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.)

When reading a response to a response to a response (sigh) on Akatsukami'ssite I ran across a bit that said "The Unaboard (definitely not to be confused with The UnaBlogger)." Curious, I decided to find out what the UnaBlogger was all about.

Umm, yeah. Needless to say, that site is Not Work Safe. Still, if one wants to stir up interests in weblogs, (and it really does have a great list of different blogs, which is a running joke on the site), I've seen worse tactics.

(I wonder how many people have that as their start page?)

I'm all in favour of environmentalism; the Earth has a vital and intricate ecosystem that I don't believe we fully understand and yet feel comfortable screwing with in many and sundry ways. But let's be honest here. There is no need for environmentalism on the moon. The Moon is Dead. Dead. There is no life up there, at least none that we've ever found (and we've certainly explored it more than we have Mars). I can see the value in keeping some of Mars intact and in carefully checking for indigenous life, but the Moon is dead. Period. The only way there will be life on the moon is if we put it there. Environmentalism is not needed where there is no environment. Heck, there isn't even an atmosphere to pollute. If anything I'd say that the sooner we get as many people up there as possible, the better, because it'll help alleviate conditions here on Earth, where there really is life and it really is being threatened.

Ann Coulter appears to be living in a parallel universe.

All I can say is that she's done a better job of making the right look like knuckle-dragging throwbacks than any liberal "slander".

Rarely if ever am I reduced to a simple "what the..." when reading something, but somehow Glenn Reynolds (aka Instapundit) managed to pull it off in his Fox News column about teen sex.

First, I actually agree with Glenn about the problem of society infantalizing teens. They aren't infants, nor are they children (except in the way that we all are). They're teenagers, which is a different thing entirely. Part of that "different thing" is that they are sexually mature, and (just like their parents before them) are going to want to do something with that, whether their parents (or their pastor) want them to do it or not. The "cliche" about teenagers having sex whether their parents want them to or not is true. That's why it became a cliche. I think Glenn missed the nuance involved in this, since teenagers are paradoxically both infantalized and sexualized by society (and probably partially by biology; it is the middle ground between childhood and adulthood after all) but by and large he has the right of it.

So, just as I'm thinking "you go Instapundit!" I read this:

I recommend a different approach: If we want teen-agers to be more adult, in their virtues as well as their vices, we should try treating them more like adults. Teen-agers should be encouraged to hold jobs in addition to going to school. (Or instead of since high school is not for everyone.)

No. Just No. This is ludicrous. Part of the reason teenagers do poorly in school is because they're carrying part-time jobs in order to pay for all the things they're expected to have nowadays, and their studies have suffered for it. This is not a topic for debate; there have been several studies that have supported it, and it simply makes sense that teenagers who work do less well in school. Why the heck would we want to encourage this? Because "high school is not for everyone"? And why is that, exactly? I could see the argument that "college is not for everyone" but most of those I know who dropped out of high school didn't do it because they had a bright future ahead of them that couldn't wait; they dropped out because they had little choice, or were so unbelievably shortsighted (which is, sadly, also a part of being 13-18) and anxious to get out into the "real world" (as is this) and anxious to get out from under their parents control (as is this). What, exactly, was Glenn thinking, dooming all these kids to what would likely be a lifetime of poor-paying unskilled labour at best and welfare at worst?

Much of high school is wasted time: School meets only about 180 days a year, with a lot of class time wasted on going over the same ground from one year to the next. Teen-agers with a powerful desire to be adults should be allowed to follow an accelerated program, with earlier graduation (and perhaps other privileges) as a reward. Many teen-agers would take advantage of this, rather than spending extra years in what's little more than a pre-adult holding tank.

Ah, he was thinking this. I've heard this argument before, and it gets sillier every time. First because it can be pushed back as far as you want; why the hell should kids go to elementary school... it's just a "holding tank", right? Who needs to know how to read anyway? I'll agree that there's a lot of wasted time and potential in high school but that isn't a function of the concept but a problem with the implementation. If high school weren't necessary adults wouldn't be going back to get their diplomas all the time. Which they are. (And I'd like to take a moment to express my support of alternate schools, which pick up a lot of the "free spirits" that Glenn is lionizing after they come to their senses and decide to move out of the trailer park.) Glenn is assuming that because teenagers aren't children and can exercise enough judgement to have sex they must be fully mature in every way. I somehow doubt that, considering the brain keeps on developing up until age 18 and considering the average teenager's hormonal levels could drop a healthy horse.

I think Glenn is trying to hearken back to a time when high school really wasn't necessary, and I can appreciate that. The simple fact of the matter, however, is that today's society *is* more complex than the ones where high-school wasn't necessary and eight years of education is enough. While there may be wasted time in high school, a lot of that time is "wasted" because of programs that are intended to evoke an interest in a subject that a student can use to guide his or her career choices, or programs whose value isn't immediately apparent, but comes in incredibly handy down the road. (Math and English, anyone?) I mean, how is anybody supposed to be able to hold down a white-collar job if they neither know basic mathematics nor how to write a report or essay?

For that matter, how exactly are people supposed to become able citizens without the kind of historical, geographical, and political training that one gets at the high-school level (and not nearly enough as it is?) I realize that the intended audience for Fox News isn't exactly high on the concepts of responsible citizenship that don't involve shooting gub'mint agents, but like it or not we're citizens, and we get the education we need to be citizens at the high-school level. (How the heck do you teach little kids about the historical bases of the United States' governmental system with the kind of depth they need to be able to interpret that when called upon to vote?) Without some sort of critical and civic training, these "responsible, uneducated adults" are at the mercy of demagogues, whose arguments pander to what they want to hear and which these people are ill equipped to deal with.

Perhaps if teen-agers were encouraged to take on adult responsibilities and win status and recognition in constructive ways, they'd probably start acting more like citizens, and less like a leisure class, with all the vices that have historically attended leisure classes.

Which is a good idea, although I think Glenn has missed the chicken-and-egg nature of boomers infantalizing their children in order to assert their own youth. Rest assured, though, leaving teenagers with an eighth grade education (if that: elementary schools push kids forward in ways that high schools don't) is not going to make them "citizens" in any way, shape, or form. At best, they'll be vocationally trained production/consumption machines; at worst, ignorant fools who betray everything that freedom and democracy stands for.

I don't really believe in the sort of blog vs. blog pissing matches that this sort of thing can provoke (Quasipundit's trials are fresh in my mind), but I'll write a (relatively) short response to Akatsukami, who critiqued my own critique of Josh Marshall.

First, I'm not an isolationist, I'm an internationalist (or multilateralist); as would appear obvious from reading the rest of the post. My concern is that the neo-conservative parts of the United States is willing and ready to become an international pariah (my exact words, even) because of this idea that they absolutely must kill Saddam, and violate international sovereignty and collective security in order to do it. I'm not saying that the United States should become Fortress America, far from it; I'm saying that if the United States "goes it alone" in removing Saddam from power, it has usurped sovereign power from the people of Iraq, the legitimate (if nauseating) government of Iraq, and the international community. It has arbitrarily chosen who will be free and who will not, who can be a leader and who cannot. (And the choice is arbitrary...there are other countries that pose much greater threats).

Second, it's funny that one of the principal examples he uses undermines his own argument:

The outcome of this position was seen in during the Hungarian uprising in 1956; after much brave rhetoric about freedom, Eisenhower and his minions watched, dry-eyed, whilst Russian troops murdered Hungarian freedom fighters. It may be convincingly argued, of course, that we were incapable of intervening in that conflict without unleashing events that would have had far more disastrous consequences.

It may be convincingly argued? It was about as close to God-Given truth as one can get without wandering in the desert, climbing a mountain, and borrowing a few tablets! It's an excellent supporting argument against unilateralism; international support lends legitimacy that is not present when one country is simply invading another, as does the recognition of the concept of national sovereignty. It's also irrelevant to the current situation; Iraq is not currently invading or oppressing any other nation, and doesn't have the capability to do so. Even with WoMD it wouldn't have the capability to do so; it could unleash devestation, but not only would it ensure the fiery end of Saddam himself but it still wouldn't help him take over any other country. That requires modern conventional arms, something Saddam doesn't have.

Thirdly and finally, Saddam is not varelse. He is human, he is understandable, and according to the best examinations of his character he is entirely sane (if megalomaniacal). he may be a brutal dictator, but that does not and never has given license to the United States to remove him, any more than the United States had license to (covertly) remove South American governments it didn't like (or oppositions it didn't like) because they advocated a political system that the United States abhorred. Besides, if one actually reads Ender's Game (and the series in general), one might figure out that the Bugs were not really varelse after all, and in fact never were. Ender's Game is a mockery of such concepts: the "Us vs. the Other" conflict was ultimately won by Ender, who was the "Other" all his life. Heck, Demosthenes and Locke were ultimately "Others" as well; Peter and Valentine chose those anonymous personae because they were children, and therefore "Other" themselves.

Oh, one other thing: in the future, when attempting to discredit or debate my points, I would suggest you read the whole post. The paragraph starting with "see, there's the problem here.." does a good job of explaining the problem of sovereignty, but you only quoted (and apparently read) the earlier section. Now, if you think that the United States shouldn't respect the national sovereignty of other nations, then by all means make that argument: it'd actually be very interesting, and one I'd be happy to engage. Trying to break down a misrepresentation of my own arguments is, frankly, just dull.

