Instead of a Sportscar...

Pat Kennedy, the Representative from Ad Nauseam

2006-05-06T09:12:00.000-04:00

There has been a lot of pixels spilt over Rep. Pat Kennedy's recent run-in with the law for driving under the influence (yes, being on drugs--perscription or otherwise--is being "under the influence"). Without greatly increasing the static, I'd like to add my own perspective.

One theme I see a lot of is: "Do you think that if it were an ordinary person, like you or I, he would have gotten off without charges?" Well, maybe not...but then again maybe. Police sometimes give people (yes, ordinary people) warnings about driving under the influence instead of arresting them. Sometimes people take those warnings and learn from them, and sometimes they don't. If anyone were to argue that police should never give a warning, then fine.

I believe that Rep. Kennedy has a problem, just like Rush Limbaugh has a problem. How many reading this rushed to defend Rush, yet now have a pat condemnation of Pat?

Do I believe that both men have tried to minimize their culpability for their actions? Perhaps, but by going into rehab they both (hopefully) take ownership of their problems and face up to something most of us never will have to. Addiction and the depression that often goes hand in hand with it are terrible things. They are, in fact, illnesses.

None of this is to suggest that personal responsibility should go out the window--but who got hurt? Where is the forgiveness in our society?

I don't believe that this should be a partisan issue, and I for one believe he deserves a little grace.

A note to whomever...

2006-04-05T19:20:00.000-04:00

...I don't think that I have any regular readership, and that's OK because that's not really why I have this blog. For anyone who happens across this page, you may have noticed it hasn't been updated in about a month. My schedule with school and family has kept me too busy for any serious writing, and what time I get on the internet I prefer to use reading other people's blogs. I'll still update this page when I get the time and desire...that's just not now.

Just so you know.

Howard Elicits a "YEEARRGH!"

2006-03-03T21:56:00.000-05:00

Well, it's not often that I scream at the TV, but I found myself willing to make an exception for Howard Dean's performance on MSNBC yesterday. He was on talking about the latest ginned-up outrage over the months-old tape of Bush teleconfrencing prior to Katrina hitting the Gulf Coast. Dean was outraged aboutthe President's comments in the wake of the hurricane to the effect that nobody anticipated the breach of the levees in New Orleans--he claims that this is a clear case of Bush lying since the tape showed him discussing possible overtopping of the levees. The interviewer interjected that there is a difference between overtopping and breaching a levvy, to which Dean retorted there was no difference, and that the one necessarily causes the other one.

I've got news for Dean: overtopping is defined as "[the] flow of water over the top of a dam or embankment" and breach is defined as "an opening (especially a gap in a dike or fortification)". They're not. The same. Thing.

In the past New Orleans' levees have been overtopped without being breached. In an overtopping scenario it is a matter of pumping the water out of the city. In a breach, however, the water cannot be pumped out because it will simply flow back in. There is a definite, real-world difference between the two terms--a rather major, critical difference at that. For Dean to pretend otherwise, after having been appraised of the difference, smacks of rank political opportunism. It is percisely this sort of manufactured, baseless outrage that is causing the Democratic party to lose elections to a weak Republican party.

Can Ethanol Replace Oil?

2006-02-19T19:47:00.000-05:00

My article “The Problem with Oil” took a look at the nation’s oil balance sheet and illustrated the scope of the problem America is faced with. America imports over half of the crude it uses, the vast majority of which goes to fueling our cars, heating our homes, and keeping our airplanes aloft. Currently, there is an automotive fuel that is relatively renewable, fairly clean, and producible domestically: E85—a blend of 85% ethanol (yes, the stuff of moonshine) with 15% gasoline.

For a variety of reasons, not just any engine can run on E85. Some automobiles are currently sold as “Flexible Fuel Vehicles” that can run on E85, and theoretically any gasoline engine can be converted to run on it; however in reality, conversions can’t be done because there aren’t any EPA certified aftermarket conversion kits. So a conversion is currently illegal, as no aftermarket parts companies want to take the time and expense to get EPA certified. This is a purely legislative hurtle that could be solved in two easy steps: easing the EPA certification process, and setting a target date where all new cars that are sold must be flex-fuel compatible.

I make three key assumptions in this article: that we Americans won’t drive less in the near future, we cannot convert infrastructure for technology that does not exist, and we cannot divert our current agricultural output from present uses to new ones—we can only seek to increase output (in other words, we can’t stop producing food in our quest to produce fuel).

Ethanol is produced from the starches in grains. Ethanol production is well understood and has been with us since before the internal combustion engine—for as long as people have felt the need for a cocktail, they have known how to produce grain alcohols. Currently, the best crop for producing ethanol that can be grown domestically is corn (the ideal crop would be sugarcane, but America’s climate is wrong for it). The question remains: can we grow enough corn to largely replace gasoline?

According to the Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), the approximate total land area of the United States is 2,345,697,640 acres, of which roughly 41.4% is farms. Slightly over half of that land is pastureland or some other non-growing land, with the rest used for a variety of crops—although only about two thirds of that cropland is actively harvested in any given year.

In 2002 (the date of the last NASS atlas), there were 68,230,523 acres of corn harvested for grain. When corn is harvested, it is generally shelled and put into bushels weighing approximately 56 pounds each. The average yield in 2002—a relatively average year—was 129.3 bushels per acre, which converts to roughly 3.28 metric tons of shelled corn per acre.

Depending on the refining process and the quality of the crude, a 42 gallon barrel of crude can yield approximately 19.5 gallons of gasoline and other petroleum products. A metric ton of shelled corn can provide 110 gallons of ethanol—ethanol which can be blended with the gasoline from a single barrel of crude to make about 130 gallons of E85.

Here’s the bad news: America would need 340,936,640 additional acres of corn cultivated to replace all of the US imports of oil—acreage greater than the area cultivated for all crops in any given year. Keeping with the assumption that America cannot divert current crops to large-scale fuel production, we would be faced with having to more than double the amount of land that is currently cultivated. Yet there is a limit to how much land is available for cultivation: cities take up a significant amount of land, national parks take up yet more land, and a great deal of land is simply unsuitable for cultivation of any crop. The cold reality is that we likely cannot dedicate enough land to completely convert to E85.

So is there no point in discussing E85? That’s not necessarily true: America has a refining shortfall of some 3,035,000 barrels per day—requiring us to purchase refined products internationally. With a mere 50,787,411 additional acres of corn we could replace our need to purchase refined products internationally without building any new refineries.

America needs to face up to its oil addiction, and sooner is much better that later. For the foreseeable future there is no single fix for the problem. Yet E85 derived from corn could help to be a stop-gap measure as America begins to wean itself off of oil, and it’s something that can be started on immediately. The technology exists, what is needed is the political and corporate leadership.

Sources of information:
Corn to ethanol conversion data.
Information about E85.
Agricultural statistics.

The Iraq War, a Just War

2006-02-14T20:41:00.000-05:00

NOTE: the following is the result of an assignment I had for one of my politics classes at university. It fairly well sums up a lot of what I've had to say before about the Iraq war by applying the "Just War Doctrine" to the decision to go to war in the first place. It's rather long--you've been warned.

The invasion of Iraq was clearly justified by the Just War Doctrine. The just war doctrine has the following conditions: intervention in another state can occur only to halt injustice, all peaceful means of conflict resolution must have been exhausted prior to war, force can only be used by a legitimate government, the goal of war must be to establish a just peace, there must be a reasonable chance of success, and the war must be fought in a just manner. All of these conditions can be easily shown to be true.

Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath regime was clearly a fundamentally unjust one and the only way to establish just conditions for the ordinary Iraqi citizens was through a change of regimes. Hussein was never elected in a free and fair election, and his rule was based primarily on force varnished over by electoral fraud. Over the years, the Ba'ath regime used threats, torture, rape, and murder as instruments of state control. The Ba'ath regime also committed genocides against the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs. Saddam Hussein's obstruction of the UN weapons inspectors for over a decade ensured that the sanctions regime that was in place after his illegal invasion of Kuwait would not end—in fact, his manipulation of aide programs meant to help ordinary Iraqis in the face of these sanctions for political ends likely contributed to the deaths of thousands of Iraqis. Furthermore, Saddam Hussein embezzled billions from the "oil for food" program and used it for personal aggrandizement and to buy influence around the world—all at the expense of the Iraqi people.

The US and UN had serious and longstanding grievances against Saddam Hussein's regime which would likely never be completely ameliorated while Saddam Hussein or his likely successors were in power. His decade long obstruction and outright denial of UN weapons inspections were enough to trigger the use of force by the terms of the Gulf War cease-fire and subsequent UN mandates. Up until the last moments before the invasion the UN had not declared him in full compliance with the very clear obligations set out in those mandates. The actual existence or not of the weapons is irrelevant, what matters is he did not comply with the process and it was reasonable to believe that he had proscribed weapons. What's more, subsequent reports have stated that Hussein maintained the ambition, knowledge, and infrastructure to reconstitute a WMD program—which left the world with an interesting quandary: had the inspections ever been left unobstructed by Hussein before the war and had he been declared weapons-free, the sanctions likely would have ended and he would have been free and able to develop the weapons he desired. WMD were not the sole grievance that the US had against Saddam Hussein, however. There was also the issue of his clear and well-documented support for terror groups and individual terrorists. Since terrorism is a threat to the US and its allies and Hussein clearly viewed terrorism as a legitimate arm of his foreign policy, and additionally considering the recalcitrant and dishonest nature of Hussein and his regime, it seems unlikely at best we could have ever had confidence that he would forswear terrorism as a tool of state completely.

There is no question that the US government is a legitimate government. The argument that President Bush didn't win the 2000 election is a rather facile one—in a democracy such as our the electoral process is less than perfect, and from time to time there have been imperfect and highly contentious elections. Despite these imperfect elections, new presidential elections are held every 4 years and there is either a confirmation of the sitting President or a peaceful transition of power. It is through this very process and the institutions that support it that even an imperfectly elected President has legitimacy.

The invasion was a pre-requisite for a just peace. Firstly, the invasion of Iraq had the effect of ameliorating the legitimate grievances that the US and UN had with Saddam Hussein's recalcitrant regime. Furthermore, under current Iraqi law, foreigners (to include companies) cannot own oil fields; Iraqis are selling their oil on the open market—facts that debunk the theory that it was a war for economic gain or to "steal" Iraqi oil. Lastly, the invasion set the conditions for Iraqis to take charge of their own destinies and have a government that drew its sovereignty from the consent of the people.

There was little question about the success of an invasion. There was little Iraqi air force to speak of, and what did exist was largely out-dated and lacking in maintenance due to the spare parts shortage caused by the sanctions that were in place. We had proved the Iraqi air defense/anti-aircraft capability ineffective against more than a decade of no-fly zones, despite Iraqi efforts to the contrary. These two facts taken together gave us complete control of the skies and a massive tactical air-support advantage. The Iraqi army was similarly degraded from the shortages caused by sanctions, and had proved ineffective against the US Army before. Any standing concentration of Iraqi troops was easy prey for air and artillery strikes—the Iraqi's own artillery was highly vulnerable to US counter-battery fire. In the first Gulf War even the much-ballyhooed Iraqi Republican Guard dreaded our artillery fire, calling it "steel rain". Iraqi armor was outdated and outclassed by US armor. The average Iraqi infantry were under trained conscripts. All of these facts taken together meant that there was absolutely no way that the Iraq army could hold out for very long against a full-on assault by American forces using combined Air-Land tactics.

The war has been fought in accordance with the principle of jus in bello. While it's true that in warfare there is bound to be collateral damage, it's also true that intent matters; the American armed forces go to extraordinary lengths to avoid civilian casualties. While it's also true that there have been incidents of abuse by US service members, those incidents have come to light and been prosecuted; America polices its own.

The US took a great deal of time and effort to ensure that its actions met the conditions of a just war before the invasion took place. The decision to go to war was an eminently just and moral decision that ended an unjust and immoral dictatorial regime, and is setting the preconditions for a new order in the Middle East by helping the Iraqis to establish a just society based on rule by a more legitimate form of sovereign government.

Arizona to Deploy Guard Troops to Border?

2006-02-14T20:37:00.000-05:00

Fox News is reporting that Arizona is considering deploying national guard troops to the border with Mexico. I've posted before my feelings about border security, so anyone who has followed my posts in the past won't be surprised to find that I am fully in favor of this move.

I already know the knee-jerk criticisms of my support for a policy such as this:

"You're advocating an anti-immigrant, policy...you're a racist!" --Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm married to a legal asian immigrant. A desire for legal immigration isn't racist.

"It won't stop illegal immigration, people will still want to come." --Probably can't cure a cancer, so why go to the doctor? The house is going to burn, so why call the fire department? Crime is going to happen, so why hire police? Defeatist thinking helps nobody. What we can hope such a move will do is to put a serious dent into the flow of immigrants entering illegally.

Illegal immigration affects us all, it takes jobs out of the market and taxes out of the coffers. It denigrates the laws of our land and threatens our national security. We need immigration--but of the legal sort.

NH Drinking Age Bill Defeated

2006-02-01T16:15:00.000-05:00

Some time ago I reported that a NH legislator planned to introduce a bill that would lower the drinking age to 18 for members of the armed forces. Well, it seems that the bill has been rather roundly defeated in committee. Oddly enough, the bill was sponsored by the same Representative who sponsored the bill that raised the drinking age to 21 in the first place.

In light of the CDC’s 2003 survey that reported nearly 45% of all high-schoolers had drunk alcohol at least once in the previous 30 days, perhaps something needs to change. We ought to demystify alcohol by educating young people and cultivating a culture of responsibility.

NBC Drops The Ball

2006-01-28T19:19:00.000-05:00

Just a while ago, NBC news had a story on drug smuggling along the Mexican border. It seems that the border patrol chased a Mexican army humvee a couple of miles inside the border, and as it was crossing back into Mexico it got stuck in the river. The uniformed passengers in the hummer jumped out and set fire to the vehicle before fleeing. The border patrol took photos of the hummer and the bundles of drugs inside.

The only problem is, the vehicle in the photos were clearly not a humvee (it looked more like a Blazer or some sort of SUV-type vehicle). They really ought to consider getting some ex-military on the staff for this sort of thing.

[Sorry, no screen captures.]

The Problem With Oil

2006-01-26T00:46:00.000-05:00

People who subscribe to the oil imperialism political theory often state that we should neither deal with odious regimes who have oil, nor work to destabilize those odious regimes. Yet advocates of this more isolationist stance don’t seem to take on the hard facts about oil: how much we use, and where it comes from. In the spirit of a more open and productive debate, I present the US oil balance sheet (all figures are in barrels of oil per day):

US oil consumption (inc. US territories)......20,374,000
Petroleum Imports to US.......................12,264,386
Petroleum Exports from US......................1,026,597
Net imports to US.............................11,237,789
US production of crude oil.....................7,823,200
US crude oil refining capacity................17,339,000
US refining shortfall..........................3,035,000

Note: Figures are as of 2003, the last year with complete data for all variables.

