Politics

Catching the Killer Kony: What Trends for Tools Can Tell Us About Political Structures

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

I am more than amused at the current trend of teenage boppers and serious college students catching up with the decades-long war happening in the Congo basin. It makes feel superior! If we really want to solve the problem of war in the Congo basin (and everywhere else in the post-colonial world) then we are going to have start looking at the political structures that have been left behind by the colonialists and enhanced by the indigenous (and socialist-educated) elite.

I have a quick blurb that may be of use. I say “may be” because I have decided to use Nigeria as an example rather than Uganda because it is a region I am much more familiar with, but the underlying concept is still the same. My more intelligent readers will no doubt grasp this nuance right away, but it may be harder to grasp for those readers not well-versed in social theory. I would, as always, be grateful for critiques and comments alike.

Religion has virtually nothing to do with the current conflict tearing Nigeria apart, and everything to do with the legacy of British imperialism (which went hand-in-hand with socialist legislation in the late decades of the 19th century). Continue reading →

Iraq, War, and the Litmus Test of Rationality: Ron Paul Edition

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

The Republican Presidential debates have been on TV for the past, what?, five or six months now, and I am proud to admit that I haven’t watched a single one of them.  By definition I am a left-leaning libertarian who thinks that free markets, limited government, and a humble foreign policy are the best tools to achieve social harmony, prosperity, and world peace.

So I had basically made up my mind on who I was going to vote for prior to the whole campaign season: Gary Johnson.  Now, co-editor Fred Foldvary has some very pertinent critiques of Governor Johnson’s tax policy proposals, but on the whole, I still think he is by far the best man to get my vote.

Because Gary Johnson does not have any baggage, a solid record while in office, and a personality that does not attract the worst of the worst to his message, he was essentially dead on arrival when he announced his Presidential campaign.  The media and its horse race would have none of it.  So he bolted the Republican Party and is now fighting for the Libertarian Party’s nomination.

I think this is a big mistake.  I think he should have stayed in the Republican Party and planned ahead for 2016.  Now, he is going to be the next Ron Paul, who also bolted the Republican Party to run as a Libertarian in 1988.  That move has cost him politically, and it is a shame that Johnson was too hot-headed with the national Party apparatus’ dismissal of his campaign. Continue reading →

Yes, Jacques Delacroix, Iran IS Surrounded

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

Over at his other blog, Jacques Delacroix has made it a habit of trying very, very hard to discredit the facts that Ron Paul spouts during the televised Presidential debates (I don’t think he has bothered to read any of the relevant literature that Ron Paul has put out over the years, especially on foreign policy).

This is fair enough, and, as a senior citizen (what else could it be?), Ron Paul is prone to sometimes babbling on out of turn about unrelated topics or topics that the media establishment deems unimportant (like free trade, sound money, and honest friendship).

Anyway, Dr. Delacroix wonders aloud in a recent piece about Ron Paul’s statement concerning the 45 U.S. military bases surrounding Iran.  He writes (in a tone none too condescending):

Reminder: I have said before that Ron Paul lives in an imaginary world as far as international policies are concerned.

The “imaginary world”, is, of course, referring to Paul’s argument that the U.S. is not a benevolent actor in international affairs but rather a bellicose, juvenile world power struggling to assert its primacy across the globe.  This could be accomplished if it were not for the constitutional restraints placed upon the executive branch, of course, but I am digressing.

Here is a map of the bases and airports that the United States uses for military purposes in the Arabian Gulf:  Continue reading →

Ugly Conservative Sacred Cows

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , , , , , ,

Sometimes, it’s wrong to be right. Here are three issues where conservative Republicans seem to this conservative Republican to be wrong, from a practical standpoint, at least. That’s at least from a practical standpoint. They may also be morally wrong. I won’t deal with this today. Those three issues are sacred cows of contemporary conservatism, ugly cows that hardly anyone dare slaughter. I will just have to do it.

Illegal immigration

The thought that some immigrants begin their lives in this benevolent, generous country by violating our laws is infuriating. It’s especially infuriating to the American and legal resident relatives of candidates to legal immigration who stand politely in line, often for years, sometimes to no avail. (I have a short essay on [my other] blog on legal immigration into this country. Here is a summary: for most people in the world, it’s completely impossible. I address this matter succinctly in the second half of a piece on Social Security: Bizarre Conservative Ideas About Immigration). And, incidentally, if you don’t know it already, I am an immigrant myself, a legal immigrant. (You may even want to read excerpts from my memoirs: “I Used to Be French…”)

The question is what to do about illegal immigration? Many conservatives declare that they favor muscular responses. Chief among those are militarizing the border with Mexico and mass deportation of illegal aliens in this country (most of whom are Mexicans).

