply buy a much more energy-efficient car?) This sort of thing assumes that the widespread use of individual automobiles is some sort of unalloyed good whose elimination would ruin society. Couldn't people just take the subway? This sort of argument seems to assume that the entire basis of american technological and economic growth is cheap energy, which is utterly ludicrous. For someone with such a great faith in markets, Jane seems curiously averse to the market's ability to handle the correction of the huge subsidy of dirty energy that energy consumers currently enjoy.

In a similar vein...

Maybe that's what we need to do. But that's going to be the price of serious global warming controls -- a serious decline in our standard of living. Or a serious conversion to Nuclear, and hey, I'm all for it.

Um... or any number of other renewable energy resources. If the choice is between adopting wide-scale wind, solar, and tidal energy and turning off all our appliances, I'm pretty sure there'd be a lot of turbines and solar panels getting built in the near future. Or, for that matter, a large-scale switch from coal and gasoline to natural gas.

Here's the key question, though: if not Kyoto, then what? Jane didn't get into the environmental science aspect, but it's getting harder and harder for the typical industry fronts to bleat that global warming won't have an impact, and there certainly isn't much of a debate left within most of the scientific community outside of the aforementioned industry shills and economists-fronting-as-environmental-scientists such as Bjorn Lomborg. Those who are arguing that Kyoto will have a huge economic impact that can never be recovered are somewhat missing the point: that there already is an impact, and just because it's a long-term negative externality doesn't mean that it should be ignored. While economics is extremely useful for gauging the cost of something, environmental science seems to be showing that there could be a point where no amount of money could fix the problem and no known (or predicted) technological trick that could fix it even if the money existed. The problem with arguing against Kyoto (or environmentalism in general, which is what Jane is really talking about) is that the price is already being paid, and even if the process of eliminating this subsidizing of dirty energy is painful, it's one that needs to be dealt with sooner or later. The cost is only going to go up and the economic arguments against it are never going to change until it's far too late.

To paraphrase Reagan yet again: If not us, who? If not now, when?

Oddly enough, the latest posting by isntapundit is one I largely agree with. I still think he characterizes schooling (as everything from a cattle drive to a holding tank to the home of machiavellian intrigue by the "educational establishment") is simplistically anti-education but I have absolutely no problem with the idea that there should be alternatives. As I've said earlier, I have no problem with alternative schooling.

But.

(There had to be a "but" there, right?)

isntapundit strikes me as somewhat naive about several basic facts. First, many (if not most) of those who are "attacked" for homeschooling are attacked because of significant flaws in their child's education. Parents have a role to play, but so does the state, and the state's role is to ensure that children have been taught the right things by somebody who knows what they're doing. The latter can be enough of a problem; despite parent's heartfelt beliefs, there's more to being an effective teacher than knowing something and wanting somebody else to know it too. That being said, it's usually the former concept (being taught the right things) that is the problem. Why? Well, in order to answer that, one has to ask why one would want their child to opt out of the mainstream educational system in the first place. There are many different answers, but one stands out big and proud and obvious like a neon sign in a store window:

Religion.

Scratch the surface of many "private schooling" or "voucher" advocates, and you'll find heaps of "I don't want my kids learning any of that Godless crap" under your fingernails. The theory of evolution is about as close to scientific fact as one can get without it being as bloody obvious as, say, the theory of gravity, but it contradicts a whole bunch of religions, and parents who want to ensure that their children think exactly the same way they do aren't going to allow scientific education to get in the way of religious indoctrination. Teaching children the theory of evolution is part of any basic scientific education, but there are definitely those out there who think that their children shouldn't learn it.(Then again, there are states and schools that think the same thing; they deserve as much scorn as parents do). This doesn't even necessarily have anything to do with evolution, however: kids homeschooled by, say, Scientologists are no doubt going to be thoroughly indoctrinated in how evil psychology is and filled to the brim with all manner of pseudo-scientific nonsense. While it is by no means true that all homeschooling has religion at its core, I think it's pretty logical to assume that religion has a lot to do with those parents who are "attacked legally" for attempting to pull their kids out of state-sponsored schools. Religious education is a part of any childhood, but the state has a legitimate interest in future citizens and that includes education in everything necessary for a well rounded education, whether it contradicts the parent's religious wishes or not.

