Current Events

A quick update on NOL’s art project

Brandon Christensen Culture, Current Events , , , ,

Chhay Lin sent me this email detailing a rough timeline for the NOL art project he initiated:

I met my friend about the art project last weekend. He told me that he is experimenting with an Escher-esque logo/banner for NOL. He doesn’t know how long it will take, and is not working on it full-time. In the meantime he is busy moving out from the city of Breda to Rotterdam, opening his own workshop, and making portraits for a book that he and I are working on. 🙂 I’ll keep you up to date if I hear anything new about the NOL artsy project.

His friend, Cheerted Keo, has a website that you can check out here.

A Quick PSA: Putting “boots on the ground” in Syria is still a dumb idea

Brandon Christensen Current Events , , , , , ,

Readers might be mistaken into thinking that I am some kind of statist or rabid interventionist because I often put forth arguments that are nowhere to be found at the Cato Institute or the Mises Institute when it comes to American foreign policy.

I have argued that the federation of countries would be a good idea. I have argued that multilateralism is of the utmost importance when it comes to solving problems. I have no problem using IGOs like the UN or the IMF to bolster diplomacy. I have entertained the notion that the US should take a back seat in hot spots in order to better bait autocratic states into committing blood and treasure to the said hot spot, and then unleashing hell. Sanctions are dumb and never work, but building closer trading ties with an adversary’s enemies is a underdeveloped path.

Statist AF, right?

Wrong!

I am trying to put forth alternatives to “boots on the ground.” I understand that military interventions are a bad thing. I don’t want “boots on the ground.” I understand that the costs far outweigh the benefits. I understand that war is the health of the state. What I don’t understand is how “doing nothing” is a libertarian position. Dogmatic slogans made us lazy a century ago. We lost our claim to the title “liberal” because of it. Dogmatic slogans made us lazy a century and a half ago, and we lost our claim to the title “internationalist” because of it. What will our laziness cost us today?

Boots on the ground? We should be so lucky.

To Pledge or Not to Pledge

Warren Gibson Culture, Current Events, Liberty, Politics

I attended a public meeting last night as I do from time to time. It’s a bad habit I can’t seem to shake. Like many of the more formal public meetings in this country, it started with the Pledge of Allegiance. (Foreign readers may not know that this is a 31-word quasi loyalty oath of allegiance to “the flag.”) When the time comes, everyone is supposed to stand, put their heart on their hand, face the flag, and recite the Pledge in unison, which is drummed into all schoolchildren.

My policy during the last several years has been to stand and remain silent with my hands at my side. I don’t make a spectacle of myself by staying seated, but I’m not willing to say the Pledge, for several reasons.

  • It’s too much like religion, and not just because of the “Under God” phrase
  • I don’t like feeling like a sheep following the herd
  • I don’t like the implication that we should bow and scrape to our rulers

Plenty of people would brand me a traitor for my attitude, an ingrate who doesn’t appreciate the benefits of living in the good ol’ U.S.A. In fact, I am quite grateful that I live in the U.S.A. because

  • I grew up in this culture and feel a part of it (omitting rock “music”)
  • The land is beautiful
  • Our politicians are less rapacious than in some other countries
  • We still have a reservoir of individualist sentiment that resists the “Progressives” and the neocons and their relentless push for a made-in-America brand of fascism
  • The libertarian movement has grown enormously in the years since 1971 when I signed on

I do indeed feel some kind of loyalty to the land and the people. But not to the government. And to swear allegiance to the Constitution, as the newly elected councilmen did last night, is a farce because the Constitution was shredded years ago, starting with Abraham Lincoln and perhaps earlier. At the federal level, they swear allegiance to the Constitution and then turn around and spit on it.

But wait, you might say, if you’re loyal to the people you have to be loyal to the government because we elect our leaders. But that’s a slender thread indeed. The government is controlled by unelected bureaucrats and powerful special interests. The government is not “the people.”

So, with only the mildest misgivings, I’ll go on boycotting the Pledge.

From the Comments: So what should the US do with Syrian refugees?

Brandon Christensen Comments, Current Events , , , , , ,

There have been a number of excellent discussions in the ‘comments’ threads recently. I have been following them all, but I’m trying to space out, for beauty’s sweet sake, what I think are especially good insights here (my fellow Notewriters are welcome to do the same).

Dr Khawaja’s answer to Dr Delacroix’s question about what he would do “with respect to the Syrian refugees coming to this country” is worth another look:

I would do exactly what the Obama Administration is doing. Let the Syrian refugees in, vet them, and accept the risks. I more or less said that in one of the links I posted [here – BC]. Here’s the vetting procedure, by the way:

http://time.com/4116619/syrian-refugees-screening-process/

I haven’t heard anyone explain what’s wrong with it. Its rigor far exceeds anything applied to student visas or tourist visas.

As for the “Zionist extremists who helped during the war of independence,” the Irgun and Lehi were by all accounts terrorist organizations. They began a campaign of terror well before the war of independence. Their doing so was instrumental to bringing about the mass exodus of Palestinians from what was to become Israel. The Irgun was led by Menachem Begin, who was later to become Prime Minister of Israel. In other words, Israel was not only founded by terrorists, but the Israelis had no compunction electing the self same terrorists to lead their country in subsequent years (Shamir and Sharon being the other two).