The first time a member of the armed forces kills a twenty-year old Mexican trying to cross in order to buss tables in San Jose will also be the last time. We are not like that. Those who claim to want to put the military on the border have not thought things through. The military does most good when it’s shooting and when it gives the impression that it will shoot if necessary. Do you really expect them to shoot peaceful young men, and worse, women who commit an illegal act in order to make a living? (Said illegal act was only a misdemeanor for years, like illegal parking, by the way.)

I don’t care how tough conservatives they think they are. It does not sound credible. If you keep declaring that you want to do the inhumanely absurd and the absurdly inhumane it makes you lose credibility. You need your credibility for other struggles, struggles we might actually win quickly.

The severe determination to evict millions of illegal aliens sounds like bad science fiction the minute you think about it seriously. There are probably more than ten million of them, maybe more. They are concentrated in certain states such as California. Texas and Illinois. Nevertheless, there are illegal aliens in every state by now. They go to school with our children; they work in the businesses we patronize; they share our exercise machines; they worship in our churches. One immigrant who told me he came here illegally from Mexico is now president of the local branch of my bank. He is a good bank president, by the way. In part that’s because he possesses the common immigrant vigor. In part it’s because he is Mexican by culture. But I am getting away from my topic.

And, of course, if you think about it (please, do) you will soon figure out that many illegals, who came as babies, don’t know well any language other than English. Many have American brothers and sisters. You are not going to round them up. The very popular attempt to expel the small minority of illegals who have committed crimes is not even going well. And, no, it’s not all Obama’s fault. The logistics alone are daunting.

Moreover, if you polled a hundred “tough on illegal immigration” conservatives, you would find the following:

A small number would claim not to know any illegal alien. Most of those would be factually wrong. A larger number, when pressed, would request exceptions to the mass deportation order, exceptions for illegal aliens they know well: for Maria or for Luis. Maria and Luis would be their own illegals, their special lawbreakers, who happen to be good and meritorious illegal aliens. It’s the other guy’s illegal aliens they really object to! Those other illegal aliens are rabble. (Personally, I hate the Mexican who uses a leaf-blower every Monday morning at 8 on the dot. I want him deported, whether he is illegal or not.)

I develop these arguments extensively with respect to Mexican illegals specifically in an article co-authored with another immigrant, Sergey Nikiforov, published in The Independent Review.

In brief, this is not a good time (2/21/12) to argue about illegal aliens. It will invariably make you sound callous, inhuman and thoughtless plus impractical. Wait until you have the power to deal with the issue in a compassionate, humane, thoughtful and rational way.

You don’t need to die for every hill all at once.

Homosexual Marriage

First, don’t bother to correct me. I know that the politically correct term is “same-sex marriage.” Political correctness interferes with my rational thought. And by the way, it’s not two guys who just happen to be good friends who are itching to get hitched! Let’s not be ridiculous.

Don’t let your visceral revulsion masquerade as rational argument. Don’t allow yourself to push your religiously-based condemnation on me who is not religious. Don’t push it on others who might otherwise make good allies in the conquest of power. Doing either is un-conservative. It makes you look like the worst of Communist totalitarians. (Fidel Castro used to put homosexuals in prison until some of his rare smart advisors talked him out of it.)

And don’t make absurd and devious arguments by naming laws directed against homosexuals getting hitched: “Defense of Marriage Act.” Whatever homosexuals do in private, or even on the public street may be disgusting to you but it does nothing to undermine heterosexual marriage. That particular institution does not need external attacks. It self-destructs from within every minute of the day. What do you expect any way? Do you really think that if the door were terminally slammed on homosexual marriage, the percentage of first heterosexual marriage ending in divorce would slip from, say 50% to 49%? Please, take the five seconds it takes to answer this question in your mind.

And, it you think about what you already know concerning the fragility of heterosexual marriage, you must know that banning alcohol – with the death penalty for the second offense, perhaps – would almost certainly do more to preserve the institution than any prohibition applied to homosexuals.

Think through that one too, please.

My own opinion on the issue: I think no group should be allowed to use the armed force of government to change the meaning of a common word, such as “marriage.” That’s essentially what militant homosexuals are trying to do. I am completely opposed on principle. However, I don’t think it will create a precedent if they succeed. The acceptance of the idea that marriage may involve two women, or two men, or three, will not usher the day when “lie” comes to mean “truth,” by government decree and under threat of jailing.

Conservatives need to be mature enough to fight in important battles and not to pick fights based on unreasoned rage.

