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"The stream of Time, irresistible, ever moving, carries off and bears away all things that come to birth and plunges them into utter darkness, both deeds of no account and deeds which are mighty and worthy of commemoration. . .Nevertheless, the science of History is a great bulwark against the stream of Time; in a way it checks this irresistible flood, it holds in a tight grasp whatever it can seize floating on the surface and will not allow it to slip away into the depths of Oblivion. "
- Anna Comnena (1083-1153), The Alexiad
"I have taken all knowledge to be my province."
- Francis Bacon, 1592
Saturday, March 13, 2004
See? I told You So
Via Glenn Reynolds, Mort Kondracke echoes what I've been saying about what a clean, substantive, thoughtful campaign of thoughtful civic discourse the Democrats and Kerry have been running.
Then there is this article on how the Army, spread thin, will be re-deploying units back to Iraq a year after their return. Again, a point I made in suggesting that we need a larger Army.
Finally, related to earlier posts on Iraq, is this article on Basra's economic situation.
As people assemble at the Spanish Embassy, John Podhoretz seems angry. Are you? When did we lose our anger? Half the country can only express anger at Bush, it seems. There, they seem sincere - that's where they have their fire. Kerry's words on our enemies lack the fire he reserves for Bush or Republicans. But he's the standard-bearer for the Good People, so it's alright.
The Washington Post has a fairly decent editorial on 3/11, though. 3/11 and I'm pretty convinced it wasn't ETA, you know?
Be sure to check out Krauthammer and Peters as well. Read back to back they make quite an impression, and drive home who our real allies our. The Peters piece is a fitting tribute to Aznar - and Spain. As Peters says in closing:
Spain stood by us. Now we must have the vision to stand by Spain.
I have to say I'm more than a little disappointed in the 24 hour news channels. Yah, when little or nothing is going on I guess I can understand them filling time with constant updates of M.J., Kobe, Peterson, Martha, and the rest of the rogues gallery that makes up any given month's "trial of the century".
But yesterday something did happen, and it seems that these "news" channels gave quick, brief updates and couldn't wait to get back to discussing the same old fluff in greater detail at greater length. Is it ratings driven? Probably. The same half dozen people going from channel to channel absorbing every last detail of these trials does not a majority make, however. But there are those of us who know that there's something more going on out in the world beyond the CourtTV news. I mean, isn't there a war on or something? Say what you will about Jerry Rivers (AKA Geraldo Rivera), at least he did shift his focus from that garbage to the war. The rest of his brethren have yet to catch up with that. John Kerry isn't the only one who wants to go back to sleep, back to the '90s. I'm beginning to think that we need more than a "fair and balanced" news channel. We need a news channel that isn't just the daily celebrity police blotter. In the meantime, every time one of these cases is mentioned, my hand reaches for the button.
Well, I guess that's what the web is for. though you can certainly find that crap if you want to, you can also avoid it and focus on real news. Btw, did you know that South Korea's President has been impeached? And James Dunnigan is keeping score on Iraq.
Update: Andrew Olmstead has some thoughts, and I need to back off tad. Or at any rate add the caviat that there are some oases of hard news shows on these channels. I catch "Special Report" as often as I can, going so far as to tape it, for example.
Bai Yiben worked hard to build up his property development business after retiring from a state-owned textile company in 1992, saving every penny and plowing it back into the company. After years of struggling, his firm turned the corner in 2000.
His newfound wealth didn't go unnoticed. Powerful officials linked to China's military and Communist Party decided they wanted the fruits of his labor, family members charge.
Check out the whole sorry story.
Me? I like India a lot more - not that it's perfect. But it's better in many ways. Democratic government helps, for one. The other thing you'll notice if you read to the end of the Friedman piece is that the Indians seem to have a much better idea of what a market economy involves than China's government does. Or than most American Democratic politicians for that matter.
When I was originally thinking about this post I wanted to say that one if the fun things about blogging is you never know which posts are going to generate interesting mails. But now that might seem like those who wrote ignored the attack in Spain this morning, so let me first start off by saying that these mails came in last night, before the Madrid attacks. They both relate to post on banning stuff to save lives.
Engineer Poet writes, in an e-mail titled “Banning or Regulation?” as follows:
you are mis-stating the point of the article you cite. The article talks about a ban on smoking in public places, not smoking in general. The difference is crucial, because many of the lives saved (and much of the morbidity prevented) comes from non-smokers who are currently exposed to smoke in public places. The comparison to sky-diving is inapt; skydiving is prohibited over populated areas, and thus falling skydivers present a negligible threat to the public.