Heh. Media Whores Online has a new friend. Mediawhoresonline Watch is a new weblog that purports to correct MWO's falsehoods (or something along that line). Pity that, from what I've seen, the attempts to "debunk" MWO are mostly miserable failures, built on strawman arguments, baseless assumptions, and bald-faced assertions. Yes, MWO is partisan; it's supposed to be, in order to respond to the partisanship of most of the professional punditry one sees on television. Trying to score points by calling it partisan is useless, but it would appear that attacks on their credibility aren't working very well, either.

Let's just hope the echo chamber doesn't accord this site more respect than it deserves.

Josef Joffe seems to think that a comparison exists (and makes it) between GWB and Otto Von Bismarck. His reasoning? Prussia before WWI, like the United States now, was powerful but afraid of a concerted response from other powers, and like Bismarck Bush is doing his best to make his country indispensible and keep potential opponents from banding together. It's not a bad theory, but it has some holes.

First, none of the actions that Joffe cites (making friends with Russia, trying to keep India and Pakistan friendly with the US, toning down anti-chinese rhetoric, and trying to mediate in the middle east) necessarily prove that this particular style of diplomacy is the one Bush adheres to. All of these things are useful for the United States in a more general strategic sense, and could probably fit in dozens of strategic plans. Why just Bismarcks, a plan suited for a "balance of power" that simply doesn't exist anymore?

Second, I don't really see the connection between these actions- that there's even a guiding goal for all this, instead of Bush's simple reactions to what's already going on around him. The administration is known to be quite divided- I doubt Bismarck was lead around by his (contradicting) advisors instead of leading himself. There's no reason to believe there is really a grand strategic plan, instead of vague strategic goals being vaguely followed. The cohesion that Joffe is trying to find just isn't there.

Third, One of the big connections and fundamental goals for Bismarck was keeping France isolated from the world community so as to prevent that country from getting its revenge on Prussia for Frances' humiliation in the Franco-Prussian war. Where is the equivalent nowadays? The terrorists hardly count, and if he's trying to use this strategy against the "axis of evil" countries he's failing spectacularly, so much so I have to wonder if he's even doing it at all.

Fourth, and most importantly: Bismarck's actions led to WWI. Bush (or at least his advisors) knows that, and I honestly doubt that they'd be engaging a strategy that led to World War, considering the nightmarish possibilities that exist when one considers the eventual end of the "War on Terrorism". Even the most hawkish Bush advisor wants to avoid WWIII.

It's a nice theory, Josef, but it just doesn't fit the situation at hand.

Discovered at "The Conservative Underground":

A COPY OF AN ISSUE OF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ? $3.50
A BURRITO AND ENCHILADA COMBO MEAL AT JULIOS ? $5.50
A RENTAL COPY OF HOUSE PARTY 3 ? $5.00

THE ONLY MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION YOU'LL EVER NEED... UNDER $20

The sight of a conservative making an utter fool of himself somewhere where he thinks only other conservabloggers will notice him...

priceless.

Well, this has to be one of the oddest things you've ever written, Josh. (Edit: Link fixed)

For those who didn't immediately follow that link or don't know what I'm talking about, Josh Michah Marshall has just written an article praising the "hawks" for their foresight in seeing the need to topple Saddam even as he criticizes their vision of doing so. Why is he advocating it? Well, actually, that's an excellent question. He admits that there is little to no evidence to suggest that Iraq was involved in 9/11, he knows that there are serious problems involved in any such invasion, he knows that the "hawks" here are largely basing their strategy on overly-optimistic theorizing about what such a war would entail, and he knows that these sorts of things historically can and do fall apart (and admits it grudgingly).

What he doesn't seem to know is exactly what he's advocating. Josh et al, listen when I tell you: if Iraq is not connected to 9/11, then the "war on terrorism" cannot be extended there without grave, grave consequences that I don't think Josh has figured out yet. The United States has repeatedly said that their war is with terrorists generally and Al-Qaeda specifically, yet they have found only the slimmest of ties between either and Iraq, ties much more tenuous than those between, say, Saudi Arabia and terrorism/Al Qaeda. Everybody knows this, internationally, so absolutely no one outside the United States would buy the argument that "he's going to help terrorists realsoonnow". What would they believe? They would believe the truth:

The United States is now willing and able to remove any and all regimes it doesn't like by whatever means necessary.

What kind of message does this send out? What kind of international reputation is the United States going to have? Aside from all that nonsense of "we'll go it alone if we have to", is the United States really willing to become an international pariah, feared and hated by anybody who isn't trying to profit from the size of their economy because of the right wing's obsession with Saddam Hussein? Iraq, for better or worse, is a sovereign nation that is not currently attacking the United States. It has a brutal dictator at the helm, yes; but so does a good chunk of the planet and most of Africa. Invading Iraq isn't even justified from the standpoint of preserving the oil supply, because the destruction of the Iraqi regime would turn the region into a powderkeg as everybody else wonders: "are we next?"

Iraq is an obsession of the American right. Partially that's for good reason, although Josh doesn't really seem to get into the festering obsession with the man that has only the barest connection with the weapons of mass destruction that he may be putting together. The obsession's causes are not something I'm going to explore (I'm no armchair psychologist) but it's definitely there, and it's definitely one of the most single-minded fixations that I've seen since the Terminator started chasing Sarah Connor. I'm not about to advocate though policing; they are free to hate Saddam as much as they wish. That doesn't mean they get to invade Iraq and kill American soldiers in order to satisfy it, though.

Josh certainly implies that they'd kill off a goodly number of soldiers, too:

The hawks' first priority is not how it is done or even that it is done right--it is ensuring that the opportunity to finish off Saddam does not, once again, slip away. More than anything else, they are animated by the desire to get America into the fight and committed, even if that means doing so without the full commitment of manpower and military hardware that may eventually prove necessary or fully apprising the American people of what they may be getting into.

This is sick. This is utterly sick and twisted. What Josh is saying is that these people are willing to lie, cheat, and kill; willing to completely undermine and mock the concepts that their country is supposed to be built on, willing to create another Vietnam or Somalia (the Powell Doctrine exists for a reason; a reason that these idiots seem to have forgotten) that sends American soldiers through a meatgrinder of their own countryman's construction, willing to prompt Saddam to use those weapons of mass destruction in order defend his regime(you don't think he will? Keep hoping, Pollyanna) all because they don't like him, and they never got the closure of having shot the bastard.

See, there's the problem here. Saddam is a bastard. A murderous thug. No-one would deny that. Just because he's a monstrous prick, however, does not mean that the United States can therefore invade his country, depose his government, install a government friendly to them (at least until they leave), destabilize the region, and prove not only that they're perfectly willing to piss all over the concept of national sovereignty (except when it's theirs) and collective security, all over their international reputation, all over their "moral clarity", and all over any future prospects of anybody else actually trusting the United States to not kill anybody it doesn't like. The darkest prophecies and most paranoid rantings of the "loony left" will be brought to vivid life; the United States will finally be the "imperial" force that the left has been trying (and failing) to label it as for years. It has failed because by and large the United States hasn't acted as arrogant or dominant as any past empires; it has been willing to work within the international system.

Invade Iraq, and that time is over. Invade Iraq, and the United States becomes an imperial power. Invade Iraq, and the United States shows it will destroy those who disagree with it. Invade Iraq, and America's military might is the only thing protecting it from the rage and scorn of the rest of the world. Invade Iraq, and the war on terrorism will inevitably become the war that everybody has been dreading, the war that I personally hope never to see but fear I will: the war of the United States against the rest of the world. Not perhaps in an "active battle" sort of way, but more like Hobbes' "state of war"; a state where nobody trusts the United States as far as they can throw them. No matter how much time passes or how many good things the United States does, the idea will always remain at the back of anybody dealing with the United States: "don't ever trust these bastards.

(And to forestall the inevitable rantings: I'm not anti-American. Even if I were none of what I say would therefore be true or not true, but I'm not actually anti-American. I am, however, interested in eventually coming out of this "war" in one piece, and invading Iraq makes that infinitely less likely.)

Thomas L. Friedman wrote a new column today exploring whether or not the opinions of Silicon Valley have changed, and whether or not they should consider security in the future. In some respects this is a fairly old issue (the question of security vs. privacy/ease of use is far older than the Internet) but it's still a worthy one to investigate. Friedman himself stays fairly neutral within his "observer" status, but the comments made show that there's a growing leaning towards security. One big example?

Silicon Valley staunchly opposed the Clipper Chip, which would have given the government a back-door key to all U.S. encrypted data. Now some wonder whether they shouldn't have opposed it. John Doerr, the venture capitalist, said, "Culturally, the Valley was already maturing before 9/11, but since then it's definitely developed a deeper respect for leaders and government institutions."

I wonder, however, whether this will remain the case. Despite the constant warnings, America hasn't been attacked since 9/11, and despite the constant rhetoric the "war" seems to be at a low ebb. After all, would Bush really be able to get away with trying to drum up support for Gulf War II if there were a more pressing potential theatre for this increasingly strange and unpredictable war? (Besides the Israel/Palestine conflict, that is). People can and probably will return to a version of their old beliefs, and that will probably include the tech types. Hope springs eternal in the human breast, as does the resistance to unwanted repression.

The biggest real change that this war seems to be engendering is the growth of new connected "litmus tests"... whether you are for Israel or Palestine, and whether you are pro- or anti-America. These tests seem entirely seperated from the "right vs. left" continuum; there seems to be increasing numbers of commentators (including bloggers) who take a stand on and judge others based on their position on these litmus tests regardless of whether they're "left" or "right". The very concept of the "loony left" has been transformed from "those who support socialism" to "those who criticize the United States and/or Israel". Being seen as anti- U.S. is downright dangerous, nowadays, whether the criticism is valid or not, and being anti-Israel (as a state's government) is a good way of being labelled and dismissed as anti-Semitic (as a people).