Second, and this is a related point: yes, calls for increased parental involvement usually are a fundamentalist tactic. The citation of yet another anecdote of parental failure doesn't mean that this sort of thing is widespread, and it's an inevitable part of American politics that any use of the idea of "family values" is coopted to push fundamentalist beliefs whether they actually reflect the real values of families or not. It's a way of casting one's own political beliefs as a motherhood issue.

Finally, yes, high school dropouts are stereotyped. There's a reason for that, and it gets back to the diploma-as-symbol I mentioned earlier. So what if it increases demand for schooling? Unless you're irrationally anti-schooling (and isntapundit just finished saying he wasn't) there's nothing wrong with trying to get people to get their diplomas. If they can't do it through normal high school channels, then there should be other opportunities to get that diploma, but that doesn't mean that we should give up the concept entirely. Like it or not most parents can't educate their children personally, and like it or not the Real World needs those symbols of competence in order to function. Instead of whining about the necessity of those symbols and trying to reinvent a society built on these sorts of symbols, it simply makes more sense to create as many opportunities to earn that diploma as possible.

I'm not exactly sure what isntapundit thought of that other post, as he managed to mix a title that said "instapundit demolished by Demosthenes" and an indictment of my response as full of strawmen, misconstrued points, etc. I think it's kind of a "you suck, I suck, let's just let it drop" thing. Not overly encouraging, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

After indicting his own earlier post, however, he gets down to the real meat of his argument, which goes something like this: "I didn't learn the skills needed to get along in the world, and I fairly doubt anybody else did either."

This is a common complaint about high school, and while I'm sympathetic on some level I can't really agree with it. First, once again, it somewhat generalizes from personal experience. My own personal experience contradicts this: part of the reason I enjoy political discussion and political debate is because of my senior-year politics class; the combination of a gifted (if tempermental) teacher and some brilliant fellow students made it an incredibly valuable experience for me, and I learned a lot about politics "on the ground" that they don't teach until much later in most university programs. I also know a fair number of students who developed skills they use in the job market right now thanks to the sort of technical and vocational education that isntapundit lauded and I support.

A question remains, however, once you get past the question of "whose generalizations more closely resemble reality": what skills do people learn "in the real world" that they didn't learn in High School? What exactly defines "the real world"? I remember my parents threatening me with exposure to this hideously brutal realm for years, and it was only when I left home that I found out that by and large it's nonsense. Still, what sort of skills do you need? Reading and writing, including analysis? Well, that would seem to be taught. Basic mathematics? Compared to the sort of things I did in high school, running a budget and doing taxes is a breeze. Finding a job? Well, you really can learn skills if you pick the right courses and actually bother to learn it, and although the sort of networking and interviewing skills that people use to get jobs aren't formally trained in a high school environment, anybody who thinks that socialization isn't part of high school is dreaming. (It's the harshest part of the whole experience, and usually the reason why people can and do hate it). Dealing with co-workers? Ditto, except that co-workers are rarely as harsh and judgemental as your typical high school classmate. Boring, repetitive, mindless work? That's half the reason Glenn was arguing in favour of that accellerated program!

So, what exactly defines "the real world" besides the aspects I mentioned above, which imply that the most vulnerable students would be, say, homeschooled kids who don't have to deal with the harsh socialization?

Isntapundit brought out his own list:
"conflict resolution, negotiation, creative thinking and problem solving, and specific marketable skills"

The latter two concepts should be part of any high school education; if it isn't, then there's a flaw in the educational system but not necessarily in the concept. I remember having to deal with creative problem solving many, many times in high school, including a particularly brutal group assignment in that previously-mentioned politics course. The former two concepts come naturally out of group work, which is another focus of any healthy high-school education that I've ever heard of.