I don’t know where you get the idea that “the Jews that the US failed to take in before WWII were German Jews.” Why couldn’t they have been, say, Polish or Russian? And where is the difficulty in imagining militantly communist or fascist Polish or Russian Jews?

“I think it’s not difficult separating Muslims from Christians. Boko Haram does it all the time.”

Well, if we’re going to use arguments like that, why don’t I just say that it’s not difficult separating terrorists from non-terrorists. The TSA does it all the time. Now, if you’d like to propose that we start hiring members of Boko Haram for positions in the TSA, I’m skeptical, but all ears.

I should point out that in one of the posts I pasted up there, I was the one pointing out to someone at my blog that there is no eliminating the risks if we allow the Syrian refugees in. The risks are ineliminable. But I live in the New York City area. I go in to Manhattan whenever I get the chance. If there is a terrorist attack, it’s likely to take place right here. It’s not as though I’m merely imposing risks on other people and cowering somewhere else in safety.

Well? Is the vetting process as it stands good enough? Without reading the link Dr Khawaja provided, I feel confident claiming that it is. Violent criminals shouldn’t be allowed into this country (unless the crimes were committed a long, long time ago), of course. Sex offenders is too tricky a topic to deal with right now (think about getting in trouble for mooning in Russia or something like that), but if the crimes weren’t violent I’d opt for a let ’em in and wait approach. Terrorists of the Islamist variety that come from failed Arab states tend to be good boys at home. What about people with military backgrounds? What about the fact that states in the Arab world have laughable bureaucracies and that records should be taken with a big ole’ dose of salt?

Irfan hasn’t had the pleasure of knowing Jacques as long as me or Dr Terry, so his responses are bit more polite and more serious than what we tend to throw at him now. I forget sometimes just how important obstinate, bellicose ignorance can be for igniting important dialogues (Donald Trump, anyone? Bernie Sanders?).

On a slightly different note: I wonder if the uncomfortable fact that some of Israel’s founders were terrorists, coupled with the fact that Israel is the most successful state in the post-Ottoman world today, is an unacknowledged reason why Arabs have turned to the same tactics today. Why would anybody want to copy a failure, after all?

*The World’s Your Stage* New book by our own Warren Gibson!

Brandon Christensen Books, Current Events ,

The subtitle is How Performing Artists Can Make a Living While Still Doing What They Love.

Here is the link to amazon. You can also find it in the book pile to your right. Hopefully Dr Gibson will be able to blog a bit about the book in the next few weeks or so…

El Día que los Argentinos Superamos el Cinismo

Eliana Santanatoglia Current Events, Liberty, Politics , , , ,

Hace una semana que Mauricio Macri (Cambiemos) es el nuevo presidente electo de Argentina y ya todo parece distinto. A pesar de muchas y muy perjudiciales medidas del gobierno kirchnerista saliente (nombramiento de personal, sanción de leyes controvertidas, emisión de dinero, endeudamiento de último momento) la mayoría de los ciudadanos nos sentimos optimistas respecto del futuro en Argentina. Incluso ya nos hemos puesto a debatir acerca de las ventajas y desventajas de tal o cual ministro elegido por Macri, como si viviéramos en un país normal.

El domingo pasado, cuando ya era seguro que Macri había ganado las elecciones y estaba dando su discurso, lloré. No era un llanto triste, ni siquiera un llanto de emoción, era un llanto de alivio. Luego algunos amigos y familiares me confesaron que también habían llorado. Sentí (sentimos) que nos habían sacado el pie del pecho, que nos ahogaba desde hacía mucho tiempo.

Macri ganó en una segunda vuelta contra Daniel Scioli (Frente para la Victoria), candidato del gobierno kirchnerista. Pero no es la figura de Macri ni las propuestas de políticas públicas de Cambiemos (coalición del partido de Macri -Propuesta Republicana-, la tradicional Unión Cívica Radical y el partido de Lilita Carrió, Coalición Cívica) las que nos hicieron saltar las lágrimas. Era el sentir que, finalmente, podíamos descomprimir, que podíamos proyectarnos, planear; que, después de mucho tiempo, podíamos opinar sin miedo.

Y creo que esa emoción estaba conectada, a su vez, con la sensación de que los argentinos (o la mayoría al menos) habíamos dado un primer paso hacia la superación de un profundo cinismo que tiñó la política, e incluso todas las relaciones sociales en la Argentina los últimos años y que el modelo kirchnerista supo explotar y profundizar, enseñando con el ejemplo.

¿A qué me refiero con el cinismo?