The difference is less crucial than you make it out to be. Once a certain point is passed, it starts becoming a distinction without a difference. Now, I say this as a non-smoker. I also say this as someone who might notice a cute or beautiful girl, but upon seeing she’s a smoker – well, it’s a total turn-off. But studies on second-hand smoke are more than a little controversial. Lets set that aside for the moment, though, and proceed with Engineer Poet’s mail:
Smoking is a problematic habit because smoke does not respect boundaries. One cannot easily choose whether or not to inhale smoke, and some people's health and wellbeing are threatened by even slight exposure. A ban on smoking in public spaces still leaves smokers with many options, such as smoking in private spaces (smoking booths?), consuming nicotine in the form of chewing tobacco or gum, or other options not yet invented (entrepreneurial opportunities). What it will do is restrict exposure to people who actually choose it, much as the threat from falling skydivers is restricted by the geographic limitations on the sport. As a libertarian, I believe this is a good thing.
I’m not a Libertarian, but it seems like it falls on me often to make the more Libertarian argument. Here I’ll be echoing what Walter E. Williams has said on the subject.
The first thing to note here is the progressive redefinition of what constitutes a public space (see here related), and also what constitutes an unacceptable risk to others. Taking the last first, Engineer Poet notes that “some” people’s wellbeing are threatened by even slight exposure to smoke. Well, others are affected by to some perfumes. Still others are affected by cat or dog dander. All sorts of accommodations are needed by a variety of people and as a Libertarian one really has to ask oneself the extent to which such accommodations can be made at the expense of other’s liberty.
Which brings me to the redefinition of what constitutes a public space. Note here we’re not talking about the government just saying you can’t smoke on government property or in government buildings or the public sidewalk. We’re talking about the government dictating to owners of private property – businesses and the like. Lets take the example of “smoking booths” that Engineer Poet raises. Why not let owners of restaurants or bars decide whether to permit smoking or not in their establishments? Non-smokers are then free to decide whether to frequent those establishments or not. This is Liberty. Now, you might say “well, too few people will say no smoking is allowed. The only way to insure that the majority of us non-smokers are free from having to either chose to sit in a smoke-filled lobby or stay home is through government regulation.” Well, that’s an argument. But note that it’s not a Libertarian argument. It’s not an argument based on respect for private choice and liberty. It’s an argument that opens up a can of worms that Libertarians usually dislike. Which brings me to the second mail, sent by Terrey Cobb:
What has always bothered me most about "Universal Healthcare" is that its adoption would give the Nanny-Nazis a valid argument for banning smoking, fatty foods, sky-diving or whatever. Since we, the taxpayers, are paying for your healthcare, we have the right to prohibit or punish aspects of your lifestyle which statistically result in us having to spend more dollars for your healthcare. Its only fair.
And the horror of it is, they would have a point. After all, private insurance companies do base your rates (absent government regulations) on individual circumstances, but then again (absent government regulations) they can't force you to buy a policy from them. But it just tends to illustrate the principle that involuntary Collectivism and freedom are incompatible. I hate to exhibit signs of optimism (its like cheap whiskey, too much of it makes you stupid and will result in extreme headaches down the line), but I think more people are beginning to wake up to this.
Let us hope.
Great, or strange, minds think alike. This has been one of my concerns about government-provided health care proposals, going back to when I was a Liberal myself. It certainly fits within the “if it affects someone else, we should regulate it” position. Do I want to pay higher taxes because some of you are unhealthy slobs? The solution here, of course, is to defeat proposals for universal, “single payer” government sponsored health care, in no small part because of the affect it will have on Liberty.
Now, supporters of such concepts will scoff, and say that other countries have such benefits without constraints on freedom. Well, I beg to differ: these are generally countries, though democratic, with much different concepts of liberty. Also, we’re now living in an era of much greater concern over what other people eat. We can already see where trends would take us, given our Tort system. America is not the same as other countries, and our attitudes towards paying for other people’s folly is quite different from countries where people are resigned to such things. Indeed, I would suggest that Engineer Poet’s mail is evidence of that: smokers can knock themselves out, until they affect anyone else in even a small way, at which point they should be “regulated” (prevented). To be fair to E.P., no doubt E.P. would oppose any form of universal health care (on Libertarian grounds). But if it were passed and E.P. was then being asked to pay for your health problems, many, many people would insist you not do anything that would effectively make them financially responsible for your unhealthy choices. Indeed, good solid argument could be made that people engaging in behavior known to be risky health-wise and expecting the rest of us to pick up the tab would be acting like “free riders”. The fact is, collectivism – voluntary or involuntary – is incompatible with individual Liberty. That is, even if we agree to vote for it, we’re agreeing to vote away our Liberty. It won’t be the first time people have done that, and some like the security and prefer it over freedoms they personally don’t, or seldom exercise.
Update: Engineer Poet responds. I have to take issue with this:
The issue Porphyrogenitus does not acknowledge is that the right to wave one's fist ends at another's nose
That's simply not true, and is a distortion of what I said. The question is the degree to which government should tell people how they can use their property. As to what is settled law or not, it is apparently Engineer Poet's position that we cannot disagree with a law once it is settled - at least once it is settled in a given direction.
