Libertarian Isolationism: A Rebuttal

Brandon Christensen Liberty , , , , , , , ,

I am floating on air. I had recently added Dr. Jacques Delacroix (Ph.D. Sociology, Stanford) as friend on Facebook, as I had come across his insightful writings in the pages of Liberty, a libertarian publication. I was especially amused by his article on UCSC LUG’s, and was pleasantly surprised to see that he was a mutual friend of a fellow Santa Cruz libertarian.

He is an immigrant from France, and, as you can see through his writings, he bears much resemblance to another Frenchman who once wandered through our curious and inventive Republic.

A rare breed not only because he immigrated here from France (and loves it), Dr. Delacroix is also, quite curiously, a libertarian hawk. That is, he believes that the United States military can and will effectively run an operation that eliminates the threat of terrorist networks aimed at destroying the Republic.

I was fortunate enough to have piqued his interest one day, and the exchange that ensued led him to reply, quite thoughtfully, to my responses. In other words, I am swimming with the big fish now!

Because Dr. Delacroix is much wiser than I, the burden falls on me to convince him of the error of his thought. It has often been said that the older you get, the less likely you are to change your thoughts or your “ways”. I don’t expect to change Dr. Delacroix’s mind (not because he is “old”, either!), but because his mind is still very, very sharp (which is why I am so perplexed at his hawkishness on this issue), I must respond and give the best response that I can.

Below you will find my first argument from the Facebook exchange in italics, followed by Dr. Delacroix’s arguments (which will be indented and in bold), and my replies will follow. I hope y’all learn something from this. I know I have. Continue reading →

Peace At All Costs: Growing Isolationism Among Libertarians

Jacques Delacroix Liberty ,

I expect liberals to be against most wars except those they start themselves (most of them, historically). Such opposition stands to reason because much liberalism is based on a vague feeling of collective guilt: Whatever bad thing happens, it must be “our” fault. I am disturbed therefore to recognize signs of growing military isolationism among my libertarian friends. Some of it is just disguised defeatism coming from increasing Afghan War fatigue. Much more is based on moral concerns that I think are usually misplaced. Below is an exchange I had with a young libertarian recently. He is much younger than I am. Like me, he lives in the People’s Socialist Green Republic of Santa Cruz, California. The mere fact that he professes libertarian opinions in that environment makes him a man of substance and a man of honor. His communication begins right below. My inter-spaced comments are in quotes.

…Speaking of which, I think I am going to take a shot at convincing you of the hopelessness of global interventionism and nation-building as a tool for preventing jihadism.  While jihadism is indeed a problem, I don’t think its a global one.  I think that perhaps there are some jihadists who believe in resurrecting the Islamic caliphate of old, but even then that old caliphate never reached the shores of the New World.

Your view of the Caliphate does not begin to cover the motives for jihad. Jihadism does not mean “re-conquest” of what was once Muslim but conquest or domination of the whole world. (See the Hamas Charter). The only acceptable outcomes are conversion or living as dhimmis, second class citizens, for Christians and Jews. Pagans – that would include Santa Cruz Buddhists, as well as Hindus – can be slaughtered freely or reduced to slavery under Islamic law. In fact, any Muslims man can seize any “pagan” and make him or her a slave. Female slaves are called “concubines.”The Muslims scriptures thus clearly condone rape. The rational Muslims I know will say, “ That was a long time ago. We would not do it now.” In the meantime, the permission to act in this manner remains on the book. It can be invoked at any time and is. I don’t know for sure but I would bet that there is not a single fatwa condemning any of these outrageous acts. Want to bet?

I think that for the most part jihadism is a regional problem, and one that the Republic is embroiled in only because of the military assistance (and occupation) that we are providing to the corrupt, ruthless, and negligent Saudi regime (and now the Iraqi and Afghani regimes as well – both of which are equally as corrupt and negligent as the Saudi one).

So, why the terrorist attacks on the French? On the Spanish? On Sweden right before Christmas 2010? Why the kidnappings and executions of journalists of all nationalities?

Being as how our beef with the jihadists stems from our occupation of Islamic holy lands, i think it is only logical that we bring our troops home and leave the peoples of the Old World to their own affairs.  If this were to happen, the jihadists would either turn inward on themselves (which I suspect is the most likely outcome), on Israel, or on the weak and dying welfare states of Europe.