The first thing that probably jumps out at you is that the US imports a huge amount of oil—well over half of the oil we use on a daily basis is from some other country. Any advocate of disentangling ourselves from the internal affairs of oil rich nations would need to offer a viable alternative to oil. The majority of the oil we use is for automotive fuel, home heating, and jet fuel—not for power generation, which comes by and large from other sources. We are absolutely dependent on

The second thing you might notice is that despite importing so much oil, we are also an exporter of oil. While this may strike some as odd, you have to keep in mind the fact that our oil industry isn’t nationalized and as a result oil companies have a great deal of freedom to strike what deals they wish. To keep oil companies from selling oil abroad would require a high level of governmental interference, and would serve to increase US isolation abroad as formerly friendly nations turned to other sources for their oil needs.

The third thing you should notice is that the US has a significant refining shortfall. Crude oil is useless to everyday consumers: you can’t heat your home with it, you can’t drive your car with it, and you can’t fly to a vacation destination with it—so it must be refined into the products that are useful to us. Despite this shortfall in refining, there have been no new refineries built on US soil in many years. Environmental regulations and the “not in my backyard” mentality have made it nearly impossible to even contemplate new refinery construction.

Those that would insist we isolate ourselves from odious, yet oil-rich, regimes ought to be prepared to tell us how we would make up the shortfall that would result. Any plan that would insist we quit all or even some foreign oil cold turkey is a sure recipe for economic collapse and social disorder.

Links to sources:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/ipsr/t17.xls
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/ipsr/t24.xls
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/merquery/mer_data.asp?table=T01.07
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableg1.xls
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table36.xls
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iea2003/table36.xls

Despicable Self-Loathing

2006-01-25T20:42:00.000-05:00

From an editorial about the movie "Syrianna":

The list of Arab leaders murdered since 1900 is a long one. It includes six prime ministers, three kings, a ruling Imam, seven presidents of the republic, and dozens of ministers, parliamentarians and senior military officials.

Every single one of them was killed either by Islamist militants (often from the Muslim Brotherhood) or by pan-Arab nationalists or by radical Arab security services.

That many Arabs should welcome the suggestion that their tragedies are due to evil doings by foreigners maybe understandable.

It is less so when so many Americans come together to make a film to portray their nation as evil incarnate.

Go and read the whole thing right now!

This Week in History: Jan 23-Jan29

2006-01-22T22:31:00.000-05:00

Jan23
1793 2nd partition of Poland, between Prussia & Russia, Poles begin to notice a pattern.
1849 Mrs. Elizabeth Blackwell becomes 1st woman physician in US, discovers concept of glass ceiling.
1899 Say it again, Sam…”Happy birthday Humphrey Bogart!”
1943 Bdeep! Bdeep! Bdeep! TV’s Buck Rodgers—Gil Gerard—born this day, only 5 centuries early.
1962 Libya, Morocco, Algeria & Tunisia plan to form United Arab Maghreb, don’t quite get around to it.

Jan 24
0041 Roman emperor and super-freak Caligula assassinated at the age of 28.
1920 Happy birthday Mayor McCheese! Actor Jerry Maren’s birthday.
1922 Christian K Nelson of Iowa shows his ignorance of Inuit cuisine by patenting the Eskimo pie.
1968 Mary Lou Retton bounds into her mother’s heart. Happy birthday Mary Lou!
1975 Stooge Larry Fine goes to the comedy reel in the sky. RIP.

Jan 25
0844 Gregory IV begins his reign as Catholic Pope…only to end it.
1741 Benedict Arnold born, takes sides with the doctor.
1877 Congress determines presidential election between Hayes-Tilden, ensuring that Hayes will always be known as the “selected-not-elected” president.
1947 Al Capone dies of syphilis at 48.
1963 Wilson Kettle of Newfoundland, dies at 102. His 582 living descendents mourn him.

Jan 26
1871 US income tax repealed…for a time.
1880 Douglas MacArthur born, vows to have many more birthdays.
1925 Cool hand Luke, enter stage right. Happy birthday Paul Newman!
1934 Nazi Germany & Poland sign non-attack treaty for 10 years. This doesn’t work out so well for Poland.
1950 India becomes a republic ceasing to be a British dominion.
1957 India celebrates it’s independence by annexing Kashmir.
1979 YEEEHAAA! "The Dukes of Hazzard" premieres on CBS.
1998 President Clinton says "I want to say one thing to the American people, I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky", complicating the sex talk for generations of future parents.

Jan 27
1756 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart born, assuring Falco of at least one hit.
1870 1st sorority—Kappa Alpha Theta—founded. Also date of the 1st panty raid.
1915 US Marines occupy Haiti, and not for the last time.
1967 Roger B Chaffee, Gus Grissom, and Edward Higgins White die in the Apollo I fire. RIP.
1973 US & Vietnam sign cease-fire, end the war.
1984 Michael Jackson is burned during filming for Pepsi commercial, giving him an excuse for another trip to the plastic surgeon.
1996 Germany commemorates the Holocaust for the first time.

Jan 28
1910 Happy birthday Sgt. Schultz. Actor John Banner’s birthday.
1986 Christa McAuliffe, Ellison Onizuka, Francis Scobee, Gregory B. Jarvis, Judith Arlene Resnik, Michael Smith, and Ronald McNair die in the Challenger disaster. RIP.

Jan 29
1737 Thomas Paine pains his mother before he pains the British. Happy Birthday, Tom!
1945 Magnum PI born in Detroit MI. Happy birthday Tom Selleck!
1951 There’s something special about the 1st time: Liz Taylor gets divorced.

This Week in History: Jan 16-22

2006-01-19T02:14:00.000-05:00

Some (mostly factual) things that happened this week in history.

Jan 16

1493 Columbus returns to Spain on his 1st trip.
1776 Continental Congress decides that blacks can die for the revolution, approves enlistment of non-slaves.
1777 Vermont declares independence from NY—hasn’t been missed yet.
1919 Nebraska becomes the 36th state to ratify prohibition, having little effect on alcohol consumption.
1920 One year after ratification, the 18th amendment becomes law, giving a big boost to organized crime.
1948 Happy birthday director John Carpenter.
1969 Jan Palach immolates himself to protest Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Soviets are unimpressed.
1989 USSR announces plan for 2-year manned mission to Mars, somehow doesn’t get around to it.
1997 RIP Innis Cosby, son of Bill Cosby.

Jan 17

1806 Happy birthday James Madison Randolph, 1st to be born in White House.
1861 Thomas Crapper invents the first flushable crapper.
1899 Al Capone born in Italy.
1917 US buys Virgin Islands from Denmark.
1977 Organ donor Gary Gilmore becomes the 1st to be executed in the US since 1967, inspires song.

Jan 18

1535 Francisco Pizarro founds Lima Peru, much to the chagrin of the inhabitants of pre-Pizarro Peru.
1644 America's 1st UFO sighting reported in Boston.
1671 Pirate Henry Morgan defeats Spanish defenders, captures Panamá, makes rum.
1730 Czar Peter II of Russia, dies at 14 of smallpox.
1813 Happy birthday Joseph Farwell Glidden inventor of commercial usable barbed wire, much to the joy of dictators everywhere.
1854 Happy birthday Watson, you’re needed in the delivery room.
1973 John Cleese does a funny walk into the sunset—his final episode of Flying Circus on BBC.

Jan 19

1808 Louis Napoleon signs 1st Dutch aviation law, anxiously awaits the invention of the airplane.
1809 Quoth the raven, “Poe is born.”
1919 Giant wave of molasses kills dozens in Boston.
1955 "Scrabble" debuts on board game market, dictionary makers rejoice.
1958 Canadian Football Council renamed Canadian Football League, Americans still refuse to watch.
1987 Guy Hunt becomes Alabama's 1st Republican governor since 1874, proving absolutely nothing about race in America.

Jan 20

1918 In Russia, Bolsheviks do away with the church.
1945 FDR sworn-in for 4th term, breaking with long held traditions which had limited presidents to two terms on their honor.
1965 JPL proposes modified Apollo flight to fly around Mars & return—NASA decides the moon is closer.

Jan 21

1522 Head inquisitor Adrian Florisz Boeyens elected pope—nobody expected it.
1932 USSR & Finland stop non-attack treaty. This turns out badly for Finland.
1961 Portuguese rebels seize cruise ship Santa Maria—fail to capture the Niña or Pinta.
1991 Football's galloping ghost gallops off into eternity. RIP Howard Grange.
1994 Lorena Bobbitt found temporarily insane for chopping off spouse's penis, finds it difficult to get a date now that she’s single.

Jan 22

1934 Happy birthday Bill Bixby.
1969 Billy Preston becomes the 5th Beatle.

O'Reilly and Murtha

2006-01-18T22:18:00.000-05:00

Just a bit ago Bill O'Reilly (yes that Bill O'Reilly) was commenting on recent posting on some websites questioning Rep. Murtha's purple hearts. He rather strongly condemned suggestions that Murtha didn't earn his awards, stating that without strong evidence to support such statements were beyond the pale and dishonerable, and that it should stop immediately.

I strongly disagree that Murtha's experience gives him special moral authority or expertise to speak about the war. That said, I have to just as strongly agree with O'Reilly on this one, that attacking his service without strong evidence is dishonorable.

Murtha's ideas on withdrawal are attackable on their on merits (or lack thereof), and there is no need to attack the man. Supporters of Republicanism and the war should be better than that.

Republican Party Abandoning Conservatisim?

2006-01-17T23:03:00.000-05:00

Conservatives are advocates of limited government, and the Republican Party is the contemporary home of American conservatives. The classically conservative view is that the federal government's proper role is to maintain individual rights, protect the nation, and ensure the stability of commerce between states. The federal government has little or no business engineering community standards.

Yet under Republican leadership the growth of the federal government continues apace. Playing to a perceived base on the religious right, Republicans have wasted time and effort on all the wrong social engineering projects. If government has any place in legislating morality and social issues, surely it is at a more local level where local problems and standards need local knowledge and solutions.

Neither party is good on this issue; both parties are willing to stretch the tentacles of government into every corner of our day to day lives—if to different ends at times. What's so onerous about the Republican Party doing it is that it is a wholesale betrayal of one of the core conservative principles.

Doug's Final Down

2006-01-14T05:02:00.000-05:00

There are many ways you could tell the story of Doug Flutie. One could go on about his stats—passing yardage, completion percent, rushing, and so on. You could tell about his years in the Canadian League with his many awards and championships and his eventual return to America and the NFL. You could even tell about his winning record standing in for the injured Rob Johnson with the Buffalo Bills. Those are not the stories I want to tell.

Flutie certainly isn't the best quarterback to have ever stepped on the field, nor is he the worst. In a game that favors massive players, his 5'10", 180 lb. frame is considered to be too small. A lot of his NFL career has been as a backup to larger, and younger, quarterbacks. That is not the story I want to tell, either.

There's the story of the Doug the husband and father of two—a daughter and an autistic son. It's the story of the man who loved his son so much that he set up the Flutie Foundation to help fund research into autism. While that story is a wonderful one, it's still not the one I want to tell.

No, the story that I want to tell is about The Pass and a kick.

I was lucky enough to be watching the Boston College/University of Miami game in 1984 when in the last seconds of the game, with BC down, Flutie threw perhaps the most famous Hail Mary pass in football to date. I wasn't even interested in football then, but knew that I had witnessed a special moment in sport. By underestimating the strength of Flutie's arm, Miami's defense lined up too short and allowed him to connect with Gerard Phelan a yard into the end zone on a post route. Whenever people talk about The Immaculate Reception, they're talking about that day and that play. BC would finish the season by winning their first bowl game since 1941.

The kick happened some 21 years after that in the twilight of his career. With a playoff berth already assured, the Patriots' coach was playing the second and third string when he sent Flutie in for what at first blush seemed like a 2 point conversion. Upon receiving the ball, Flutie dropped it to the turf and made a beautiful kick off of the bounce for the extra point—the first drop kick in professional football since 1941. Although the Patriots went on to lose the game, it was an exciting—if perhaps somewhat pointless—moment in football history.

I don't expect that he'll be back on the field again; at the age of 43, he's frankly getting too old to play professional football. So it seems all good things must end—and in the end, this is not just the story of a player, but rather it's more about a feeling of excitement inherent in a sport. Watching Doug Flutie over the years has been exciting for the style and energy he displayed every time he stepped out on the field. Every time I watched him play it reminded me that football was a game before it was a sport—and games were meant to be fun.

Republican Failures--A Rant

2006-01-13T14:23:00.000-05:00

Whether it is an attempt at comity, or political ineptness, the Republican Party is failing to act as a majority party. They have majorities in both chambers of Congress, and the presidency—yet they fail to act on promised reforms and have beaten many a retreat at even the suggestion of opposition.

They have abandoned the most appealing and important aspects of the Contract with America—term limits for Congress and fiscal responsibility. Since the Republicans have come into control we have seen more and more earmarks from politicians of both parties, as the Washington elite buy their way into office and reward family and friends.

The promise of social security and tax reform now seems like a cheap come on. President Bush ran on a platform of radical tax reform, yet all we've gotten are tax breaks and a proposal for tweaks to the tax code. To be sure, they are welcome tax breaks and good tweaks, but radical they are not—and hardly assured to be lasting. With a Republican majority government, the failure to even get Social Security tabled for serious discussion is a major failure.

When President Bush signed the Prescription Drug Benefit into law, he grew the size of the deficit well beyond what any foreign military adventure could. The growth of entitlements add more and more to our debt, a debt that no amount of taxation will do away with until we learn that there is no free lunch—the bill always comes due.

Campaign finance reform has done little, if anything, to get the money out of politics and attempts have even been made to apply the rules to internet activities of private citizens—a move that, were it ever to come to pass, would seriously shackle free speech. I blame this on the Republicans, for it was passed while under their leadership.

As illegal immigrants continue to flout our laws, there has still been no serious move to tighten our border security, to crack down on companies breaking the law by hiring illegal immigrants, or to reform the incredibly Byzantine immigration laws that makes immigration so difficult to do legally. For a party that has given so much lip service to national security, this lapse is inexcusable.

The Republican Party is truly fortunate to have an opponent in the Democratic Party—for were the democrats to ever advance a platform that was more assertive in foreign affairs, more serious about immigration enforcement, and more restrained about fiscal policy, there would be a great swath of votes that could swing from center right to center left.

School Daze

2006-01-12T23:53:00.000-05:00

I'm in a daze--after almost fourteen years, I'm finally doing something that I'd put off for all too long. Something that will make a positive change in my life. I'm finally going back to university to get a Bachelor's degree.

After high school, I started at university--but in a case of something looking better on paper than it was in reality, I found my major of Electrical Engineering to be not to my liking. Very much not to my liking in fact, so much so that I found that I was not applying myself and, predictably, failing. After my first semester, I joined the Army.

When I left the Army at the end of my contract, I was the proud father of a six month old daughter and went straight into the workforce, joining a small software company. In that job and my subsequent jobs, I found that my earning potential was less than my coworkers--simply because I didn't have a degree.

Despite the fact that I worked my way up to a supervisory level, even new hires with absolutely no experience would get paid better than I--just because they had a degree. My opportunites to move to a new job were limited as well, as most companies wouldn't even consider an applicant without a degree--regardless of what sort of experience was listed on my resume.