Still, there's one last point. High school was never intended to be a total solution, and while I hate to bring up what is usually a veiled religous fundamentalist tactic, it's valid: just where are the parents in isntapundit's world? Students re-enter the "real world" as soon as they walk out the school doors, and if they're so blissfully ignorant that their lives once they get out of high school are an utter trainwreck, the training problems might just lie elsewhere. The emotional and intellectual maturation that I mentioned earlier aren't just the responsibility of the school or the student; despite the natural rebelliousness of most teens, parents do still have a lot of influence.

One last point. The reason why we rely on formal methods is because they can be tested, evaluated, and refined. Informal methods have their place, but one can be badly taught by informal methods just as easily as by formal methods, but at least the latter are known quantities. As I said earlier, a diploma (or a degree, or a certificate) means nothing in-and-of-itself; it's a symbol for all the abilities and skills that are required to earn that symbol and a signal to everybody (including the owner) that certain basic skills are present. It's a shorthand for the kind of detailed testing that would be required to determine that someone has the necessary skills without such symbols. There may indeed be an overreliance on those symbols in our society, but that reliance didn't just fall from heaven.

Responding to a point in the comments section:

Andrea, it is not only possible to determine legitimacy (and to leave aside the quotation marks), but the question of legitimacy is vital simply because of the problems involved in one nation interfering in another's affairs and the legitimate use of power that is associated with that. Part of the reason the United States doesn't mess with the affairs of other nations is because of this sort of understanding, which dates back to before the incorporation of the United States themselves. (It was a reaction to the religious conflicts that preceded the current state system that culminated in the Treaty of Westphalia, the event I mentioned in my post).

As for public opinion? Foreign affairs and international relations are not usually that affected by public opinion in the United States simply because the public is fairly disconnected with both. Indeed, the foreign policy of different administrations tends to blend together, because the partisan concerns of each president tend to melt away in the face of geopolitical realities. One of the biggest differences about the Bush II administration from previous ones is how unaffected they are to this sort of influence; the conflict between the "doves" and "hawks" in the administration is fundamentally between those who want the United States to adhere to its normal foreign policy and those who want a much more activist (leftists usually call it imperialist) foreign policy that fundamentally reshapes the geopolitical shape of the world in order to suit the United States' interests.

isntapundit seems to have a problem with the idea that personal anecdotes aren't necessarily empirical truths. (So do several people in the comments section, but I'll stick with this one for now).

This time, I think I'll do a point-for-point. It's big, but it's useful at times.

This attitude, that nobody without their high-school diploma or equivalent can handle a respectable job, is part of the problem. Consider that people graduate from high school unable to read, find Italy on a map, or say which came first, the American or the Russian Revolution. Why is this useless shred of paper, the high school diploma, so glorified in our society?

Isntapundit, you're mixing up problems with the concept and problems with the implementation. The "shred of paper" is only supposed to be a symbol of achievement (just like a degree), and proof of abilities like reading, knowledge of basic geography and basic history, normal mathematic skills (with perhaps higher-level knowledge learned from more advanced courses) are all part of that achievement. The way that you determine the presence of those abilities is through testing and grading. If the kids aren't able to read or do math or whatnot, then perhaps before condemning the whole enterprise you should focus on whether the element in question is flawed.

These two paragraphs, on the other hand, seem to entirely contradict one another:

By contrast, high school provides little or nothing in the way of practical instruction which relates to actually working for a living. When people argue that youngsters shouldn't be cut loose in the job market without basic skills, as a defense of high school, we should wait for the punch line. What we really need is to open our minds to the potential of young people; potential which is often frustrated by such miserable preconceptions as the necessity of a high-school education before one can do any useful work.

In this paragraph, isntapundit is arguing that we should apparently have more vocational training...

That isn't to say we should do away with high school altogether. There's a solid case for exposing youngsters to philosophy, history, the foundations of our liberal society, literature, and various other influences to help them be well-rounded and informed citizens.