Now let's not be simplistic: there are points to be made for both of these. Some of those who criticize Israel are indeed anti-semitic, and some of those who criticize the United States do it irrationally (even if that "envy" excuse is usually pathetic self-aggrandisement of the worst sort). Still, these sorts of litmus tests are pretty inappropriate for issues so complex that they make the abortion debate look relatively benign in comparison.

When you're called "unpardonable", you know you've hit home, or at the very least caught some attention. I won't do a point-for-point response (because those lead to nothing useful), but will respond generally. I'm also not overly worried about the hits, but thanks anyway.

First: every "individual right" recognized by a state and a society is a moral and ethical decision on the part of the state, the society, and the individuals that are the basis of both. Indeed, the concept of individual rights itself is not something to be taken for granted, nor is it something that is considered "God-given" outside of, perhaps, certain segments of the United States. If rights are morals, then those protecting and defending those rights (ie police) are at least indirectly defending the morals of society. The comparison I made is valid. One is free to criticize those morals and beliefs that are defended and the way in which they are defended, but the nature of the beast doesn't change. (Until it does: there's a reason that there's an appetite for reform in Iran)

Oh, and for the record, I don't support Islamic fundamentalism, but at the same time I don't support reflexive anti-Islamicism. (which was the context of the first post; the context that privateer left out)

Second, and this is a point I want to emphasize: I am not inflexibly and irrationally anti-conservativism. I am a liberal and have no problem identifying myself as such, but I'm not about to call conservatives "evil" unless they deserve it. I have no idea why Privateer cited Welch; that post of Welch's was a cesspool of strawman arguments and ludicrous generalizations, including the typical identification of the entire left with the cartoonish decontextualized version of Chomsky that the right loves to beat on. (If Horowitz got savaged by liberals half as much as Chomsky is by conservatives...). If nothing else, I am most certainly not willing to admit that the "United States is the primary source for geopolitical good"; not without much better evidence than Welch brings to the table.

Third and final point: a common argument I've heard from the right about the left is that "you can't say 'socialism wasn't done properly'; it either works, or it doesn't. Since it killed people, it didn't work. Therefore, since total state control doesn't work, it can't work in any case". The "bad implementation" argument, IOW, does not work if Walkerton is taken into account, because it leaves the right in a bind: either they have to give up the first argument (and therefore their chief argument against socialism specifically or state control generally falls apart) or the latter argument (and therefore the moral superiority of their position falls apart; there is no reason to necessarily believe that a private market can do a better job). Whether it was "done wrong" or not is immaterial; the people are dead either way, and one has to decide where the fault lies. In the case of that judge and that case, the fault was found in the ideology itself.

By the way, considering that removing progressive taxation (as he advocates) would utterly change how our society works, I hardly think that deregulating "the least important things" fits that case. How, exactly, does one define "the least important things" after the life-threatening level, anyway?

Thanks for the link and the discussion, but I'm not about to cede the point just yet.

26 hits... not bad for my first day with a meter on a new site that doesn't feature pornography.

Don't worry, I have no intention of dwelling on the number of hits I get, but political discussion tends to be marginalized in our society, and too many people I know either don't seek out political discussion or actively avoid political discussion. I think part of the reason why relatively extreme conservatives and libertarians are so successful is because they actually pay attention to what's going on; even if they're only furthering an agenda, they're actually going out there and lobbying and campaigning and talking and, yes, voting. (There's an old axiom about how Republicans winning if there's a low turnout, and Democrats winning if there's a high turnout. This is partially due to demographics, but I think there's more to it than that).

This is partially due to the relative prosperity that we've enjoyed, but it's more because of the demonization of government and politics in our society. I remember being flabbergasted when I learned that the Greeks thought that politics was integral to a healthy society... what a huge change from what we live with now, where even the slimiest businessman is accorded greater virtue than even the most upright politician. One of my best high school teachers was also a city alderman, and the man was intelligent, squeaky-clean ethically, a great teacher, and a decent person. I've read Machiavelli and understand that sometimes personal ethics needs to be discarded in the interests of the people, but that doesn't need to be the rule and, in fact, isn't as prevalent as some people seem to think.

So why do people think that? It partially gets back to those with an agenda against government and in favour of "the free market" (which usually means lining their own pockets). As I've mentioned earlier, they've captured the terms of the debate, which means that instead of discussing the proper role of government the only discussion is how quickly to get rid of it, that politics is considered a parasitic business because it doesn't make money and can't be privatized, and that political discussion is somehow "dirty". There are other factors in why people shy away from politics (attack ads like that DemocRATS thing and the media's focus on governmental problems as opposed to market problems, academia's disconnection from "politics on the ground") but if you stop and think about who it benefits, the answer becomes pretty clear.

Politics is not a dirty business. It shouldn't be marginalized, and it is vitally important. As Robert A. Heinlein said "Politics is the only game for adults. The only one. All the rest are for children".

There's nothing sadder than a new site counter. "1 visitor". Yeesh.

Oh, lovely. National Review, the site that advocates "moral clarity" and simple solutions to complex problems (conservatives hate the "nuance argument") has just published a fascinating article by Joel Mowbray about the difference between Cuba and China, and why we should trade with the one and not with the other.

Some of the highlights:

-Cuba is close to us, and China is far away, so we can let China stay communist because it won't affect us. I bet the Australians, Koreans, Indians and Russians love that argument. I'm sure Taiwan and Hong Kong will have people printing it out and pasting it to the walls.

-China isn't purely communist, just "market socialist", so it's better. Apparently "sweatshops still flourish on the mainland, particularly in the south, but there are also pockets of free markets scattered throughout urban centers, most notably in Shanghai, where someone can actually open up the want ads and choose a job."

Glory be! People can actually choose a job! That makes up for all the brutal repression and harsh governmental control, and certainly makes the difference between Cuba and China clear. Guess all Castro really needs to do is set aside a town or something to be a little capitalist enclave, and therefore all is well.

Well, it would be, except for one thing. He also says "China and later Cuba have both turned to capitalism as a last ditch effort to preserve communism." So I guess there's no difference after all.

-"Doing business with Cuba unavoidably props up the regime"... and this differs from China... how? Cuba gets "propped up", whereas China gets reformed? Guess it comes back to this "market socialism" thing. I thought NRO was against socialism in all its forms, but apparently it depends on geography. Political NIMBYism is so interesting to watch, isn't it?

-"Chinese employees of American companies are immediately vaulted into the middle, and often the upper-middle, class. Many of these employees of American corporations make enough money to send their kids to private schools, a freedom that would never be allowed in Castro's brutal society."

Oh, well, that makes sense. The rich kids of those lucky enough to live in an area where their parents can foreign jobs get great educations. Poor kids work in sweatshops. That's what makes China superior. What sucks about Cuba is that everybody suffers equally... if some suffered gross violations of their human rights so that others could go to expensive schools in Cuba, it'd be fine. Perhaps Castro could open a private school? After all, he's already embracing capitalism.

Ok, enough nonsense. Let's cut through the bull and figure out what he's really saying. Something like "Cuba won't make my employers and political masters money, whereas China will?" Yep, sounds about right. There's probably something in there about "China is a great power, whereas Cuba is just a source of fanatically anti-Castro emigres whose votes Bush needs" too.

-"In the end, moral clarity should carry the day".

I'm sure it will. What you're saying is pretty clear from over here, Joel. After all, it's not like "moral clarity" is an empty buzzword.

A memo to Sullivan, Steyn et al:

Maybe they know something you don't.

Thanks to Vaara for permalinking him on his page. For those who didn't come here from there, go check it out. For those who did, great poem, huh?

Let it never be said that I don't listen to conservatives.

John Derbyshire's review of David Cannadine's "Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire" contains a quote that I'm going to be chewing over for a while:

This is a lovely book, full of insights and unfamiliar perspectives. Were the rulers of Victoria’s empire more snobbish, or more racist? They hardly knew the difference, for the common people of their own nation were very little less mysterious or threatening to them than the dark sullen masses of India or Africa. At least this much can be said, though, and David Cannadine says it: the snobbery diluted and tempered the racism. “It may be that hierarchical empires and societies, where inequality was the norm, were ... less racist than egalitarian societies, where there was (and is?) no alternative vision of the social order from that of collective, antagonistic and often racial identities.” On this, as on much else, he is provocative — and may very well be right.

Class conflicts (in the traditional British sense, not in the Marxist sense) mitigate or transform racial conflicts? It really does remind me of what one of my university professors once said, though turned on its head: "the reason why socialism never took off in the United States is because people didn't identify as a class; and the reason they never identified as a class was because racial division dominates American political culture, not class division." Perhaps its somewhat of a Chicken-and-Egg situation... it's ironic that an article about the Brits could open up interesting questions about the U.S.

It's a pity, of course, that he also writes jingoistic nonsense as well. Newsflash: the entirety of the Rest of the World is not characterized by dictatorial governmental control, and there is a difference between disliking the political actions of America-the-State and the people or life within that country itself. I'd say that the drive to immigrate to the U.S. might just have something to do with the U.S. benefiting its own residents at the expense of everybody else. I'm not saying it does, but it's a legitimate explanation that fits the facts as well as "they want our freedom".

I mean, comments like this:

As D’Souza argues in his final chapter, American liberty, under American law, actually produces a superior type of human being — one who, free to choose, chooses virtue and nobility of spirit much more often than not: “[A] vast improvement,” as he says, “over the wretched, servile, fatalistic and intolerant human being that traditional societies have always produced, and that Islamic societies produce now.”