So finally, I've said "Enough! No excuses!"--upon returning to the United States after four years abroad, I've applied and been accepted to the state university. Classes start next week.

If any young readers out there question the value of a university degree, let me assure you it is the best investment you can make in your future. Sure, there are stories of people who have made it big without anything more than a high school diploma, but that's the exception and not the rule. Most of us will never be a Bill Gates.

For the older readers who think it's too late for them, let me just say that it's never too late!

Fun With ESL

2006-01-11T17:05:00.000-05:00

In my years teaching English as a second language, it was always amusing some the creative ways that students found to butcher the language. Don't get me wrong, none of the teachers I worked with would ever have dared to laugh at a student's mistake to their face—to do so would be belittling of them—but in the office grading a large stack of tests, it was often difficult not to laugh at some of the absurd sounding statements. Here's a small sampling of the sort of things we would often see:

"The penis on the table."
(Note to student: word spacing is very important!)

"Five years ago, I operated my uterus."
(Did it come with an instruction manual?)

"We had an erection last week in Lao."
(Hopefully for you, you'll be able to have another one.)

"I often sleep with my father."
(Eeeehhhh…OK….moving on…)

"After school, I go to my house friend."
(I was once on speaking terms with some lumber, but never friends with a house.)

"On the corner there is a bank where you can get a good haircut."
(Talk about full service!)

"A waitress services the customers."
(What kind of restaurant is this?)

"After school, I'm going somewhere with my friend to do anything."
(Thanks for nailing that down for me.)

Of course, my attempts to speak Lao often led to gales of laughter, but that's a whole different story…

Comment, but don't annoy me...

2006-01-11T01:16:00.000-05:00

On his blog, Eugene Volokh discusses the "annoy someone and go to jail" law recently passed by Congress--which states that anonymous comments on the internet that annoy someone can be punnishable by jail time. He says there might be some cause for concern, and you really ought to read the post for yourself. As I've stated elsewhere, I fear that the trouble with this law is in it's vague wording--if something can be read many ways, the chances of unexpected results are greatly increased.

My prediction: sooner or later, this law will probably be used. It might be used by Republicans, it might be used by Democrats--heck, it might be used by peace-loving Buddists--the point is it'll end up being used as a cudgel to silence someone's opposition. It won't matter if the person charged gets acquitted or not, the very act of being charged will have a chilling effect on free speech. Vague law is bad law.

A Space Where There Was A Friend

2006-01-11T00:20:00.000-05:00

Out of respect, I won’t use his name—I know of whom I write, and that is good enough.

The first time I met him was in elementary school, and it is not when we became friends. I remember walking down the hall, to the bathroom probably, when I saw him waddling towards me down the hall with that awkward gait he had. Before then, I don’t think I had ever seen a seriously handicapped person before, and in my youthful curiosity I couldn’t help but stare. His chest was distended, his wrists were too big, his limbs too short, and his walk made a duck seem graceful in comparison. Even at that age, he was unnaturally short. As I, slack-jawed no doubt, closed the distance between us he said the first words that were to pass between us, “Get the hell out of the way!”—this was not an auspicious beginning.

In the years that were to follow, I remember feeling a sort of terror whenever I passed him—based in no small part on our first encounter. My terror was not an emotion that was saved for just him, and had little to do with his handicap. The sad truth was that at that tender young age I was painfully shy, and so unsure of myself that I was terrified of anyone who could raise their voice above that of the average field mouse. As the years went by my confidence grew, but his bones did not—he remained unnaturally short, growing organs straining against a skeleton that just didn’t seem to understand which way was up.

Our friendship began in earnest in high school at a party on the beach. I was doing something foolish with a paper cup, charcoal lighter fluid, and a cigarette lighter—a cocktail I called “the Chernobyl”. This particular trick seemed to impress him, and I remember seeing him for the first time as a person and not some terrifying, loud enigma.

Over the years after that we saw more of each other, and our friendship grew to be something shy of close friends but greater than casual friends. Many nights he and I would stay up trying to solve Rubik’s Magic and going head to head on classic space shooters on my Commodore 64. He was unabashedly a nerd, and in him I found a kindred spirit to while away the some of the small hours towards the end of high school. Without a doubt he had one of the finest minds I have ever had the pleasure of encountering without losing his social skills, and he had a wicked sense of humor to boot.

The last time I saw him was after I dropped out of college, shortly before I was deployed to Germany with the Army. I came upon him in Market Square, and he didn’t look well. His condition was a progressively worse one, as his internal organs had grown to adult size inside a child’s body. He had had a tracheotomy to assist his breathing that had become difficult due to the thickening of the tissues in his throat. I don’t recall what we talked about, but recall again being scared around him—unlike when I was a child, for the first time I was scared for him, and not of him.

Shortly after I was stationed in Germany, my unit was deployed to the Middle East to beat back Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. We were there for about six months, and as soon as I was re-stationed in Germany it was my top priority to call my family. When I got through to my mother, she gave me the news that seemed to suck the oxygen out of my lungs. While I had been stationed in Iraq, it seems that my friend had decided to go for a swim in the Piscataqua River one night. The thing about the Piscataqua is that it has the second fastest current on the eastern seaboard, and is deadly even to adults in the prime of their health, let alone an ill young man trapped in a child’s body. I’m told it took almost two weeks to find his body.

The news devastated me. I went to town that night and drank what seemed to be my weight in tequila, just trying to burn the awful truth away. Staggering back to the barracks, I vaguely remember barging into my Sergeant’s room. Sergeant Smith was a very religious man, and I demanded that he tell me why God had allowed such a thing to happen. The cruel joke that tequila pulls on a person is that it leaves the memories you don’t want, and takes away the ones you probably do—all I clearly remember is that Sergeant Smith was very patient with me, and I didn’t get any of the trouble that I so richly deserved the next day.

I don’t know why my friend went into the river that night, and I don’t want to speculate. All I know is that my life was richer for having known him, and even now he is missed.

That Hateful Term 'Fascist'

2006-01-05T13:16:00.000-05:00

There are few things in public discourse that really get my blood up more than the flinging of labels as a means to demonize and silence one's opponent. Of all the emotive words that can be flung to shut down discourse, the terms "fascist" and "Nazi" are perhaps the most loaded and the most pernicious. I hate the use of these words--deeply, passionately hate their use. I hate their use for the astounding lack of perspective that it beytrays when they are typically employed. I hate their use for the absolute unfairness of the charge.

Fascism is an ideology: a complete social and economic system. It stresses what we would consider to be right wing social values with left wing economic policies. There is usually a component of racism, and there is also usally a beligerent aspect to it. Fascism is extremely authoritarian, and usually dictatorial. Fascist states have existed, and fascist political parties exist now--while certain positions between states and parties may vary, they share generally recognizable features that mark them out as fascist. Fascism is an identifiable thing, and can be defined.

Fascism is not, as has been advanced by some people, merely a "tactic". Others have suggested that fascist policies are secondary to the acquisition of power--this is patently wrong: fascists wish to acquire power to implement their stated policies. A few incidents of political violence by unhinged followers of one political party or another is not fascism. An unpopular law or policy is not fascism. A politician who has the opposite political beliefs from you is probably not a fascist.

America is a free country, and the first amendment guarantees that we can say what we desire--even that someone is a fascist. But when that term is used to shut one's opponent up or to shout them down, when it is used while willfully ignoring the true meaning of the word, when it is used to demonize and dehumanize one's opponenet, then cheapens free speech by shutting down discourse--which, sadly, is all to often the intent in using such a fraught term. Its use simply hardens people's positions, does nothing to convince the opposition of the rectitude of one's opinion, and is almost guaranteed to get an emotional, instead of rational, reply.

The careless flinging of this sort of an unfair and untrue label has got to stop.

Clash of Civilizations

2005-12-31T15:01:00.000-05:00

I heard it remarked recently that, since the invasion of Iraq, President Bush has gotten us into a clash of civilizations. Well, if it’s true that there is a war of civilizations, it didn't start with Bush's invasion of Iraq—it started with the attacks by al Qaeda on September 11, 2001 which killed 2982 and injured 2337…

…or maybe on October 12, 2000, when al Qaeda bombers attacked the USS Cole killing 17 sailors and wounding 39…

…or maybe August 7, 1998, when al Qaeda bombed the US embassy in Kenya, killing 291 and injuring over 5000…

…or maybe that same August 7 in 1998, when al Qaeda bombed the US embassy in Tanzania, killing 10 and injuring 77…

…or maybe November 13, 1995 when Hezbollah and al Qaeda bombed an office used by the US military in Saudi Arabia, killing 7 and injuring 60…

…or maybe February 26, 1993, when Islamic terrorists exploded a bomb in the parking garage of the World Trade Center, killing 6 and injuring over 1,000…

…or maybe October 23, 1983, when a Hezbollah bomber killed 241 US marines and injured 81…

…the list could go on…and on...and on…

The MIPT TKB (Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism—Terrorism Knowledge Base) records at least 16,521 injuries and 6814 deaths from 694 different incidents of Islamic terrorism worldwide—all before the US invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003. While the MIPT database is good, but it is hardly complete.

It bears repeating, because it seems some people still don’t understand this simple truth: our problem with Islamic terrorism didn’t start with Iraq, nor did it start with the presidency of George W. Bush. Islamic terrorism is a threat to people of all nations, races, and creeds—especially Muslims.

Just something to think about.

Is Fascism Left Wing or Right Wing?

2005-12-30T22:41:00.000-05:00

From time to time, the term "fascist" gets bandied about, but what is fascism? It's always been difficult to pin down a definition, with some claiming it's a right wing ideology and some claiming it's a left wing ideology--ultimately in hopes of tarring their partisan rivals. In attempting to get to the truth, I decided I needed a more objective test--I decided to use the politics match quiz and plug in the answers based upon what--to the best of my perhaps poor scholarship--I believe to be the fascist position. For comparison, I also plugged in the Democratic and Republican party platforms. Below are tables comparing the positions, with my notes explaining the reasons for the answers I provided for the fascist position.

[Note: the Republican and Democratic parties' platform answers used in the quiz are based upon ontheissues.org's work. For an explanation of the Republican answers click HERE. For an explanation of the Democratic answers click HERE.]

Individual rights	Republicans	Democrats	Fascists
Abortion is a woman’s right	Strongly Oppose	Strongly Support	Strongly Oppose
Require Companies to Hire More Women/Minorities	Strongly Oppose	Strongly Support	Oppose
Sexual Orientation Protected by Civil Rights Laws	Strongly Oppose	Strongly Support	Oppose
Permit Prayer in Public Schools	Support	Oppose	Support

Fascists ideology is anti-abortion since it is a strongly socially conservative and militant belief system--abortion being seen as a crime against the perpetuation of the state and race. While typical fascist ideology isn't wholly against the idea of women working--it helps with the national mobilization--it is clearly against minorities being integrated into society. Fascist ideology is anti-homosexual, since homosexuality is not a traditional value, ans has no value in perpetuating the state by creating new generations. Fascism isn't anti-religion--religion being a part of the tradition of the in group, as well as a useful tool for controlling the population--and can tolerate prayer in school, so long as it doesn't contradict the government's teachings.

Crime and guns	Republicans	Democrats	Fascists
Death Penalty	Strongly Support	Support	Strongly Support
Mandatory “Three Strikes” Sentencing Laws	Strongly Support	Oppose	Strongly Support
Absolute Right to Gun Ownership	Strongly Support	Support	Oppose

Since Fascism is a very authoritarian ideology, it is pro death penalty and "three strikes" style laws, as they are seen as strongly maintaining an orderly society. Fascism is anti-gun, because an unarmed populace is a more compliant populace.

Medical/social security	Republicans	Democrats	Fascists
More Federal Funding For Health Coverage	Oppose	Strongly Support	Strongly Support
Privatize Social Security	Support	Oppose	Strongly Oppose

Fascism is a system that relies to a great degree on central planning and the primacy of the state above the individual. For this reason, they are for a nationalized health system and against privatizing social security.

Education	Republicans	Democrats	Fascists
Parents Choose Schools via Vouchers	Support	Strongly Oppose	Strongly Oppose

School vouchers erode the government's central role in maintaining social order and planning the economy, fascists are against this.

Other domestic issues	Republicans	Democrats	Fascists
Reduce use of Coal, Oil, & Nuclear Energy	Oppose	Strongly Support	Support
Drugs Damage Society: Enforce Laws against Use	Strongly Support	Support	Strongly Support
Allow Churches to Provide Welfare Services	Strongly Support	Support	Oppose

Fascists have historically been surprisingly pre-environment, since the environment is an important part of the in group's heritage--thus they are against overusing polluting technologies like oil and coal. Drugs are seen as unproductive and socially damaging, so fascists are against their use. Since fascism insists on the central role of the government, it is mostly against churches filling a role that is rightfully the government's.

Taxes/immigration	Republicans	Democrats	Fascists
Decrease Overall Taxation of the Wealthy	Strongly Support	Support	Strongly Oppose
Immigration Helps Our Economy – Encourage It	Oppose	Support	Strongly Oppose

Fascism has historically been for progressive taxation and government management of surplus wealth. Fascism is a based on the idea of an in group or race, and therefore is strongly against integrating outsiders.

Trade	Republicans	Democrats	Fascists
Support and Expand Free Trade	Support	Support	Oppose

Fascism is a protectionist ideology, preferring instead to get resources by conquest and colonization.

Defense	Republicans	Democrats	Fascists
More Spending on Armed Forces	Strongly Support	Support	Strongly Oppose
Reduce Spending on Missile Defense (“Star Wars”)	Strongly Oppose	Oppose	Strongly Oppose

Fascism is a very militant ideology, and therefore is against any cuts in the military.

Foreign affairs	Republicans	Democrats	Fascists
Link Human Rights to Trade with China	Oppose	Support	Strongly Oppose
Seek UN Approval for Military Action	Support	Strongly Support	Strongly Oppose

In any situation where trade with a foreign nation is necessary, fascists would not be beholden to considerations of human rights--since in the fascist world-view the state is superior to the individual. In fascism, the state is first and last, and would not allow its actions to be limited by other inferior organizations.

After plugging in all these answers to the politics match quiz, the answers are plotted out as follows:

Note: the term "populism" is somewhat misleading, for it really means is "authoritarianism"--a large degree of government intervention in both social and economic affairs.

As can be seen from the graph, there is a world of difference between Fascist, Democratic, and Republican ideologies. It would be fair to say that fascism takes the social stance of the right, and the economic program of the left and combines it with more than a splash of racism--to create something that we don't have in America, aren't even close to now, and hopefully will never see.

The Bombs of Bangladesh

2005-12-30T12:46:00.000-05:00

At just under 57,000 square miles and over 144 million people, Bangladesh is a country with about half the population of the United States living in a land area about the size of Wisconsin. When one adds to that the fact that up to a third of the country floods annually during the monsoon season, it’s little wonder that the average American’s first thought turns to natural disasters when Bangladesh is mentioned. However, there’s another ongoing disaster in Bangladesh that is less well known to the average American and it’s one entirely of human making—the scourge of militant Islamism. While it’s difficult to say with certainty the exact number of militant Islamist groups—reports vary widely depending on who is doing the counting—some of the same names do turn up with quite a bit of frequency.