...and yet in this one, he's saying the opposite: that it shouldn't all be vocational training, but citizenship education as well. It would seem that he's arguing in favour of more school, not less. There's only so much time you have at your disposal, especially in the accellerated programs that Glenn and others seem to be advocating.

A year-long survey class of all the sciences seems like another reasonable requirement, as does a similar survey in math.

Otherwise known as freshman (or sophomore) science and mathematics, which are requirements for getting a high-school diploma last I checked. This is such a good idea it's already being done, but some students are going to want to go farther in these things. Why not offer it to them?

English could be cut way back. How much value is really added to society when someone writes a book report about A Separate Peace? In high school, I got the five-paragraph essay lesson twice a year for four years. My classmates all either mastered it as freshmen or never did get it; no point in continuing to pound on it.

Just a reminder: benefits to society are immaterial for high-school students. Their education is largely for their own benefit, with the expectation that what benefits them benefits the rest of us in the long run. As for the importance of being able to write a book report about A Seperate Peace? Well, that depends. It can help students write reports, it can teach them to read critically (which has all sorts of benefits), it introduces them to some classic literature and the concepts it highlights (and demonstrates that they understand it), and it might help them better understand the human condition (which is, of course, the goal of the humanities). Just because a course isn't teaching someone to be a walking adding machine doesn't invalidate its value, as isntapundit acknowledged earlier and has conveniently forgotten now. I'll agree that the methods used to teach people how to write essays is needlessly formulaic and complex for what is in actuality a fairly simple enterprise, but that doesn't mean that there should be less English instruction on a whole. Among other things, grammer education in North America simply sucks.

Math and science instruction, beyond the survey level, should be available. But the focus should be on quality instruction for a smaller section of the population, not crappy instruction for everyone. Colleges could provide the advanced courses in some cases.

Indeed, focusing on more intensive instruction for a smaller part of the high-school population would be a good idea.... and is exactly the reason why there are lower-year general requirements that lead to upper-year specializations. (I'm starting to think that isntapundit went to a school where there was no elective structure at all.)

Technical and vocational instruction are underrated. These subjects, ranging from metal shop through auto repair to computer programming, are fun and can provide entry to respectable jobs.


These don't exist already? I would certainly and overwhelming advocate the incorporation of technical and vocational instruction into any high-school curriculum, and I know for sure that my old high school had it. Indeed, we had to take a technical/vocational course as freshmen. I actually quite enjoyed the one I took, which was communications: a blend of video and audio production with computer graphics work that started out broad-based at the freshmen level with increasing specialization up through the senior level.

Again, though, how would you fit this into an "accellerated" program without leaving something else out? There is only so much time in a day, a week, a month, a year, and only so much someone can learn in any of those periods. Since this is undoubtedly the case, the only thing an accellerated program would really mean is either that people would be forced to completely ignore programs that didn't fit their specialization (which is foolish; a lot of kids change what they want to do throughout high school because of a sparked interest in a "required" course) or remove specialization entirely, which would mean students that are even more frustrated in their wishes to specialize. One or the other, you can't have both.

(My own experience with high school was overwhelmingly negative and much of it was a waste of time and energy).

(rest of anecdote cut)

Your personal experiences can not be generalized to the general population. My personal high school experiences proved the cliche "you get out of something what you put into it"... I didn't do well or enjoy school much either, until I stopped farting around and whining and started to try to do well regardless of whether I liked the teacher or not. There are legitimate reasons why one can't attend high school- that's what alternate schools are for. "I hated one of my teachers, and therefore swore off the entire discipline" is not a legitimate reason. I hated my junior-level English teacher with a fiery passion, but never bought the curious notion that the only language one needs to master is mathematics.

