Gus Van Horn blog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Via Glenn Reynolds is an LA Times article that does a pretty good job, for the most part, of summarizing the current status of the looting and shooting pursuant to Hurricane Katrina -- which has been with us here in the months since the refugees were sent to live in apartment complexes across town. The article takes as its point of departure a gun shop commercial I was unaware of since I rarely listen to the radio. "When the 'Katricians' themselves are quoted as saying the crime rate is gonna go up if they don't get more free rent, then it's time to get your concealed-handgun license," warns the radio ad by Jim Pruett, who co-hosts a bombastic talk-radio show and owns Jim Pruett's Guns & Ammo, a self-styled "anti-terrorist headquarters" that sells knives, shotguns, semi-automatic rifles and other weapons. As Pruett describes the dangers posed by "Katricians," glass can be heard shattering, and a bell tolling ominously. The radio spot highlights what many gun-store owners say is a hot trend in Houston: trade in weapons amid a surge in the homicide rate that police attribute to the more than 100,000 hurricane evacuees still in the city. Though the gun sale reports are largely anecdotal, Texas officials said applications for concealed-weapons permits were up statewide: 60,328 from Jan. 1 to Sept. 1 this year, compared with 46,298 for the same period last year. The Houston Police Department estimates that one in five homicides in the city now involves Katrina evacuees -- as suspect, victim or both. Many Houston residents, including some evacuees, are worried that crime will only get worse once housing and other public assistance end. My regular readers will, of course, have already read about this crime problem (roundup at end of "crime" link). On that score, little has changed since January. But the LA Times fails in attempting to sensationalize this genuine problem, by making residents of Houston -- the city with the best race relations I have ever lived in -- sound like a bunch of rednecks gittin' likkered-up fer a lynchin': Hurricane evacuees and the nonprofit groups that have been helping them rebuild their lives are saddened by what they see as a growing tendency in Texas to stereotype the predominantly African American newcomers as hoodlums, based on the crimes of a few. This insinuation of racism is preposterous. For one thing, the snooty left-coasters at the LA Times know not that they speak of a city that survived desegregation in the sixties without race riots! If they want to examine a city with a history of dysfunctional race relations, they could check their own back yard. On top of that, the black New Orleanians stand out from the local black populace in their manner of speech, dress, and grooming. We could just about have dispensed with the wristbands when the refugees showed up at the Astrodome here in Houston. If black New Orleanians are in fact being stereotyped, it needn't be racial and, in this cosmopolitan city, it isn't. It is cultural. And apparently, one of the aspects of this culture is that it breeds crime. I recently overheard two black women in Wal-Mart discussing a man one of them went out with recently. She was not impressed. In fact she underscored her disappointment by using the word "refugee" disparagingly to describe him. And if that isn't enough of an indication that Houstonians have other problems than race with some of the Katrina evacuees, perhaps the LA Times would instead prefer to listen to what our native criminal element thinks of Katrina refugees. (After all, the women in Wal-Mart had to have been selling out to say anything bad about another black person.) In our local prisons, the question, "Are you from New Orleans?" is considered an insult since the criminal element from the Big Easy has a reputation for being senselessly violent -- even among criminals! I grew up in Mississippi, a race-conscious place if ever there was one. I also moved around the country quite a bit when I served in the Navy. I have never lived in a place so color-blind as Houston. I love it here. Everyone out here is just a human being trying to make his way through life. In fact, when the Katrina refugees first arrived in Houston and flooded the grocery store where I normally shop, I realized two things: (1) They were black (and had huge chips on their shoulders). (2) It was the first time in years that I really gave any thought to anyone's race. (I've lived here over a decade.) I have since come to appreciate something I used to take for granted about Houston: I don't have to think about race all the time like I used to when I was a kid. It's easy to take that for granted because it's natural and it is the way things should be. But other than that cheap shot, the LA Times got the two main points right: (1) Many Katrina evacuees have distinguished themselves as ingrates. (2) We will not take criminal behavior sitting down here in Houston. I have a crazy feeling that the only refugees who have the time to be "offended" by the stereotype of laziness and criminality are the ones who deserve it. And to them, all I can say is, "If the shoe fits, wear it." To the rest, I agree with the man quoted in the article who said, "The people who are here and have gotten jobs, that's a wonderful thing. They're Houstonians now." And, uh -- oh yeah. Whatever you do, please don't take Kinky Friedman as representative of this city or this state. He's a counterfeit cowboy that the broad-minded liberals think will get elected because he acts like their notion of a stereotypical Texan. -- CAV http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/002004.