...are so unbelievably stupid and arrogant that I feel tempted to throw rocks at an embassy myself. If anything fuels Anti-Americanism, it's this notion that the U.S. is a better country and Americans are better people than everybody else. Disputing that point isn't envy; it's sanity.

(Canadians must fume when they read this sort of thing, huh?)

Many of my American readers may not be aware of this, but libertarianism is not actually as fringe a political philosophy as you'd originally think. Sure, the Libertarian party itself can't elect anybody higher than dogcatchers, but that's just in the U.S. The province of Ontario has had a neo-conservative government (which essentially means libertarianism "lite") for almost two terms now. It has cut spending, it has cut taxes, it has preached the wisdom of the free market...

and it has killed people.

Murray Campbell outlines the "second part" of the inquiry results into the Walkerton tragedy in today's Globe and Mail, and what it means for neo-conservative philosophy. Canadian readers will no doubt already know that the "Walkerton tragedy" was a outbreak of E. Coli in the small town of Walkerton, Ontario, that left about a dozen people dead and hundreds of other people extremely sick, and not sure whether they'd live or die. The reason why they became sick is because of libertarian philosophy. See, the Ontario neo-conservative (read: libertarian) government believed that deregulation was the answer to everything... that everything could best be provided by the market, including safe drinking water, and that government oversight of the environment was "statist" and undesirable. I'll let Murray tell it:

The second issue facing Mr. Eves stems from the clear link between actions and consequences etched by Judge O'Connor.

In 1996, as part of the cuts, the province shut down its own water-testing labs and did not require that municipalities report to the Environment Ministry unsafe-water tests received from private labs. As Judge O'Connor stated elegantly last January, the budget cuts "made it less likely" that the ministry would pursue "proactive measures" that would have identified the need to continuously monitor the Walkerton well that contaminated the town's water supply.

For those who may be a little too charitable, trust me when I tell you that the Judge is saying that the ideology is at fault. That the ideology killed people. That LIBERTARIAN ideology killed people. It killed them by forcing this "market is best" crap down the throats of the people of Walkerton, Ontario and carrying a bunch of bacteria along for the ride. It killed them by forgetting that the reason *why* the bureaucracy can get so big and unwieldy is because it needs to be accountable (hence all the paperwork) and there needs to be oversight (hence the rigid heirarchy) and without those, locals can and do mess it up. The "market failure" in this case isn't something that people can walk away from, though. It leaves bodies behind, and shows that some things can't be trusted to the market.

So the next time some doctrinaire neo-con or libertarian on the Internet blathers on about how many people Communism has killed, and about how you can't blame the flawed interpretation of the ideology but must blame the ideology itself, remember the people of Walkerton. Remember that libertarianism has claimed its share of lives, too. There may not be as many, but give it time. If we let it, I have no doubt it'll catch up.

Right now on Crossfire, Tucker Carlson and Senator Bob Smith are both attacking Senate Democrats for being "obstructionist". The reason they give is, basically, that "they're frustrating the president's agenda". Aside from any factual inconsistencies, there's a basic problem:

Who the hell ever said that Democrats had to fulfill the president's agenda?

If they don't want to support Bush, that's Bush's problem, not theirs. The entire point of having a seperate, independent legislature is that they can and do "frustrate the president's agenda" whenever they want, and introduce their own agenda whenever they want. If they don't support missile defense (and I wouldn't blame them), then they not only have a right, but a duty to fight that. If the Republicans don't like it, tough. They stepped all over the Democrats when they controlled all three houses. The era of lying, scheming, and duplicious calls for "bipartisanship" is long over.

In an interesting column on Islam, Jamie Glazov writes:

The typical Muslim tells me that I am wrong about Islam because it does allow free will. So then I inquire whether, in the real Islam, a woman will have the free choice to drink alcohol, go dirty dancing at a bar, pick up a guy and take him home. This always crystallizes the issue quite quickly. The Muslim usually gets very upset and responds, with much anger, about how this behavior is very wrong, how decadent the West is, and how Islam simply does not allow such immorality.

Well put. So, how's about I go have sex with some children, shoot a few guys, fist a sheep, dig up a grave and distribute the pieces of the body on my neighbour's lawn, and then play music so loud my family goes deaf and my neighbours call the cops, who I then proceed to gun down?

What's that?
You don't think I should do that?
And why is that, Jamie? Oh right... morals. I imagine you have them. Where do they come from, and do you believe that they should be enforced somehow? I'd imagine that at least a few of them come from your religious upbringing, and although atheistic moral systems are not only possible but do exist, the ones that underpin American mores sure aren't derived from secular sources. Don't get me wrong; I'm not exactly a big support of Sharia, nor of corpse chunk distribution. It's just that this kind of argument is utterly ridiculous. If you're going to have a discussion of morals, do so, but don't play these silly games.

It was used, of course, in order to defend the idea that Muslims are hopelessly backwards and completely unable to join "the real world". What exactly "dirty dancing" has to do with that is beyond me, but it misses a pretty vital point that a lot of these people either don't know or ignore: what many Imams are teaching is only loosely connected to Islam, and that most Muslims do not feel this way. It's rather similar to most Christians not believing that women should defer to men and obey them (although the fundamentalist baptists usually do) or that sex is inherently sinful (although many Victorians certainly did) or that homosexuality is an unpardonable sin (although many do). Screw Islam... is there hope for Christianity?

It also raises questions... what, exactly, is Jamie arguing in favor of? He keeps arguing that "Islam can't join the modern world". Other than that being utterly ridiculous in-and-of-itself, what does Jamie say should be done about this? The elimination of Islam? How does one, exactly, eliminate a religion? The Soviets tried it with Russian Orthodoxy- it didn't work. I hate to Godwin myself, but there's only one real Final Solution to a religion that you don't like, and it's one that I doubt even Jamie would support.

By the way, Jamie, there are relatively secular and peaceful Muslim nations out there. I don't recall the Indonesians or Malaysians blowing up anything in the name of Allah, and both Pakistan and Turkey have had (elected!) female leaders. East Timor is a black mark on Indonesia, but the country is becoming democratic, which Jamie appears to believe would never happen. I'd say the problems with many of the nations he's describing is the government, not the religion. Perhaps he should be raging against monarchy?

Linked on The O'Rourkian is an article onNational Review Online about the terrible trials and tribulations of a conservative on campus. Perhaps I should describe it as "yet another".

First, there appears to be an odd discrepency here: although Nordlinger talks about how brutally left-wing colleges used to be and how they might have improved somewhat, Dave Horowitz said, in his column on the same subject that they've become awful now, and the Universities used to be bastions of fair thought. So, which is correct? Is it just the difference in the ages, or could, perhaps, the perception be just a little subjective?

Second, I have to respond with a loud "so what?" Nordlinger's "war stories" serve only to show that the far left is present on campus, and that the far left can get a little nutty. He fails to show why a left-wing skew on campus is actually a bad thing. He obviously didn't get really bad grades, and his example:

[I] had to take [a paper] to the professor, suggesting that I had been ideologically graded... he agreed...and plunked an A on that speech

...only shows that the system of assignment review by professors works. (If he had a better example of systemic bias, why didn't he use it?)

Third, I find this kind of thing amusing. "Conservative" is a bad name on campus. (Well, it's actually somewhat chic, but anyway...) "Liberal" is a bad name in the rest of the United States. Calling yourself a "socialist" can get you beaten up in much of the U.S., whether you actually agree with totalitarianism or not. (Woe to the anarchist who has to try to explain why he doesn't like the Commies or the U.S.). His "hard time" on campus led to what is obviously an accepted and influential position in society, which is more than his leftist compatriots usually get. The whining about university bias just makes conservatives look that much more pathetic. Which is odd, considering their overwhelming control over most media and the profound marginalization of academia in current society. Why whine about one sector of society when you're hegemon over the rest?

Fourth and finally, he's intentionally or unintentionally drawing a comparison between the process of coming out as a conservative (snicker) and coming out as gay or bisexual. The framework of the story reminds me of countless "coming out" stories that I've read, and which conservatives love to adopt when whining about university. Well, guess what: gays go though about three thousand times the hell that any campus conservative does, and it's the fundamentalist ideology that many (if not most) conservatives use as a basis for their beliefs that fuels the fires of that hell. He might reply that it's not as bad to come out as gay nowadays. It was, however, never that bad to come out as a conservative.

Nowadays, you usually get a bogus "think tank" for your trouble. (Hello, David Horowitz!)

The spectacle of Andrew Sullivan complaining about the negative effects of commentators is almost too sad to read.


The victims of these commentators pile up. The commentators merely pile on to the next one.

Like Paul Krugman, perchance, viciously attacked over and over again by Sullivan and his followers and fellow travellers? Hit with ludicrous accusations over and over, despite his repeated and complete debunking of such? Strawman arguments left and right? The hypocrisy would be funny, were it not so terrible.

Just to add my voice to the horde: Josh, you're a beacon in the darkness. Keep Preaching.

No wonder the right tends to avoid discussion of him.

Give me a break. Yet another journalist, this timeMargaret Wente, has written yet another article about how "global warming ain't so bad" after experiencing the odd Toronto weather. Like so many others, she doesn't really understand the science behind global warming, complaining that "trying to get my head around the ins and outs of carbon sinks, emissions trading, and megatons of CO2" is apparently too much work. Like so many others, her ignorance of the scientific bases leads her to the laughable conclusion that "it isn't about reason. It's about faith". Yeah, because peer-review is big on faith. Finally, like so many others, she invokes the name of Bjorn Lomberg in her defense, hauling out his heavily-criticized book as a way of supporting her point of view without an eye to possible flaws.