Well before East Pakistan seceded from Pakistan to become Bangladesh, before the partition of Pakistan from India, even before India was free from British rule, Islamism found a home in South Asia. Founded in 1941, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) advocates the creation of an Islamic state ruled by a strict interpretation of Sharia. During Bangladesh’s war for independence in 1971, JI fought on the side of Pakistan. Drawn from the ranks of JI and the Muslim League, Razakars (‘Volunteers’) committed widespread atrocities against the civilian population that has been compared to the Khmer Rouge in terms of brutality. After the war, JI created a Bangladesh chapter to further its Islamist agenda.

Also founded in 1941 was Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS), Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh’s student wing. Following the example of the Taliban, they wish to change the system of education to stress only strict Islamic values and teachings, thus creating a new generation of Islamists. A large organization with chapters all across Bangladesh, ICS has been implicated in many attacks on campuses and off—including the bombing in Narayanganj of a meeting of the secular political party the Awami League on June 16, 2001 which killed 21 and injured over 100. Police believe it was probably a suicide bombing carried out by three women found at the site of the bombing.

Said to have been started with financial support from Osama bin Laden, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami-Bangladesh (HuJI-B) is another one of the client groups of JMB and has ties to terrorist groups in Jammu and Kashmir. Their stated goal is to establish a strict fundamentalist regime by waging holy war. When the Awami League formed a government in June of 1996, HuJI-B intensified efforts to destabilize the government, twice trying to assassinate the then Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina in 2000. They’re also thought to be responsible for a string of bombings in 2001 that killed at least 26 people, as well as the ongoing murder and intimidation of journalists.

Islamic Shashantantra Andolon (ISA) is an umbrella group of several smaller groups who are pushing for the adoption of Sharia in the country. While they are ostensibly a political group, they have shown themselves to be perfectly willing to resort to violence, the worst example of which occurred on September 28, 2002 with the near simultaneous bombings in Satkhira of a cinema and a fair, resulting in the death of 3 and the injuring of 125 others. They have also been implicated in numerous assaults, and have agitated to have certain minority Muslim sects declared un-Islamic.

In April of 2004, an ongoing spree of extortion, intimidation, arson, assaults, bombings, and murder began. The origin of Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB)—the group said to be responsible for these incidents—is somewhat murky, with some reports claiming that it is a branch of a larger group, Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (‘Party of the Holy Warriors of Bangladesh’), while other reports claim it is a branch of the militant group Harqut-ul-Jihad. Adding to the murkiness is the fact that at times in the past it has gone by other names: Mujahideen Alliance Council, Islami Jalsha and Muslim Raksha Mujahideen Oikya Parishad. What is clear is that JMJB is committed to ending the influence of leftist extremism in northwestern Bangladesh in the short term, with the long term goal of ushering in strict Sharia law.

One minor yet noteworthy group was Hikmatul Jihad (‘Wisdom of Jihad’). On August 21, 2004, an unknown number of men staged a well-coordinated grenade and automatic weapon attack on a rally by the Awami League in Dhaka. Although the target of the attack—League leader Sheikh Hasina Wajed—survived the attack, 19 others were killed and at least 200 were injured. The previously unheard of group claimed the attack three days later in an email to the newspaper The Daily Prothom Alo, and threatened further attempts on Sheikh Hasina’s life. The arrest of a young minority Hindu man at an internet shop where the claim of responsibility originated resulted ultimately in no charges, and the investigation went nowhere. It is possible this group was formed from members of another organization for the purpose of this particular attack—and although no further attacks by Hikmatul Jihad were forthcoming, this singular attack is worth noting for its level of sophistication and lethality.

The outlawed umbrella group Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) is perhaps one of the more dangerous militant groups in Bangladesh. Over the course of an hour on August 17, 2005, over 300 small bombs went off in 63 of the country’s 64 districts. Leaflets at the sites of the bombings claimed responsibility. The bombs were small and fairly crude, killing 3 and injuring at least 50. The origin of the group isn’t completely clear, but the leader of the group, Fazlur Rahman, was one of the people who signed Osama bin Laden’s fatwa declaring holy war against the United States. While this was neither their first nor their deadliest foray into the realm of terrorism, the August attack is particularly impressive for its scale and level of coordination.

It becomes clear from reading the reports of these and other attacks that the anti-secular Islamist groups in Bangladesh bear a special level of ill-will towards the Awami League. This is no doubt due not merely to their more secular orientation, but also because they were the primary advocates for independence from Pakistan, which runs directly counter to the militants’ pan-Islamic agenda.

Based on media reports it seems clear that there is a rising tide of Islamic militancy in Bangladesh—and an attendant rise in the scale and sophistication of the attacks. While the attentions of the militants are turned inwards today, they have regional ambitions. When one considers the price America paid for ignoring the Taliban, we can ill afford to sit idly by as Bangladesh becomes a haven for those who espouse the very same ideology.

ACLU Challenges Profiling

2005-12-29T01:35:00.000-05:00

Earlier today Fox News reported that the ACLU has filed a lawsuit against behavioral profiling at Logan Airport in Boston. A quick Google search revealed several stories between last November and now mentioning what is, apparently, the same suit. Speculation alert: it may be that the suit has been filed, but no court date assigned.

The profiling is a method of threat assessment based on the behavior of an individual at a checkpoint that has been employed to great effect in Israel. The ACLU's claim is that this sort of profiling will be racial profiling. It seems like an odd position to take, as that the intent is to do away with the need for racial profiling. A person's behavior ought to be a good and valid indicator of threat--much better than using appearance.

If security is to be denied an objective tool like behavioral profiling, then the wait times at airports will continue to be excessively long as the screeners check 80 year old grandmothers from Texas and 2 year old girls from Laos in a ham-fisted attempt to attempt to appear unprejudiced. There has to be a better way without sacrificing security.

The Illogic of Either-Or

2005-12-26T14:08:00.000-05:00

There’s an argument one often hears employed in arguing against the war in Iraq that goes something like this: if we overthrew the Ba’ath regime in Iraq because it was bad, why don’t we overthrow all those other regimes that are bad in this world. This is an amazingly disingenuous argument, for those who advance it really mean that America should take no actions—not more of them. It is in fact an example of the logical fallacy of bifurcation—presenting two options where there are actually many. While some questions in this world are surely either-or questions, it's equally true some are not.

With regard to the war in Iraq, it was simply not true that we were presented with only two options: overthrow all bad regimes or overthrown none. The reality of the situation is that we cannot act everywhere at the same time, and while sometimes military action is the best—sometimes only—option, it’s not always the best option. When better solutions exist, obviously they should be pursued.

Just for fun, let’s apply bifurcated thinking to some other real-life historical situations:

During World War II, factory owner Oscar Schindler spent millions to save over 1200 Jews from the Nazi gas chambers. He also saved countless allied soldiers’ lives by intentionally producing defective munitions in his factory. He should not have saved any Jews since he could not have saved all of them.

Before the American Civil War, abolitionists created an “underground railroad” to smuggle slaves to freedom in the northern states. Since they could not free all the slaves, they should not have freed any of them.

After the American Revolutionary War, the vote was only extended to a portion of the population. If democracy was not universal to all citizens, then there should have been no democracy.

Absurd, isn’t it? Yet this is the same kind of argument being advanced in opposition to our freeing of 25 million Iraqis from a brutal, criminal dictatorship. In arguing this position, the anti-war crowd is making the perfect the enemy of the good—for while arguing that war is evil, they are effectively siding with the greater of two evils.

Sovereignty and Consent

2005-12-23T15:54:00.000-05:00

I’ve argued before about the need to question the source of a nation’s sovereignty to determine the legitimacy of a particular regime. My thesis is that the only legitimately sovereign government is one that derives its power from the consent of the governed and that when a government comes to power, or maintains its power, by force or fraud it is not legitimate.

I’m advancing the notion that the right of a people to grant or withhold sovereignty is a basic, universal human right. It is a natural extension to the right to self-determination inherent in every human being.

This argument ultimately comes to bear in a number of debates about America’s actions on the world stage, and one of the criticisms of this thinking has often been: who gets to determine when a government is legitimate by these standards or not. This is a less artful criticism than it is intended to be, for the answer ought to be a glaring one: anyone can, for the right to free speech is another basic, universal human right.

Now, just because anyone has the right to declare a particular government legitimate or illegitimate, that doesn’t mean that declaration is necessarily true. The standards have to be met: a government that is brought into power by force or fraud isn't legitimate—also a government that cannot be changed by the people with some degree of periodicity would be illegitimate.

That is the true meaning of the empowerment of people—to have a government of their choosing and consent, and to be able to peaceably change that government.

More on the NSA Controversy

2005-12-22T18:28:00.000-05:00

National Review Online has a PDF of a letter from the Department of Justice to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House’s Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence regarding the NSA controversy. In it Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella outlines in very clear language the President’s case for warrantless intelligence gathering.

The letter starts out by stating that the program was aimed at international communications of people linked to terrorist organizations. It goes on to state that the leak was a criminal act and that it has jeopardized our national security by exposing a covert program.

Further on in the letter, it says that the President has the power and responsibility under Article II of the Constitution to protect the people of the United States, and that the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) of September 16th, 2001, as well as the War Powers Resolution recognize the President’s power to act to protect the United States—including the power to order warrantless foreign intelligence gathering within the United States. It mentions several Supreme Court cases that recognized precisely that power in the President.

The letter also discusses FISA’s relationship to other laws, particularly AUMF. It states that the FISA cannot supersede the President’s authority under Article II of the Constitution. It then goes on to discusses issues in regard to Article IV of the Constitution, and states precedence where the Supreme Court has long recognized “special needs, beyond the normal needs of law enforcement”.

The letter closes by saying that Congress had been brief 12 times and that the order had been reviewed every 45 days to evaluate the necessity of continuing the program.

The people jumping to conclusions of criminality on this one would be well advised to follow the link and read the letter in its entirety before going any further out on a partisan limb. One also has to wonder if the same people who howled about the Plame affair will howl just as loudly about the leak leading to this dustup. So far, the silence is deafening.

Not only does is it beginning to look as though Bush exercised full diligence as to his the Constitutional limits of his powers, it also looks as though he exercised full diligence in regards to his Constitutional responsibilities. Add to all the above the fact that Associate Attorney General under Clinton, John Scmidt, has come out in support of Bush’s power to take the action he has and this is looking more and more like a cheap political hit on a sitting President—with our political institutions and intelligence gathering abilities as collateral damage.

Basic HTML in Comments

2005-12-21T18:03:00.000-05:00

When writing for or commenting on the internet, sometimes it comes in handy to know a little HTML. HTML stands for “Hyper-Text Mark-up Language”, and it is the code underlying every webpage. Some sites don’t allow HTML in comments, but many—perhaps even most—do.

When making a comment on a site, it is HTML that allows us to underline, italicize, bold, quote, and link—but the actual code is usually hidden from the user by a friendly formatting button. Unfortunately, even on some sites where HTML is allowed, the comment interface doesn’t have the handy little formatting buttons we have all grown so dependent on—but that doesn’t mean you are stuck with a plain, boring, unformatted comment! What follows is a little tutorial in how to spice up your comments with some formatting when those buttons are missing.

The first thing you have to understand is how to make a hypertext “tag”. If HTML is enable in comments, anything between the symbols <> is a tag—an instruction to the web browser to do something—and won’t be displayed. Any tag that you open: <>, must also be closed </> (notice the forward slash here—it closes the open tag). What you put inside the tag determines what it will do.

Italics

This:
Your italic text here.

…displays this:
Your italic text here.

Bold

This:
Your bold text here.

…displays this:
Your bold text here.

Underline

This:
Your underlined text here.

…displays this:
Your underlined text here.

Blockquote

This:
<blockquote>Quoted text here.</blockquote>

…displays this:

Quoted text here.

Linking

This:
<a href=”http://www.sayanythingblog.com”> A shameless plug for Rob’s site.</a>

…gives you this:
A shameless plug for Rob’s site.

I hope some of you find this helpful!

Mr. Bush, Build Up This Wall!

2005-12-21T13:51:00.000-05:00

With an estimated 5 million under- or unemployed service workers (source: CIA World Factbook), it's little wonder that the Mexican government is worried about the United States' plans to build a wall along the border. Every year rougly 150,000-200,000 illegal Mexican immigrants (source: US-English.org sucessfully evade our unmanned and underprotected border. These illegal immigrants find work that, even at a lower wage than American workers, pays better than what is available in Mexico--it is easy to understand their personal motivation in coming. However much we may feel sympathy for the day to day economic hardship of our friends and neighbors in Mexico, our security as a nation should come first.

National security has many different components, one important component is economic security. When an illegal takes a job in America, it increases the tax burden on Americans. Illegal immigrants don't pay taxes (outside of the small amount of sales taxes on the day-to-day items they purchase), yet they use public services: medical care, education, in some cases even welfare. What's more, in a lot of cases they send a good amount of what they earn back to their families still in Mexico (as well as elsewhere). Capital flight weakens the economy.

More unfortunately, it's not just Mexicans that make the journey. An open border means that enemies of the United States can easily make the journey also. For the advocates of an open border, a simple question: how many terrorists crossing our border is an acceptable number? While it is surely true that other routes exist for terrorists to enter, that's no excuse not to close this route.

The issue of illegal immigration is an important one for our legitimately sovereign government. So when Mexico's President threatens to interfere with our plans to build a wall, what he's really threatening is to interfere in a sovereign country's affairs. Will the same critics that claim alleged American imperialism around the world decry this gross violation of our national rights?

So Mr. Bush, build this wall! However, the policy cannot stop there. We must crack down on American companies that break the law and hire illegals, and we need to reform the immigration system to ease the process for legal applicants. This is not a xenophobic, anti-immigration stance--legal immigration is good for the nation--this is pro-law and pro-security stance.

My Take on the NSA Controversy

2005-12-19T00:17:00.000-05:00

It seems that you can't escape it--turn on the radio and you hear about it, turn on the TV and you see it, or talk to a relative and they mention it: Bush authorized the NSA to do some spying within America.

Earlier today I had an ordinarily reasonable Democrat tell me that while Bush certainly had the authority to authorize the spying, it nonetheless was illegal. Ponder contradictions in that for a moment--if he has the authority, then by definition it's legal. Now, if someone wants to argue that in fact he does not have the authority, that's at least a coherent position to hold. I'm no legal expert, and I don't particularly plan to become one, but owing to the fact that opinions are like elbows--everyone has a couple--let me advance mine.

First of all, it seems to me that a lot of people are jumping to conclusions with regard to the implications of this. There are so many wrinkles to this, and there's a lot of specifics we don't know. It seems irresponsible to condemn the administration before it's even remotely clear that there was any wrong doing. Frankly, I'm not at all interested in the minute details, I'll leave that to people who understand, and enjoy, the law better than I do. Sooner or later, the truth will out.

I predict that, at the worst, this will end up being a case where modern realities have outpaced decades old legislation--in other words, it was perhaps a grey area of the law. It won't have been the first time the law haasn't kept pace with modern life, and likely wouldn't be the last. From the press reports so far it seems like the Administration exercised a fair degree of dilligence in consulting Congress and the Attorney General--and despite the feverish nature of the reporting, there has so far been no credible suggestion that the easedropping was done arbitrarily.