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Stephen Bainbridge has a column up over at TCS Daily that comes closer than anything else I have seen so far to making the observation I made long ago concerning one aspect of the great anti-Wal-Mart crusade by the left. Namely Wal-Mart's eagerness to dine at the public trough is being used as an excuse to further enslave it to the government. This tack has some traction because government interference in the economy is taken for granted by the vast majority of Americans as I pointed out some time ago: What I find more interesting is that in the public debate over Wal-Mart, the existence of the welfare state is being taken for granted. As Ayn Rand might put it, man-made has acquired the status of the metaphysically given in the minds of far too many people. In the great Wal-Mart debate, I have so far seen no one point out that the costs (in taxation) of Wal-Mart in terms of its employees' reliance on Medicare are not Wal-Mart's fault. Its workers, after all, are free to seek other employers and other medical plans. It is the government, by guaranteeing medical coverage to certain income groups, that is in fact, adding to the "cost" of Wal-Mart to the public. Worse still, it does this not just to customers of Wal-Mart, who would (and should) be the only ones affected were Wal-Mart to offer comparable medical coverage to workers currently accepting Medicaid, but to every non-customer taxed to support Medicaid. The fact that the welfare state is taken for granted thus leads to a corporation being blamed for what is beyond its control -- and the real culprit, the government, being curiously absent from the list of suspects! Wal-Mart can't threaten someone who resists paying taxes to support Medicaid with jail or fines or confiscation of property. Only the government can do that. In a free economy, Wal-Mart would not be compelled to offer medical coverage to all its workers, but it might, to attract or avoid losing them. It may or may not have to raise prices to do so. But taxes would be out of the question. Bainbridge, as I said, comes close in one respect, yet, he gets no cigar. oth the left and right implicitly cast Wal-Mart in the role of free market capitalist. What's missing from the debate is the extent to which the Wal-Mart story really is the antithesis of laissez-faire capitalism. When you look under the rug, it turns out that Wal-Mart is a beneficiary of corporate welfare. When Wal-Mart plans a new store, it typically asks local and county governments for an array of benefits, principally in the form of various economic development subsidies: Infrastructure assistance in the form of new or expanded roads and utilities servicing the store location. Sales tax abatements. Property tax abatements. Income tax credits. Enterprise zone treatment for the store location. Eligibility for job training programs. Eligibility for tax exempt industrial revenue bond financing. Economic development loans and grants. In some cases, Wal-Mart benefits directly from such subsidies. In others, the benefits initially go to the real estate developer.... ... nformed debate requires one to view Wal-Mart not as a rugged free market capitalist, but as a leading recipient of corporate welfare. If one is on the left, one thus might insist that Wal-Mart provide a so-called living wage in return for its subsidies. If one is on the right, one might call for abolishing such subsidies. In either case, however, we at last will be debating the real issues. [bold added] Would that at least Bainbridge were debating the "real issues"! He comes close in the sense that he suggests that conservatives might want to "end corporate welfare". But he misses the cigar for the vagueness the term "corporate welfare" introduces, not to mention the fact that missing entirely from his laundry list of "corporate welfare benefits" is the fact that Wal-Mart encourages employees to enroll in various forms of public assistance in lieu of granting benefits on its own. This is a telling omission. Look at what Bainbridge does list and indiscriminately lumps together as "subsidies". Many of these are tax abatements -- hardly the stuff of welfare. By Bainbridge's own implications, the conservative side of this debate would favor ending tax abatements for new businesses since they're "corporate welfare". Given what he has glossed over, this would hardly come as a surprise. There is some merit, prima facie, in the argument that all businesses must abide by the same laws. However, when some of these laws involve the wrongful confiscation of tax revenue, the implied conservative position -- of making Wal-Mart pay up -- ends up being, like the liberal "alternative" of making the firm pay a so-called "living wage", simply another version of "how will the government extract more loot from all businesses". This is not a debate about fundamental issues, but quibbling: The welfare state is still taken for granted. (And if you think I am underestimating the conservatives, observe how many oppose immigration because it strains the welfare state -- rather than opposing the welfare state.) Only when one side of the debate consists in unambiguous, morally-certain support for yes, the law applying equally to everyone -- but also for ridding private enterprise of all onerous taxation and regulation -- will we really, as Bainbridge claims, "be debating the real issues". Bainbridge's essay is, unfortunately, too vague to offer any real clarity to this debate. In fact, he might seem to some to be attempting to sell capitalism down the river. -- CAV http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/002000.