Look: I have nothing but admiration for those who left high school early and still succeeded, because it is more difficult for people to do so. Half the reason I continually and loudly beat the drum of alternate education is because the normal education system does fail people, and a safety valve needs to exist so that people can get their education despite the failings of system that teaches it. I said "would likely be" because it takes a great amount of time, effort, skill and luck to gain the skills and knowledge needed to become a good citizen and a successful worker without the basic knowledge that a high-school education represents. That being said, let's not try to generalize commendable success in the face of bad odds into a perscription for society as a whole. Some succeed, but many fail. The plural of anecdote is not data, especially in an environment as non-representative of society at large as the Internet. Most kids leaving high school after their sophomore year are not leaving because they were too bright for their classmates and wanted to be adults early, and I can't understand why we wouldn't want to give someone the best chance they can by educating them while they still have the luxury of study without the need to work to survive.

Edit: A few people in the comments section (Hey Larry) are advocating the idea that some students should get credit-equivalents for knowledge of a particular field. Other than the simple truth that there's more to going to school than taking notes and writing tests, this is actually an idea that I support, with some reservations. This doesn't, however, accomplish anything near what Glenn advocates for anywhere near the number of students that it would need to for Glenn's suggestion to have any effect at all on society at large. I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of kids who leave high school before graduation are not leaving because they're too smart for their classmates, and I also think it's safe to say that some (if not many) of those who are intellectually capable of getting a few of these credits are not necessarily emotionally mature enough to qualify as "adults" in any fashion other than the biological. Emotional and intellectual maturation are not the same thing, and neither are necessarily tied into whether one knows enough about programming and related mathematics to get a few credit-equivalents.

While still ignoring the reprecussions of an invasion of Iraq, Josh Micah Marshall is at least addressing the arguments against invasion, and he makes a valid point about the problems entailed in continuing a sanctions and containment regime. What he continues to miss, however, are the very real international problems that such an invasion would cause. His analogy about "lancing a boil" is utterly inaccurate; it would be more like forcible cosmetic surgery.

Frankly, in my darker thoughts I'm starting to wonder if 9/11 has completely eradicated any concept of non-American national sovereignty from the minds of the citizens of the United States outside of the so-called "loony left". The litmus tests that I mentioned earlier really have less to do with being pro- or anti-American and a lot more to do with whether or not one believes the United States has the ability and the moral right to do whatever suits its interests, and whether it should or can compromise on any issue. This doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the war on terrorism, because the invasion of Iraq would have very little to do with that war and I know for sure that the ICC, Kyoto treaty, and the Farm bill have nothing to do with it. The debate now solely centers around whether something is in the United States' interests; any questioning of the primacy of those interests from any source is now dismissed as "anti-Americanism". Whether someone is actually American or not. I wonder whether this is a temporary reaction to the brutality of Al-Qaeda's attack, or a permanent change in American attitudes. I don't think I even want to know what it would mean if the latter were the case.

So, it would appear that the echo chamber has once again decided that Krugman=bad. Hoystory is just the first one I've visited so far, but he's already jumped on Paul for defending the WHO when it it's obviously a cesspool of governmental waste. Let's see...

The difference between contributing through taxes and through a charitable organization is a "donor" has more say in where the money goes and how it is used. The WHO uses more than one third of its budget at its headquarters (see Page 12). [Link requires Adobe Acrobat]. One can safely assume that those costs are administrative. You can also assume that some small portion of the costs for the other geographic areas is administrative.

Compare that to the American Institute of Philanthropy's guidelines for charitable organizations:

Percent Spent on Charitable Purpose
This is the portion of total expenses that is spent on charitable programs. In AIP?s view, 60% or greater is reasonable for most charities. The remaining percentage is spent on fundraising and general administration.

That 60 percent figure takes into account the fact that, unlike the WTO, most charities also spend money on fundraising campaigns. The WTO just lobbies governments. A generous look at the WTO's numbers suggests that if they were a charity, their administrative costs may be reasonable -- but not necessarily good. (For a list of charities that fare better look here.)