And, incidentally, in case you are wondering, I am not one of the brave conservative homosexuals forced to stay in the closet. I am not a homosexual but strictly a normal, vulgar T&A kind of guy.

Imposing standards of performance on schools

There are many different reasons to be appalled at the whole educational establishment, K through high-school senior and beyond, including the university, and even some graduate and professional schools. I don’t like the word “appalled.” It sounds effeminate and left-liberal. So, in truth, I am not appalled but I am really pissed off. And, as a former teacher, I could tell you stories that would make your hair stand on end. And your hair wouldn’t come down until the next morning at best. What you know is not the half of it!

To pare down the causes of our disillusionment, to get down to its core:

The more numerous the national educational establishment and the more loaded with benefits, the more unassailable its privileges, the less Johnny knows how to read.

It began with elementary school that promoted “students” who couldn’ t spell their name; it’s crept to the colleges that now offer numerous remedial classes for freshmen they admitted under their own power. I can testify personally that I know an expensive university that awards degrees each year to people who cannot line up two grammatically correct sentences in any language. Some of these same students major in a foreign language. They can’t line up anything in the foreign language either. After four years and tens of thousands of dollars, they end up illiterate in two languages. N.S. !

There is a natural tendency to want to remedy this rolling disaster with a formula that seems to succeed in business:

Evaluate, punish or reward

There are several reasons why this is likely to be counterproductive.

First, the evaluation is not as easy as current plans seem to assume: It’s for schools as for computers: Give the best schools very bad students and they will only turn out mediocre students. Give mediocre schools excellent students, they will turn them mediocre. It’s not easy to figure out what does what although it’s possible to do in principle. Children are not like so many pounds of flour. They are intensely reactive and they come into the school system with built-in strengths and built-in defects. The relevant research would be quite expensive and it would take a long time to conduct.

It’s true that liberal teachers unions use these very arguments to protect their members from scrutiny and from accountability. This does not mean that this view is incorrect. You don’t want to create a worse situation by punishing good teachers that work with difficult human material and by rewarding bad teachers that are able to pick the low-hanging cherries.

Second, don’t be surprised if teachers sabotage evaluations done by existing school hierarchies. They will do this even when they approve of the fact of being evaluated and even if they approve of the evaluation tools. Education has been a rotten, intellectually corrupt field for so long that the hierarchies it generates cannot be seen as respectable by respectable teachers.

The solution to this last problem often seems to be to use “objective” evaluation tools, mechanical evaluation devices that do not make room for supervisors’ corruption. I agree that it’s possible in principle to develop such evaluative devices. By administering them according to a “before and after” pattern, it’s also possible to remedy at once the first and second objections I raise above.

Doing so creates a third problem that is so serious that it may be worse than the original problem any evaluations are supposed to remedy.

As someone who devised hundreds of tests, let me say that I don’t see how it would be possible to reformulate the evaluation tools for any area or especially, nationally with much frequency. Doing so would be extravagantly expensive, too time-consuming. So, the teachers and their school “superiors” would quickly become aware of the contents of the tests, of what, very precisely the tests are actually testing. If the rewards and punishments were not significant, see above. If they were significant, you can be completely sure that most teachers, 80%, 90%, 95 % would immediately start teaching narrowly to the test.

How would you not expect teachers to do more or less this since their welfare and that of their children, even their retirement would depend exactly on their teaching to the test? I mentioned their retirement because economic self-advancement is normally done on a percentage basis. The raise you did not get this year will stay with you your whole life, literally. It will increase in relative size with every year. (I know how costly this sort of purity is because I followed such a strategy throughout my teacher career and I never caught up economically with my lackluster but conformist colleagues.)

The best possible outcome of this scenario is that after a while, American kids would read and write pretty much as well as say, Koreans, or Estonians.

Do you see where I am going? This is something very valuable that the current disastrous American education promotes or, that at least, it avoids destroying. For lack of a better word, that’s called “creativity.’ Americans have more of it than others. Look around from the Internet to giant double rolls of toilet paper in public facilities to country music!

Ideally, we would have a Johnny who would know how to read and write and who would also remain occasionally creative. I am afraid, we don’t know how to produce such a result. It does not mean that it cannot be done. It does not depend on a drastic, sudden reform though, It’s not a matter of getting tough, no more Mr Nice Guy!

Note that I am evoking here the possibility of a successful endeavor. I have not even begun to discuss the real likelihood of massive, systemic cheating in and ill-implemented “evaluate, punish, reward “ program. Look at the Atlanta school system for an example of how massively wrong this strategy can go.

I have no conclusion for this butchery proposal in three parts. I don’t need to know what ought to be don’t to stop doing what I shouldn’t do. I hope you will offer one conclusion or more.