My post in reply to Thomas Sowell was very clear on this point. It is the re-definition of "public space" to include privately owned property which is the punch that is not ending at someone else's nose. Sure, people can invent all sorts of reasons to regulate the choices of others and impose decisions on them by fiat, in their own good or for the good of others. But that's not a Libertarian position. Libertarians classically understand that the greatest threat to liberty in a democracy will stem from such concerns.
Here, a Libertarian position that respects the rights of smokers, non-smokers, and the owners of private establishments, might be to call for public disclosure of whether you are going to permit smoking in your business or not. That way people who do not want to breathe smoke-filled air - of whom I am one when it gets thick enough to be noticeable - can chose freely to not frequent those establishment. The analogy here is far closer to if you go into an gym and someone is doing jumping jacks and you deliberately put your nose into where that person will hit you, but then blame him for your bloody nose, that is a bit much and the fault may lay with yourself. The Libertarian solution certainly isn't to dictate to others by imposing broad bans.
I'll note that Engineer Poet ignores the bulk of my argument which correctly questions if there is a limit to the principle invoked here - because there are quite a few things that endanger the health of someone that would be open to restrictive regulation if this were applied consistently. The "if it saves even one life" attitude is dealt with by Thomas Sowell in his books The Vision of the Anointed & The Quest for Cosmic Justice. There is no endpoint on this path that permits the existence of liberty.
Major terror attack on Madrid rail system, with over 170 dead and 500-600 injured, most casualties from a terror attack in modern Spanish history. May the Lord keep the souls of the dead, comfort their families and friends, may the injured recover quickly and completely, and may the culprits (not "those responsible") be brought to justice. Spain's government fingering ETA, which is denying involvement. More later.
I have to say that from the description, it sounds more like an al-Qaeda attack than something ETA would pull off - the multiple bombs (including three found and defused) resembles al-Qaeda's MO. But I don't claim to be an expert, and I'm not on the scene.
Bush has condemned the attack and expressed America's solidarity with Spain. Due to the effectiveness of the press in covering the Bush Administration, I'm having trouble finding a link to that at the moment.
More: Read here for how the attack was unlike ETA's MO and akin to al-Qaeda's.
I'm a big fan of Thomas Sowell. I had a link to his webpage when I had links to hardly anyone. Speaking of which, I added several folks this weekend, Victor Davis Hanson, Leo Laporte, and some excellent bloggers. Check 'em out.
Thomas Sowell has a piece on Gay Marriage which makes a comparison that will be controversial, to say the least:
So, the argument goes, what is wrong with Massachusetts judges and the mayor of San Francisco challenging laws that they consider unjust today?
First of all, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King were private citizens and they did not put themselves above the law. On the contrary, they submitted to arrest in order to gain the public support needed to change the laws.
As private citizens, neither Mrs. Parks nor Dr. King wielded the power of government. Their situation was very different from that of public officials who use the power delegated to them through the framework of law to betray that framework itself, which they swore to uphold as a condition of receiving their power.
The real analogy would be to Governor George Wallace, who defied the law by trying to prevent black students from being enrolled in the University of Alabama under a court order.
It depends on which supporters of Gay Marriage we're talking about. First, lets go back to the initial comparison. Sowell mentions the court decisions of the Civil Rights era. Now, many principled Libertarians and Constitutionalists have a problem with that - not with the outcome, as they believe in equality before the law for all, but with how cases were handled and the rationales behind the decisions. But Sowell here does not reference that.
Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King challenged the laws, as did other Civil Rights figures, and one of the key methods of challenging them was Constitutional arguments made through the court system. Such challenges led to the overturning of school segregation laws in the '50s. Now, again some may disagree with how the Court arrived at its decisions and reasonable people can believe that although the overturning of Jim Crow apartheid was a good thing, the means in which it was done created new problems - an overreaching Judiciary - that we live with today. But people making the Civil Rights comparison that Sowell objects to do not see things that way. Thus, the comparison is rather apt. Indeed, I may say it's apt even on the terms of those who object to an overactive judiciary. Indeed, one of the arguments that people favoring judicial restraint often have to confront is the question of how equal justice for all would have been advanced in the absence of an active judiciary. Sowell references that argument:
Gay rights activists argue that activist judges have overturned unjust laws in the past and that society is better off for it. The argument that some good has come from some unlawful acts in the past is hardly a basis for accepting unlawful acts in general.
But doesn't really deal with the matter that it isn't always simply a matter of activist judges overturning laws they don't like. Sometimes there is the legitimate roll of upholding Constitutional protections from government (legislative) violations of it. This is certainly where things get tricky, and it seems that both sides of the debate on judicial activism, but in particular those who are in favor of it, tend to blur the distinction between the striking down of unconstitutional measures and reinterpreting the constitution continuously in ways that allow judges to legislate themselves.