In the final analysis, the real story that is most likely to come out of this is that someone leaked a top secret government program to the press, and the resulting publication of that program likely hobbles the ability of our government to generate actionable intelligence.

House Passes Iraq Resolution

2005-12-16T15:18:00.000-05:00

The house just passed House Resolution 612 "Expressing the commitment of the House of Representatives to achieving victory in Iraq."

The text of the bill states:

...expressing the commitment of the House of Representatives to achieving victory in Iraq.

Whereas the Iraqi election of December 15, 2005, the first to take place under the newly ratified Iraqi Constitution, represented a crucial success in the establishment of a democratic, constitutional order in Iraq; and

Whereas Iraqis, who by the millions defied terrorist threats to vote, were protected by Iraqi security forces with the help of United States and Coalition forces: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That--

(1) the House of Representatives is committed to achieving victory in Iraq;

(2) the Iraqi election of December 15, 2005, was a crucial victory for the Iraqi people and Iraq's new democracy, and a defeat for the terrorists who seek to destroy that democracy;

(3) the House of Representatives encourages all Americans to express solidarity with the Iraqi people as they take another step toward their goal of a free, open, and democratic society;

(4) the successful Iraqi election of December 15, 2005, required the presence of United States Armed Forces, United States-trained Iraqi forces, and Coalition forces;

(5) the continued presence of United States Armed Forces in Iraq will be required only until Iraqi forces can stand up so our forces can stand down, and no longer than is required for that purpose;

(6) setting an artificial timetable for the withdrawal of United States Armed Forces from Iraq, or immediately terminating their deployment in Iraq and redeploying them elsewhere in the region, is fundamentally inconsistent with achieving victory in Iraq;

(7) the House of Representatives recognizes and honors the tremendous sacrifices made by the members of the United States Armed Forces and their families, along with the members of Iraqi and Coalition forces; and

(8) the House of Representatives has unshakable confidence that, with the support of the American people and the Congress, United States Armed Forces, along with Iraqi and Coalition forces, shall achieve victory in Iraq.

Here's how the voting broke down:

Vote # total (Rep/dem/Ind)
Yea 279 (218/59/0)
Nay 109 (0/108/1)

Unfortunately, I missed which party the last two 'Yeas' were. My apologies.

What's amazing is that 108 Democrats were against expressing a commitment to victory as stated in this bill. Keeping in mind the 2006 elections, two possibile reasons for this result are that either the Democrats think that Iraq will fall apart in the 9 months or so and they can make hay over the issue, or that Iraq will quickly become a non-issue and the short attention spans of the electorate will be their saving grace. Overall, this doesn't strike me a politically savvy move.

30,000 Iraqis

2005-12-13T00:28:00.000-05:00

Recently President Bush acknowledged 30,000 Iraqis have been killed since the US lead invasion 3 years ago— that’s an average of 10,000 dead Iraqis per year of occupation. While this number jells with some think tanks’ estimates, as well as the Iraqi government’s own estimates, it’s worth noting that this includes Iraqis killed by insurgent and terror attacks.

Since the United States has overthrown Saddam’s regime, hardly a day goes by without a media story about the death toll—in some quarters of America the outrage over this loss of human life is palpable.

Over a 24 year span, Saddam’s regime was directly responsible, by the most conservative of estimates, for 850,000 Iraqi deaths through war, state-sponsored murder, genocide, and corrupt management of international aid—that’s an average of over 35,000 per year. This is entirely setting aside the equally horrific amount of non-Iraqi blood the Ba’athist regime was responsible for spilling.

Every single year that Saddam was in power was a year where Iraqis died needlessly, and hardly anyone raised the slightest objection—most months a person would have been hard pressed to find even a single mass media story about the death tolls. The silence of those who now claim to be distressed by Iraqi deaths was deafening when Iraqis were dying at a rate more than three times today’s rate.

It has been suggested that one cannot take a tally of the dead under Saddam and under the American occupation, and make a comparison stating one is better or worse. Nothing could be further from the truth—to make such an argument and refuse to make a judgment as to which is worse displays a profound callousness to the welfare of the Iraqi people and a penchant for amorality.

The current selective outrage over Iraqi deaths, not tempered by proper perspective, is nothing short of the placing of ideology over humanity, partisanship over people. It is a sad and shameful thing which ultimately cheapens the worth of all people, and tarnishes the moral force of our entire nation.

Do you..Sudoku?

2005-12-09T23:47:00.000-05:00

Perhaps I’m coming late to the party, but a few months ago I got turned onto a different kind of puzzle: Sudoku. It was first created in 1979 by Howard Garns and published by Dell Magazines as Number Place. Not until it was published by the Japanese puzzle company Nikoli did it achieve any great popularity.

It was Nikoli Co. that gave the puzzle its best known name. Sudoku is an abbreviation of the Japanese phrase “suuji wa dokushin ni kagiru”, and can be roughly translated as “single number”. It is also sometimes known by the name Nanpure—Japanese for “number place”.

A Sudoku square is divided into 9 regions, with some squares already filled with numbers. To solve the puzzle, you must fill in all of the empty squares with the numbers 1 to 9—each number used only once within each row, column and region.

For me the attraction of this sort of puzzle is that it is entirely logic based. Each puzzle, with its set of givens, has a unique solution. Unlike crossword puzzles, Sudoku does not rely on a memory for trivia—just a logical and methodical mind. From the puzzle’s simple rules a complex and engrossing game emerges.

For anyone old hands as well as new, here’s a couple of links where you can do Sudoku online:

websudoku.com

sudoku.com

Enjoy!

Murtha, Kerry, and Chickenhawks

2005-12-08T13:59:00.000-05:00

It has been argued recently that Representative Murtha and Senator Kerry have first hand experience in a war—therefore their criticisms about the war in Iraq have added weight. They are, of course, much ballyhooed by those who are anti-war because they are two politicians who are vocally against the war. Does their experience give their opinion extra weight? Should we take their advisements more seriously than other politicians? Before answering those questions, perhaps we should actually find out what the other combat veterans in Congress think.

Senator John R. Warner of Virginia was in the Navy during the closing days of WWII and a ground officer with the Marines in the Korean War. He supports the war and the President’s plan, as he outlined in a recent speech:

“I've got this book right here. It's entitled "Victory in Iraq." And let's have at it. I think it's achievable if, again, we, you know, if we made some mistakes in this thing, and I freely admit in my own shortcomings perhaps as chairman not probing more deeply but we're where we are, and we should be forward- looking.

“And look at the accomplishments that the Iraqi people, with our support, have had: Two elections, a third one coming up in a matter of weeks, establishing a new government, writing a constitution. We are making progress.”

Senator John R. McCain of Arizona who was a Navy pilot in Vietnam and was a POW after being shot down. He was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross. He has had some disputes with the administration about Iraq, but he supports the war and feels it is important that we win. Recently on meet the press he said:

“I think the president has done a good job. I think he's tried to--and particularly last week at the Naval Academy--given a very articulate presentation on the challenges that we face. I think it would be wrong for me to sit here and say we've done everything right and, you know, this has been unnatural or--you know, accidents that took place. We've made serious mistakes, and I'm frustrated by them, and most Americans are, too, but most Americans, I think, still appreciate that if we had some kind of premature withdrawal, that the consequences would be very severe. And I'd also suggest--and again, I'll probably--I'm not in any way concerned about saying this--that we will probably see significant progress in the next six months to a year.”

Rep. Duncan Hunter of California was an Army Ranger who served in combat in Vietnam. He supports the war. According to CNN, Hunter, whose son currently serves in the Marines, recently said U.S. troops should leave only when, "in the judgment of the war-fighting commanders, Iraqis are capable of defending their own country."

Rep. Sam Johnson of Texas is a 29-year Air Force veteran and spent nearly seven years as a Prisoner of War in Vietnam—more than half that time in solitary confinement. Recently he had this to say about talk of withdrawal:

“Any talk – even so much as a murmur – of leaving now– just emboldens the enemy and weakens the resolve of our of troops in the field. That’s dangerous! If you don’t believe me – check out Al Jazeera. This story is on the front page. We can’t do that to our fellow Americans over there.”

The list of doesn’t stop there, for there are other, less prominent and less vocal, combat veterans in Congress.

Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska was a pilot in China with the "Flying Tigers" of the Fourteenth Air Force from 1943 to 1946 During World War II. He held the rank of First Lieutenant, and received two Distinguished Flying Crosses and two Air Medals, as well as the Yuan Hai medal of Taiwan. He supports the war.

Rep. Rodney P. Frelinghuysen of New Jersey was a combat veteran of Vietnam. He supports the war.

Rep. John Kline of Minnesota was a Marine who saw combat duty in Vietnam and Somalia. He supports the Iraq war.

Rep. Charlie Norwood of Georgia served in combat in Vietnam and was awarded the Combat Medical Badge and two Bronze Stars. He supports the war.

Rep. Joseph R. Pitts served three combat tours in Vietnam and was awarded the Air Medal six times. He supports the Iraq war.

Those are just the Republican combat veterans. The list could get longer were we to add the Democratic combat veteran supporters of the Iraq war (who certainly exist, as witnessed by the recent vote on withdrawal), or were we to add to the list the veterans who were not called upon to serve in combat.

In the final analysis, the argument that we should give Murtha and Kerry’s words added weight doesn’t fly when faced with the reality that their experience is not unique, and their opinions are not widely held by other leaders of similar experience. The other glaring problem with adding weight to their words is that it ignores the opinions of the majority of the current military leadership in theater that are better positioned to make such a judgment. It is, in short, a slightly more clever recasting of the chickenhawk argument, only used to prop up a preconceived narrative in the absence of actual supporting evidence—and wrong for many of the same reasons.

The Lesson of Pearl Harbor

2005-12-07T18:20:00.000-05:00

Today, December 7th, is the 64th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. We, as a nation, commemorate this day not only to commemorate the victims, but also because we must never forget the lesson of that day: we must never let our guard down, for there are always those who wish to harm us.

Up until the attack that December morning, isolationist sentiment was widespread in the United States. The isolationist argument was the same as it always is—if we leave them alone they will leave us alone, it’s just not our problem. American hero Charles Lindberg was a member of the isolationist America First Committee—an organization that at its height was 850,000 strong—and actively campaigned against any foreign involvement. Even as late as November of 1941, only one in four Americans supported involvement in the growing war in Europe despite Hitler’s clear animosity to all Democratic governments. The American government and Japanese government were in negotiations to avoid war.

That all changed in the moment the first Japanese bomb fell. In the blink of an eye the reality that, even in a nation that is not looking outward, trouble sometimes comes calling. Even thought we did not seek it, war was upon us.

We must never forget this lesson. Yet there are those that believe we can placate the ideologies that are inimical to our own—that if we ignore the statements emanating from the other side of the globe, if we contract and present a smaller footprint outside our borders, if we just learn to accept that some cultures are naturally more oppressive—then we will be safe.

Such belief didn’t keep us safe before December 7, 1941. Such belief didn’t keep us safe before September 11, 2001. Such belief won’t keep us safe today. In a world where travel is fast and communication is faster, our great and good nation has very little time to react to those who declare themselves our enemies. By being forwardly projected around the world, our homeland is safer and more able to rapidly react to quickly developing threats. So tonight, and every night, say a little thank you to all who have served, and do serve, to keep us that much safer.

Chickenhawk

2005-12-05T11:07:00.000-05:00

There are those who would claim that in order to support the current war, one must have served in the military, or sign up to serve. Otherwise the would-be supporter is a “chickenhawk”, a member of the “101st Keyboarders”—in other words, a hypocritical coward.

As a veteran, nothing could make me angrier than to hear such language substituted for honest debate on an issue of the gravest national concern.

The chickenhawk argument is a fallacious argument intended to shut down any debate. It’s an outright rejection of logic, framing the debate instead in invective and emotionalism. This is not how important issues should be decided, one side shouting down the other when they have run out of persuasive arguments. War has been, and always will be, an emotional issue—yet the issues surrounding it still need to be address in a rational manner. A rational approach can take into account can take feelings into account as one issue among many; an emotional approach goes no further than feelings, or resorts to feelings when ideas fail or are shown to be corrupt.

Were we to accept the chickenhawk fallacy as a valid argument, logic dictates that it be extended to other areas, too. In a world where only service members have the moral standing to declare the rectitude of a war, then only those who are willing to be police have the moral standing to expect protection from crime, only those who are willing to be a fireman should expect to have their house fire put out, only those who are doctors should expect to have their injuries treated. This, clearly, cannot be.

Ours is a free, market-driven society, which means that labor is divided. Yet all citizens have equal standing in the public arena when it comes to questions of local, state, or national importance. Different people are uniquely suited to their individual jobs and naturally gravitate towards those jobs. Thus, someone who a great cook would not necessarily be a great writer—water finds its own level, as it were. While it is true there are times when one’s expertise does, indeed, add weight to one’s opinion on matters related to that expertise, it is not true that the added weight negates the right of the rest of society to have an opinion and voice. As a society we do not need all members to follow the paths of their convictions—for all occupations have their unique importance. The soldier has a right to an opinion on matters of crime and justice, just as the police officer has a right to an opinion on matters of war and peace.

So to my fellow citizens who are passionately against the Iraq war, let me be the first to say you have the right to your opinion—that’s the beauty of being an American. However, when you frame your opposition to the war in terms attacking its supporters as cowards and hypocrites, you are taking a fundamentally corrupt position—declaring, in fact, that you have run out of ideas.

Profile of a Great American

2005-12-03T20:43:00.000-05:00

On December 13, 1887 in a small cabin in Pall Mall, Tennessee, a great American hero was born. Alvin Cullom York was the third of eleven children born to William York. Raised on a farm, Alvin learned to become an expert marksman early, helping to feed the family by hunting to supplement the meager crops they raised on their farm.

At a time and place when education was seen as a hindrance to farm chores, Alvin received a mere nine months of schooling as a lad. As a young man, he took work as a day laborer—his nights less profitably spent drinking and gambling in unlicensed bars known as “Blind Tigers”. He was widely considered to be a young man going nowhere—in fact, a nuisance—when his life took an unexpected turn at the age of 26.

During a bar fight in Kentucky in 1914, Alvin’s best friend Everett Delk was killed. This convinced Alvin that he had better change his ways lest he befall a similar fate. Later that same year, he attended a revival hosted by the Church of Christ in Christian Union. This somewhat redundantly named fundamentalist sect had a rather strict philosophy—no drinking, dancing, movies, swimming, swearing, popular literature, and definitely no violence or war.

These two events conspired to work a very fundamental change in Alvin York, for by all accounts his conversion to this brand of Christianity was complete and unabashed—he ceased altogether drinking, gambling, and fighting. It was through the church that he was to meet his wife, Gracie. His newly found state of grace was not to be untroubled for long.