It wouldn't be so bad were it not for passages like this:

Mr. Lomborg has become Public Enemy No. 1 among environmental groups. Even in the science world, which is supposed to operate on facts and logic, he has been reviled. Scientific American devoted a large part of an issue to rebutting him. Science trashed him. Nature likened him to a Holocaust denier.

All good points, which she then goes on to ignore in her apparent zeal to support Lomborg because he agrees with them. Margaret, did it possibly cross your mind that those rebuttals, trashings, and the like are actually valid? That the scientists just might have a legitimate point? I can understand this sort of behaviour from some random neo-con dork emailing Sullivan, but I would have thought that one of the premier columnists in Canada would know better. At the very least, this sort of thing...

Even so, I don't advise you to go around in public suggesting that global warming might not be so bad after all. People will be chilly. Global warming is at the heart of our cultural belief system. And it's never prudent to attack the faith.

...is just juvenile. Even the worst doctrinaire blogger would rethink this sort of argument.

Silt:

Jeez, if this keeps up, the echo chamber might even lose its stranglehold on online political thought, which currently runs the gamut from conservative-libertarian to libertarian-conservative. At the risk of repeating myself: Yay!

Heh. We can only hope.

No, Tapped, the Internet is not liberal yet.

This is just sad. Somebody should let these people know that Jango Fett was not the villian... Count Dooku and Darth Sidious were. Both were, of course, as lily white as the heroes.

(How and why they were the villians I'll avoid for the benefit of those who haven't seen Attack of the Clones yet. It isn't that bad; in my opinion the critics are overreacting.)

People wonder why the right keeps on hammering the left and has been since the late 70's... it's because of nonsensical identity politics like this. Wasting your time chasing down stereotypes only benefits those who know where the real action is. You look like humorless loons and waste time, money, and energy that could be better spent.

Well, it would appear that Tapped is starting to change their mind about conservative dominance:

Just in the past month or so, Tapped, Max Sawicky, and now Alterman have all emerged as bloggers. Not to mention the fact that we currently have a huge backlog of e-mails suggesting the names of numerous other liberal bloggers, many of whose sites we still haven't gotten the chance to check out. Not to mention that Josh Marshall and Mickey Kaus have been doing this forever. Could the notion of a "conservative" blogosophere be on the verge of becoming passe?

In a word? No. A few high-profile blogs are not going to stem the conservative tide online, although they'll certainly help. The notion that a conservative blogosphere is "passe" would be the best weapon that conservatives could ever wish for, because self-congratulatory liberals would think that parity has been achieved. There is no parity. There is no "passe".

Sometimes I surf to things I wish I hadn't. Usually it's some form of grotesque pornography (have to watch the links people put in message board postings and the like), but occasionally it's something much worse. While reading Media Whores Online today I noticed an article by David Horowitz that they were critiquing, an article that blames Clinton for the bombing of the WTC. That's no surprise, and it's a testament to the skill and intelligence of the MWO people that they are so easily able to dismiss such ludicrous arguments. While on the page, though, I discovered a link to a different article: One called "Can There Be A Decent Left? Michael Walzer’s Second Thoughts". Horowitz takes Walzer's criticism of the left and extends it, calling leftists (and, by implication, even moderate liberals) murderous, delusionary, nihilistic... "indecent" barely begins to cover it.

This is no surprise. This sort of thing is common enough, and Horowitz is often named as one of your nuttier right wing-nuts. Like Limbaugh, like Coulter, like Sullivan, and like all those little right-wing blogs, though, it reminds those on the liberal side: many of them hate us, and many of those that don't support those that do. Not just dislike. Not just disagree. Hate. Hate with a black rage and an overwhelming belief that they are right, a belief founded in the quasi-mystical bases of their ideology (that I exposed earlier on when discussing Jane Galt's column on American Exceptionalism) and founded on the hard-core religious certainties that the omni-religious (and largely secular) left simply doesn't share. There's a reason there are no liberal militias. There's a reason that "liberal" became such a dirty word in American politics. There's a reason why Coulter was able to get away with saying that liberals should be scared into submission, or possibly executed. There's a reason why even mild left-wing critiques of the current administration is now called "Anti-American", in a disturbing shift back to McCarthyism. Hatred of the left runs wide, and runs deep.

Would this matter if there were equal numbers and equal power on each side? No, it wouldn't. I have no doubt that there are leftists who hate the right as much, although without the religious and mystical bases that allow American-style conservatism so much cohesion (barring the libertarian/conservative split). I also have no doubt that there are conservatives that are friendly to liberals who also don't share their views; I've met them, and actually have good friends who fit that description. There are not equal numbers, though, not where it matters, and certainly not equal power. There are not equal numbers on the radio. There are not equal numbers on television (corporation-friendly blandness and sensationalism does not count as a "liberal bias"), there are not equal numbers in the think tanks (and certainly not in the power or funding of those think-tanks), and there have never been equal numbers on the Internet. There are, however, equal numbers out there, as the 2000 election showed. What does that matter, though, if one side is raging and the other isn't?

There are already signs that things are changing and that the left is finally realizing that one side is playing hardball and the other isn't; it is beginning to respond in turn. One of the best is the previously mentioned MWO, which provides a valuable service in exposing the media's deference to the administration. Another is Paul Krugman's column, which, bit by bit, is unravelling the aura of fiscal responsibility and economic superiority that the right has taken for granted for too long. (Hence the reason the libertarian blogosphere is freaking out over Krugman; he's tearing apart their scripture and exposing that their alliance-of-convenience with the Republicans is nothing more than a hollow lie for those who actually value economic efficiency over lining their own pockets). Others are the liberal blogs I've found and the liberal sources online, which are slowly returning the Internet to parity... I hope. Parity will not matter, however, if the left does not remember that there are many on the right who think that we are, yes, evil. They cannot be dismissed. They cannot be ignored. They have too much power, they have too much influence, they have too much money for that. They must be met with all the wit and ferocity that the progressive community holds dear, and that community itself must learn to function with the kind of cohesion and strength that the right brings to bear every day, or it will be swamped.

Eric Alterman just started a quasi-blog named Altercation yesterday, with the full rollout today. He kicked it off with a brilliant comment on media bias and the "blogosphere":

Aside from that, all I can promise you is that it will reflect my obsessions: with the actually conservative leanings of the so-called “liberal media”; with the self-satisfied stupidity of the so much of the punditocracy; with the appalling lack of historical, economic, and sociological context of even the best U.S. reporting; with the never-ending wimpiness of the Democrats, with the perennially self-defeating obsession with holier-than-thou moral purity of so much of the Left; with the amazingly insane views regularly put forth by the Congressional Republican leadership and certain members of the Bush Administration (Thanks, Ralph); with the musical greatness of Bruce Springsteen; with Jews in general and Israel/Palestine in particular; and with lots of movies, music, plays, etc, so I can keep up the flow of free stuff. (As God is my witness, however, I promise never to write about anything that happens in my bathroom, my dinners with “Hitch,” and in the extremely unlikely event they ever happen, my car dates with Drudge.

Beautifully put, and a nice summation of why a liberal viewpoint is absolutely vital in any medium. It's tragic that they're so rare. I wish Alterman luck, and welcome his presence online, but I shudder to think of what will happen when the hordes of libertarian and conservative bloggers descend upon his column. Their howling attacks on Paul Krugman (for telling the truth) are bad enough, and he didn't invade their own space.

Yet another Krugman attack column.Random Jottings had already referred to Krugman as "Commissar Krugman" (always a good way of making your point), and this time takes the market fundamentalist position that Hoy was advocating earlier- that "The Market Will Provide" and that accounting practices will "evolve and adapt...grow and flex with the needs of the day". Pity it didn't work in Russia, and pity that this sort of mock "organic" way of describing what is, in essence, a human-built institution only serves to hide any real criticism of government intervention in this case.

I mean, give me a break. It "evolved and adapted" into the current mess it's in right now, didn't it? Evolution is a blind process... who's to say that it simply won't "evolve" into new accounting tricks to fiddle with stock prices that aren't as visible as the ones before? Who's to say that it will "evolve" at all, instead of changing juuust long enough to make investors think that everything is hunky-dory and then nudging things back to the way they used to be, except with less visibility?

He asks: "What would be the state of American capital markets today if GAAP had been written 200 years ago by the likes of Sens. Sarbanes, Levin and McCain?" I don't have an answer to that. Neither does Random Jottings, obviously. The state that they're in right now isn't exactly admirable, though, and the market "evolved" into it, just as the fundamentalists predicted.

Just goes to show: the last thing that market fundamentalists want to learn about is economics. Or, for that matter, evolution.

(This was linked from the Amateur Economist, who appears to be desperately trying to win the contest for "most obsessive Krugman basher". He's got tough competition, obviously, but unlike Hoy appears to avoid that stupid "Enron flack" gambit that hoisted Sullivan on his own petard and unlike Galt isn't trying to establish Groupthink in America. One wonders why they bother- if the columns are as bad as they say, surely nobody is listening, right?)

First time I've commented on this particular Blog:Live from the WTC, written by Jane Galt (I'm not sure if it's a Randian pseudonym or not), has an article defending the United States from European criticism that the country is unilateralist and exceptionalist. It includes a rather stirring defense of the U.S:

Because America is an idea. America is the idea that if you leave people alone to get on with things, they get it right most of the time. It's the idea that where you come from is a great deal less important than where you're going. It's the idea that if you don't like something, you can pick up a wrench, get in there, and start fixing it. It's the idea that if your solution doesn't work out the first time, there's always room to try again. It's the idea that the most important thing a person can do in life can only really be known to them, and the most important thing a government can do is get out of their way while they look for it. It's the idea that individuals aren't available in groups; they can only be packaged individually. It's the idea that liberty is worth our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. It's the expectation that you do the best you can with what you have. And it's the knowlege that if there are a bunch of people who are violating these ideas, one way or another, you don't have to beat them into submission -- you can pick up and go somewhere else, where the people are more congenial.