Mucho se ha hablado del resentimiento argentino pero, a mi entender, el cinismo es un paso posterior y más profundo de este sentimiento. Al resentimiento lo entiendo como un derivado de la envidia en su aspecto más negativo. Es decir, como el deseo de tener lo que el otro tiene o de estar en una situación (más privilegiada) en el que el otro se encuentra y que uno no puede alcanzar. Es algo así como la suma de la envidia y la impotencia. El resentido prefiere que nadie goce de aquel “privilegio” del que él no puede gozar. Lo más insólito es que en Argentina el resentimiento se da en todas sus variedades, no sólo de los pobres a los ricos, de los viejos a los jóvenes, de los feos a los lindos, de los gordos a los flacos, sino que uno puede encontrar una persona joven, linda, flaca y rica que sea tremendamente resentida (porque los padres no lo quisieron, porque creen que no tienen las oportunidades que tendrían en otros países, porque no encuentran motivación en nada, porque quiere que alguien lo admire y no encuentran quién, etc.).

A pesar de esto, encuentro en este sentimiento todavía un resabio positivo: el resentido entiende, todavía, que alguien puede llegar a algo bueno a través de medios legítimos u honestos. No descree totalmente de la posibilidad de que a alguien (no a él) le haya ido bien, se haya hecho rico, sea admirado o tenga algún talento por derecho propio. El resentido sólo siente que él no es capaz de tal proeza y, por lo tanto, preferiría que nadie lo pueda lograr.

Creo que el cinismo implica un paso más, aquel que sostiene la idea de que nada puede ser obtenido legítimamente, de buena fe. Que no existen caminos honestos, legítimos, correctos, meritorios u honorables que nos puedan llevar a un bienestar personal o material. Para el cínico todo es engaño, trampa, privilegio o arbitrariedad. Así, se sospecha que toda persona que tiene dinero, lo obtuvo de forma ilegítima, como producto de una actividad ilegal (corrupción, negociado), o de alguna trampa o subterfugio (no pagar impuestos, estafar) o que, meramente, es una persona de suerte (herencia). Incluso si esta persona no ha realizado ninguna actividad inmoral o ilegal, probablemente la haya realizado su antecesor (padre, abuelo) o alguien por él. Pero esto no se aplica sólo a la fortuna material, el cínico argentino ya no cree que se pueda lograr nada (título, puesto, premio, honores) de forma legítima. Es seguro que detrás de ello ha habido contactos, favores, negocios ilegales, trampas.  Lo peor es que, finalmente, lleva adelante una vida plagada de mentiras, trampas y violación de las reglas, creyendo que está justificado, que así son las cosas. “Es lo que hay” reza una de las frases más horribles del vocabulario argentino actual.

El cinismo, así, se ha independizado ya del resentimiento y cuenta ahora con fuerza propia, sosteniendo toda una estructura de creencias y relaciones. Si llevamos esta cosmovisión a la política, vemos cómo ésta se ha concebido últimamente sólo como el medio particular donde se busca desembozadamente el poder (y la riqueza mal habida) y donde se habilitan todos los medios para llegar a este objetivo. En definitiva, la política representa una forma velada de violencia que ya no es quizás, física, pero si es psicológica, social, institucional. De esta manera, aquellos que (por fuerza o por azar) obtienen la mayoría, pueden, entonces, hacer lo que quieran, interpretando las reglas a su favor e incluso cambiándolas cuando no les convengan. Estoy segura que durante mucho tiempo, muchos argentinos no criticaban las formas autoritarias y, en muchos casos, delictivas del gobierno porque consideraban que, de ellos estar en su lugar, hubieran hecho lo mismo. Esto representa, en mi opinión, el sumun del cinismo. Ya no se tiene confianza ni siquiera en la constitución moral de uno mismo.  Esto nos ha llevado a la situación penosa en la que nos encontramos, no sólo de pobreza material (a causa del delito público y privado) sino de fragilidad institucional, en la cual nadie puede crear expectativas, planear, crecer, cooperar o siquiera, coordinar con los demás.

El triunfo de Macri puede leerse de muchas formas pero, independientemente de sus características como líder, hubo un gran número de personas que lo eligieron porque preferían votar cualquier candidato al candidato del kirchnerismo, Daniel Scioli. Éste, aunque al principio parecía mucho  más abierto al diálogo y  moderado que la familia Kirchner, terminó representando al “modelo” kirchnerista, un paquete muy pesado compuesto por una forma muy autoritaria de ejercicio del poder, un embrollado conjunto de consignas y prejuicios y una forma muy sospechosa de hacer negocios.

Macri se presentó como un candidato de “buena fe” (lo repetía siempre que podía) y el mero hecho de que mucha gente haya creído posible que nos gobierne una persona que se presente de esta manera ya significa, para mí, un gran paso hacia el abandono del cinismo.

Varios elementos más se suman a este panorama: más allá de las críticas, todos los candidatos de Cambiemos hicieron un gran esfuerzo por no contestar los agravios que, desde la “campaña del miedo” de Scioli, no faltaban ni un solo día. Además, la imagen franca y honesta de María Eugenia Vidal y su victoria como gobernadora de la provincia de Buenos Aires (tradicionalmente gobernada por caudillos peronistas) dejó entrever que los ciudadanos tienen un límite respecto de cuánta agresión, falta de gestión y maltrato pueden soportar. Por último, el macrismo ofrece gestión, dialogo, equipos, aprendizaje, todo un vocabulario ajeno al debate político nacional de los últimos doce años.