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Roger Sandall of Spiked writes a very interesting essay on the subject of dereliction in which he examines the role of prosperous elites in the decline of their societies. He builds his case from three examples, the first two of which are drawn from the real world (Cameroon and Malawi), and the third from a novel about a clan of the idle rich who descend upon an estate they have purchased in http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001989.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog No sooner do I learn about the precarious state of freedom for the medical sector of California's economy, than I find that its Democrat-dominated legislature is ready to implement a couple more foolish ideas. In all three cases, the legislature that has either passed or is ready to pass legislation that will hold back an already-burdened economy. (Wasn't that why Schwarzenegger was elected in the first place?) And you have a governor who, if he fully understood what these bills meant, would veto them, since he immigrated from Austria in part to escape socialism. First of all, the bad news. As I have noted before, the Governator buys into the environmentalist agenda. This is why it is all but certain that his state will soon be saddled with the following onerous new laws. California catapulted to the forefront of U.S. efforts to fight global warming [based on the controversial assumption that it is man-induced --ed] on Wednesday with an accord that will give the state the toughest laws in the nation on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and possibly spur a reluctant Washington to take similar action. ... "The success of our system will be an example for other states and nations to follow as the fight against climate change continues," [Gov. Arnold] Schwarzenegger said in a statement after weeks of tense negotiations. California's Global Warming Solutions Act aims to cut emissions to 1990 levels, or around 25 percent, by 2020 with an enforceable cap and mandatory reporting for top polluters like energy companies. The good news, such as it is, is that Schwarzenegger may yet veto the socialized medicine and anti-Wal-Mart legislation that will also soon find its way to his desk. However, in both of these cases, he has officially taken no position (!) on the legislation. Some further bad news, at least for the anti-Wal-Mart bill, is that it is being "sold" in the same pseudo-capitalist packaging as the environmentalist legislation that Schwartzenegger plans to sign. Although the Governator seems convinced that (1) global warming is man-induced and (2) it is the government's job to stop it, it is not insignificant that he found a "market-based" version acceptable. Worried about the impact on business, Schwarzenegger pushed for a market-based system that will eventually give companies tools to meet emissions targets, like carbon credit trading. "We created a clear path to allow California to enter into that market-based system and we're very proud we were able to reach that agreement with the governor," said bill author and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, a Los Angeles Democrat. Yeah, and back in the days of the slave trade, people bought and sold other people in "markets". Just because the government creates a "market" by permitting the wholesale violation of rights (liberty in the case of slavery or property in this case) does not mean that it is promoting capitalism. It is bad enough that Schwartzenegger falls for environmentalism. It is worse that he thinks this particular implementation of the Green agenda is somehow a pro-capitalist idea. The Wal-Mart legislation is being pushed in a similar way -- by making it sound good to a pro-business, but economically-ignorant body politic and, perhaps, its muscle-bound leader. The state has an interest, [the bills' author, Sen. Richard Alarcon,] said, because "Wal-Mart is the most egregious offender when it comes to having employees use public assistance - in fact, training them to apply. If this sounds familiar, it is because I have pointed out before that the problem is not that Wal-Mart slurps at the public trough, but the fact we have such a trough in the first place. In the great Wal-Mart debate, I have so far seen no one point out that the costs (in taxation) of Wal-Mart in terms of its employees' reliance on Medicare are not Wal-Mart's fault. Its workers, after all, are free to seek other employers and other medical plans. It