...and that's why we can do whatever we want, whenever we want, to whoever we want. That's why we can break our own rules when we want, break the rules we impose on others whenever we want, and support regimes which don't share our beliefs if it is in our own interests. We believe this and you do not, so you are not allowed to criticize us.

Does the U.S. actually do this? No, not necessarily, although there have been rather nasty cases in the past. The problem is that "a unique idea" (which is not in fact unique... these ideas largely come from European political theorists) does not in-and-of-itself grant divine wisdom. She starts the article by saying "No, I do not want to submit our foreign policy, economy, tax regime, or other important questions to a vote in which Europe carries the majority, no way nohow...because I think they'd do it wrong".

Listen: if an idea is superior, it is superior everywhere. If it isn't, then there is some nuance to the idea that eluded whoever originally thought it up. If it is superior, then (as J.S. Mill argued) it can be demonstrated to be superior, and can convince others by dint of its superiority. A state is not an idea. A state is a physical entity, with real people, real interests, and a diversity of thought. (Not all Europeans fit her simplistic stereotype; neither do most Americans). The biggest problem that the rest of the world has with the United States (North "America" actually includes three countries: it's telling that the United States took that name for its own "idea" which the other countries do not share) is that it continually mixes up its interests and ideals, calling interest ideal and ideal interest. There is no way to justify something like the support of the South American "National Security" states in the 70's and 80's by some "ideal". It was done because it fit American national interests.

The right always complains about the left and their "groupthink"... well, I can't think of any example of "groupthink" more disturbing than insisting that "either you believe this, or you aren't "American" (a problematic term, as I said above). Screw that. You're American if you were either born or immigrated there. That's it. Nothing else. If you like an idea, argue in favour if it, but don't use this sort of lame tactic to prop it up.

And like clockwork...Hoystory comes out with an attack on Krugman. Especially insightful was this passage:

Seriously, according to Krugman, Sarbanes bill is perfect as it stands. Contains no flaws and should simply pass both houses of Congress by voice vote. Why don't we just elect Sarbanes, with Krugman's consent, emperor? Debate and compromise is part of how democratic institutions work.

I love that "emperor" thing; good thing that the Blogosphere provides such quality journalism; how else would we get to hear the adult equivalent of "if you like it so much, why don't you marry it? It's immaterial. When Graham says he wants to "kill the bill" it doesn't mean "change the bill", it doesn't mean "hold off on the bill", and it doesn't mean "I think that word over there should be put over here. It means "I want to kill this piece of legislation".

Other than that, it's mostly the same kind of market-fundamentalist hogwash that got us into this situation in the first place, mixed with a heaping helping of ad hominem attacks, fresh-smelling strawmen (he wasn't just talking about Enron, and in fact only said the word twice), and a ludicrous "bet" that implies that a company has to be in bankruptcy court to bilk investors and pervert the market. (I'd personally advise Paul to avoid it.)

Ok, this is starting to bug me. Is anybody out there in the blogosphere actually defending one of the country's better economic commentators, and I'm missing them? Or is thought here so rigidly controlled and homogenized by the Libs that all we get is the kind self-congratulatory pablum we all got sick of in Wired about how those fresh, funky bloggers are "taking down the big shots". (Krugman is apparently a big shot now). The right complains about being shut out of academe; the left is shut out of everything else!

Ah well. maybe Hoy's right. The Market Will Provide.

Going on in today's NYT Op-Ed section, Nicholas Kristof wrote today about the newest force in international politics, Evangelical Christians. I tend to stay away from issues of religion; it's too easy to offend those you don't mean to offend, and you aren't likely to change anybody's mind. (That's one of the reasons I tend to stay out of Israel vs. Palestine discussions; that first entry was an anomaly). The question of religion and politics is one that I feel is important, however, and this sort of thing worries me. There's no question that religious groups can and do benefit people both domestically and around the world. The problem is that there's usually a catch. Take a look at this example:

The evangelical movement encompasses one-quarter of Americans and is growing quickly. One measure of its increasing influence is that a newsstand in the United Nations has carried the "Left Behind" series of religious novels by Tim LaHaye. These books, which have sold 50 million copies so far, describe the battles that precede the Second Coming, and there is indeed a United Nations connection: In the novels, the Antichrist is the secretary general

This concerns me. I'm not sure how many people actually believe those "Left Behind" books are in any way an accurate portrayal of what a Christian apocalypse might look like, but their (literal) demonization of the UN and the beliefs the books reflect are worrying. The only way that many of the problems that are facing the world can get solved, and the only way that the world continues to function more-or-less normally, is through international treaties and international organizations like the UN. While those who mistrust the UN have every right to that belief, dogmatic fear of visible international institutions like the UN not only hurts the people who benefit from these organizations, but empowers those who oppose the UN and related organizations because it opposes their own ill-gotten and ill-used concentrations of wealth and power. These kinds of people can and do use the beliefs of the common man to forward their personal agendas. I would not want the United States to go down that road.

In another column that is sure to provoke a loud response from ideologues (both blogger and non-blogger), Paul Krugman traces both the reasons for and the opposition to accounting reform. In essense, it's about executive compensation: thanks to the popularity of stock options executives were compelling to do whatever it took to create a smoothly rising stock price whether the fundamentals of the business warranted it or not. That's fairly uncontroversial, except perhaps among chapter-and-verse market fundamentalists. But Krugman goes on to show us where the opposition is:

Time for reform? Not according to some people. Today the Senate Banking Committee is scheduled to take up a bill drafted by Paul Sarbanes, the committee's chairman... Senator Phil Gramm, throwing his weight behind an all-out lobbying effort by the accounting industry, has made it clear that he will try to kill the bill.

I'd like to be nonpartisan here — really I would. And there are indeed Democrats who have gotten large contributions from accounting firms. But the current effort to prevent any meaningful accounting reform is explicitly a Republican initiative, one directed from the very top: The New York Times reports that Mr. Gramm is "working closely with the Bush administration" in his efforts to block the Sarbanes bill.

It seems those "partisan" comments and that ludicrous "study" have actually hit their mark a little bit. Krugman's earlier defense of his columns still applies, however: it isn't simple partisanship if the criticism is valid. You'd think the attack-dog Right would know this implicity- their entire case against Bill Clinton was built on this basic idea. Now that their boy is in the White House, though, they've changed their tune. Not surprising. That was the entire idea all along.

An interesting article about the differences between Canadians and Americans from John Ibbitsonhere. It mostly goes over the usual suspects (one of the biggest differences to me, actually, is that Canadians ask this question and Americans don't) but there was one paragraph in particular that arrested my attention:

One of the most perceptive missives pointed out that, while the American Constitution was formed in the age of the European Enlightenment, with its emphasis on individual rights, the British North America Act was crafted almost 100 years later, "at the high noon of 19th-century English liberalism." A utilitarian document, it emphasizes collective good over individual liberty. So a Canadians v. Americans debate is really about 19th-century v. 18th-century liberalism.

Lockean vs. Utilitarian concepts of liberalism, government and property; that actually comes closer to the mark than many (if not most) of the analyses of the differences between the two societies. It certainly explains the differences between the governmental systems and treatment of firearms. It's too bad that Ibbitson had to keep his sources secret, because I'd love to hear more about this theory.

Well, the whole "Bush Knew" flap has hit Sullivan's site and as anybody who was paying attention could tell, he's spinning in favour of the president.

So far as I can tell, there were no specific threats, no suggestion of commandeering planes to use as missiles, nothng that could be differentiated from any number of such warnings before or since. John Ellis is right about this.

Really? That's interesting, considering that Media Whores Online quoted this story on bloomberg that seems to imply that the warning did happen, and with enough specificity to be taken seriously. Pardon me if I don't take Donald Rumsfeld spinning like a top on Rush Limbaugh seriously as an answer to this. Rush isn't going to criticize, and Rumsfeld wouldn't answer criticism. Rush was just trying to help Rumsfeld take the heat off: they talked about the scandal for only as long as necessary to dismiss it. Most of the Rush interview was about Crusader and Iraq.

Do I think Bush actively covered it up or was directly responsible? No, I don't. If there was a systemic failure in the administration, though... if this could have been prevented, Bush should know that the buck stops with him. That's his job: he's the one that takes the credit, and he's the one that takes the heat. I doubt he will because his handlers don't want him to, but that's what the job is supposed to entail.

More blather from Matthew Hoy's Hoystory anti-Krugman attack column today. I'm not overly worried about this guy actually scoring a blow; Krugman, with typical ease, both answered and humiliated that moronic "partisan" charge with this lovely little blurb on his main site, and it's ludicrous to think that the garden-variety neo-cons Krugman critics like Hoy could actually score points on the man. This particular entry was actually fairly complimentary to Krugman, but there are still some good parts.

Let's take a look at some highlights, shall we?

In the wake of the Enron scandal and the ripple effect it's had on the accounting world, I certainly agree that accounting rules have to be strengthened. Where I disagree with Krugman is the necessity that the government take a lead role.I think that most corporations, at least for the next few years, are going to want their accountants to follow the strictest accounting rules possible. If Standard & Poor's guidelines for one-time expenses are more informative to investors then investors will act on that information. As long as public corporations' books are open to scrutiny and accountants are honest, the system works. The problem with Enron was in how they cooked their books, with the aid of Arthur Anderson.