Por una vez, muchos votantes comenzaron a pensar que tal vez tanto descreimiento en sí mismos y en las instituciones –que, en definitiva, son el fruto de las interacciones de los individuos-, nos habían llevado a la pobreza e inseguridad en la que vivíamos.  Que quizás ya era momento de abandonar la sospecha constante, el enfrentamiento sin cuartel, la resignación frente al delito, el abandono de la libertad y el gobierno del miedo.

No sé cómo gobernará Macri a nivel nacional pero le auguro lo mejor a él y a su equipo. Ya llegará el momento de analizar sus decisiones y planes de acción. Mientras tanto, me alegro de que gran parte de los argentinos, de una vez (y espero que para siempre) hayamos comenzado a abandonar el cinismo y a creer en los caminos de esfuerzo, talento, trabajo, confianza, cooperación. Por último, espero que este camino nos lleve a confiar más en nosotros, en nuestras capacidades y valores y que gocemos del valor de ejercer nuestra libertad.

From the Comments: A libertarian solution to Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) and the civil war in Syria

Brandon Christensen Comments, Current Events , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I have 3 scenarios in mind, and multilateralism is a must for all of them. 1) I’m still a proponent of recognizing the separatist aspirations of Mideast factions and introducing new, smaller states into the international order (haphazard though it may be). This was done after WWI but in the wrong manner. There was an international element to it then (UK, France, etc. working together), but there were also representatives of various Mideast factions at the table and they were ignored (the reasons why are many and I won’t delve into them here). This time, placing those Mideast factions on an equal footing with Western players (and Russia) is a must for things to work out.

2) North America has to perform a delicate balancing act now that Ankara screwed up. NATO has to stand strong against Putin’s public condemnations and tough talk and back Turkey in all public and behind-the-scenes forums. At the same time I would use Turkey’s mistake to initiate a new state in the Kurdish region, one that is not explicitly Kurdish of course but one that encompasses most of the Kurds in Syria and Iraq. Use the UN Security Council to do it; exploit Putin’s anger and get him to renege on his policy of not recognizing separatist aspirations because of the sovereignty argument. Then get him to recognize that a new state in the Kurdish region (that doesn’t change Turkey’s current borders) is more than enough revenge for shooting down a plane.

3) North America should get out of France’s and Russia’s way in Syria for the time being (this should be done in tandem with the diplomacy I advocate above). Let them work together and let off some steam. The two of them, with Assad’s help, might be able to destroy ISIS (neither Russia nor France is as careful as the US when it comes to civilians, and in this scenario their ruthlessness might be a plus for long-term peace; the fact that the US won’t get blamed for the violence is a big plus, too). Assad would then be able to stay in power, but this is a big MAYBE and he will have lost the the Kurdish part of the state (remember Russia helps with Kurdistan becoming a reality because it angers the Turks). With hundreds of thousands of dead people from all over the world and millions of displaced people, Assad’s record of incompetency will most likely force the French and Russians to find a way to push him out of office and usher in a new strong man (only a strong man can govern a state like Syria). While Paris and Moscow search for a strong man, the West should continue its policy of recognizing regions that want out of Damascus’s orbit; keep Russia in the loop on this. By the time Paris and Moscow find a new strong man, what’s left of Syria might actually be able to hold elections and have a government that is constrained by a constitution and the strong man won’t be needed.

3b) ISIS in Iraq: Recognize ISIS’s territorial claims in Iraq (the ones that don’t overlap with Kurdistan’s, of course). That’ll force it to actually govern and will bind it to international law. We’ll see ISIS quickly collapse, and in its place will be a small country that is war-torn but with manageable problems (unlike in a large state like Iraq). This new country would be free to join up with Baghdad again or it could choose to go its own way. There would be at least three states in what is now Iraq, a big step forward in a world that is more interconnected economically and thus less in need of a big bad military to fight massive, bloody wars over territory.

(I’d be happy to argue with others about how libertarian my argument is, too.)

This is from yours truly, in response to a question from Professor Amburgey about libertarian foreign policy. Is this feasible? Absolutely. Is it likely? No, but when has that ever stopped libertarians from using logic and history to debunk statist fantasies?

Libertarians try to build off of the individual when it comes to policy, which means their policies are going to be both internationalist and skeptical of the state’s ability to accomplish an aim. I think my short answer in the threads does this in a mostly competent manner. It’s a multilateral approach which eliminates any ‘central planning’ aspect, and it acknowledges both the process of the rule of law (however haphazard it may be) and the inability of large states to govern populations competently (thus my argument for decentralization – through the legal process).