What “Islamic holy lands?” Is Afghanistan holy? Since when? Are Kurdish and Sunni Iraq holy? Why was Algeria attacked for ten years, with about 100,000 deaths: no American troops there? By the way, no American troops in Saudi Arabia for ten years. When American soldiers were withdrawn from the holy soil of Saudi Arabia, terrorists attacks increased. Al Quaida and its buddies did not say, “Alright, we are all squared away now.” Your good reasoning seems to rely on misinformation.

The state of Israel is strong enough to handle its own affairs, and I, unlike many of my peers in Santa Cruz, actually support their actions against the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah (though I do recognize Hamas’ election victories and think that the West is shooting itself in the foot by not recognizing them as such).  Besides, I don’t think that all of the various factions within the Middle East are worried that much about a liberal democratic state in the region.  I think that everyone over there is much more worried about a nuclear Iran than anything else.  There are also many tribal rivalries, sub-state rivalries, ethnic rivalries, and religious rivalries that are likely to spring up in the absence of an imperial presence, all of which are much, much older than the relatively new beef with the Israeli state.

Hamas ‘election was one of the cleanest in the Middle East. Let the Gaza Palestinians assume the burden they put on their own backs by electing Hamas fair and square. The states and factions of the Middle East ought to be worried more about Iran than about Israel. It does not mean that they are. It does not mean that they can divest themselves soon of the mental habit of blaming everything on Israel (That includes Egyptian journalists’ blaming shark attacks on tourists in the Red Sea on Israel! -Would I make this up?)

And until Europe ends its Apartheid-like “multicultural” policies on immigrants, and ends the rest of its ridiculous domestic social policies, then Europeans will continue to live in fear of their own shadows.

French society is a very good example of integration of Muslims. It’s at the antipodes of what you could legitimately describe as apartheid. French Muslims are in construction, in retail trade, in government, in teaching, in the police and in the Cabinet. It does not stop anything as far as violent jihadists are concerned.

One of the best things the American people could do for Europeans is to get out of the region and let them learn how to defend themselves again (it would also save taxpayers here millions of dollars).

Your perception of the costs of “defending” Europe is probably dated. It’s only true in the sense that we maintain somewhat larger armed forces. We would in any case. Yet, your point is well taken, the Europeans are not doing their share and the Canadian armed forces number fewer than …60,000.

How are they ever going to learn how to live again if we don’t let them walk – wobbly knees and all – on their own two feet?

I don’t see how any of this is isolationist.  Bringing our troops home would ensure peace from the ravages of Old World affairs, but it would not mean an end of relations with the peoples of the Old World either.  Commercial, educational, scientific, religious, and other such relations would continue, and, to top it off, the world would once again have an example of what to emulate when it comes to governing the affairs of their own.  And if there was an imminent threat by a terrorist on foreign soil against the Republic, well, that’s what we have satellite technology and laser-guided missiles for.

I don’t know where you get your trust in high-tech defense; I wish to share it.

… In any such case, the current occupation of foreign lands has not done much to stem the violent rise of jihadism,

How do you know? And how do I know, admittedly? Yet, killing those who have declared they want to kill you and have done so repeatedly seems like a good general policy.

and I would argue that a position of neutrality towards the region would actually do more to eliminate the threat of jihadism than nation-building “exercises.”

The causal linkage you make about violent jihad and US occupation of Muslim countries is based on defective facts so, your remedy cannot be credible.

Your faith in military technology is misplaced, I think. (I could make a U-turn on this one.). As a result, you want to defend American society on the Jersey Shore and on the beach in La Jolla. That’s defend against both violent jihadism and North Korean and Iranian adventurism. That’s isolationism.

The concept of an “Old World” may play a strange role in your reasoning. It seems to be the linchpin of your wholesale rejection that I think of as “isolationism.”I believe it’s a completely artificial construction. The UK and Turkmenistan are both parts of your Old World, I would guess. But what do they have in common? The big gap is between societies where fairly legitimate elections take place frequently, accompanied by alternance in power and where the rule of law prevails much of the time, on the one hand, and gangster states, on the other hand. I could draw you a list of the latter easily. Gangster states often turn aggressive because they are mostly economically unsuccessful. A successful gangster state such as China is less likely to turn violent.