is the government, by guaranteeing medical coverage to certain income groups, that is in fact, adding to the "cost" of Wal-Mart to the public. Worse still, it does this not just to customers of Wal-Mart, who would (and should) be the only ones affected were Wal-Mart to offer comparable medical coverage to workers currently accepting Medicaid, but to every non-customer taxed to support Medicaid. If you were to observe a child touch a hot skillet and withdraw his hand in pain, you might think that he's learned his lesson. But what if he had somehow failed to understand that it was the heat of the skillet that burned him? Only then would it not be surprising to see him reach right back for that very skillet. The situation in California is very much like watching a child who just winced in pain do again exactly what hurt him the first time. When the consequences of government interference in the economy became obvious, Californians recalled Gray Davis and replaced him with a Republican. They did not, however, reject his policies and ideas. The problem is, the lousy economy was not the fault of just Gray Davis, but of the ideas that animated him and the policies he carried out as a result. All California seems to have done is reject the pain (i.e., the consequences of socialism), but not its cause (i.e., the notion that the government should run the economy). So they have kicked out Gray Davis and are seeking to continue his policies under Arnold Schwartzenegger, who apparently doesn't understand what is wrong with socialism, either. News flash for California: Republicans aren't leprechauns. They can't lead you to a pot of gold at the end of the socialist rainbow any more than Gray Davis could. Time to try capitalism, for a change. Perhaps you could start by looking the term up in a dictionary or reading about it a little. Once again, contrary to the Libertarian notion that one can simply vote freedom in at the ballot box, we see that it is whether a public actually understands what freedom entails that determines whether it is freedom that they will get. California is showing us in no uncertain terms that the Libertarians are wrong. The people of California are losing their freedom not solely because of politics, but because of the widely-held philosophical ideas that affect politics. -- CAV Updates Today: Fixed some bad wording. http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001987.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Via Matt Drudge, I have an update to a recent post about an incident in which a man who appears to be of Middle Eastern extraction was asked to refrain from wearing a tee shirt with Arabic script (which reads "We will not be silenced.") in an airport. This man, one Raed Jarrar (pictured at right in the same or a similar shirt), is now the subject of a report by Reuters, through which I found this blog post in which he details the incident. Before I begin, let me reiterate where I stood on this incident upon first learning about it. I stand by this. ... Jarrar does not necessarily have the constitutional right to wear Arabic script. You can't say, "I have a bomb," at the airport -- in English for that matter. And you can't shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater. [As a clarification, the undecipherable script could, not unreasonably, be taken as an implied threat. Furthermore, Jarrar's post indicates that there may have been numerous calls made about the shirt.--ed] ... In light of the fact that law enforcement are prohibited from expending their limited resources efficiently -- i.e., by profiling people who (like Jarrar) look like terrorists -- they have to do the next best thing: Stop anyone who acts suspiciously or looks like he might sympathize with terrorists. Ironically, had law enforcement profiling at its disposal, Jarrar probably could go into an airport with such a shirt on because everyone would know that he'd been checked out already. But this tool is unavailable and so, allowing such apparel not only runs the risk of distracting law enforcement, it also risks causing wary passengers to take matters into their own hands as they have twice very recently. On further reflection, I have also realized that the one thing I have never heard come up at all in the domestic security debate has been the role that government respect for the right to property -- which has frequently been a misguided casualty of civil rights legislation -- could have in solving the dilemma Jarrar's case brings up. Let's set aside for the moment the fact that, in a fully free society, commercial airports would be private property. The airlines (e.g., Jet Blue) themselves have the right -- whether the government chooses to recognize it or not -- to enforce dress codes if they wish, and to refuse service to anyone they wish on whatever basis, no matter how silly I or Jarrar might think it. Thus, handled at certain points, what Raed wears in an airport would not fall under the government's purview at all. (And this would have the happy effect of not getting the government involved in what people choose to say on their shirts. While I can see why this was a concern, the less of this that happens, the better.) Ironically, he might find himself even less free to wear a tee shirt with Arabic