Putting a stop to the Argenzuela Project

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Politics , , , , , , , , , ,

[Editor’s note: The following piece is written by Dr Nicolás Cachanosky, an economist at Metropolitan State University, Denver and a native Argentinian. Dr Cachanosky hails from the same PhD program (at Suffolk University) as Rick, who introduced us. His homepage is here, and he is also a member of the group blog Punto de Vista Económico (which you can find on the blogroll here at NOL). Check out his popular work for the Mises Institute, too. – BC]

For the last 12 years Argentina was under the influence of the Kirchner administration. First by President Néstor Kirchner (NK), and then two terms by her wife (and widow since 2010) Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (CFK). Their plan, as perceived by many, was to alternate presidential terms between NK and CFK and remain in power endlessly. While this plan came to an end with NK’s death in 2010, CFK started to entertain the idea of reforming the Constitution to be able to run a gain for office. Because this was not possible, she chose Daniel Scioli, the Governor of Buenos Aires Province to be her successor. Last Sunday, November 22nd, Mauricio Macri, Mayor of Buenos Aires City beat Scioli in a ballotage and became president elect starting his term this coming December 10th.

Argentina was in path to become what is referred as Argenzuela. Namely, the Kirchner administration was taking the country, step-by-step, to become the next Venezuela of Latin America in a close way to what has been described as the four stages of populism. Under the Kirchner administration, the government increased their political ties with Venezuela, Iran, and China, at the expense of political relations with countries like the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. But the resemblance was not only in terms of political friendship, but on institutional and economic reforms. Argentina became a country where “Republic” is just a word on paper without a real presence in the country’s institutional reality. According to the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World, in 2003 Argentina ranked 99 out of 153 countries. By 2012 it ranked 149 out of 152 countries. The loss of economic freedom was fast and significant. Economic troubles and imbalances did not take long to appear.

Macri’s victory in the presidential elections put a stop to the Argenzuela project. We know what a presidency by Macri won’t look like. But it is still hard to say what it will actually look like. Macri is known for his emphasis not in free or unfree markets, but on an efficient administration. While not difficult to be more free market than the Kirchners, it might prove difficult to describe Macri’s political movement, Pro, as a free market party. The Kirchner administration has refused, at least so far, to share information with Macri and his appointed ministers, so the real situation of the economy and the Treasury remains unknown. Macri and his team are working on reform plans half-blinded because they don’t have reliable economic information, if they have it at all.

Specific reforms by Macri are still unknown (at the time of writing these lines), but his team of Ministers has already been announced. The people he’s bringing to the government with him show significant successful careers in government, the private sector, and international organizations (her chosen Chancellor is the Chief of Staff of Ban Ki Moon, General Secretary of the United Nations.) This is a clear contrast with the Kirchner administration, where all the Ministers showed a strong ideological motivation before professional accomplishments.

The economic crisis in Argentina hands Macri a unique opportunity to carry long needed significant reforms. He has, also, a unique political position. His political party has not only won the presidential election, with Pro Macri has also retained the Mayor’s office of Buenos Aires City and also won the Governor elections for the Buenos Aires Province. Macri’s Pro is in charge of the three most economically and political important districts. Let us hope that Macri does not become yet another lost opportunity in Argentina’s history.

What I’m reading (but not yet writing about)

Brandon Christensen Current Events , , , ,

I have been reading a lot lately. I apologize for the lack of blogging on my part. I am reading through Mestizo Logics by the French anthropologist Jean-Loup Amselle, Degrees of Freedom by our own Edwin van de Haar (a Dutch political theorist), and A Cat, A Man, and Two Women by the Japanese novelist Junichiro Tanazaki. I’ll be blogging about Amselle’s book in the near future, so stick around!

I am also reading through some excellent papers on colonialism.

Michelangelo: I gave apples to the ladies and cigars to the gentlemen (and to a couple of ladies in the English Dept). That was as an undergraduate though…

Turkey just shot down a Russian fighter jet

Brandon Christensen Current Events , , , , , , , ,

Yes, folks, things just got way more real in the Levant.

Here is NOL‘s first-ever post on Syria (by yours truly). It’s from 2012 (which means NOL is nearly four years old!) and it holds up pretty well if you ask me.

Jacques Delacroix, an ardent hawk who recently quit NOL (again) and who ironically criticizes libertarians for being “dogmatic” and “predictable,” had this to say about Syria in 2012:

Russia would not risk to go to war with us on behalf of Syria because that country is just not important enough to the Russians’ game.

And also this:

The current murderous situation [in 2012 Syria] is not acceptable. Therefore, the risk of some sort of Islamist take-over is worth running.

Jacques and other military interventionists have been getting the Middle East wrong for decades, and yet people still take them seriously. Just to be clear: Jacques and other hawks were perfectly aware that attacking Assad would mean opening up a space for ISIS and other nasty Sunni organizations to grow. Jacques just thought Islamists would be better than Assad because they’d at least have some form of democratic legitimacy. Then, after the recent massacres in Paris, Delacroix and other hawks began arguing that Islamists have to go, too (along with Assad). The Russians, who Jacques (and other hawks) confidently told the public would not dare intervene in Syria, think that Islamists have to go (too many Russian commercial airliners are blowing up in the sky) but not Assad. Not a pretty picture, and Western hawks are largely responsible for the mess.

Here is an old post detailing just how wrong Jacques was on Libya, and instead of acknowledging just how wrong he was (he was really wrong), Jacques changed the subject and repeated oft-debunked litanies.