Well, Hoy, you mixed up the WTO and WHO there, and seem to have missed that according to the guideline you just cited, the WHO's budgeting for administration comes under the 40% allowable under the AIP's guidelines. This is especially important considering that the WHO is an administrative body; or did you think that the sort of intergovernmental work that any enterprise of this sort entails is done for free? The WHO does a fair bit of research; does it not make sense that the research would be done at headquarters?

I'll agree that there is only a tenuous connection between the estate tax and the WHO's request for more foreign aid, but Krugman is (obviously) trying to illustrate a point; that there is a trend in the United States, especially in the executive branch, towards cutting taxes for the wealthy and cutting benefits for the poor. The estate tax and the WHO are simply the most egregious examples of such; the farm bill is certainly another valid example.

I don't see exactly why Hoy thinks that Krugman is republican-bashing, though. He seems to be handing out plenty of blame for all; saying that his mockery of the term "compassionate conservatives" implies that he's simply Republican bashing assumes that only Republicans are conservative. That is, of course, absurd.

One other point, illustrated by a quotation Hoy used from the New York Times:

During a visit to a well in Wakiso, an area outside of Uganda's capital, Kampala, the Treasury secretary emphasized how cheaply the well had been built, noting that it cost $1,000 and provided clean water to more than 400 people. Using "back-of-the-envelope arithmetic," he said, he and Uganda's central bank governor had calculated the night before that wells serving all of the nation's people could be drilled for about $25 million. He questioned why it couldn't be done within a year.

"Last year the World Bank lent $300 million to Uganda," he said later in the day to a university audience. "What was so important that there wasn't $25 million to $30 million to give everyone in Uganda clean water? Where did the money go?"

This actually supports and illustrates Bono's real agenda. Where did the money go? I can't say for sure, but I can probably guess: arms, administration, and interest payments. Big, fat, lucrative interest payments. Bono's big cause is debt forgiveness, and this fits example actually fits in quite nicely. I can't say for sure, obviously, but neither can Hoy. His assumption that "much of the money that is targeted for aid is gobbled up by bureaucracy at some international aid agencies, and, when the money finally arrives in a country it is often stolen by government officials who use it to live a life of luxury while their people die" is really popular among the right-wingers who like to think that absolutely no foreign aid ever gets to whomever it's directed at, but is utterly unprovable unless he has access to the Ugandan budget and all the foreign aid organizations working there. I find this unlikely.

I have no doubt that other parts of the echo chamber are saying much the same thing, but I'm not about to spend the entire day rebutting each and every one. I'll leave it at Hoy. At least he didn't use the silly "line 47" thing again.

Update: Apparently, I have reading comprehension problems. Anybody who wants to toddle on over and check out what I wrote in his comments section is welcome to do so and respond here. Did I go overboard about Hoy? Did I mess up citation? Am I a liberal commie pinko bastard who should be arrested for treason and made to run through the streets naked whilst being stabbed repeatedly by lovely laudable laughing libertarians?

By all means, let me know.

(Edit: That quote wasn't from Krugman, it was from a different article that Hoy was using to illustrate his point. Fair 'nuff; it is changed)

I was originally going to respond in Ye Olde Blogge's comment section, but have changed my mind and am going to respond here. At least I'm on my own turf.

I'm not overly surprised by the reaction. I was wondering how long it would take before I would be lumped in with Chomsky et al for questioning the wisdom of invading Iraq. It would appear my entry about "litmus tests" was more accurate than I knew- I'm sure it's only a matter of time before I'm called "loony left" or something of that sort. I wouldn't be overly surprised at being labelled anti-Semitic as well; it seems to be the fate of anybody who seriously breaks the litmus tests nowadays, whether they have any position on Israel or not. (For the record, I support the existence of Israel and the concept of a Jewish homeland in Israel. This is just so I don't get some plump 'n juicy character assassination from David Horowitz if and when I become visible enough for him to try it.)