Now, as for the highly inflammatory comparison between local government officials ignoring the law today and George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door refusing to permit the Supreme Court's decisions from being enforced, I do have to say that this comparison is less strained than those of us who support Gay Marriage would like it to be. The Massachusetts Supreme Court is following a tradition of constitutional interpretation by the Courts, and the extent to which that is being abused can certainly be argued. But the tradition these local executives, such as the Mayor of San Francisco, are following definitely does seem to be in line with that of the lawless defenders of Jim Crow. But I'll note the irony here: George Wallace and his ilk could aptly say that they were following properly enacted laws, resisting the illegitimate encroachments of an activist judiciary and the unconstitutional abuses of Federal power against the rights of State and local communities. On those terms, the arguments they made weren't all that different from what Thomas Sowell is saying here.
Me, I would much rather see this happen in respect to the tradition of civil disobedience combined with a respect for the Rule of Law. Civil disobedience that causes people to change their minds, that persuades them, and leads to legislation enacted by, well, legislatures. This can happen given the way things are going. I also think that in some ways there is an equal protection issue involved, but I'd rather not see it decided by judicial fiat because that generally is problematic. But I think what's going on here, perhaps on both sides, bears a much closer resemblance to the methods of the Civil Rights era than Sowell's piece concedes.
Of course if you're not allowed to do something, you can't lose your life by doing it. This "safety totalitarianism" is something that's been warned against for a long time. Sure, you can save lives by banning smoking. You can save lives by banning driving, too, the other comparison they make. Do people really "need" to parachute as a hobby? Yes, some people do that - and some people die doing it. Do people "need" to engage in mountaineering or extreme watersports? People die in those thar hills, or drown at sea.
All these things can be banned - for our own good, for our own safety.
Update: Of course, banning certain foods could solve this problem, right? Why not do it?
If you're curious what the title of this post refers to, enter it into my search engine. In any case, the only thing that's even mildly interesting about this story is that it shows that those of us who said the "campaign finance reform" that was passed by Congress and signed by Bush was a farce were right all along. The Republicans should spend less time whining about the Democrats subversion of these limits and more time catching up. It was never a secret that shell groups and front organizations would be created to avoid the limits, and Democratic Party functionaries outlined exactly what they were going to do before the ink was even dry on the bill. Given that, why didn't the Republicans just steal the ideas? No point in griping about it.
I haven't given any attention to Aristide's claims of victimization. Austin Bay goes step by step if anyone's interested. But his claims don't have any credence.
What's been more interesting are the antics of the Progressive Left, which Michael Radu examines. This has just been another opportunity for them to reveal that they're against dictatorship, unless it's Leftist. They're against oppression of people of color in the third world, unless it's done by a government led by a “person of color”. They're against exploitation, corruption, and personal enrichment while people starve, unless it's done by one of their own. This is why they don’t get too upset about Robert Mugagbe, either, or Hugo Chavez - or Fidel Castro.
Hypocritical? No - there are two sets of rules, two sets of standards, and the ones that apply to everyone else do not apply to the Progressive Left who are dedicated to a better future. People like Chris Dodd and Maxine Waters have been consistent on this in the positions they've taken for over a quarter of a century, going back to their admiration for the Sandinistas and before. What’s involved in this position weaves together many of the themes I’ve written about before when it comes to the vision of the Progressive Left.
So, in some ways I don't mind tooting my own horn. When it comes to hawking blog posts and what I think of as keen insights, I'm all over that.
But I'm kind of self-concious about noting personal things. It really didn't even occur to me to post that it's my birthday today until just now. In commemoration I'm opening comments. Feel free to comment on anything that may interest, confuse, or irritate you with respect to anything I've posted about, or even stuff that I haven't.
Iraq's most influential Shia cleric dealt a blow to the legitimacy of Iraq's temporary constitution yesterday, hours after it had been signed by the US-appointed interim Governing Council.
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, whose insistence on early elections forced the US to revise its plans to return Iraq to self-rule, said in an opinion on his website that the document was "an obstacle" to a future constitution. . .
It quotes Sistani saying
"This law places obstacles in the way of reaching a permanent constitution for the country which would preserve its unity and the rights of its people of all ethnicities and sects," the religious ruling said. "Any law agreed in the interim period does not have the legal weight until it is approved by an elected national assembly."
Stay tuned. Every time folks have flown off the handle saying Sistani is about to derail everything, they've proven to be wrong. So I won't fly off the handle myself - yet.
Richard Cohen is back to his old tricks, setting up a straw man so he can knock it down:
President Bush thinks he owns the events of Sept. 11, 2001, symbolized particularly by the World Trade Center, and some of the families of victims feel just as strongly that they do.
Setting aside for the moment the part about Bush, one wonders just which families Cohen is talking about. The ones that were obviously coached by the Democrats to repeat certain catch lines and then shopped around to be interviewed (members of a narrow group)? Or 9/11 families regardless of political affiliation? Since we know the answer, we can move on to the other part of Cohen's column, his insinuations about Bush.