Anyone can be wrong, of course. I thought Mitt Romney would beat Obama back in 2012 (the economy was in terrible shape…), but I learned from my mistake and people can generally learn something from me (even if it’s only to see things from a slightly different angle) when I write on American politics.

When Jacques and other hawks are wrong they become dishonest about their past mistakes, though. They don’t acknowledge them. They don’t try to learn from them. They instead repeat their sacred litanies over and over again, hoping that they will eventually be proved correct (a broken clock is right twice a day, after all). This moral failing on the hawks’ part is what’s responsible for the violence and carnage in Syria. It might be responsible for World War 3 (Turkey is a NATO member). Their dogmatism and the dishonesty it entails is far more of a threat to individual liberty than Islamist terrorists or even the violent policy prescriptions (and cultural chauvinism) Jacques and his ilk call for (and rely upon in the public sphere) on a daily basis.

Jacques and the interventionists (cool band name, by the way) are responsible for hundreds of thousands of dead people and millions of displaced ones. They initiated this carnage using made-up “facts,” poor logic, and appeals to violence. Where is the outrage? How can we change the climate of opinion so that those who lie constantly and unabashedly lose influence and prestige? Is incompetence that prevalent in our open society, or is dishonesty to blame?

Syrian Refugees and Security

Jacques Delacroix Current Events , , , , ,

The president made another one of his inane, easy-to-ignore speeches a couple of days after the massacre in Paris. This man never misses a chance. He demonstrated again his preference for dogma over reality. He also accused Republicans who oppose the resettlement of Syrian refugees of being afraid of “three year olds.” This helped me in coming out of my indecision in connection with this issue. I take it seriously.

The House passed a resolution today making it difficult to bring Syrians or Iraqis to the US. Mark my word, this is not the last we hear of this issue. Many Syrians, some Iraqis, actually need a humane place to live away from barrel bombs and chemical warfare. Also, I believe that we cannot allow terrorism to turn us, as a people, into someone else. We are a compassionate people which, by and large, have given haven to refugees from everywhere. (Notwithstanding a shameful loss of nerve in the 1930s with respect to Jewish refugees from Germany.) We can’t let a small bunch of flea-ridden savages in the Middle East change this. That’s on the one hand. On the other hand, I listen carefully when the highest security officials in the land tell us that they cannot (NOT) vet every refugee. Do I think that some ISIS terrorists might mingle with refugees with massacre on their minds. No, I don’t think they might; I am sure they will. Why wouldn’t they?

However, the president reminded us that all refugees do not present equal potential danger. It’s true that three-year olds are never terrorists on their own. So, I would take in three-year old refugees and their mothers, of course. And based on the same probabilistic principle, I would let in children up to seven or even eight years of age and their mothers. After that age, all bets are off, I think, because of numerous videos about child soldiers, some of whom are not even nine. But I would take in an unlimited numbers of small children and their mothers. They would constitute an economic burden but I believe we can live with it. I would also let in all Christians and all Yazidis (pagans) of both sexes and of all ages because their collective suffering at the hands of ISIS make them a zero % risk for terrorism in the US. It’s not religious discrimination, it’s risk preference. Everyone does it all the time. That’s what I do when I ride in my pickup truck but never on a motorcycle, fly on commercial airliners but not on light planes piloted by a doctor.

Yes, you read me right. I would admit zero, no men of military age. Two reasons, one not mentioned by any media, to my knowledge. The first, obvious reason, is that terrorists mingling with Syrian refugees would almost certainly be youngish men. Although old men are a possibility, it has not happened yet, I believe. (Correct me if I am wrong.) Women can easily be terrorists too, of course, but it has not happened much with that particular breed of terrorists before it happened in Paris recently. I suspect the Islamist terrorists contempt for women is such that they don’t want them to deserve Paradise by committing jihadist crimes. Of course, the fact that nearly all the Syrian refugee women I see on television wear the hijab (head veil) does not help erase my suspicions. I am trying like hell to be compassionate against my common sense. I am trying to remember that nearly all of those refugees are unfortunates. I am keeping in mind that nearly all of them would have liked to emigrate to the US even before any civil war in Syria. (I will probably talk about the meaning of the hijab in another installment.)

The second good reason to exclude from American territory male Syrian passport carriers of military age is that they are of military age, precisely. At a time when there is more and more talk of French and, even of American boots on the ground, I would like to hear the sound of more Syrian boots on the ground. They should be fighting to reconquer their country from both ISIS savages and the butcher Assad. Incoming Syrian males under fifty-five should be given the choice of enrolling in a Western-backed Syrian Freedom Legion, or to stay in whatever slummy refugee camps where they are indefinitely with no option of settling in America. I would gladly pay for the costs involved forever in preference to risking the lives of American children in America.

Maybe it’s just me but I would be very receptive to requests for military training, for military aid, and for arms coming from such a Legion. The past reluctance of the Obama administration in this respect would be criminal if it were not primarily stupid. I would easily volunteer $1,000 to this good cause. I estimate that it would all amount to 750 000 000 000 for the country at large (750 billion dollars). It should be enough to equip and army of 500,000, it seems to me. We have spent much more in the past with much less of a a justification.