In any case, I understand the arguments being made by Harris and Braue perfectly well. There is a difference (which is recognized by Japanese culture and sadly ignored by our own) between understanding an argument and agreeing with it. I can understand the argument being made in favour of invading Iraq; I simply don't agree with it. The whole "communication" and "ramen vs. varelse" thing is simply a sideshow; Saddam was never varelse before the Persian Gulf, we talked with him before, he hasn't changed much since the Iran/Iraq war, so why is it different now?

Ok, first point of dispute:

I must admit I don't really understand this perception. I don't know where it comes from, nor do I get the (repeated in the next paragraph) assertion that the American right is "obsessed" with Iraq.

Did you read the National Review prior to 9/11, or several other right-wing mags? Inasmuch as such publications represent the right wing of American punditry, I can assure you that there was continual and loud calls for the invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein. This has been going on since the Gulf War; have you not read the right-wing critiques of Bush's actions in the Gulf War?

Next point:

In any case, I don't know what evidence my government has linking Iraq to Al Qaeda, or to any of the actual attacks on US citizens. I can well believe that investigators have had trouble finding conclusive evidence that would be sufficient backing for a regime change; our 'intelligence' community doesn't seem to be able to match both halves of their own ass. But it's also easy to suppose that Mr./Ms. D. tosses off the idea of Hussein's involvement much too easily, as if we should say, sure, Hussein's a thug and a dictator, but who are we to tell his people they deserve better?

Ah, and here's the meat of the post. (Aside from the knee-jerk accusation of anti-Americanism that I'll ignore as a courtesy to Ms. Harris). I'll break it down into two concepts (which, yes, I understand). First, the idea that there is evidence linking Saddam to 9/11. There isn't, not really. At best they've been able to find an incredibly weak connection between one Iraqi spy and Al Qaeda that doesn't prove much of anything except the power of coincidence. Investigators haven't been able to find any because no such thing exists, much as the extreme right would really, really, really like to believe there's one. The Bush administration has been desperate to find one in order to provide a legitimate reason to invade Iraq. The fact that they haven't found one that could even conceivably be used to justify the invasion to their own soldiers (let alone the public and let alone the international community) speaks volumes. (Even if the FBI sucks, you know that their allies would love to find one too. Can you honestly claim that, say, Mossad or MI6 wouldn't be able to find such a connection if they were really looking for it and it actually existed?)

The second claim comes back to the question of legitimacy and sovereignty, two points that Cliff brought up in my comments section. The claim argued by both Harris and Cliff is that Saddam is not legitimate because he is a Warrior; he clawed his way to the top and crushed those who opposed him. Since he isn't legitimate, his nation cannot have sovereignty; since his nation cannot have sovereignty, the United States would not be engaging in gunboat diplomacy if it invaded Iraq. The problem with this argument is that such governments are universal, and there has never, ever, EVER been a precedent in international law or even in American law that argues that elected governments is free to crush unelected governments whenever it has a disagreement with them.

Look: the concept of sovereignty and legitimacy have nothing to do with whether or not a government is popularly elected. On the contrary, they rest solely on who controls the state, and therefore the legitimacy that a state has as a matter of course. The idea of state sovereignty predates the United States and representative democracy itself, and there have been several influential writers (Thomas Hobbes chief among them) who have argued that legitimate sovereignty not only has nothing to do with representative democracy but is actually impossible in representative democracies! (I don't support this view, but it does exist). Other political philosophers that have directly influenced the formation of the United States such as Locke and Rousseau would hardly argue that it takes a democracy to bestow legitimacy on a government: Rousseau didn't even think representative government was legitimate because people "were only sovereign when voting!"