The problem is that this is a classic Free Rider situation. Every company in the business is going to want to look like they've remedied their practices and are going to want someone (else) to do the proper work so they can actually make proper forecasts for their own clients. They aren't going to want to do it themselves, though; "cooked books" and bad advice are just too lucrative to give up. Krugman's beloved "moral hazard" would come into play sooner or later, even after that "next few years". Much of this came out of the last big boom... what happens when the next one hits and corporations decide that creative accounting is "the wave of the future" once again? What happens when the the "dumb money" decides that everything's hunky-dory, and somebody decides to cash in on their ignorance? There's a reason regulatory bodies exist, and its to deal with corporations when they're feeling larcenous (like before) not when they've been caught with their hands in the cookie jar and get slapped (like now).

That's a fairly minor economic point, though, that just shows that Hoy doesn't understand Krugman very well. The comments on the tax column on his page made that pretty clear (before he deleted them... heh) but it's a point worth repeating. What's really funny are garden-variety bashes like this:

When I flipped to the second printed page of Krugman, I was overcome with relief. Krugman had not been abducted by aliens. He had not been replaced by a "pod-person"

There it was, in black and white, an attack on President Bush.

What if it's deserved? I refer you back to this. Krugman seems to delight in mocking and humiliating his critics. He certainly has a gift for it, even as they keep on swinging and missing, swinging and missing...

Finally, it appears that Krugman may be adjusting his columns in an attempt to remove himself from the top of lying in ponds list of most partisan pundits...Add the negative on Bush to the negative on Levin along with the positives of McCain and Levin and this column balances out very nice.

There is power in the blogosphere.

The self-congratulatory nature of bloggers, especially neo-con bloggers, is part of the reason I felt compelled to start this. Honestly, if I didn't like the medium so much I would have stayed away because of the attitude. Birds of a feather, I suppose. This particular bird, however, needs to learn something about methodology, because the methodological base of this "partisan pundits" thing is utter nonsense. It is, as my old political theory prof would say, "Dangerously Wrong". I haven't seen statistical science this bad since The Bell Curve. The very notion that Krugman can "massage" it only shows how barmy it truly is.

Somebody else is swinging-and-missing over here. I'd suggest that Krugman start his own blog, but he's too busy writing a textbook on economics.

The "Amateur Economist" suggests that

in order to test Krugman's assertion, he needs to be compared to other economists who are columnists.

Well, actually his argument is that his columns are demonstrably true and accurate and that the reason is because he understands economics. Horse vs. cart, friend. Still, I'll agree. Lets find other columnists who are currently writing a textbook on economics and we'll talk, hmm?

The neo-con sector of the "Blogosphere" needs to do a little speedbag work, I think. It's getting pummelled.

Jeffrey Simpson in the Globe and Mail highlighted a new bill before the Senate that would give the U.S. Senate back the ability to pick and choose what parts of a trade agreement it likes; something that it (quite rightly) lost with Fast Track. Since the Senate is just slightly more inclined towards pork barrelling than the presidency usually is, this would pretty much cripple the United States' ability to enact trade agreements with other countries, and kill any desire for other countries to do so.

Ok, let's be honest here. The U.S. has got a dollar that's going to fall any time soon, an expensive war to fight, it's pretty much written itself out of free trade agreements, and its international authority is at an all-time low thanks to this Israel/Palestine brouhaha that I doubt will end anytime soon. I have just one question: are we finally, actually seeing the start of this "decline of the American empire" that people have been predicting for the century, or is this just a blip on the radar?

(I just know somebody is going to read this someday and I'll get a bunch of emails that say something like "America-hater!" It's just a question.)

There's also a point about economics here (and by extension libertarian politics). The U.S. has slapped enough barriers on trade that it's looking mighty protectionist right now. Will other, open economies grow faster in comparison (as the free trade globalization types like to argue) or will it honestly make any difference at all? It tends to be a tenet of economic faith that free-trade in-and-of itself is good whether the other guy bothers or not. Looks like the US is going to be testing that. I can't wait to find out what happens.

Bill Safire wrote yet another column today about genetic engineering, one in the continuing series of speculations about what this science will do in the future that has seen everybody from luminaries like Francis Fukuyama to garden-variety libertarian bloggers arguing back and forth about what is and isn't right about it. Safire himself doesn't really add much; most of the article is the same sort of "we're going to create a new Frankenstein" and "the public needs to start discussing this" scaremongering that typically surrounds the issue. There's a few questionable suppositions, though, including this odd example:

But what about drugs to enhance memory or alertness, to be taken before a test — isn't this akin to an athlete unethically taking steroids before a race? If we quiet the broadest range of inattentive, hyperactive children with compounds like Ritalin, do we weaken the development of adult concentration, character and self-control?

No, Bill, it really isn't like an athlete taking steroids, it's more like you having your morning coffee. Athletes live under restrictions that most of the rest of us would balk at, but it's because the entire idea is to get to the limits of human ability and human endurance. The "real world" relies on different tools, some marginally harmful, to get by every day. Some of those tools are various drugs, like the caffeine (uppers), alcohol (downer), analgesics, and other over-the-counter or prescription meds that we take every day. The computer you wrote this on is probably ruining your eyesight, and disturbing numbers of people get wrist injuries from using the keyboards. The only difference is that a computer is "externally applied".

Safire, and others, also seem to miss the point. The question is not whether we should stop genetic technology; the question is whether we can. Even a cursory examination of the historical record and a little bit of Machiavelli reveals that attempts to keep technology "under wraps" are difficult at best and usually futile. Genetics isn't exactly like nuclear weapons: it's relatively inexpensive, the source material is all around us and part of us, and it's intricately tied with technology that is becoming less and less expensive with each passing day. The Hubris in this case is not on the part of those who argue in favour of the technology, but those who believe it can even be controlled.

Bloody hell, this thing got long fast, didn't it? Blame that right-clicking "Blog This!" trick. Lovely little toy.

Andrew Sullivan's Book Club includes a wide variety of responses to his review of the Skeptical Environmentalist. Most are complimentary to Bjorn, and this doesn't exactly surprise me, considering that he's basically confirming their own views.

A few examples:

The general tone and findings of the Skeptical Environmentalist pretty much confirmed my own views of the state of the environment; however, it seems that my views of the environmental movement were pretty naive and far too generous.

First of all, thank you, Andrew, for choosing this important book. For me, reading "The Skeptical Environmentalist" has been like finding a friend - finally, and at long last.

And bringing politics into it:

So here is the puzzle. Why is Lomborg's book just now attracting such controversy when all it does is review and rehash well-known, old arguments (and update some statistics and controversy)? Why did Simon and Kahn's work not [receive] massive hostility from "Scientific American"? . . .
I speculate the reasons for the reaction involve leftwing politics. Many viewed Kahn and Simon as "American rightwing ideological economists," as Lomborg admits he once viewed Simon. (Kahn may have partially inspired the title character of "Dr. Strangelove," to give a sense of how he was regarded.) Thus, the left wing could dismiss their views as inherently without merit and unworthy of response or consideration. Censorship via silence. But Lomborg was a progressive Social Democrat and member of Greenpeace from politically-correct Denmark. For Lomborg to change his mind and to reject publicly the "Litany" made him not merely an adversary but a heretic and apostate. The only appropriate response was burning at the stake.

Their responses to the Scientific American rebuttals (and re-re-rebuttals) follow a similar vein, usually arguing something along the lines of "why are they so harsh? Bjorn must have ticked them off because he had a point!" There's also an element of anti-scientism, as seen here:

we live under a political system that gives the public substantial say in formulating social and economic policy. Scientists make important contributions to this process by helping to characterize the consequences of various alternatives. Their expertise ought to be respected, but it can never be a substitute for politics, because scientists cannot tell us what to value or how to make appropriate tradeoffs between multiple and conflicting goods.

This misses the point, which the Scientific American articles tried to get across and I guess failed. (One apparent anti-environmental zealot actually called it "the misnamed 'Scientific American'"; while I'm not one for arguments from authority this is pretty damned ignorant). It's not that the discoveries and research of scientists are being accepted and weighed against others... they've being utterly ignored. Most of the letter-writers on that page haven't demonstrated that they know enough about the issues and the research to be able to draw an educated conclusion about practically anything in environmental science, yet they seem blithely willing to do so, assuming that a heavily criticized, non-peer-reviewed polemic that reconfirms their own prejudices is somehow more authoritative than decades of confirmed and reconfirmed environmental research. Once again, the question arises: why the hell should anybody bother actually doing research if people are simply going to ignore it and respond to those who attempt to explain it with namecalling?

I can once again see why Paul Krugman goes through such hell.

I find it terribly amusing that this is what Andrew Sullivan was referring to when he called Matthew Hoy "the quintessential debunker of Krugman rhetoric" and an example of "blogging keeping big-shot journalism on its toes". Check out the "comments" threads beside the story.. it would appear that somebody else is keeping big-shot bloggers on their toes as well. Bless their little hearts. (I also posted there, but I defer to the superior work of the earlier responses).

Krugman's comments about non-economists making a hash of the work of real economists (like Krugman himself) ring ever more true by the day. The Laffer curve indeed.

Beautiful castigation of the "economists for hire" at Cato and Heritage on J. Bradford DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal.