On April 6, 1917, the US declared war on Germany and a draft was instituted. Receiving his draft notice, he wrote “Dont want to fight.” on it at the urging of his pastor. His case was reviewed, and re-reviewed, but ultimately rejected because his sect was not officially recognized. Having been rejected for conscientious objector status, York reluctantly reported for training at Camp Gordon in Georgia. After much soul searching and debate, York conceded that there were times when not fighting was more a more immoral act than the fighting itself—and with that reluctant concession he was bound for France, and the frontlines.

Before sunrise on October 9, 1918, seventeen soldiers were dispatched to take command of Decauville railroad, including one Corporal York. Unfortunately, the map was in French instead of English, and a misreading of the map put them behind enemy lines. After a brief and confused firefight, a larger German force surrendered to the squad—only to have them un-surrender when it became clear that the Americans were vastly outnumbered. Turning their machine guns around, the German forces pinned down the squad and killed nine of their number. Receiving the order to silence the machine guns, Corporal York did exactly that.

There are varying accounts about what exactly happened next, but the one detail that is not in dispute is that Corporal York’s actions saved his squad, and when the shooting was done twenty-five German soldiers were dead, thirty-five German machine guns were out of the fight, and the squad of eight Americans marched 132 German prisoners back to friendly lines.

Returning to the United States, the now promoted Sergeant York avoided the limelight, choosing to return home to his wife and a quiet life—but this was not to be. Throughout the 1920s, he was an active booster for Democratic politicians and causes, and it was through this activism that he brought many infrastructure improvements to his home county. He also raised money to found York Institute, which helped many youths to get a high school degree.

A dedicated isolationist in the 1930s, Alvin York largely receded from the public’s view. This was not to last however, when the persistent Jesse Lasky finally prevailed upon him to make a film of his exploits—the film, released in 1941, was to ultimately earn Gary Cooper the best actor award in 1942. It was through his relationship with Lasky that York was to once again realize that there was such a thing as a moral war.

With Europe already embroiled in the Second World War, York joined the Fight for Freedom Committee which advocated more American involvement in the expanding European conflict. This stance was to put him at loggerheads with another American icon, Charles Lindberg, until the attack on Pearl Harbor erased all doubt in anyone’s mind about the proper stance for America.

Despite his willingness to join up and fight once again, age and health kept York out of the Army.

Throughout the 1950s, the now destitute York was harassed by the IRS over proceeds from the 1941 movie—a dispute that was only finally resolved by order of President John F. Kennedy in 1961.

On September 2, 1964, York, bedridden since a stroke ten years earlier, finally passed away. He was buried with full military honors in his hometown of Pall Mall. Asked before his death what he wanted to be remembered for, York replied that his promotion of education for rural Tennessee was what he hoped his legacy would be.

US Army Sergeant Alvin C. York was a great American and a good man: warrior in times of evil, advocate for peace, good and active citizen of his community, husband, and father.

About Trixie

2005-12-02T01:45:00.000-05:00

I live in a bi-lingual house. My wife is Lao, and we have a two year old daughter, Trixie. It's an interesting challenge raising a bi-lingual child, especially since I cannot speak Lao very well. The problem is that Lao is a tonal language, which means the tone of your voice can change the meaning of the word.

I might think I say "you have a beautiful shirt", but what comes out might very well be "you have a beautiful tiger", or "you noodle believe beautiful".

My understanding of spoken Lao is fair, good enough to get the gist of things anyway. So often my daughter and I have mixed conversations, with her half mostly in Lao--with the odd English word thrown in--and my half mostly, if not entirely, in English.

"Tric-CY bpai hong hein nam!" she might squeal when she sees me put my jacket on.

"No dear, I'm not going to school, I'm just going to the store to buy some bread."

"Seu kowgee boh? Tric-CY bpai shopping nam boh?"

"Trixie boh bpai, it's raining."

Trixie speaks mostly in Lao because until we moved back to America a month ago, she had lived all her life in Laos. Lao was all she heard every day, with the exception of her father--that is to say, me. She understands English just fine, but so far here in America she still speaks habitually in Lao.

She's taken to be quite a little mimic, saying whatever she hears other people saying. It's quite like having an odd little echo. Sometimes when my wife speaks to me in Lao, Trixie will translate it to me in English, assuming that I don't understand.

Although it makes it more challenging for me as her father, I hope that as she gets old she will hold on to her Lao fluency. I believe that her exposure to two languages is making her more fluent in both, for she already has amazing ability to communicate for her age.

Dem. Rep. Wants to Lower Drinking Age for Military

2005-12-01T01:42:00.000-05:00

This is a summary and editorial of a news article from the Portsmouth Herald, you can read the original article HERE.

Democratic Rep. Jim Splaine has sponsored a bill that would lower the drinking age for military personnel to 18 in the state of NH. Interestingly enough, this is the same Rep. Splaine who sponsored the legislation that raised the drinking age to 21 in the 1980s.

Rep. Splaine feels that the state hasn’t done enough to educate young people about alcohol before they reach the the legal drinking age. He also feels that it’s hypocrisy that as a society we give all other rights and responsibilities to 18 year olds and even send them to war–but we don’t allow them to have a farewell drink with their family. He says he hopes to highlight those shortcomings by sponsorship of this bill, and to open up debate on the issues related to drinking.

This is a good move on the part of Rep. Splaine; at 18 a person has all the full responsibilities of a citizen, yet we set aside this one right. As a society, we need to demystify alcohol and educate our young people about personal responsibility and the risks associated with this drug before they reach the age of use.

Why Not Darfur?

2005-12-01T01:40:00.000-05:00

Someone recently asked me, in response to my statement of support for the war in Iraq on humanitarian grounds, then why not Darfur. This is of course an example of fallacious thinking, often intended to shut down debate: if one action is not or cannot be taken in all instances, it is not good or right in any instance. Such an argument is plain wrong, and if acted out in practice would give us a world where in good actions are possible, because all good actions aren't always possible.

However, let me assume good faith on the part of the questioner...why doesn't America take military action in the Darfur region of Sudan?

The UN conventions on genocide authorize military action against a state when a genocide is underway. It is percisely for this reason that governments go to such linguistic and logical leaps to not declare genocide when one is clearly underway. It is percisely this reason that has caused our own government to tiptoe up to the line--but not quite over--where genocide is declared, and this is an unmitigated tragedy.

It's pure politics why we don't: no international backing, and domestic politics--those who feel no intervention is justified.

Time and agin in the 20th century the world has stood by and done little more than talk while the butchers rang up a bloodier and bloodier bill. Cambodia, Rawanda, Iraq...the list goes on.

So in answer to the question of "why not Darfur", I answer "why not indeed?"

Circles of Empathy

2005-11-30T14:04:00.000-05:00

Empathy, loosely defined, is the ability to appreciate another's problems and feelings—and it’s one of the things that define us as human beings. Empathy motivates us to do good deeds for others, and as an integral part of the human ethical construct restrains people from taking advantage of the weak. It could be argued that without empathy we would be little better than a pack of clever animals, every action committed in the name of self-interest—in other words, a society of borderline sociopaths.

Imagine that empathy is a circle that is around each person, with each individual at the center of that circle. Within this circle, and usually quite close to the center, are family: mother, father, spouse, brothers, sisters, and children. Moving outwards in that circle, but still fairly close to the center, are friends and coworkers. About midway out in this circle are the members of one’s community, and out on the further reaches are the members of one’s nation. Way out on the very periphery is the rest of humanity in the wider world. This is the natural order of things for a well-adjusted person in contemporary society.

Unfortunately, there are people whose circle of empathy has been so foreshortened that it draws fewer and fewer people. They care about the suffering of other people only so far as it evokes guilt or discomfort at seeing that suffering, or because it suits some crass and selfish need. There are even some people whose circles of empathy draws in only their selves. When people who have these foreshortened circles of empathy see some tragedy on TV, it’s upsetting to them—yet they don’t put any critical thought into the wider issues involved. To alleviate their discomfort, they rail against the injustice of it all—but the target of their indignation is not always the most deserving one.

This is why you see so much recent indignation about the US involvement in Iraq. As the military has gotten better at fighting against the insurgency, the insurgency has switched to attacking civilians. This disturbs the American public when they see the aftermath of the attacks on their TVs—as it well should. But where was this newfound concern for all the years that the former regime caused much more widespread death and suffering? And where will this newfound concern be if American troops leave and the insurgency rages on, as it certainly would? Sadly, the answer is that this concern was, and would be, missing—and it is this lack of context that threatens to paint us as the villain, even in our own homeland.

America is not only a powerful country, but a good country full of courageous, well-meaning and generous people. It is a challenge for us a powerful and good country to find those dark corners where evil exists and people suffer, and to help—with an open hand if possible, with a closed fist if necessary—whenever we can.

The Conservative Case for Conservation

2005-11-27T20:44:00.000-05:00

Conservative Thought, Liberal Thought, and Conservation

Conservatives are often portrayed as being anti-environment, and not for no reason. Very often it is conservatives that stand reflexively against the many environmental groups who tend toward the political left. This is unfortunate, because conservative and conservation don’t have the same root merely coincidentally—rather, the modern environmental movement owes its roots to classical conservative thought.

Early liberal thought held that the environment was a resource which could be assigned value by the use that could be put to, whereas early conservative thought held that the environment held value in and of itself. Oddly enough, both of these positions can be said to be true, but not in the absolute. A natural resource does have economic value, but extracting that resource may destroy a park that has more value in other terms—both factors must be considered.

Conservative thought holds that humans are imperfect and a limited level of government is necessary to restrain the more harmful impulses, which is a stance generally rejected by libertarian thinking. While an extreme libertarian position might state that a landowner should be free to do whatever they want on their own property, such sentiment ignores the fact that the landowner is part of a larger community and some actions have repercussions beyond the landowner’s own property and lifetime. For example: dumping waste oil in one’s backyard has lasting repercussions beyond a particular piece of property—the oil can seep into the groundwater and from there into the food chain at all levels. Clearly, the community’s interests trump the individual’s supposed right to do as they will on their property in a case like this—governmental regulation is warranted in the interest of the community.

Some view the free market as the best guarantor of the environment: clean and green should sell better and as a result the environment should fare better. This takes a decidedly non-conservative view of human nature. A more conservative view of human nature would hold that unrestrained commercialization is a threat to the environment, because some people do not hold to community values.

One conservative criticism of the environmental movement is that it bases its positions on bad or incomplete science, and there have been times when this is not altogether unwarranted criticism. Another criticism has been that some extremists in the modern environmental movement value nature more than humanity—again, not an altogether unwarranted criticism. There is a need for balancing the needs of the environment and the needs of people; in the final analysis humanity is another part of the natural world.

Notable Conservative Conservationists from the Past

“Conservation is a great moral issue, for it involves the patriotic duty of ensuring the safety and continuance of the nation.”
–Theodore Roosevelt, 1910

President Roosevelt, who was without question the most conservationist President in American history, had a lifelong interest in wildlife and the outdoors. During his Presidency, he more than quadrupled national forest lands. His passion for conservation was more than personal interest—he believed that carefully and efficiently using natural resources was the best way to protect the nation’s strength, prosperity, and future.

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In 1929, Herbert Hoover became the 31st President of the United States. Today he is remembered for his ineffectual response to the Great Depression, but in his time he expanded the national park system by 40%. The monuments he protected are some of the most famous in America: The Grand Canyon, White Sands, and Death Valley. He also felt that conservation was a moral imperative, that outdoor recreation was the cure for excess.

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“There is a need for relief for jaded minds and tense nerves, a need for the restoration of peace and the reassurance of sanity. It is a need that for many people can best be met beyond the end of the road, away from the ring of the telephone, where electric lights cannot lengthen the strains of the day, but rather where early sleep rests a man to wake at dawn and know the inspiration of the sunrise as well as the colors of the sunset.”
–Congressman John Saylor, 1956

Conservative Republican congressman John Saylor of Pennsylvania served in Congress from 1949 until his death in 1973. He co-sponsored the 1964 Wilderness Act and led the fight for the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. He felt that unspoiled lands were important for physical and mental well-being—that everyone needed a place to get away from the noise and pace of modern life and reconnect with a more traditional pace of living.

Conservation, Energy Policy, and National Security

The Set America Free Coalition is a group of conservative hawks who feel that our dependence on oil is a threat to national security. Part of their mission is to push for serious national policies to improve fuel efficiency and develop non-petroleum transportation fuels.

America simply can’t become self-sufficient in oil; the only way to lessen our dependence on foreign oil is to lessen our dependence on oil altogether—starting with improved fuel efficiency. This is crucial because most of the global oil supply is controlled by countries that do not care about America’s best interests. Oil is the Achilles’ heel of America’s economy, and thus conservation becomes a cornerstone of our national security.

Upon leaving his office at the end of his second term, George Washington warned against being overly entangled in foreign countries. Our dependence on oil from foreign countries forces us to become entangled.

Within a matter of mere decades, China will almost certainly become the world’s largest economy—and the largest consumer of oil. Without a serious conservation effort and a drive to become energy independent, we may well find America on a tragic collision course with a nuclear rival.

The less oil we consume, the more secure we will be.

Conservation and Development

"You cannot be a conservative and be on the side of the concrete pourers and the cement mixers."
–John Lukacs

Conservative historian and speaker John Lukacs was not making a statement that conservatism should be opposed to blue-collar workers, nor was he making a call to reject development outright. Rather, he was stating that unbridled development is a threat to the present and future of the communities that we cherish.

A community has every right to live by an unstated social contract of their own design, and development that is contrary to this social contract is a threat to wellbeing of that community. In other words, Wal-Mart (to take an oft maligned example) has every right to purchase land and build a store in communities, just as every community equally has the right to enact zoning that prohibits such land use to protect a cherished standard and style of living. Some things are more valued than mere economic development, and this is the true meaning of the science of economics.

The conservative case for conservation is simple: by insuring a healthy environment and wise use of natural resources, we secure our standard of living for ourselves and future generations.

Our Center of Gravity and Victory in Iraq

2005-11-25T13:08:00.000-05:00

In his seminal work on warfare, Clausewitz identified the theory of “center of gravity”. The center of gravity is the point of greatest importance, interest, or activity; if you destroy this center, you destroy the enemy’s will to fight and he will rapidly lose cohesion and capitulate. The center of gravity varies from enemy to enemy and from conflict to conflict.

In the first Gulf War, America and its allies found the Iraqi center of gravity in the Republican Guard. When we destroyed the effectiveness of the most elite units of Saddam’s army, the ordinary conscripts—already shell-shocked from round the clock aerial bombardment—lost the will to fight and surrendered en mass. With his most elite units taking such a blow, Saddam had no choice but to accept that the war was a lost cause.

In Vietnam, General Giap found our center of gravity—not so much in the will of the soldiers, but in the will of the American electorate. He realized he didn’t need to win the battles–as long as he killed as many American soldiers as possible, as often as possible, the will of the electorate would eventually crumble. All it required was a good understanding of war fighting doctrine and a ruthless disregard for his soldier’s welfare. Some would say that the notion that a peace movement could have handed us a defeat despite battlefield success is only strange if you reject the notion that in a representative democracy a mass movement of people can affect public policy.