Fascism Explained Part 2

Jacques Delacroix Liberty, Politics , , , , ,

[Continued from Part 1]

Why are leftists and their friends so often anti-Semitic?

It was not just Hitler, Stalin also tried to deflect the problem of his country on to “the Jews.” That happened after the Nazi extermination camps had been discovered, largely by Russians soldiers.

Melanie Kirpatrick had a piece on Hugo Chavez’ persecution of Jews in Venezuela [recently]. Hugo Chavez is one of the heroes of the Hollywood Left. In the same issue of the WSJ, an American Professor writes from Beirut, Lebanon about official Lebanese anti-Antisemitism. He reports that the television series, “The Nanny” is banned in Lebanon because the heroine Fran Drescher is Jewish! The real reason is that Lebanese have to appear as friends of the Palestinians (although they probably killed more Palestinians  over the years than Israelis did). The Palestinians are the other darlings of the Left. Anti-antisemitism is transitive! (Look up that word, knucklehead.)

I know, I know, most American Jews vote mostly on the Left. They espoused Obama as if he were the long-awaited Messiah. After the Cairo speech, they are not so sure. This does not tell me anything about the Left. It tells me about human folly and obduracy.

Race, Racism, and the Law in America

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Law, Politics , , , , ,

Rush Limbaugh called the President’s appointee for Supreme Court Justice a “reverse racist.” He is wrong; she is simply a racist. If you discriminate against anyone because he belongs to a racial group (whatever that means, see below), you are a racist. There is no definitional exception depending on the race of the discriminator. Got it?

Judge Sotomayor is an overt racist. Read the papers and think about the decisions she made on affirmative action and the reasons she gave. She is also on record as stating that she would “hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experience, would more often than not reach a better decision than….” (quoted from a WSJ editorial). Hemming and hawing aside, that is a straightforward declaration of the judicial superiority of having been born a member of a particular group. The qualifier “wise” does not count. Of course, she is not stupid and she would not say that an unwise Latina has superior judgment.

That declaration was published in something called “La Raza Law Journal.” Yes, you guessed right, “raza” means “race” in Spanish. It’s a law school publication for Latinos, “our race.” Academic ideologues will try to tell you with a straight face that “raza” does not really mean “race.” Just ask them how to say “race,” in Spanish then and watch they stutter and possibly cry. Continue reading →

Communist Dinosaurs

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , , , , ,

I watch a French two-and-a-half-hour weekly television show that’s pretty good in most respects. It mixes no- hold-barred interviews of politicians with talks with movie directors, authors and artists, including singers.  There is a presidential election beginning in France too. It relies on an an incomplete primary system. To make a long story short, anyone with a grievance or an idea who can get 500 signatures of I don’t know whom can run. That makes for a lively and exotic first round of  balloting. In the second round, things get serious. In any case, this time, there is an explicitly “communist” candidate (Trotskyst branch). She runs for an organization that calls itself “Workers’ Struggle” (Lutte ouvriere).

It’s not clear what her party considers as “workers” but from the candidate’s choice of examples of struggle in her interview last night, there is a strong preference for conventional blue-collar and pink-collar workers. Of course, manufacturing jobs are vanishing from France as they have been doing here. People employed in manufacturing are becoming accordingly scarcer. Bad strategic bet that, defining yourself as a workers’ party when you also define workers that way, (going away, going away, gone!).

The “communist” candidate discourse is loud as it is transparent. Let me summarize: Continue reading →

Update on America and on the World

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , , , , ,

Newt Gingrich [recently] won the South Carolina primary by a big margin. I know that’s only South Carolina, perhaps the most conservative state. Still, that’s a major rebuke to serious candidate Romney. The speeches both gave after Gingrich won delineate clearly two major paths for the Republican Party. Romney’s speech was colorless, odorless, rich in platitudes. It was the kind of speech unfairly associated with “moderates” who deserve better.

Gingrich spoke incisively, precisely about what agitates conservatives like me who are not born-again Christians nor any of the other stereotypes the liberal press has invented. We want a smaller government that’s not wasteful and that does not get us into debt for two  generations to come. Gingrich’s speech was well received for another reason: It spoke of simple pride in America, not of imperial pride, not of a wish to dominate, not of hubris but of simple dignity.