script on it than before. While we all have freedom of speech in America, we are not entitled to express our opinions through the use of someone else's resources. This is why I cannot simply plant a campaign poster in my neighbor's yard. This is why Jarrar should not have my tax money at his disposal (if he does) to finance his various foreign junkets. Nor I his money for my causes. Indeed, Jarrar himself seems to apprehend this point: He has closed the comments on his blog. This is no more an infringement of my freedom of speech than JetBlue's imposition of a rule against Arabic script would be an infringment of Jarrar's. If he objects to the notion that an airline can have "no Arabic script" as part of a customer dress code, then he has some explaining to do. But even if our governmnet actually protected the right of a carrier like Jet Blue to bar certain forms of dress on its flights, all the above still does not mean that the government would properly just ignore suspicious-looking characters with an interest in domestic aviation. Not after the atrocities committed in the name of Islam on September 11, 2001. Suppose a domestic airline, owned by a wealthy Middle Easterner, saw a market for Moslems (or Middle Eastern-looking folk) unable to fly on other lines or uncomfortable doing so. This airline would doubtless attract attention, as it should, from law enforcement, as would its customers. This would not excuse undue harassment, but during a war (which should be declared, by the way) there will always be some whose loyalty will reasonably come under question. The account of the events at the airport in Raed Jarrar's blog posting appears to be factually correct to me . It is worth perusing for several reasons that will become apparent shortly. For one thing, it appears that law enforcement did not handle this encounter entirely well. ... I told him that I had checked in all of my bags and I asked him "why do you want me to take off my t-shirt? Isn't it my constitutional right to express myself in this way?" The second man in a greenish suit interfered and said "people here in the US don't understand these things about constitutional rights". So I answered him "I live in the US, and I understand it is my right to wear this t-shirt". Then I once again asked the three of them : "How come you are asking me to change my t-shirt? Isn't this my constitutional right to wear it? I am ready to change it if you tell me why I should. Do you have an order against Arabic t-shirts? Is there such a law against Arabic script?" so inspector Harris answered "you can't wear a t-shirt with Arabic script and come to an airport. It is like wearing a t-shirt that reads "I am a robber" and going to a bank". I said "but the message on my t-shirt is not offensive" ... [bold added] If the "second man" really said what he did, he has no business working in or with law enforcement, even though he is arguably correct. The job of law enforcement personnel is to enforce the law whether or not those who break it know or understand it. But yes, the green-suited thug is correct. For starters, every voter who has ever supported a bond issue so that the government could build an airport with confiscated funds -- rather than private industry with money it earned and it alone risked -- does not understand that it is not the government's purpose to redistribute wealth. Even if that is what the mob wants. Everyone who thinks that the government should randomly frisk harmless octogenarians at airports -- but not offend Moslems and Middle Easterners by casting a watchful eye their way -- does not understand that there is no "right" "not to be offended". And every American who, even with the best intentions, thinks that there should be laws that force businesses to not discriminate against some individuals -- does not understand that it is not the purpose of the government to make us associate with anyone against our wishes. And Jarrar either fails to understand or simply does not care about any of these things. Let us give Jarrar the benefit of the doubt for a moment. Let us suppose that the ruckus he is raising -- with free publicity from al-Reuters -- is motivated by a sincere concern for freedom in America, including his own. He is, after all, a prominent member of an organization that considers the United States "war criminals". (I disagree with that assessment, but it is consistent with his apparent conviction that our government is not acting in the way it should.) Then why was he in Lebanon recently, where he consorted with Syrians? I am so impressed by the Syrian people's generosity in receiving Lebanese refugees. The Syrian government didn't even have to send food or supplies to the refugees because of the overwhelming grassroots support. When I was in the school/refugee camp, many neighbors were walking in with food and clothes. Neighbors donated mattresses, TVs, satellites [sic], money, and other aid. Good thing the Syrian government didn't have to help the people displaced by Israel's defensive maneuvers! Their hands were pretty full, I understand, passing weapons from Iran to Lebanon so the Party of God could launch rockets from civilian neighborhoods or from behind UN observers -- and towards Israeli neighborhoods. How, exactly, was United States on the