Of course, one wonders where Cohen gets the idea that Bush "thinks he owns the events of Sept 11". Probably from Democrats affiliated with the Kerry campaign who would rather keep it off the table - except when their man uses security issues to assail Bush (then it's fair game). Indeed, Cohen's piece then launches into talking points taken directly from faxes sent out by the Kerry For President campaign. So we know he's grinding axes in making an issue of Bush referencing 9/11 briefly in some recent adds.
Charles Krauthammer as usual treats the whole matter with more intelligence:
The families have suffered. They deserve compassion and respect. But they do not own 9/11. This was not a house fire. This was not a train wreck. This was an act of war. And war is a national event.
And certainly if Kerry and his partisan supporters like Cohen can make an issue of how 9/11 was handled, both before it and in the aftermath, as they have been doing since before Bush dared to run the most controvercial commercials of the political season, then a fair minded person would accept that Bush can make his own case on the issue and his handling of the war:
Sept. 11 was the most important event of our time, let alone of this presidential term. Sept. 11, its aftermath and the response — the War on Terror, the Bush doctrine of going after states and not just terrorists, and the implementation of that doctrine in both Afghanistan and Iraq — are central to deciding the fitness of George W. Bush to continue in office.
But partisan Democrats want to prevent that and insure that the whole campaign is run only on terms acceptable to them. This is all this is about, and it's the sole purpose of the Cohen piece. We've known that would be their playbook ever since the debates (see also here). Krauthammer highlights the hypocracy involved in the Democrats campaign and the screeds of pundits like Cohen:
The Democrats have been freely invoking the 550 troops lost in Iraq to ask the political question: "This is what this President did: Was it worth it?" No one thinks of accusing them of indecently exploiting these tragic deaths for political reasons. Yet when the President talks about his own leadership through and after 9/11, he is accused of exploitation. It is understandable that Democrats would want the proper bounds of political decorum to be defined by talk of job losses and of difficulties in Iraq. But since when do partisans design the playing field?
Since now, as long as it's the Good People. John Podhoretz has more in the New York Post:
[T]he media hate negative campaigning - but not when it spills out of Kerry's mouth and right onto the front pages without so much as a suggestion of a critical filtering.
Which is exactly what I observed a few weeks back.
Terry Cobb wrote a good e-mail in response to this post on political rhetoric and the posts on justice and fairness (a little more here, but it got lost in my hopper. A bit late, but here it is:
As you point out,much of the dialog that emanates from "progressives" involves the redefinition of terms that have pronounced emotional connotations. Its nothing more than the classic logical fallacy of equivocation used as a deliberate tool and strategy. Words such as "justice," "equality," and "violence," are forcibly impregnated with concepts that the words never represented by accepted usage, but who can deny that such words do have definite and pronounced emotional overtones? Who is for "violence?" Who is against "justice?"No one. In a college course I had long ago I remember an article I had to read about a certain central American country in which the failure to provide for education was described as "violence." While I agree that providinga basic and free level of education is one of the legitimate and worthy functions of a government, the failure to do so is not an act of "violence." I didn't buy it then and I don't buy it now. But this is just one small example of the ongoing gang rape of the English language Words and their meanings are important. But words have more to them than just dry, clinical definitions. They do have emotional connotations which are bound up with them, and this is a key factor in the ongoing culture wars which are raging today.
And the same process is at play with those who talk about redistributing the wealth. When you really get down to it, such a thing is impossible. It all goes to the fallacy whereby wealth is assumed to consist solely of income. Income is wealth, but not all wealth consists of income. The real wealth consists of factories and the like; having a pile of money does you no good whatsoever if there is nothing to buy. And what would we have if we redistributed the real wealth? You might just end up with ownership of a six-inch portion of copper pipe in a given factory. And what, exactly, is it that you are going to do with this? How is your life better? But of course the individual citizen won't be given control of even a small part of such enterprises, it will be managed for them. Control will be taken away from those who have shown their competence in running such enterprises (bankruptcy ends the rule of the incompetent) and given to the party faithful to run. A prescription for disaster? You bet. That's why we don't elect heart surgeons. And as for the difference for the common citizen as to control over his own life and the economy? Not one bit.
As for the short term, redistribution of the income is a convenient mechanism to hinder social mobility, which those of the liberal bent ironically lament is decreasing in America. One idea which was laid out by a professor of mine in the mid 70's was that the Great Society programs were essentially an alliance of the rich and the poor against the middle. In essence, the rising prosperity of the middle class was seen as a potential threat by the established elites and political machines that dominated that time. If the middle class used their rising incomes to acquire real wealth, collectively their power might overshadow that of the "old money" folks who dominated in government, as well as rendering traditional forms of political/social control such as patronage obsolete. The solution was to use "progressive" taxation (of income, not all wealth, heaven forbid) to provide for "social justice." It would suck up much of the income that the middle class might use to acquire real wealth and it would create a new form of patronage in the guise of compassion (payments) to the poor folk. It was the adoption of leftist principles in action to pursue a self-serving agenda to maintain their own political power. I never really bought into this at the time, but more and more I'm beginning to wonder if there wasn't (and isn't)
something to this.