I have not addressed your objections to nation-building. (You raise too many good points.) Just a question: How many democratic polities are there in the Mideast now? Who gets the credit (blame?) for the latest?

Guns and Truth

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

I have stayed away from this blog too long. I wasn’t cruising the South Pacific on my McGregor 26, as you might expect. I was just editing my memoirs; I was trying to be thorough. (It’s called: “I Used to Be French: An Immature Autobiography.” There are excerpts of it on this blog.)

On my last radio show, I made the subject of gun control come up. I did it because I had heard one of my colleagues, a liberal talk-show host on the same station make a statement that sounded bogus to me. (The station is KSCO A.M. In Santa Cruz; it’s available on-line. My show is called “Facts Matter.” It’s every Sunday 11a.m. – 1p.m.)

The statement that caught my attention was this:

For every time a gun is used in legitimate self-defense, a gun is used nineteen times for illegitimate or illegal purposes.

The figure was just too pat. It was calculated to be remembered by regular folks who are assumed by the Left to have no head for numbers. It sounded like pure propaganda. I thought it might also be trivially true, correct but without any meaning.

I called the liberal host during his show and challenged him to produce a source. He could not. We had eleven email exchanges. The other guy says he gave me the references. I say he did not.

If you insist on you shoring up your argument with figures – a good thing- you had better be prepared to explain where they come from. I think the Left is forever quoting imaginary numbers and numbers they misinterpret. Some just cheat and make up facts. Others are just conveniently loose with numbers, making mistakes always in the same direction.  Continue reading →

My Thoughts on the Aurora Shooting

Brandon Christensen Current Events

I don’t have much to say, only that we need much stricter gun control laws now. This was the last straw. Also, more people die on our highways than anywhere else. So we should get rid of all of our roads too. Or at least restrict access to people who know how to use them properly: the police and the military, of course. And, you’ll notice that the police and the military are increasingly hard to differentiate these days. Bin Laden may be dead, but he was always thinking about the Long Game.

So, now would be a good time to politicize a shooting. I am not complaining. I’d rather hear all sides of a story than get my information from a single source. The Huffington Post politicizes events better than anybody else. They just came out with a story on a $2 million tab for one of the moviegoers who is still hospitalized. Thanks to this story, the young man won’t have trouble paying his bills (Americans are the most generous people on the planet, despite our excessive tax burdens).

Europe has had its fair share of shootings, too. I am not speaking just of the recent shooting in Norway. Germany, France, Britain, and Switzerland have all had to deal with such events. Some of these states have stricter gun control laws than we do. Some of them don’t. Oftentimes there is mixing and matching. Some states have restrictions on pistols. Others on high-powered rifles. Some have bans on assault weapons. Crazy people still find ways to get guns and shoot people, though. Always have, always will.

So the Left (and the neoconservatives still pretending to be on the Right) demands stricter gun control laws. They don’t really care if such laws are effective or not. They only care about telling others what to do.

Italy and National Debt and Everyone Else

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

I have been inactive. Some catching up to do. I will go straight to the Italian situation because I don’t see it addressed in the media with anything resembling insight based on good information. I am it by default.

It’s human nature I suppose to want simple solutions to complex problems and easy solutions to hard problems. Italy is out of the swamp and therefore, the Euro is saved and therefore, the sterco is not going to hit the fan on this side of the Atlantic. Reason: Old bad boy Silvio Berlusconi resigned. Not much analysis, not much going below the surface by the American press. I have to do their elementary work for them.

First, I suspect there is a monstrous confusion in the minds of many in the media between the accounts of Italy, the state, the Italian republic on the one hand, and the figures pertaining to the Italian economy, on the other hand. The Italian economy comprises a few highly visible major corporations such as Fiat and myriads of small businesses.

The Italian Republic is in debt. The Italian economy is doing well. It’s on the healthy side of economies of developed countries. It’s a lot better than Japan’s for instance. It’s also true that, as elsewhere in Europe, the budget of the state is large relative to the national economy. My bet is that it is smaller than say, in France, or in Sweden, or even in Germany, because the black economy in Italy is so large. The Italian government is just not able to get its grubby little hands on much of what’s generated within Italy. Nevertheless, it’s true that the government budget and the private sector economy influence each other in Italy, as they do elsewhere. That’s not excuse to confuse the one with the other. My wife and I influence each other. It does no mean that we are one and the same. (For one thing, she is both attractive and intelligent.)