My Muslim friends – a dwindling number these days because many can’t face the harsh truth – and my friends with Muslim names who may or may not be real Muslims urge me to remember that Europeans and Americans, or Christians (think Nigeria) are not the only ones to die at the hand of violent jihadists. I am glad to repeat what I say often: Violent jihadists everywhere have slaughtered many more Muslims that they have killed of any other category of  people. And, as I have said on FB recently, there is nothing special about the massacres in Paris. (More Russian tourists died only a week or so before.) I am glad though that the atrocities taking place in much beloved Paris broke the complacency of many in the West (but not of President Obama). And, as I have pointed out before ISIS revealed itself superbly in this case by attacking specifically places where people were having fun and where many of those people were bound to have Muslim names (“apostates”).

What About Terrorism?

Warren Gibson Current Events , , , ,

Thoughts on terrorism from “The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom” by Michael Shermer (Holt, 2015).

I may be doing more quoting here than is allowed under “fair use” but here goes.  I will paraphrase his seven myths about terrorism.

  1. Terrorists are pure evil. This was what Bush said after 9/11, but studies show they are typically motivated by outrage at U.S. foreign policy.
  2. Terrorists are organized. There is no top-down, central organization directing terrorism.
  3. Terrorists are diabolical geniuses. The shoe bomber and others following 9/11 were incompetent.
  4. Terrorists are poor and uneducated. They are typically higher-income, better-educated individuals.
  5. Terrorism is a deadly problem. Compare 13,700 homicides per year with 3,000 from 9/11 and an average of 70 terrorist deaths per year, or 7.8 per year excluding 9/11.
  6. Terrorists will acquire and use a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb. A real danger, but nuclear weapons require a lot of scarce material and sophisticated engineering.
  7. Terrorism works. Terrorists usually wait until after their deed is done and then proclaim that whatever outcome happened was in fact their goal.

Please read the book yourself.  The section I have paraphrased (pp. 80-86) is a response to objections to his thesis that the over-arching trend of recent decades is toward a safer, more peaceful world.

I’ll add some thoughts of my own:

  1. Groups based on violence and hatred will eventually self-destruct as they splinter into factions and devour one another.  But “eventually” leaves time for a lot of damage.
  2. This seems like a great opportunity for Western governments to cooperate with Russia and perhaps China because Islamic terrorism is a threat to all those parties.

Leaders of all the Western nations have expressed outrage, as has Putin.  Radio silence thusfar from leaders of Islamic nations which, one presumes, have a lot to gain by distancing themselves from terrorism.

A Phony Race Scandal

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , , , ,

You heard it from me first: The scandal at the University of Missouri that led to the resignation of its president recently (11/8/15) stinks to high heaven. It’s a phony. It’s fabricated. How do I know? The real redneck racists being evoked, outlined, sketched in the story would have been proud just to find the can of spray paint to decorate a university building with a swastika. The problem with plotters is that they usually go too far, that they try too hard. The plotters in this case used the supreme refinement of doing the swastika in human feces. That takes effort, planning. It’s just too good to be true!

Why did the president and the chancellor both resign? Two reasons. But first, they did not “resign;” they were pushed out and for good reason. (See below.) Number one reason: University administrators have no backbone, as a general rule. A few years ago, my attorney and I beat up a dozen of them. We made them eat sand; we made them cry. Second reason: University administrators almost always have golden parachutes. Resigning, for such people, is like taking a vacation for others.

Why were they pushed out? There is big money involved although U of Missouri football has not been shining lately, I am told. U. of Missouri, like many other universities, has made itself a financial hostage to a handful of black gladiators they shamelessly insist on calling “students.” Someone correct me if I am wrong but I heard on NPR that one of the “students’” “demands” was for more hires for the university’s black studies program. Sounds tremendously familiar! Same thing happened thirty years ago all over the nation.  The plotters have good memories and no original thought at all. At my former university employer, ten years ago, there were protests leading to the university administration making a large lounge available for the use of “students of color.” (It’s true that no (No) sign was actually posted forbidding entry to whites; fair is fair!)

A student at U. of Missouri staged a hunger strike. Sorry, a hunger strike for five days is just a weight reduction experience. I realize this is an insensitive remark but, W.T. F.! We are witnessing a flurry of artificial racial protests nation-wide because the Democratic Party is desperate about its geriatric, dishwater white line-up. Even if it should win the election, the Democratic Party will still face a tremendous identity crisis. I don’t rejoice. Massive, collective dishonesty soils the water in which we all try to swim.

Cave Paintings and Elementary Science

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, History , , , , ,

This is a travel story of sorts, of travel through time, to an extent. Be patient.

Directly to the west of Marseille, the second largest city in France are a series of beautiful, narrow coves, like fjords, situated in a sort of desert. They are called “calanques” in French. They are accessible only by sea or through a long walk on hot rocky ground. Although they constitute a separate world, the calanques are close to Marseille, as the crow flies. They used to be a major fishing resource for the city. You can be sure they were never forgotten during the 2600 years of the city’s existence. Also, the city was founded by Greeks and thus, it always had a literate population, one that kept records.