wrong side of this one -- to the extent it helped Israel? And not only does Jarrar ignore the role that the Islamic states played in making the Lebanese miserable, he allows a bunch of bigoted ingrates to run him out of the refugee camp -- but not without relaying their accusations to the world. I was called by two young Lebanese people, and they asked me whether me and the rest of the delegation visiting their shelter where coming from the US. I said yes. They said: "you better get the hell out of here unless you want us to make a scene". I tried to explain that we are the "good" Americans who are against the war, so they said go back home and change your government. "you can't come here visit us in a shelter that we were sent to because of your tax money and your bombs, and expect us to be nice to you". So me and the other Americans got the hell out of there. What? Did he even attempt to explain how America stood for freedom "in better days"? That he was trying to "change [his] government"? And where was the fighting spirit he showed in the airport? Surely, if these lads understood the power of humble "peace" activists to "change their government" by peaceful means, they would have wanted their ears a bit longer. Or if they somehow thought them militarily that powerful, they would have feared them. In either case, methinks Jarrar left too hastily. And then there's this gem: It sucks to be an Arab/Muslim living in the US these days. When you go to the middle east, you are a US tax-payer destroying people's houses with your money, and when you come back to the US, you are a suspected terrorist and plane hijacker. Well, that may be, Raed. But it apparently doesn't "suck" as much as it does to be an Arab/Moslem in an Arab/Moslem nation. Why else would, "tens of millions of Muslims immigrate to non-Muslim societies," as Dennis Prager recently pointed out? And why else would you return here, and feel safe enough to make national news speaking out against my government besides? And why else would "We Will Not Be Silent" be silenced in a nation they are providing with so much support? So Jarrar obviously does know that he is free to speak his mind here in America. The real question is why does he say what he does? -- CAV http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001985.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Bill Spears has picked a good time -- a day in which I managed to injure myself and need to rest -- to make my life easy. He emailed me today to tell me to be sure to read this article, which I did. The article in question is a Ralph Peters piece called "Moment of Truth", in which he assesses the state of the war (in the Middle East) between the West and the Islamofascists. I recommend reading all of it, but I'll note a few highlights and some of my reactions to it below. Peters starts off by analyzing what is going badly for the West and, in the process notes that there has been a change in the center of gravity among the malign forces of Islam. Within the forces of terror, the balance of power has shifted. Sunni fanatics, such as al Qaeda's supporters, have suffered severe losses in Afghanistan, Iraq and around the world. Still capable of doing serious damage, they're nonetheless being eclipsed in importance by state-backed Shia terrorists, with Hezbollah in the lead and Iran providing arms, money, training and strategic depth. Peters's remarks on Iraq are particularly interesting. In his "bad news" section, he notes that Iraq could fail: Iraq could fail - if the Iraqis fail themselves. It's still too early to pack up and leave, but if the people of Iraq will not seize the opportunity we gave them to build the region's first Arab-majority rule-of-law democracy, it won't be an American defeat, but another self-inflicted Arab disaster. Iraq is the Arab world's last chance - and the odds are now 50-50 they'll throw it away. [bold added] I think the odds are far better than even that the Arabs -- saddled by a primitive, tribalist culture and the suicide cult that is their religion -- will fail in Iraq. Fortunately, a failed Iraq would not be bad news in and of itself. On the "good" side of the ledger", Peters gives us: Iraq still could muddle through - but even if it doesn't, our stock in the region is headed up, not down. The paradox is that a future civil war between Iraq's Sunnis and Shias makes our military protection more essential than ever to the effete Gulf emirates and the cowardly Saudis. Avoid linear analysis and reflexive predictions of doom for American interests: The Middle East will always do more harm to its natives than it does to foreign powers. Human beings may hate a distant enemy in theory, but they generally prefer to kill their neighbors. [bold added] This last would fall into the Tracinskiesque category of, "The enemy has problems of his own." Peters's judgement that the "allies" we prop up in the region will see that they need us more than ever is probably correct. Given that we are nowhere near having a rational-enough foreign policy to simply seize the oil fields and let the Arab world take care of (i.e., decimate) itself, this is somewhat reassuring. Indeed, one major part of the general theme of Peters's good news is basically that: That our enemy is so small. The other major part is that the West can learn from its mistakes. For example, he seems convinced that Israel has just gotten a cheap lesson in Lebanon and will emerge with better political and military leadership. Similarly, he sees this for the West as a whole, ending his essay with: Bit by bit, the Western mood is turning from disbelief regarding the "terrorist threat" to hard-knuckled realism about extremist Islam. 