I'm going to leave the mail to stand on its own for now. In fact, probably lightish blogging this morning. Hopefully more later.
The EU isn't doing so hot in economic reforms - by their own standards. Germany is considering compromise on voting processes under the proposed EU Constitution. This has all been like picking at fleas and ignoring the rampaging elephant. Now is an opportune time to set aside comparisons with the U.S. Constitution, and compare it with the interim Iraqi Constitution. The first thing to note is that the Iraqi version is about 25 pages in length, much shorter than the EU's draft Constitution, which was written of, by, and for the bureaucrats and is almost ten times the length of the Iraqi interim Constitution as a result. For more on this subject, see:
Update: Oh, I almost forgot. There's a super-secret network of groups opposing EU membership in Norway, so whatever you do don't talk about it, and certainly don't write articles about them, since it's a secret. *shhhh*
Why is the South solidly Republican? James Taranto explains why the Democrat's "you stole our racists, you bastards!" theory doesn't hold water in explaining why the South votes Republican today.
One of my real problems with the Bush Administration is that, to put it bluntly, why the fuck didn't he give the Whitehall or AEI speech as the State of the Union? The President gets one guaranteed opportunity to outline his strategic vision for the country, why didn't he?
The "straight man" answer is that over the years a conceptual distinction has grown up around the State of the Union and it is no longer seen as the place to give a thematic ("normal") speech. The tradition now is to make a laundry-list speech, give each Cabinet department its line, put in something to appeal to everyone on a range of issues, focusing on no one thing. I'm sure they also have people who said "you need to talk about domestic matters, the economy, people are concerned about that."
In my opinion the best parts of the SotU (more here) were the ones related to foreign policy and the War, but I get your point. But they lacked the punch and full-formed arguments of the other speeches Michael mentions. I think Bush naively felt that proper context of what he has said before would be laid out, reporting would be based on reference to what he's said before. That is, he felt the speech would be treated fairly. I'm sure they'd deny that, but they invariably act as if that were the case.
Really what Bush needs to do, rather than expecting decent coverage of his major speeches at these other venues, is request time for national speeches from the Oval Office more frequently. Instead of just giving speeches at AEI or Whitehall and expecting them to be covered fully and fairly (*laf*), he should give more speeches directly to the American people. The problem now is that it may be too late. Doing it between now and the election will be - fairly - seen as part of his re-election campaign rather than as a real Presidential address. Had they been giving speeches like this more regularly all along things might be different.
On the Marching on Mecca post, he writes:
You're largely dead on. I just wanted to point out the way that these kinds of disputes become particularly acute and destructive of the status quo when you get into a situation where people can jockey for succession and "vizier" type positions with an old and ineffectual monarch.
In many ways, that's what we have now, with the old King hanging on to life but really out of the picture, and a succession dispute between two Saudi Princes. In any event, destruction of the status quo is what we're after. I'm just proposing one way of achieving the ends we're looking for which may work better than a direct confrontation. The later may just result in everyone rallying together in defense of the status quo. In further reaction to the Marching on Mecca post, Daniel Aronstein writes to agree with Stephen Quick:
For the reasons that Quick provides, I think there is NOT a high likelihood of a Wahhabi versus Saudi civil war.
There is a greater likelihood of a civil war within the Arab/Sunni world on the Hashemite versus Saud-(Wahab) axis.
And if the Hashemites win (and with our backing they would), then King Abdullah II and his family-line could be placed BACK on to the throne of Mecca and Medina - it would be a restoration of sorts.
For it to be a a simultaneous "reformation," the King would have to UNAMBIGUOUSLY endorse the type of tolerance that existed (though for a scant only few decades) during the Moorish occupation of the part of the Iberian Peninsula. (To be sure: It was short interval in what is largely a very violent and intolerant history; their "Camelot".)
Nevertheless, the Hashemites COULD pull it off -- perhaps AFTER a civil war between the Salafist Jihadis and the corrupt House of Saud threatens to envelop/destroy Mecca itself. Then - on a white Arabian steed - King Abdullah comes to the rescue.... Then, as a rescuer he would have the power to restore Islam to it's.... ahem... glory.
I don't see this occurring until Iraq is quieted down, and not until the Salafist Jihadi elements there "sneak" into Saudi Arabia. Perhaps - if we want to speed things up - this is where we should be "telling" the Salafist Jihadis to go to - from wherever they are: Europe, Syria, Iraq, Iran etc. to Saudi Arabia. Get them to Iraq, and then sneak them into the Saudi Arabia.