Berlusconi did not accumulate the large sovereign debt of the Italian Republic. The debt goes back a long way, some say to the aftermath of WWII. Successive governments just left it alone or they contributed to it. Continue reading →

Racial Profiling at its Best

Jacques Delacroix Liberty , , , , , , ,

Here is a story and a sociological essay all rolled into one.

My son the recent college graduate only thinks about cooking. I encourage his inclination, of course. Compulsion does not work. Most people do well only what they like to do. Besides, I am an immigrant from France. Scabs of French pessimism stick to my brain. I don’t know how long the current economic crisis will last. In Japan, there were ten dead years, a full decade lost. I tell myself that cooks never go hungry and neither do those who are close to them. I adore my son’s girlfriend. I want her to have enough to eat, happen what may. I used to work in kitchens myself, around the 18th century. I believe that even the leavings from the average restaurant kitchen will keep you pleasantly fat forever. Go for it, I tell him.

My son has been cooking part-time since he was a teenager and throughout the embarrassingly long years it took him to complete his political science major. He has experience in a variety of fairly humble kitchen positions. I also think he has some talent. I don’t say this because he is my son. I am a mean father by California standards, a stern figure more or less from the Old Testament, you might say. Not long ago, I thought my son was worse than worthless. I am not afraid to be “judgmental,” bet on it! But he has changed. His brain has caught up with his glands at last. Having finished college, he is naturally looking for a full-time position, or better. He is meeting with an obstacle we did not expect but that was expectable if we had thought about it: He is not Mexican.

In California, where I live, everywhere in California, I think, during the fat cow years, immigrants from Mexico took over nearly all the kitchen jobs, Those are mostly hard jobs, stressful jobs offering low pay. The native-born young shunned them in favor of retail “sales associates” positions that are easy and allow for a fair margin of laziness although they don’t pay any better. The Mexican take-over began with Taco Bells and private tamales stands, and, naturally, taco shops. But immigrants are predictable. Many went considerably further. Continue reading →

The Curious Case of the Bourgeois Bubble Boy

Brandon Christensen Liberty, Politics , , , , , , ,

Since Ron Paul’s fantastic, spontaneous, incredible 2008 presidential campaign libertarianism has become a hot topic among the brightest people throughout the world. This is not a coincidence or an act of God, I think. The recent peak in interest of libertarian alternatives has to do with the sometimes sorry state that our world always seems to be in.  As somebody who came from the hard, anarchist, collectivist Left, I can assess that the libertarian alternative has been given a fair shake by a broad swathe of the American public.  However, on the hard Left, there has been bitter hostility towards anything remotely libertarian in American political discourse.  Most of this is envy, I think; a primitive form of envy that always forms when competition arises to challenge the orthodox opinions and mores of a society.

More on this is just a minute, but first: although there are indeed many problems facing the world today, we are living in a time of great abundance and peace. Furthermore, the periodic mass starvations in East Africa and the short, intense outbursts of small wars are both relatively simple to fix and uncommon (which is why they make the news). These are facts that we would do well to remember. Back to the hard, bitter Left.
Continue reading →

Elites and Housing Segregation: What Gives?

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Liberty, Links , , , ,

Virginia Postrel has a provocative post on How Elites Built America’s Economic Wall up at Bloomberg (ht Wilson Mixon). The gist of the post is summed up as follows:

Housing prices have always been steeper in high-income places, but the difference is much greater than it used to be […] This segregation has social and political consequences, as it shapes perceptions — and misperceptions — of one’s fellow citizens and “normal” American life. It also has direct and indirect economic effects. “It’s a definite productivity loss,” Shoag says. “If there weren’t restrictions and you could build everywhere, it would be productive for people to move. You do make more as a waiter in LA than you do in Ohio. Preventing people from having that opportunity to move to these high-income places, making it so expensive to live there, is a loss.” That’s true not only for less-educated workers but for lower earners of all sorts, including the artists and writers who traditionally made places like New York, Los Angeles and Santa Fe cultural centers.

This excerpt gets a high place for my Obvious Statement of the Year Award, but are elites listening? Government regulations hurt workers and drive out competition. This is a given, but I have some questions I thought readers could help me answer.

My questions are both broad and messy: Continue reading →

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Links , , , , , , , , ,

Isn’t California broke?