Marseille and its environs are where SCUBA was invented, the first practical solution to the problem of men breathing underwater. Accordingly, the calanques were always and thoroughly explored after 1950. In 1985, one of the co-inventors of SCUBA discovered a deep cave in one of the calanques. He couldn’t resist temptation and swam into it until he reached a large emerging room. I mean a cave where he could stand and breathe regular air. His name was Cosquer.

Cosquer visited there several times without saying a word about his discovery. Soon, he observed dozens of beautiful paintings belonging to two distinct periods on the upper walls of his cave. The art of the first period was mostly hand imprints or stencils. The art of the second, distinct period, comprised 170-plus beautiful animals including many horses, ibex and others mammals, also fish, seals and other sea creatures. Archaeologists think the painting of the first period were done about in about 25 000 BC, those of the latter period date back to about 18 000 BC, they believe.

Today, the entrance to the cave is about 125 feet below sea level. We know that paleolithic men did not have SCUBA. They simply walked into the cave for their own reasons, with their own purposes in mind. Thus, the sea level was at least 125 feet lower then than it is today. The people of Marseille never saw the cave. They would have written about it. There would be records. They would not have forgotten it. They simply did not know of its existence during the past 2600 years.

Sometimes in the past 20 000 years, the sea rose 125 feet or more. That’s an amplitude several times greater than any of the direst predictions of the official United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the next century. The IPCC squarely blames a future ocean rise (one that has not been observed at all, yet) on abnormal emission of several gases, especially CO2 . These abnormal emissions in turn, the IPCC affirms are traceable to human activities such as driving cars and producing many useful things by burning fossil fuels.

It seems to me that basic good science requires that causal analysis begin with a baseline. In this case, it would mean something like this: In the absence of any burning of fossil fuels, the ocean rose 125 feet sometimes during the past 20,000 years. Let’s see if we can find evidence of the ocean rising above and beyond this order of magnitude since humanity began burning fossil fuels in large quantities, about 150 years ago.

The conclusion will likely be that nothing out of the ordinary happened. Hence, fossil fuel emissions are probably irrelevant to this particular issue. (This leaves open the possibility that such emissions are odious for some other reason. I mean that CO2 is plant food. Too much CO2 may promote weed growth in our fields and gardens. )

The ocean is not currently rising and if it is, the existence of the Cosquer cave suggests that it’s rising to a tiny degree. Let’s keep things in perspective. Let’s discard openly and loudly every part of the building of a complex hypothesis that does not work. Those who don’t take these obvious cleansing measures simply have a lot of explaining to do. They should not be allowed to wrap themselves in the mantle of science while violating Science 101 principles.

One of the conceits of the Warmist movement is that you don’t have a right to an opinion unless you possess a doctorate in Atmospheric science. By this dictate, anybody who has to keep a job, raise children, or pay a mortgage is out of the discussion. This is the typical posturing of intellectual totalitarianism. Note what’s missing in the story above: It says nothing about what did cause the ocean to rise between 18 000 B. C. and today. It’s enough to know that whatever it was, it was not the massive burning of fossil fuels. The story is complete as is. Don’t quit your job and apply to graduate school!

Republican Tax Plans are Misguided

Warren Gibson Current Events, Politics , , , , ,

Predictably, Republican candidates are showcasing tax plans offering goodies for everybody. When some spoilsport has the nerve to point out the worsening deficit that would result, the most common retort is that the tax cut will spur economic growth enough to overcome the higher deficit. Some day. Somehow.

Of course lower tax rates will spur growth so that the loss in tax revenue will be less than proportional to the cut in tax rates. But it is foolish to think that we’re ensconced on the far side of the Laffer curve, for those who know that phrase, which simply means that tax rates are so high that cuts will produce higher revenue.

What about the claim that a flat tax is fairer than the graduated rates we have now? Perhaps, but how does one judge the fairness of any tax? The usual answer is that taxes should be based on the taxpayer’s ability to pay. But that is a nebulous concept at best. It means that somehow we figure out how much income is necessary and how much is up for grabs by politicians  Do we need a cell phone, cable TV, air conditioning? Who’s to say?

At least a flat tax would treat everybody alike. Or would it? Under a flat tax, where everybody hands over the same percentage of their income, those who earn a lot pay more money than those who don’t. Why? Do the high earners consume more government services? Are high earners bad people who deserve punishment?

I concede that some tax schemes could be fairer than others. For example, much as I might like the idea of complete tax exemption for septuagenarian European-American males, I’ll grant that would be a bit unfair. But in the end no tax can be entirely fair because taxation is coercive activity: stealing if you like.

Don’t get me wrong: I like tax cuts, preferably across the board, but targeted cuts are fine with me too. But the focus on the tax code is misplaced. The root problem is the amounts of real goods and services that are consumed by politicians and bureaucrats. Whether they are financed by taxation or borrowing is a secondary issue.

Republicans should be drawing up lists of programs to reduce or eliminate. “Defense” spending should be at the top of the list. The list should be broad enough that everybody’s ox is gored. Who knows, this approach might actually gain some traction with the fed-up electorate.