There is a pervasive feeling that we lost our national dignity during the three-year Obama presidency. It was not all his fault. Certainly, a major contributor is our large national debt that was already too large when he took office. However, it’s fair to charge Obama for this loss of dignity because he told us repeatedly that America should become a smaller, more ordinary country, and it has. If you tell Mom in anger, ” I wish you died” and she dies, don’t be surprised if your brothers are angry at you. And, President Obama, whose middle name is  still Hussein, bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, the grandchild of camel thieves who happens to have captured a lot of oil. Continue reading →

Some Possible Consequences of a U.S. Government Default

Jeffrey Rogers Hummel Economics, History, Politics , ,

My Econ Journal Watch article on Treasury default is now available online. It appears in a special issue that is devoted to various articles with differing perspectives on the probability and consequences of a U.S. government default.

Releasing Income Taxes

foldvary Economics, Politics

Disgusting!  is my reaction to calls to candidates to release their income tax returns.

First of all, income tax records are supposed to be able to be kept private.

I can understand wanting to know candidates’ special-interest connections, but these usually do not show up in tax records.

Also, criticism of the low tax rates paid by some candidates is unwarranted. It is not a crime to seek to minimize one’s taxes. Moreover, given an income tax, there are good reasons why dividends and capital gains have lower tax rates. Dividends are already taxed by the corporate income tax. Long-term capital gains have already been taxed by inflation.

Ron Paul said regarding his taxes that his income was low compared to other candidates. What he should have said is, “my taxes are none of your business!” Moreover, the income tax should be abolished. Calls to reveal income tax forms imply approval of income taxation.

Disgusting!

A Libertarian sales-tax party?

foldvary Economics, Politics , , , ,

Is the Libertarian Party becoming a sales tax party?  The past several LP candidates for president have favored excise taxes.  I don’t recall any of them declaring, “Taxation is Theft!”  Now we have former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson as a leading candidate for the LP nomination for president, having abandoned the quest for the Republican Party nomination.  His tax plan as a Republican was a national sales tax, and that remains his tax plan as a Libertarian.

The main organization pushing for a national sales tax calls it a “Fair Tax.”  That is excellent propaganda, but a sales tax is no more fair or just than a tax on wages.  A sales tax violates free trade, makes products more expensive, and indirectly taxes wages and other incomes.  The advocates claim that a shift from income to sales taxes would not raise prices, since the income tax already raises prices, but they are wrong, because much of the burden of a tax on wages is on labor.  A sales tax has about the same excess burden or deadweight loss as an income tax.  Income taxes punish savings, but sales taxes punish borrowing, and there is no logical reason to favor savings over borrowing.  Savings and borrowing should be voluntary individual choices not skewed by taxes or subsidies.

The “Fair Tax” plan exempts business purchases, putting the burden on households.  That invites massive tax evasion, as folks would claim to be buying stuff for a business.  The response of government would be a sales tax gestapo.  If you did not have a receipt for your purchase and could not prove it was for business, you could go to prison.

If the Libertarian Party becomes a sales tax party, it will be unpopular and get little support.  Historically, sales tax advocacy has been a political loser.  This may well be why Gary Johnson got so little support as a Republican candidate for president.  If the LP nominates a sales taxer, I for one will promote the Free Earth Party (http://free-earth.foldvary.net/) as a truly libertarian alternative.

Leadership, International Trade, Hormuz and Ron Paul, Minorities and Ron Paul: The Last-Before-Last Republican Follies

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

Well, I am just about debated out. It’s difficult for all the candidates or pretend-candidates to maintain their dignity while answering complex questions in sixty seconds with thirty seconds for rebuttals. It’s worse when the debate is moderated, and many of the questions formulated, by one local unknown and two liberals, one of whom has been an air-head for as far back as I can remember. I am referring to Dianne Sawyer, of course, and I can remember at least thirty years.

Two general comments about the Saturday night New Hampshire debate. (I missed the Sunday morning debate, sorry.) First, as usual, much time was wasted with questions and answers about “leadership.” I don’t understand the questions. I don’t understand the answers; I suspect (strongly) that the candidates understand neither the questions nor the answers about leadership. Leadership is a word that is worse than useless. Trust me, I taught management for about 25 years. If the concept were useful, I would have noticed. It’s useless the way baby-talk is useless. To the average one-year old, everything is a “wah.” It takes all the resources of parental love to assign to or to invent a meaning for each “wah” utterance. I don’t have such love for anything politicians say. Any politician who made it a rule to eschew completely the use of the word “leader” and of its derivatives would instantly gain in clarity and in sincerity.

My second comment is that, as happens every time, the candidates demonstrated their deep ignorance of basic concepts of international trade and of international economics in general. It makes me feel good that I taught the topic for about thirty years. I feel retrospectively, that I must have been doing something useful. I expect such ignorance among liberals. It’s disheartening to encounter it on the conservative and libertarian side. Continue reading →