Now why does Moore follow this strategy of grasping for the weak and false but good-sounding bite when there are strong, powerful, and valid arguments on his side? The reason is that he is embedded in an ecology in which the major players are people who can't evaluate the substantive strength of intellectual and policy arguments, aren't especially interested in learning the substance of public policy in any depth, yet have acquired substantial journalistic influence without every learning that their own biases and kneejerk reactions are not automatically valid. In such an ecology, what use are a commitment to education first and partisanship second? What use are scruples? What use is an unwillingness to make the worse appear the better cause? You lose them if you swim in the seas of Cato and Heritage, just as animals that live underground lose their eyesight...

In other words, "people only want to hear what they already agree with, and there's always somebody willing to tell it to them". Doesn't mean The Truth Isn't Out There, but too many of us don't want to hear it. (Reminds me of that Scientific American article; what I didn't mention is all the ideologues that were attempting to back Bjorn on the letters page).

A good piece on the Scientific American site. It's a rebuttal to a rebuttal to a rebuttal (heh) of Bjorn Lomborg's book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, which points out the incredible number of errors, misrepresentations, and mixups that were involved in that book. It's an interesting read in that respect, but more interesting (for my purposes) for another reason. Check it out:

The Skeptical Environmentalist was glowingly reviewed, not long after its appearance in English translation, in The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. The reviewers for those publications were evidently pleased with the book’s message – "environmental problems are not as bad as we’ve been told, and things are mostly getting better" – but they evidently lacked the background or the inclination to find the flaws beneath the surface of Lomborg’s glib and citation-strewn presentation. Subsequent reviews by natural scientists –which have appeared so far in Nature, Science, Scientific American, and American Scientist – have been blistering.

The Economist is a well known and fairly conservative magazine which doesn't hide its particular ideological bent. There's nothing wrong with that, and I personally find it to be a good read. The problem, however, is that they (and the other newspapers) demonstrate a willingness to buy whatever arguments they can find that happen to illustrate their point, without bothering to research opposing viewpoints. This is especially egregious in the case of a book about scientists and science, but it pops up everywhere. What the hell is the point of peer reviewed, rigorous science if the media (even elite media like the Economist) is only going to pick and choose whatever they want to hear, and ignore peer-reviewed mainstream scientific research in a cowardly attempt to hide the possibility that their arguments might not hold water? Paul Krugman highlighted this problem in Peddling Prosperity when discussing the pseudo-economists pushing supply-side snake oil on one side and "strategic trade" on the other, but it's far more widespread than the field of economics. It's affecting the entirety of academic research, and it only strengthens the position of those selling easy answers in the face of real-world complexity.

Nick Denton highlights a possible problem that one of his readers pointed out:

Because the blogging community contains a disproportionate number of libertarians, it's possible that Google searches on certain hot-button issues will start skewing toward libertarian-friendly pages. Given Google's increasing prominence, this libertarian slant could prove to be more significant than the more familiar concerns about liberal bias in the major networks, and conservative bias on Fox News

While interesting, this isn't exactly a new thing. Anybody who has spent any time at all on Usenet or on broad-spectrum discussion forums knows how disproportionately promenent libertarian views usually are. The only difference is the medium.

Well, here's my first entry.Travelling Shoes highlighted a supposed connection between Ted Rall, Noam Chomsky and "former" Klansman David Duke.

Here's his summation:

It's a fun game to play, putting David Dukes' words along side those of Chomsky, Rall and others of that ilk. Not just fun, but instructive. Instructive because it illustrates an old axiom, that once you get far enough out there, the political time-space continuum starts to bend, so that the far, far, far left eventually meets up with the far, far, far right. Usually the two sides find common ground on the issues of state authoritarianism (they're both for it) and Israel (they're both against it). The celestial conjunction of Duke and Rall and Chomsky completes the circle in a predictable way, and in doing so it validates everything we'd always suspected about all three.

Nonsense. It proves only one thing: that these three people dislike Israel. The reasons that they dislike Israel (or, crucially, the Israeli government) can and do vary wildly, and drawing these sorts comparisons based on nothing but conveniently de-contextualized comments is Godwinning of the worst sort. Duke dislikes Israel because he's an anti-Semite, sure, but Rall and Chomsky's own quotes show that their criticism of Israel as a state is due to the actions of Israel as a state. I have little doubt that Chomsky would criticize any other state in the same position. He certainly has in the past, and it takes some significant twisting to actually paint Chomsky as an state authoritarian. Not that that's uncommon nowadays.

Why on earth do conservatives continually argue that to be a critic of the Israeli occupation or the Israeli government is to be anti-Semitic? You don't need to hate the religion or the race in order to argue against the actions of a government you believe is oppressive. Are their arguments so fundamentally weak that they need to resort to this sort of juvenile tactic? Why would it even matter where the argument comes from or who it resembles? An argument lives or dies on its own. The person who says it doesn't matter.

Testing complete. Blog systems go!

Ok, enough cheese.

My name, at least for the purposes of this site, is Demosthenes. It comes from two different people: a fictional character, and a real historical figure. The real one is a Greek orator by the same name, who is considered by some to be the best orator who ever lived. Although I haven’t read that many of his speeches yet, what I’ve read I liked. The second and more important “Demosthenes”, however, is from Orson Scott Card’s “Ender’s Game”. Demosthenes is the demogogic network pseudonym of one of the main characters, Valentine Wiggin. Together with her brother Peter’s more reasonable “Locke” pseudonym, they manage to have a decisive effect on world events and world politics. They were barely teenagers.

I read this book around the same time that the public became aware of the Internet. It had a profound effect. Breathless and optimistic articles in Wired magazine proclaimed that the Internet would change political discourse forever. The Internet would bring everybody together, there would be consensus, or at least agreement on the positions of the people on either side. The cliché about “brave new worlds” was in full flower, and the possibility of a teenager changing the world by talking on the Internet seemed not just possible, but inevitable. So I took on the name “Demosthenes” to show my belief in the power of debate to change the world.

Indeed, times have changed, although not in the way I would have preferred.

Internet debate has become little more than a joke in some sectors. It’s commonly thought of as nothing more than obnoxious partisan namecalling. Nobody pays attention to it; the Simpsons summarized the situation pretty accurately when one character, suggesting that they publish salacious material on the Internet, got the response “I’ve got a better idea… let’s put it somewhere where people will actually pay attention!” The Internet is a sideshow, right? The thing is, that isn’t quite true anymore either. People are starting to get attention on the Internet. Bloggers and Blogs, thanks to the ease and visibility of publishing and the simplicity of interconnection between them, have become increasingly visible and influential in a way almost impossible on Usenet or on the thousands of fractured web boards out there. It makes sense; after all, obnoxiousness and namecalling are pretty endemic to political discussion a lot of the time. It’s the partisanship that’s a problem.

Conservativism dominate discussion nowadays, and liberalism lives in its shadow. They have a commanding presence on talk radio, as TV commentators, many political magazines are conservative to a degree that would be impossible for liberalism, and the major newspapers, despite being called “liberal” by the far right, are hardly bastions of leftist thinking; they’re barely even centrist, only being called “liberal” because they’re to the right of the commentators. Look at Crossfire: the remarkable negative reaction by a Republican administration to a show where the left-wing hosts are barely as aggressive as the typical conservative commentator. Look at Fox News: a station that can get away with far-right commentary and editorial bias simply because of the assumption that centrist news is “liberal” in some fashion. Look at think tanks: conservative industry front groups and apologists become widely quoted by the media and believed implicitly, despite the flaws of many of their arguments, whereas centrist and leftist groups are ignored. This leads to a seeming uniformity of opinion and thought; those who attempt to speak up for their non-conservative beliefs can be shouted down by the horde, or inundated with so many contradicting arguments that they cannot hope to respond. This is, of course, assuming that they even get a voice at all, and considering who owns the media and who gets funding it perhaps isn’t surprising that those who defend disproportionate wealth and power receive wealth and power in turn.

The Internet is no different. In fact, here it’s worse: here, somehow, demographics and chance have elevated a relatively minor and marginal philosophy, Libertarianism, to an utterly dominant ideology. Even those who disagree with it (including true conservatism of various stripes) are forced to use its terms and engage its basic assumptions in any discussion. Libertarians and Libertarian arguments invade and shape every discussion, every debate, every meeting of people with different points of view. This is not due to any intrinsic strength to their arguments (as much as their proponents would like to think so), nor is it due to the sort of financial backing that keeps think tanks and many other forms of media leaning rightward. It is because the sheer numbers, repetition and forcefulness of the proponents of that belief system lend it enormous credibility and strength. That is why I decided to borrow the title of Mr. Card’s latest book, as it seems remarkably appropriate. Liberals are marginalized, isolated, and dominated by Libertarian and Conservative thought online. They live in the Shadow of the Hegemon.

Several bloggers have written about how Liberal bloggers are hard to find, and they certainly lack the sense of community, sense of identity and famous proponents that Libertarian or Conservative bloggers take for granted. The Liberals have no one with the cachet of Instapundit or Sullivan (although Josh Marshall comes close.) It was those writings that prompted me to start this site, so that I could in my own small way attempt to respond to this dominant ideology and make a contribution to Liberal thought online. This does not mean that I intend to spend all my time talking about such things, nor that I will unthinkingly dismiss right-wing arguments or unthinkingly accept left-wing arguments. I’m actually a political centrist, although describing centrist nowadays is practically impossible. There is an imbalance out there, however, and I would be remiss if, in noticing it and lamenting it, I didn’t do what I could to respond to it.

One other thing… don’t worry, most of my blog entries will not be this long. I may eventually set this up as a linked document, in order to keep straight what I’m doing and why I’m here.

Well, without any further adieu…