What bestows legitimacy on a government is the willingness of the people to obey it. Why they are willing is unimportant; if they obey in order to avoid being shot, then that is as legitimate as any belief that their leaders are wise and/or representative. If they are willing to be subject to its rule, then it is legitimate. If they are not, then they set themselves in opposition to it and either destroy it or are destroyed by it. This is what rebellion or revolution is; it is the rejection of the legitimacy of the state and an attempt to form a new state. Whether or not that government is democratic, whether or not it is oppressive (and how many libertarians have argued that the American government itself is oppressive, despite the representative assemblies), whether or not they shoot every tenth citizen because they're sick, twisted, insane bastards; they're legitimate until the people decide otherwise. From that flows sovereignty; whomever has the legitimate use of force (or ability to decide who gets to use force) is sovereign. In modern times, that's the state. In Iraq, that's Saddam Hussein, whether the United States likes him or not.

This is why the United States used the tactics it did in Afghanistan, by the way, and why it's been trying to build up a native Iraqi resistance for a decade now. It wants the Iraqis to rise up and say "you are no longer legitimate" to Saddam and his government and throw them down. They haven't, and likely won't. In Afghanistan it was different; there were competing factions, and the United States simply made sure that one faction beat another. The Taliban wasn't really a legitimate government and the United States was attacked by an organization it was connected to and therefore could aid: the Northern Alliance. The U.S. was also retaliating against aggression; there is plenty of precedent for that. The same is not true of Iraq; it is not connected to Al-Qaeda (as I mentioned earlier), and therefore cannot be attacked on those grounds.

Iraq's government is legitimate in Iraq. The United States is not legitimate in Iraq. The international system that has existed since the Treaty of Westphalia has emphasized that the affairs of a legitimate state (such as Iraq's) remain their own affairs unless and until they harm another state. These concepts are at the foundation of the United Nations, and the United States has always been extremely quick to defend these ideas when it comes to their own sovereignty. The United States rejected the International Criminal Court for this very reason; because they didn't want to give up their sovereign control over their own citizens to another body. To take this position with your own country and not with another is not only hypocritical but dangerous, because the entire reason this sort of system works is simply because states trust each other to play by the rules. If the United States invades Iraq, it shows to the rest of the world that it cannot be trusted, and that it doesn't truly care about national sovereignty unless it suits the U.S.'s own interests. (Note that this isn't limited to the United States: any nation doing this would be censored by the United Nations and the international community. If Iraq hadn't broken this basic rule, the Gulf War would have never happened. The United States is simply the only nation in the world which could pull it off right now, although China invading Taiwan would be equally egregious, as would be, say, an Indian invasion of Pakistan or vice-versa.)

Would this have reprecussions? Yes it would. The ICC would have proof that the United States' claims to sovereignty are invalid, and therefore could feel free to try any U.S. citizens it feels necessary, with the U.S' protestations of national sovereignty falling on deaf ears. The rest of the world would view the United States much differently in a strategic sense; although the United States could still be worked with, it would never be trusted. It would likely have economic repercussions; since the United States cannot be trusted to respect the strategic sovereignty of other nations, why would it be trusted to respect the economic sovereignty of other nations? What's to stop the United States from leaning on, say, Singapore until they agree to enact intellectual property laws that suit American interests? Singapore's government isn't popularly elected either, and yet I bet Harris has things in her home that were made there. Sure, the "money is flowing", but there's an awful lot of money out there that ain't U.S. dollars and investments that aren't in the United States; if you can't trust a country, why trade with it more than is absolutely necessary? (That's already starting to happen with the steel issue; other steel-importing countries are licking their lips over all the cheap steel imports they'll be able to get from outside the United States. The new intellectual property and copyright laws will only make this worse.)

Yes, Andrea Harris, I fully understand your point. yes, John Braue, I fully understand your point. And yes, Virginia, Saddam is unfortunately legitimate. Whether we like that or not is unimportant. Whether we think it's fair or not is unimportant. Whether we think that he might be a threat to us in at some point in the future is unimportant (and it's not a simple question: Saddam is not mad, and doesn't want to die, which he most certainly would if Baghdad was nuked to glass). The only real question from an international relations standpoint is whether the United States will invade anyway, and what repercussions that will have. I'm not sure about the answer to the first question, but am pretty sure of the answer to the second.

(Slight Edit: fixed a few spelling mistakes and increased the clarity a little.)