Savage Continent. European women and their Nazi boyfriends.

A Family-Plus Outing. Islam at the Beach: Santa Cruz edition.

As I keep saying, this election is Romney’s to lose.

Sorry ’bout the short posts from me lately. I hope everybody is enjoying their summer!

Rights of “Occupy” Crowd Violated

Jacques Delacroix Current Events , ,

The First Amendment specifies that “Congress” shall make no law interfering with the right of citizens “peaceably to assemble.” The Bill of Rights of the State of New York contains no such provision. I have no legal training but I deplore admitting that it sounds to me as if the city police of New York faces no constitutional impediment when it orders the “Occupy” movement to stop camping on that private park where they have been for weeks.

I deplore this reading of the law because I believe, by instinct, and possibly by a common misreading of the Constitution, that the right of all and any Americans to assemble is central, absolute and all too often stepped on by local authorities and by petty tyrants. All too often, I see locally or, indirectly, everywhere through the national press, the nuisances crowds create used to interfere radically with what I take to be the right of assembly.

Whenever this happens, it disturbs me that many of my fellow conservatives seem to buy the authorities’ reasoning. Here, locally, in Santa Cruz, the reasons local power gives to begin dismantling the “Occupy” encampment are fire risk and public health. The way I understand it, this does not make moral sense to me. I don’t like the “Occupy” crowd, I have expressed why in previous postings.

But my dislikes have nothing to do with my understanding of the guarantees under which we live. Or they should have nothing to do with this understanding. Continue reading →

Sexual Harassment, Sex, Politics, and Herman Cain

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

Herman Cain, the GOP candidate who both speaks the conservative talk and is good-looking is the subject of accusations of sexual harassment. It was bound to happen sooner or later because Democrats, the only authorized party of oppressed minorities, cannot allow a successful member of the largest oppressed minority to give the lie to their lies. The particular nature of the attack was also predictable. Liberals are not sophisticated by and large. Plus, half of the Democratic Party used to be in the Jim Crow South. There are collective memories: Black men in general have a trouble controlling their sexual urges; it’s a well-known fact.

Do I think there were sexual harassment complaints against Herman Cain when he was a powerful, highly visible official of an association? I wouldn’t be surprised if there were. I would be surprised instead if there were a single man corresponding to that description anywhere, anytime in the past thirty years against whom there were no such complaints at all. They go with the territory. Create new grounds to blackmail and there will be more blackmailers.

Do I think he did it? Yes, I do. I mean by this that Herman Cain almost certainly engaged repeatedly in behavior that someone somewhere would call sexual harassment. And since juries can be fickle, unpredictable, it’s rational (although detestable) for companies to settle. It’s especially tempting if they can settle on the cheap: $10,000 is “five figures.” I also mean something you all already know about sexual harassment but that you may have forgotten because of the pounding of dozens of years of political correctness. Continue reading →

Radioactive Debris Floats on to Alaska Beach (?)

Jacques Delacroix Current Events , , , ,

I think I have seen everything in terms of media mendacity and in terms of media gullibility and then, something happens to make me realize I haven’t seen s…!

Today, as I am stepping high on the elliptical as I do several days a week (thank you for asking), CNN announces that debris from last year’s tsunami in Japan is reaching North America. The announcer switches  to the CNN special envoy on a deserted un-indentified Alaska beach.

The special envoy  is dressed in Alaska- suitable foul-weather gear although the sun is shining brightly on the beach. One shot shows him dramatically as if holding in his arms about twenty large objects. They are meant to identify the kind of garbage torn off the Alaskan coastline by the tsunami and floated to the western hemisphere. (But there is more, wait a minute).

I have a problem with what’s shown by CNN as washed off debris from Japan. Every item of that debris could have come off a fishing boat; most of the items shown had to come from a boat.

Two implications:

First, boats, including Japanese fishing boats, can operate 200 miles or less from the Alaskan coast. I am not denying that some coastal debris could  float from Japan. I just dislike false reports especially when they come from a news organization. Continue reading →

“Occupy ….”: An Unintended Experiment in Libertarianism

Jacques Delacroix Current Events , ,

The Occupy movement is, among other things and a little paradoxically, another experiment with libertarian ideas. One crucial question is this; Who performs services we have come to consider necessary when no one has taxing authority?