9/11 taught the terrorists little of use and many wrong lessons. It may be hard for some of us to discern what's really happening, but the Islamists are resurrecting a militant, ruthless West. The florid American master of horror fiction, H. P. Lovecraft, warned his characters, "Do not raise up what ye cannot put down." Islamist terrorists are reviving the West's thirst for blood. And this time it won't be slaked in Flanders. Things are going to get uglier east of Suez. And we're going to win. [bold added] Missing from this analysis are several things that could render a victory in the Middle East by a more bloodthirsty West moot: (1) Europe, with its declining native birthrate and its burgeoning, unassimilated Moslem population, is in danger of civilizational collapse. (And the emergence of a Europe that would exterminate its Moslem population would be no better a development than a Moslem Europe.) (2) How the conflict is ultimately viewed in the West is crucial. Is this a war against civilization (i.e., the secular values of the West) or is it merely a religious war between Christians and Moslems? I have blogged several times before about attempts by the religious right to turn this into an inter-religious conflict. It is not, and we will be just as benighted in the end if we permit the Christian strand of Western Civilization to emerge dominant over the Greco-Roman strand as a side-effect of this conflict. Finally, (3) Our chances of victory decline the longer we permit this conflict to continue, as I noted recently. I may sound pessimistic here, but while Peters is not unwarranted in his optimism within the scope of his article, it would be foolish not to consider these other variables. It is important to understand that the West is suffering from its own problems, too. Many commentators have made much of Islam's own "civil war" between its more retrograde (i.e., religious) and forward-looking (i.e., secular) forces. But the West has a similar, if more civilized version, of a civil war. Just because the West becomes more willing to fight for its survival does not mean that it will survive. The West can still forget what makes it great. If it does, its newfound ferocity will have no more survival value than the aggression of a rabid dog. There may be light ahead of us, but we remain in the tunnel. Again, the military aspects of this war are relatively easy. It is the intellectual aspects that are difficult. -- CAV http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001975.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog AMLO Denied Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, leftist Mayor of Mexico City and rabble-rouser extraordinaire, has been denied the full, vote-by-vote recount he has been demanding since he lost the 2006 presidential election. By a unanimous decision, the seven-member Federal Electoral Tribunal agreed instead to recount ballots in about 9 percent of the more than 130,000 voting precincts nationwide. The http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001962.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog A weekend without air conditioning in (gasp!) subtropical (pant!) Houston is tough on blogging, not to mention (#$&*!) everything else. (And if posting is irregular over the next couple of days, this will be why.) Nevertheless, I came by my office to check on one pulling only to learn of another.... Reuters Pulls Doctored Photos Via Thrutch and Cox and Forkum: It seems that Reuters has had to http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001963.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Yesterday, I ran across an article about an upcoming appearance by Madonna in Rome. It seems that the sophomoric pop star and Kabbalah faddist is going to star in a mock crucifixion. The Roman Catholic Church is not amused. Cardinal Ersilio Tonino, speaking with the approval of Pope Benedict XVI said: "This time the limits have really been pushed too far. "This concert is a blashphemous challenge to the faith and a profanation of the cross. She should be excommunicated." This alone is no big deal. The Cardinal is merely doing his job -- and showing what adherence to religion is really all about. On that latter score, I urge him to keep it up: Most people merely pay lip service to religion and so don't appreciate what a threat it would pose to freedom if it ever were to gain real power again -- which is exactly what is also going on. Before we continue, let's recall some recent history. Quick. Which side did Pope Benedict XVI line up behind during the Cartoon Riots: (a) the Danish artists who received death threats over some drawings of Mohammed or ( the smelly, unkempt barbarians who were delivering said threats even as they rioted, burned, and murdered worldwide? The answer was b, although Benedict had to say something about the bad behavior of the