Now Al-Qaeda and the Iraqi insurgents are hoping that the same strategy of striking at democracy’s center of gravity will pay similar dividends in Iraq. When calls go out to bring our troops home short of our stated objective—a stable democratic state that can defend itself against both foreign and domestic enemies—it is the understanding of this strategy that incenses those who truly want America to succeed. So while this war will be fought on the battlefield of Iraq, it will be won or lost on the American home front.

This strategy has been paying some dividends to America’s enemies, as seen in the opportunistic stances of some finger in the wind politicians calling for troop withdrawals on an artificial timetable, before we have adequately trained the Iraqi army. However, before one comes to a snap judgment as to the wisdom of an immediate troop withdrawal, it’s useful to project the possible outcomes. What follows is a possible scenario in the face of such a move.

Far from bringing more stability, an American withdrawal before the Iraqi government is able to adequately defend itself is likely to result in the break up of Iraq, a redrawing of the map of the Middle East, and spread instability beyond the borders of Iraq.

Iraq’s break up would most likely start with Syria trying to lay claim to the Sunni Arab provinces in the west on the pretences of border security and bringing peace and stability to a neighbor, much as they did in Lebanon through the 70s—a de facto annexation only just recently ended. It’s equally likely there would be a series of destabilizing incidents in Lebanon, carried out by Syrian intelligence agents, precipitating a new Syrian intervention. Make no mistake—these moves would be nothing more than blatant annexations in all but name.

On the heels of such a move by Syria, it is probable that Iran would likewise attempt to swallow up the Shiite areas in the east, and on much the same pretexts of border security and regional stability. This would put Iran in possession of vast amounts of oil reserves and give them the ability to threaten the economic stability of the entire world.

The desert bordering Saudi Arabia, which was claimed by the Saudis before the first Gulf war, may well be swallowed up in a revival of those claims. This may well trigger a savage and bloody war between the Sunni fundamentalist Saudis and the Shiite fundamentalist Iranians over theology and oil.

These moves would leave the Kurds alone in the mountains, a situation which would make Turkey feel compelled to annex the Kurdish areas of Iraq, fearing that an independent Kurdish state would cause their own Kurdish minority to break away.

All this would happen in the name of border security and regional stability–and you could kiss Middle East stability, an independent and multicultural Iraq, and the first true Arab democracy goodbye.

The best hope to head off this nightmare scenario, or any of the other myriad possible—and equally bad—scenarios, is for there to be a stable Iraqi government and a strong Iraqi army. We have been helping to build that government with great successes, as we have been helping to build the Iraqi Army with less obvious, but no less real, success. The successes on the battlefield will always be incremental and less tangible in the short run.

Al Qaeda’s center of gravity may be the repressive regimes that offer no economic opportunity and offer no outlets for frustration outside of fundamentalism. If we end these regimes and offer the Islamic world economic and social freedom, Al Qaeda might well have trouble finding recruits. Our victory in Iraq will be the successful birthing of the first true and lasting Arab democracy offering a vision to compete with the regimes that help to breed terrorism.

Morality and the Iraq War

2005-11-20T14:23:00.000-05:00

The issues surrounding the Iraq war is something I've given a great deal of careful thought and research to. For this post I want to leave aside all the issues of WMD, terrorism, and legality—not because these issues aren't important, they manifestly are. I leave these issues aside to focus on only one aspect: the moral aspect and my personal feelings in regards to this aspect.

I've been an ardent proponent of regime change since back in '91 when, as a soldier serving in Operation Desert Storm, I saw first hand the results of Saddam's regime. The argument that the Iraqis should have deposed Saddam themselves misses entirely how utterly ruthless and depraved that regime was, and how utterly repressed the Iraqis were.

Saddam's regime was first and foremost, a danger to Iraqis. The most conservative count of people who were outright executed under Saddam is 300,000—other counts go much, much higher.

The UN conventions on genocide automatically authorize force to halt genocide. It is this fact that compels countries to perform logical and linguistic acrobatics to keep from declaring that genocide is in progress: they don't want to get involved. The fact remains that Saddam, under the eyes of the whole world, committed genocide against the Kurds for their uprising after the first Gulf War. It was only with the imposition of the no-fly zones by the US that the Kurds were able to withdraw to their mountainous redoubts and fight Saddam to a stalemate. Given the fact that further genocide was likely if the US were to cease the no-fly zones, it is arguable that the US had the right to force a regime change to end the no-fly zones at a time in a manner of its choosing.

The butcher's bill isn't fully totaled yet, for Saddam can be credited with the dead Iraqis from the Iran-Iraq war—a war started by Saddam. Once again using a very conservative estimate, and only counting the Iraqis killed (roughly 3 times more Iranians were killed), we can add another 200,000 dead to the total.

The horrible truth doesn't stop there. Sanctions were imposed after Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, which he had the power to end simply by fully cooperating with the UN inspection teams. Saddam first blocked, then mismanaged and pilfered, offers of food and medical aid. All the while, infant mortality shot up as a direct result of Saddam's actions. So the sanctions were killing people, but without the sanctions Saddam most certainly would have been pursuing WMD (see: the Duelfer report).

Every month with Saddam in power was another month that sanctions killed thousands of innocent Iraqis. Yet those are the very same sanctions that war opponents like to claim made the war unnecessary, because they were keeping WMD out of Saddam's hands. The only way to end sanctions without allowing Saddam WMD was to end Saddam. Still using a very conservative count we can add another 350,000 dead as a result of "keeping Saddam in his box".

That's minimally 850,000 Iraqis dead due to Saddam and his regime. That doesn't include the number of Iranians killed during his unprovoked invasion of Iran, and completely leaving out the deaths of Iraqis and other nationalities as a direct result of his unprovoked invasion of Kuwait.

It's tragic when the innocent die, it's more tragic when we stand by and do nothing—as we did for all of the 90s, even though we had the military force in theater, multiple UN resolutions authorizing force, and casus belli in Saddam's actions. Even using the most over-inflated casualty figures for the war and occupation, America has a LONG way to go before we can ever be said to match the carnage Saddam wrought on the Iraqi people.

The implication of the anti-war movement is that Iraqi deaths don't matter as long as Americans don't have to see it on TV, or have to face the uncomfortable reality that even a just war kills innocent people. That America has killed civilians is terrible; that some would have left a far more prolific butcher in place to salve guilty consciences is much, much worse. Saddam's killing is only in the past because we made it that way—far more people were likely to have died over the long run if we did nothing.

Bottom line: Saddam's regime was flat out evil. Not merely bad, but evil. Every day with Saddam and his demented half-wit sons at the driving wheel was another day of guaranteed theft, rape, torture, and murder. That's what he'd do to his own people, and what he exported to neighboring countries.

Indifference to the justness of this war is indifference to true evil, and is sadly self-centered. To do nothing is taking a side.

There is NO WAY, having seen the things I saw with my own eyes, that I could have opposed this war. Deposing Saddam and dismantling his regime was the morally right thing to do.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
–Edmund Burke

Better Make That a Double

2005-11-20T14:19:00.000-05:00

The history of the martini, as with several other popular cocktails, is a murky one. All manner of things from an opera star, to rifle, to a town in California has laid claim to being the genesis of the drink and its name.

A strong conteder for ancestor of the the modern martini was first created in 1911 by Martini di Arma di Taggia, head barman at the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York, when he mixed half and half London Gin, Noilly Prat Vermouth and orange bitters. The regulars at the Knickerbocker asked for variations and added the olive, and over the years the recipe has morphed.

During the depression years, something closer to the contemporary drink became popular. With three parts gin, one part dry vermouth, it packed enough kick to guarantee a hangover to match the economic outlook.

It's been claimed in some quarters that FDR was the first to popularize the dirty martini, wherein a splash of olive brine is added. Whoever had that happy first thought to add that little dash, good on them, for I like my martinis like I like my women: dirty, and on the rocks. Of course, my wife assures me I'm not nearly as hilarious as I think I am--but I digress.

During the cold war years, the martini called for less and less vermouth. Some go so far as to claim that the proper way to make a martini is to leave the cap on the vermouth bottle. However, that drink has a different name: just gin.

Nowadays, the avid tippler can get all manner of drinks laying claim to the name of martini. Made with vodka, or flavored: chocolate, hazelnut, raspberry...the list goes on.

For my money, the more classic is best: gin, with just a kiss of vermouth, and two olives. Some claim that you should only stir a martini, as shaking will bruise the gin--I'm afraid these poor souls are confused, it's babies that you're not supposed to shake.

So the next time you're out to enjoy a tasty recreational beverage, consider having the king of cocktails, and make it a double for me.

On Lincoln

2005-11-16T00:40:00.000-05:00

Without a doubt, Abraham Lincoln is my favorite President. I revere Lincoln because he was a moral man who loved freedom—he believed that if we allow the freedom of others to be denigrated we open the door to it happening to us:

“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God cannot long retain it.” –Abraham Lincoln

And yet, I occasionally come across someone who suggests that Lincoln was in reality a closet racist, and as supposed proof of that offers carefully cherry-picked quotes of his.

It’s true that Lincoln made some comments that he felt it was better that white men be in a position of supremacy:

“I as well as Judge Douglas am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that nonwithstanding all there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the declaration of Independence, -the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man.” –Abraham Lincoln, debating Judge Stephen A. Douglas in 1858.

You’ll note that he clearly articulates a belief that blacks are entitled to all the natural rights that previously had been reserved for the whites.

It has also been suggested that he was a segregationist, or that he wished to send the slaves back to Africa:

““I have said that the separation of the races is the only perfect preventative of amalgamation. I have no right to say all the members of the Republican party are in favor of this, nor to say that as a party they are in favor of it. There is nothing in their platform directly on the subject. But I can say a very large proportion of its members are for it, and that the chief plank in their platform — opposition to the spread of slavery — is most favorable to that separation.

Such separation, if ever effected at all, must be effected by colonization; and no political party, as such, is now doing anything directly for colonization. Party operations at present only favor or retard colonization incidentally. The enterprise is a difficult one, but ‘when there is a will there is a way;’ and what colonization needs most is a hearty will. Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and self-interest. Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and, at the same time, favorable to, or, at least, not against, our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be. The children of Israel, to such numbers as to include four hundred thousand fighting men, went out of Egyptian bondage in a body.” –Abraham Lincoln, Speech on the Dred Scott decision, June 26th, 1857

A reading of the Dred Scott speech doesn’t truly tell one that sending the blacks to Africa was his preferred solution; he simply stated that it was the only ‘perfect’ way to prevent a mixing of the races, an issue that was of general concern to significant segments of the population. After all, Lincoln was a lawyer and a politician, and prone to arguing all manner of angles on an issue, for all manner of audiences.

It’s just as likely that the reasoning behind potentially sending the slaves back to Africa was that since they were stolen from there—ergo they should desire to go back there. It wasn’t an absurd notion, and Lincoln certainly can be forgiven for thinking that was what the slaves would have wanted; thus, it was ‘morally right…to transfer the African to his native clime’.

Sometimes, as proof of his alleged indifference to slavery, Lincoln’s statements that were given at a time when he was trying to lead the Union away from civil war are offered. It’s true that, early on, Lincoln hoped the issue could be settled by peaceful means and went to great pains to assure the south he wouldn’t tread on what they felt to be their “right”. Lincoln—and pretty much everyone else—could see a civil war coming, and desperately wanted to avoid it:

“Now I believe that if we could arrest the spread of slavery…it would be in the course of ultimate extinction. The crisis would be past…” -Abraham Lincoln, debating Judge Stephen A. Douglas in 1858.

Lincoln understood that the status quo could not be maintained:

“One section of our country believes slavery is right , and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong , and ought not to be extended…This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured; and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the sections, than before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived without restriction, in one section; while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all, by the other.” -Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address, March 4th, 1861.

As time went by, his stance hardened:

"If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forebear, I forebear because I do not believe it would save the Union.” –Abraham Lincoln,Letter to Horace Greely, August 22nd, 1862

His belief that slavery itself was a threat to union and a moral wrong was articulated on many different occasions, particularly the debates with Judge Douglas. For example, in a follow up to his ‘House Divided’ speech:

“I leave it to you to say whether in the history of our government this institution of slavery has not always failed to be a bond of union, and on the contrary has always been an apple of discord and an element of division in the house.” –Abraham Lincoln

A little more:

“When [Douglas] says he ‘cares not whether slavery is voted up or voted down’…he is, in my judgment, penetrating the human soul and eradicating the light of
reason and the love of liberty in this American people…” –Abraham incoln

Perhaps by today’s stringent standards it can be argued that Lincoln was racist, as were the great majority of people at that time. However, the cumulative evidence for Lincoln’s alleged Racism is actually quite thin—partial quotes taken out of context—when compared to the evidence that he was not. To even a casual student of history, malice toward blacks isn’t something one can easily ascribe to Lincoln. What can be safely said is that Lincoln believed that blacks were humans and endowed with the same right to freedom, at a time when that was not a very popular view:

“I cannot but hate slavery. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself.” –Abraham Lincoln

Those are not the words of a man who was indifferent to the suffering of the slaves. While it may be true that even the best of abolitionists at the time of Lincoln were no racial egalitarians, it’s also true that racial attitudes have been evolutionary—you simply cannot apply today’s standards to historical figures.

For Lincoln, slavery was the gravest of threats to the future of America, and morally reprehensible. It is his staunch support for a moral stand in government, even in the face of unpopularity, his refusal to let representative democracy die, and his championing of basic human rights that still resounds today and should never be forgotten.

Rights, the Social Contract, and Libertarianism

2005-11-15T18:16:00.000-05:00

An often unstated tension in modern politics is the difference between negative rights and positive rights. Negative rights are those that state a person has the right to not be restricted by another person, and are ably expressed in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. Positive rights are those that state a person has a right to be provided with something by the actions of another person, and often vary according to different interest groups. Some would argue that positive rights are completely at odds with negative rights, and some would argue that they complement each other.

To live in a society, people agree to an implicit or explicit social contract, which gives them certain rights in return for giving up certain freedoms they would have in a state of nature—more rights entail more responsibilities and less freedoms. As rights and responsibilities are not fixed, the people who are party to a particular social contract may change the terms of that contract by consensus if they wish. The rights and responsibilities of individuals are the terms of the social contract, and as those rights and responsibilities become more formally codified, a government is formed which enforces that contract.

Libertarians are one group that would argue that positive and negative rights are at odds with each other—some libertarians would go so far as to argue that absolutely any infringement of negative rights is unacceptable. They seem to either not realize, or forget, that being a part of society is sometimes at odds with a strict interpretation of negative rights.

Applying the idea of a social contract versus a strict interpretation of negative rights to selected social questions:

Should the government ensure we have a safe food supply?

Some libertarians would answer no. Yet without adequate rules there is no legal recourse if someone intentionally sells corrupt meat, or adds toxic fillers to a food. When a person buys food they trust that the vendor won’t knowingly sell a bad product; were a vendor to do so, this would be a breech of the implied social contract that the vendor will not do so. This trust is core to the modern division of labor system; since a plumber, a teacher, or a police officer cannot be personally involved in the raising of livestock and the harvesting of grain, they must be able to trust that someone else is doing it in a manner that is safe to the consumer. So the food producer’s rights to do as they will is secondary to the consumer are right not to have this unstated contract violated.