I'd like to see the Hashemites back in control of the Hejab. I'd like to see the Greeks in Constantinople again and Hagia Sophia restored to its status as the "Saint Peter's" of Eastern Orthodoxy. That isn't going to happen either, at least not without a lot of bloodshed, destruction, and ugliness.
Of course, it's possible for the Greeks to continue to live in increasing peace with the Turks, while it's unlikely that, in the end, the Wahabbi-Saudi problem will be resolved without a lot of bloodshed, destruction, and ugliness. The question is the best route to achieve our goals most efficiently and with as little of that as is possible. I think the route I outlined in the “Marching on Mecca” post is more likely to achieve that.
The signing went ahead this morning, apparently without alteration to the originally agreed-to draft. Sistani apparently told the Shias on the Council to accept the draft, after last Friday telling them to withhold approval.
It does make me wonder what he's up to. Did he just have second thoughts on bringing things to the brink? Or did he want to show (again) that he can block anything if he doesn't like it? Is it as simple as people still learning how to deal with and accept compromise?
Additional: Jeff at Caerdroia has More on Sistani and the situation. He views Sistani as a benign force, and I generally have as well - but that doesn't mean flawless. Read his whole post. Steven Den Beste has a post on the situation with respect to the process of democracy and liberty in Iraq, "international legitimacy", and Kerry's fecklessness. His advice? If you have to chose between Kerry and Nader, vote for the later. At least his position is clear.
During the run up to the Iraq War and into its aftermath, many people said "why Iraq when we should be dealing with North Korea instead" or "Why Iraq when we should be going after Saudi Arabia"? Quite a few of these people were insincere. That is, if we were going after either of those nations instead, they would inevitably raise all sorts of objections to tackling those problems forcefully. But some were sincere, especially with respect to tackling the Wahabist regime in Saudi Arabia. Now people are proposing that we turn next to Saudi Arabia.
There are many good reasons to press the House of Saud and potentially replace it. At the very least we must insure that the Wahabi radicals are disempowered and a more reformist branch open to democratizing reforms becomes dominant. Some will argue that such a thing does not exist within the House of Saud, at least not in sufficient strength to be credible. Only direct confrontation aimed at regime change will suffice to resolve matters in Arabia. This is a respectable view and I'm not sure I can say it is wrong. However, there are problems with a direct confrontation of the House of Saud.
Of course, the biggest problem is that the House of Saud is shielded by their custodianship of Mecca and Medina. Neither the upstart Saudis nor their Wahabi clerics may be held in high repute in the Islamic world, but the one thing that may cause the Islamic world to rally to their defense is a direct confrontation that can be presented as an Infidel threat to the holy cities of Islam. There is, indeed, good reason to think that the strategy of Islamist radicals has been to provoke such a confrontation, believing that this will rally Islam to their support, entrenching and expanding Wahabi influence as a result.
This may be why at least attempting a more circumspect, even covert strategy of pressure is the wisest course. A strategy aimed at provoking not a direct confrontation between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia but instead a confrontation between the House of Saud and the Islamist radicals. This strategy stands a much greater chance of succeeding, as it divides not Islam from the West but the radicals from mainstream Islam. Instead of resulting in Moslems rallying in support of Wahabi elements against a perceived threat to the Holy Cities from the West, it may push people in a more moderate, reformist direction in reaction to the civil strife that the radicals generate in their reaction to this strategy.
This uses what has been called the "Saudi Civil War" in ways that help promote what we want, rather than empowering the strategy that the Wahabis and al-Qaeda have of creating a clash between the West and Islam that they believe will work to their benefit. There are good signs that this is what we're trying to do, and that it is already having some effect. It's almost certainly a wiser course than marching on Mecca.
Update: Stephen Quick responds, via e-mail, to say:
The facts are that they are one in the same since their inception in the early to mid 18th century. They are facilitators to each other and cannot be separated or exist without the other.
The Whahabists have been a fundamentalist movement since inception as well.
They will not allow moderate reformist movements to succeed.
I'm sure they'll oppose it, and that's the sort of confrontation we should encourage.
I'm aware of the history of the Wahabis as a radical, fundamentalist movement since its inception, and also their historical relationship with the House of Saud, in particular in sponsoring the House of Saud's seizure of power. However, to say they cannot be separated may go a bit far, and if they cannot exist without each other, well, that may be fine and pitting them against each other a way to deal with both. But the House of Saud and the Wahabis aren't really one and the same, since nothing involving multiple humans, in particular in political/power situations are one and the same, entirely hive-minded and without factionalism. Stephen Quick's mail goes on:
This ignores the incestuous relationship between Whahab and Saud. It is analogous to saying you might be caused to have a confrontation with yourself.