The Occupy encampment in Santa Cruz displays about forty tents. As I have said before, it would be foolish to deduce any sort of precise estimate of the actual population of campers from this figure. (“Woman’s Mind; The Mysteries of Occupy….”). You can’t even assume that there is one camper per tent. Some campers go home and leave their tent behind when it gets cold at night.

Whatever the case may be, in the course, of twenty-four hours, there is enough human traffic to necessitate access to a toilet. The county authorities may have discouraged the use of country building toilets or else, the campers took it to heart to demonstrate that they are responsible and self-sufficient. At any rate, there is, or there was, on the camping site a Porta-Pottie-type booth sitting (so to speak ) on a trailer. The trailer itself is, or was, hooked to a pick-up truck. For five days, there was a big hand-painted sign on the booth saying, “Dump ride needed.” I think five days is too long to wait unlike someone had the foresight to make th request well in advance of objective need. I am not expert but I don’t think the capacity of the contraption much exceeds five days even of light use. Are you with me?

To go back to my original question about libertarianism, of course, I believe that in time someone would offer the dumping service for pay. With a multiplication of sites in need, the service delivery would become more efficient and cheaper. Competition would arise, insuring a fair price (There is no other definition of “fair,” I think.) However this non-authoritarian, market response would require that someone, or some ones, pay the honey-dippers’ bill. And if you passed the hat around, there would be a chance that only the richest, or only the individuals with the most sensitive noses, or with the greatest concern for hygiene, would contribute.

And, here you go, with the “free rider problem,” the single most common justification for the existence of coerced payments that is, for taxes. Note that the last sentence in the last paragraph above points to an especially vexing implication of the free rider problem. It’s the likelihood that the virtuous would end paying the fare of the moral swines that oink among us.

American Independence Day and The Supreme Court Decision

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, History, Law , ,

There has been enough time now, the dust has settled around the Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of ObamaCare, the US-wide health care reform passed by Congress and signed into law more than two years ago.

Note: Today, I am going to be very explicit because I flatter myself that I have readers around the world who may not be completely familiar with American politics or with American political processes.

As usual, Rush Limbaugh, the much insulted, much decried and always underestimated conservative talk-show host has instantly demonstrated more lucidity that did pundits with better intellectual credentials: There is no silver lining, my friends.

Don’t confuse my meaning with others’. I think American society will survive well the disorder and the increase in cost of living the Obama health care reform will impose. I think health care will cost more and be of poorer quality for almost all Americans. The alleged uninsured were never really uncared for so, ObamaCare was a solution to a non-problem in this respect. The most heart rendering parts of the descriptions justifying the reform in the first place turn out to be also urban myths. The main one concerns people with a pre-existing condition who couldn’t get coverage and therefore care. Never happened except in tiny numbers that could have been dealt with a with a simple high-risk insurance pool as those that states maintained for horrible drivers.

Yet, as I said, this is a prosperous society even in a period of crisis such as this one. The economy will not collapse. We will just all be a little less prosperous than we should have been. Our children will not experience the subtle optimism that comes from living in times of growth. But, I am still waiting for someone with a bucket and some rags to walk up to my door and to propose to clean all my windows for a set fee. And farmers in my area complain that they don’t have enough people to harvest their crops. Reports say that good pickers earn $12 -13/hour, far above the minimum wage, by the way. We are not poor by any standard. The worst application of ObamaCare set of bad ideas is not going to make us poor, by any standard. Continue reading →

Around the Web

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

Lots of great stuff I’ve been meaning to link to lately.

A historian from Hillsdale College, Paul Moreno, has a piece in the WSJ about Congress’s power to tax.

Some sexy chick (also from the WSJ) writes about Obama’s Imperial Presidency. Again, this is in the Wall Street Journal.

A quick heads up on pieces in the Wall Street Journal. Usually, when you click on the link it says access is restricted, but if you copy and paste the title of the piece into a Google search bar then you will be able to access the entire article. Cool, huh?

Obama’s Scramble for Africa. From AntiWar.com.

An economist at Cal State Northridge has a great piece on damn lies and statistics. It’s also about the Obama administration. (h/t Steve Horwitz).

Bernard K. Gordon writes in Foreign Affairs about the necessity of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

And in a prophetic piece (ie it was written in 1991-92) by former Secretary of State James Baker, this very good lawyer sizes up the situation in Asia. Also from Foreign Affairs.