Should the government provide for those who legitimately cannot provide for themselves?

It’s been argued that no, the government should not, and that private charities can provide relief to the needy better than the government can. Yet the members of society who are disadvantaged through no fault of their own outside of simple fate can’t always depend on the charity of others. To argue otherwise is to have an over inflated trust in the altruistic nature of man; one cannot always depend on someone helping because of their personal feelings of charity, but there is a greater chance of the disadvantaged getting help if it’s someone’s job.

When thinking about weaker members of society who may need assistance to survive, the handicapped spring to mind. Not all human capital is physical, especially in modern societies. One needs look no further than Stephen Hawking to know the truth of this.

Should the government mandate compulsory schooling to a pre-determined age?

Once again, some of the libertarian persuasion have argued that the government has no place mandating that children receive education, or to what level or standard that should happen.

In a modern technological society, education is a key to success, not to mention important for the proper functioning of a democratic society. Children cannot intelligently make the choice and evaluate the personal cost of not going to school. Unfortunately, some parents of cannot intelligently make that evaluation either.

While it can be argued that a parent has very broad rights in regards to their children, the right to severely disadvantage them should not be counted as one of those rights. Support for mandatory education can perhaps be viewed as a slippery slope eroding parental rights, but it’s a compromise that attempts to balance the rights of the parents against the dependent children—the cause of future generations’ rights are served at the expense of the rights of the parents.

Libertarian sensibilities are hugely appealing sensibilities, yet taken to their extreme they depend on all parties to the social contract be highly responsible and ethical—a condition that destines it for failure as an independent governing philosophy. Despite this, the libertarian admiration for negative rights can inform other belief systems and clarify thinking about social issues.

The Problem with Libertarianism

2005-11-15T13:55:00.000-05:00

Libertarianism is based on the idea of negative liberty: that no individual should suffer coercion; all should be free to do as they will so long as it does not interfere with others. This is a deeply appealing philosophy for many.

The problem is, this philosophy ignores human nature. Libertarianism depends on everyone being responsible, or at least confining the ill effects of their poor choices to themselves, and that’s exactly where it breaks down. People’s poor choices, especially in a modern technological society, can affect others. Individuals do not need government, but societies do, because not all citizens are responsible.

Society enacts laws to codify and enforce generally agreed social values (values such as: don’t kill your neighbor, don’t steal, don’t cheat). A legitimately sovereign government, at the whim of the governed, is trusted to fairly and equitably enforce those codified values precisely because not every individual is ethically upright and responsible. Sadly, some governments do not have this legitimacy and achieve power through force or farce. Another possibility is that even in a legitimately sovereign government, the governed and the government individually or both forget that the government rules at the whim of the governed. This is when government over-reaches and begins enacting laws beyond what should rightfully be their writ to enforce those generally agreed social values of not killing, stealing, or cheating.

The proper role of government should be to ensure wide-ranging individual rights, even the right to be personally irresponsible, while protecting the individual from the irresponsibility or malice of others. This is the delicate balance that a free society must try to strike between liberty and security: the more you have of one, very often the less you have of the other–think of it like cash and insurance: you spend one to purchase the other. Yet the notion exists that as a society buys more of this ‘insurance’ they become more dependant on the government, and that over dependancy is a very bad thing. Despite this, people still find it desireable, even necessary, to give up some liberty for the smooth functioning of a society.

Libertarianism is a fine ideal, but like all ideals that fail to acknowledge human nature, it is doomed to failure as a governing and organizing philosophy unless it allows itself to be tempered by the realities of the nature of the very people it would speak for. The breathtaking ability of people to allow their individual irresponsibility to harm others and personal selfishness should never be underestimated.

Thoughts on History and Racism

2005-11-13T11:07:00.000-05:00

It is often said that to know where you’re going you have to know from where you came. It is in that spirit that I’d like to present a condensed history of the two mainstream American political parties with regards to the issue of racism (specifically, anti-black racism). At the end, I’ll present my thoughts on the current day political implications. I don’t pretend to be an expert, so take the analysis with a grain of salt.

After a failed bid for president in 1824, Andrew Jackson formed the Democratic Party from a faction of the old Republican Party in order to defeat President John Quincy Adams in the election of 1828.

In the 1850s, the Republican Party reformed with a strongly anti-slavery platform, while the Democratic Party became increasingly associated with the expansion of slavery. Democrats in the North opposed this trend, and in 1860 the Democrats split and nominated two candidates (Stephen Douglass in the north and John Breckenridge in the south). Ironically, this split assured the victory of Abraham Lincoln who would otherwise have been unelectable due to conservative voters defecting to the newly formed, and destined to be short-lived, Constitutional Union party. The election of the eloquently anti-slavery Lincoln set the stage for the civil war, causing a further split in the Northern Democrats. On one side, War Democrats supported the military policies of Lincoln, while the Copperheads strongly opposed them.

After the war, the Democrats benefited from white Southerners’ resentment of reconstruction and hostility to the Republican Party. Once reconstruction ended, the disenfranchisement of blacks was re-established by the passage of segregationist Jim Crow laws. It was this resentment by whites and disenfranchisement of blacks that caused the south to vote reliably Democratic for several decades. In all fairness it should be noted that that neither major party tried to use federal power against the Jim Crow laws.In 1924 at the Democratic national convention, a resolution denouncing the white-supremacist Ku Klux Klan was voted down by the majority of Democratic delegates. Then, during what was to become the fateful 1948 national convention, the Democratic Party adopted a pro-civil rights platform, causing a new split in the party. Led by Strom Thurmond, many Southern Democratic delegates split from the party and formed the “Dixiecrats”; many white Democrats in the south began drifting away from the party. Up to this time, blacks, who had traditionally given strong support to the Republican Party, began shifting to the Democratic Party due to FDR’s New Deal economic opportunities and Truman’s support for civil rights. The Democratic turn-around on civil rights was completed when Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Four years later, Richard Nixon, with the collaboration of Strom Thurmond, crafted the now infamous Southern strategy, aimed at picking up conservative whites who were drifting away from the Democratic Party over the issue of civil rights.

I believe that the Republican Party missed two good chances to cement their well earned legacy as the party of civil rights. The first came after reconstruction with the failure to challenge the establishment of Jim Crow laws. There may have been some element of racism to this, but even more than that it probably wasn’t seen as being politically expedient for the Party to do so at that time. The second opportunity was missed when the Party didn’t embrace the civil rights movement in the 1960s. I feel that this was due to a reluctance to embrace what had become a Democratic Party plank. Nixon’s embrace of disillusioned southern whites may have been a politically savvy move, but at the cost of the moral high-ground on racial issues. Civil rights would have been a non-starter without Republican support, but this is not what the Party is remembered for.

As we move into the future and the demographic make-up of America shifts, the Republican Party needs to think about how to recapture the high-ground it once occupied on racial issues.

Bonhoeffer or Gandhi

2005-11-04T16:56:00.000-05:00

The Reverend Martin Luther King Junior once said “If your opponent has a conscience, then follow Gandhi and nonviolence. But if your enemy has no conscience like Hitler, then follow Bonhoeffer.” In the clear, elegant fashion that he was known for, Rev. King articulated the moral case for action in the face of evil.

For those who don’t know, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran theologian who was active in the German anti-Nazi resistance during World War II. During the war, Bonhoeffer came to understand that violence is justified in the face of an implacable evil, and that to love one’s neighbor is to take a measure of responsibility for their life. He followed through on his convictions and became involved the unsuccessful Wolf’s Lair bombing plot to assassinate Hitler, and was subsequently arrested by the Gestapo. On April 9, 1945, he paid for his convictions with his life in the Flossenburg Concentration Camp. Had he been successful, millions of innocent lives could have been saved.

Gandhi was successful in his bid for an independent India by non-violent means because of the nature of his opponent. Through a series of mass public demonstrations the Indians showed the British that they faced a stark choice: they could either engage in slaughter, or leave. The British chose the latter, and a newly independent India was born.

In China from April to June 1989, student protestors engaged in a massive non-violent protest for democracy in Tiananmen Square, with greatly different results. Threatened by the size, duration, and fervor of the protest, Deng Xiaoping and the Communist party leadership declared martial law. The resulting crackdown claimed thousands of lives.

These examples find relevance in current events. When the alternative to war is leaving in place a regime that has proven its lethal intents on its neighbors and its own populace, and is likely to continue to cause the deaths of more, then it is time for good intentioned people to the mental calculus: what are the odds that nonviolent action will cause a change of policy, and what is the cost, in human lives and suffering, of not taking violent action?

To engage in war is to cause suffering and death. However, it is equally true that to sit and do nothing while others are persecuted and killed is to be culpable for that very same suffering and death. One must do the calculus and determine not only what the costs of action are likely to be, but also what the costs of inaction are likely to be. Then you will know if you should be Bonhoeffer or Gandhi.

The Right to Rule

2005-10-27T06:33:00.000-04:00

When engaging in debates about the legitimacy of actions on the international stage, the term sovereignty (or some permutation of it) gets thrown about a lot. Sovereignty is commonly defined as "the exclusive right to exercise supreme authority over a geographic region, group of people, or oneself".

How many people, having expounded upon the legitimacy (or more likely, the illegitimacy) of an action based upon claims of sovereignty, have ever stopped to ponder the word and its implications? If one accepts the legitimacy or illegitimacy of an action rests upon a question of sovereignty, then one must question whether the sovereignty itself is legitimate. To do otherwise is to be ethically selective and intellectually dishonest.

In determining the legitimacy of a regime's sovereignty, we must look to its origin. There are essentially two ways that a regime can achieve sovereignty: it can be freely given to the regime by the people, as in a democracy, or it can be taken from the people by force or subterfuge, as in dictatorship.

The first instance is what is called popular sovereignty, and it is ultimately an outgrowth of the idea of natural rights (the basis for modern basic human rights). The idea of popular sovereignty is rooted in the works of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau in the mid 1600s to the mid 1700s. There are many different variations of the exact meaning and proper extent of popular sovereignty, but all the variations state that there is a social contract between the regime and the governed: the legitimacy of the regime's actions rest upon the majority of the people's consent.

The second instance, from a natural rights standpoint, is not an example of legitimate sovereignty. When force or farce is used to deny popular sovereignty it's a denial of a people's basic rights, and a legitimately sovereign people has every right to state that it is so. To support an illegitimately sovereign regime is to deny a people of its human rights.

So the next time that someone declares that an action was not legitimate because it was a violation of sovereignty, all people of conscience should ask themselves whether that sovereignty was legitimate to start with.

Leaving Laos with Lessons Learned

2005-10-26T06:20:00.000-04:00

After four years in Laos, I'm finally returning to my home country, the United States of America. A friend challenged me to think of three things I learned from my time here, three things I'd do different if I knew what I know now, and three pieces of advice I'd give to others as a result of my time here. My answers follow.

Three things I learned:

Being a minority (caucasian) in a foreign country has really opened my eyes to the dehumanizing nature of racism. It's not some inherent defect of the white race or even of western culture, it's a defect of human nature and a lack of understanding about other people. This is a topic I'm likely to write on at more length in the near future, for now let me simply say it has changed my former intelectual distaste for racism into a visceral hatred of it.
After spending four years teaching it, I have a greater appreciation for the amazing adaptability, beauty, and power of the English language.
I never had pondered what level of personal value to place on family before. Being away from my own extended family in America made me appreciate my own family more, and consider all they have done for me over the years. Also, seeing how much Lao families support each other was something that made me ponder and more deeply appreciate that a strong family bond is incredibly important to individuals and society.

Three things I'd do differently, knowing what I know now:

I would probably made more of a point to take time off and travel around more. A lot of time was spent working and there was always an excuse as to why I couldn't travel and see the sights more. In the final analysis, all thoses excuses could have been delt with in one way or another. Ultimately, I could have made a lot more memories while making a just little less money.
I'd take better care of myself. After six motorcycle accidents, typhoid fever, malaria (more times than I can count), and dengue hemoragic fever (twice), I've a new sense of the limits to which a body can be pushed to. Most, if not all, of that was avoidable with some simple percautions.
I'd have made more of an effort to save money. Although I've never been quite a spendthrift, and despite the fact that my job wasn't very well paid at all, I could have probably tightened the belt that one extra notch.

Three pieces of advice I'd give to others:

If you're an American, take time to appreciate just how lucky you are! In the past four years I've witnessed grinding poverty, rampant corruption, and true stifiling of dissent. Americans so often take for granted the freedoms and standard of living that comes with living in such a fine country. If you're born American, you've already won the lottery.
Take time to travel and learn about the world you live in and the people who live in it. If you have already done so, do some more!
When in South East Asia, never order a dish that is described as "village deer". Trust me on this one.

Classical Values

2005-10-25T03:48:00.000-04:00

Conservative. Liberal. Two ideological positions ever in direct opposition to each other. But wait, not so fast!

Modern sensibilities aside, the two labels can co-exist quite happily within the same party, or even within the same person. The labels we find ourselves using today are quite removed from the original, classical definitions of the words.

Classical liberals believe in individual liberty without government coercion. Classical liberalism does not reject government altogether, preferring a limited government bounded by clear constitutional limits which protects the rights of individuals. Classical liberals are believers in free markets and private property as the routes by which liberty is pursued.

Classical liberalism is strongly grounded in the idea of natural law–the idea that there are certain rights that are universally recognized regardless of custom. In the 17th century, the English philosopher John Locke articulated natural rights as life, liberty and property.
Modern liberalism, which is far removed from classical liberalism, is based on the idea of positive rights. Positive rights are expectations members of a particular community have in addition to being protected from wrongs committed by others. In other words, individuals have the rights beyond life, liberty and ownership of property, and beyond protection from deliberate criminal acts which erode these rights. Just as there are many different and varying communities, there are many and varying different views and the number and nature of these positive rights. Classical liberals reject the idea of positive rights as conflicting with more fundamental individual rights.

Classical conservatives believe that the ideal form of social organization and government is the one that has stood the test of time. The classical conservative does not reject change, but rejects change for the sake of change alone. Therefore, classical conservatives are not revolutionaries, nor are they counter-revolutionaries. Classical conservatives respect the rule of law, for without it lawlessness would suppress people's rights. However, the classical conservative believes it is best to have a limited government, lest the individual loses rights.

Classical conservatives believe it is most ethical to allow individuals to succeed or fail by their own merits and efforts, and as such oppose unfair or discriminatory treatment of any group based on race, gender, or culture. Classical conservatives are interested in ethical outcomes, rather than what people believe is most appealing at any given time.

Both of these philosophical positions taken together can be called classical values. Classical values have a lot to contribute to the betterment of society, if only people become more aware of them and more conscientiously apply them to their thinking.

So this is a blog.

2005-10-25T03:46:00.000-04:00

So this is my blog. Thought I'd see what all the hoopla is about, it seems like all the cool kids are doing "the blog". [In answer to your unasked question, yes I would in fact jump off a bridge if enough of my friends did it first. ]

I'll try to post something worth reading maybe...well, whenever the muse takes me. I have a life you know, besides I loath my own writing style. Maybe this'll help me get over my seemingly permanent writer's block. And maybe pigs will pilot jet aircraft.