That would be an auto-erotic relationship. {*_+}
I make that distinction because incestuous is the right analogy, but it's not the same as having a relationship with oneself. To get deeper into the analogy than people might want to go, you can have an incestuous relationship with your sister but also a falling out and a confrontation. Dropping the analogy before I carry it too far and get distasteful, my point is I think that this underestimates:
The degree of antipathy between Wahabi purists and what they see as a "betrayal" by members of the House of Saud to live up to exacting, fundamentalist standards of purity.
The degree of insincerity to which at least some members of the House of Saud have with respect to Wahabi doctrines, if not (perhaps necessarily secret) antipathy towards them.
The degree of factionalism within the House of Saud itself, with various branches scheming for support, some seeing the Wahabis as natural allies in a bid for personal power and others seeing them as allies of opponents in the same bid.
The point is that neither the Saud-Wahabi relationship nor the House of Saud itself is a monolith, a collectivity or corporatist entity with only one position and one view and shared interests for all members on all issues. For various reasons they would like everyone to believe that to be the case, but nothing's ever really that simple. There was scheming and factionalism in the Soviet Politburo, with infighting and machinations and schemes to gain power at the expense of others and often with policy differences as the backdrop. That applies here as well, and has in the court politics of just about every Kingdom, no matter how united a front others believe exists. Stresses and strains between a secular ruling class and the clerical religious class that they seem allied with are not uncommon. Things that brought parties like that together in their bid for power, such as the one that gained the Sauds control of Mecca & Medina and displaced the ancient Hashemite House from the same, often end up driving them apart as views and interests diverge later on.
Taking a historical view, things do not move in a straight-line projection. Just because they came to power together doesn't mean they'll share the same bed till the end. If that were the case, that is if it were the case that there were no differences between the Wahabi religious fundamentalists and the House of Saud, guys like Osama bin Laden would not be what we know them to be. There is a sense among many strict Wahabis that the House of Saud has betrayed them. Not all members of the House of Saud necessarily believe that partnership with the Wahabis is an aid to their survival rather than the eventual cause of their doom.
Anyhow, Stephen Quick recommends this book and I'll recommend this post from last year by Trent Telenko related to this subject.
Strategy Page has a review of Tom Barnett's upcoming book developed from last year's Esquire article (no longer available for free, so no link).
This is probably the key section in the review:
Barnett goes on to say that Bush Administration "has the right strategic vision" and has taken many of the steps needed to get a long-term strategy rolling." He faults the administration, however, in failing to explain this strategy to the American people and to the global community. The essence of the "Core/Gap" strategy is that while there is an established and generally smoothly-running international security system in the "Core" different rules are necessary when dealing with the "Gap." In these terms, the policy of "pre-emption" applies to the "Gap", not to the "Core", where there are numerous alternative approaches to resolving problems, and a generally mutual-willingness to do so. The result of this failure to effectively articulate the strategy has been an enormous amount of ill-will and acrimony both domestically and internationally, which came very near to destroying NATO.
Well, there is a counter-argument here in that Bush and other administration officials did outline it in speeches and strategy documents. This is what the "Forward Strategy of Freedom" is all about, for example. But many people - especially in the capitals of certain countries - didn't like it and dealt with it by pretending no case was made rather than raising counterarguments. Such counterarguments would probably have been highly revealing if they were made directly. Instead, oblique opposition was raised, and this blog (among others) spent much of the last two years highlighting & rebutting those. That was the cause of so many links to FT opinion pieces (when those were available for people to read), for example.
However, Barnett would likely place emphasis on the word "effectively". Bush's failure to effectively argue his strategic vision is a gap, and not an insignificant one, in his capacity to mobilize support and lead in this war. But one must note the lack of good faith among those who dislike or disagree with this strategic vision, who pretend that Bush and other Administration officials never said what they have said in outlining the stragegy. Actually, that's not quite true: When Bush has made such speeches, such as at West Point, or the Administration released documents like strategy document outlining our position on preemption, there was always an immediate flurry of criticism. But after that flurry, the whole matter is generally slipped down the memory hole by the media culture so that they and partisan opponents can claim that Bush mislead by never outlining any of this. It's difficult to effectively articulate a message when many of the institutions that under normal conditions should be expected to transmit it to the public are essentially corrupt in this way, failing to engage in civic discourse in an honest, straightforward, and balanced way. It is one reason why people turn to blogs: even if they're about as politically neutral as the Torygraph or the Guardian, people come to them to get information – especially on Iraq and the war generally – that they no longer trust the larger media culture to provide them with. This is because so often they do not. As I wrote here:
they aren't just trying to discredit Bush. They want to discredit policies we are following in the war as well.
This is not to let Bush off the hook, but we should also recognize that those who dislike his policies often deal with them in bad faith rather than honest, open debate. This includes the frequent mischaracterization, distortion, and omission of these policies in the instruments under their influence. That makes it much harder to effectively articulate them than it might have been in the past, since even though the situation was never perfect, it has changed and in many ways for the worst.
Update: See also the links associated with this post.