children so it wouldn't be too obvious he was catering to their tantrum. "It is necessary and urgent that religions and their symbols are respected, and that believers are not the object of provocations that harm their progress and their religious feelings," he said. "However, intolerance and violence can never be justified as responses to offences," he warned. Note that it was respect for religion that he called "urgent"; not putting a stop to barbaric behavior, mayhem, and death threats. And now, the Moslems are returning the favor, with some religious Jews getting into the act. (I am surprised by the Jews, who are frequently the target of religious-fueled hatred and really ought to know better. Perhaps this is natural selection at work....) In an unusual show of religious solidarity, Muslim and Jewish leaders added their condemnation of the self-styled Queen of Pop, famous for peppering her concerts and videos with controversial religious and sexual imagery. "I think her idea is in the worst taste and she'd do better to go home," Mario Scialoja, head of Italy's Muslim League said. I normally don't give a tinker's dam about Madonna or her various mystical enthusiasms, but this story bears watching, as it looks like we may soon see the Church attempt to regain more of the secular authority it once had. In the meantime, the Vatican has remained tellingly silent about the escapades of another famous non-mainstream Catholic entertainer: Mel Gibson, a traditionalist Catholic. I was originally thinking about blogging something about how the different treatments of Gibson and Madonna might reflect the true priorities of the Vatican, but there are too many confounding variables to make the point just yet, in part because the stories are both too young. Nevertheless, I did find an article at the Townhall web site that illustrates my point -- that the religious care more about silencing objections to their dicta than anything else -- better than I could have made it anyway. Brent Bozell -- who champions censorship as the founder and president of the Parents Television Council -- has written a column in defense of Mel Gibson that attempts to blur the distinction between bigotry of the type that Mel Gibson famously gave voice to recently and remarks unfriendly to or even merely critical of religion. How does he do this? First, he omits what Gibson said, which included: "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." This is loony, completely without merit, and is the kind of excuse used throughout history to persecute the Jews. This is not a joke about Judaism. Nor is it an intellectual argument against or objection to the tenets of Judaism. Not even a poorly-crafted one. Bozell's tack, after having conveniently passed over the above, is to play "gotcha" with Gibson's Hollywood detractors by calling them hypocrites -- for calling Gibson intolerant while being guilty of attacking Christianity (or even daring to point out valid criticisms of Christian institutions), which Bozell equates to what Gibson did. An excerpt of his "counter argument" should be sufficient. [My comments are bracketted and in bold.] The first thing Mel Gibson and everyone else should do is ignore people like these. They are hypocrites. They were nowhere to be found when "Da Vinci Code" actor Ian McKellen publicly accused the Catholic Church of "perhaps misleading us all this time," and stated, "the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying this is fiction." And what of the movie itself, a bigoted anti-Catholic screed if ever there was one? Any denouncements from them? [(1) Perhaps Mr. Bozell is privy to a proof of God's existence I am unaware of. If not, then perhaps the Church is misleading us. If he does, then we can move on to other points, which are based on this assumption. (2) I haven't seen this movie, but I have read the book. I wouldn't have found this offensive or "anti-Catholic" even when I was Catholic: It's a work of historical fiction which takes as its basis a fictional conspiracy by members of the Church.] Where were they when Comedy Central's Dennis Leary aired his "Merry F*ing Christmas" special, publicly called the Christmas story "bull[bleep]" and said of the baby Jesus and the Virgin Mary, "I also believe that about nine months before he was born, somebody sure as [bleep] banged the hell out of his mom"? Any religious bigotry there, folks? [Tasteless humor. Yes. A joke at the expense of a myth -- or have you a shred of proof, Mr. Bozell? -- about parthenogenisis. But still, these are attacks against doctrines, and not accusations like, "Those Romans are behind all the wars."] Have any of these people ever said a word about the "South Park" DVD featuring an episode called "Red Hot Catholic Love," in which almost every Catholic priest and cardinal in the world favors having sex with altar boys because supposedly it's been enshrined in Vatican law? ... [satire, Mr. Bozell, and about a serious problem -- that the church YOU are defending -- has indisputably had and, as far as I can tell, is failing to address. For one thing, the fictional conspiracy in The Da Vinci Code is small potatoes compared to the real live one, to cover up for pedophiles, that you're doing your part to whitewash. Or was there another reason Cardinal Bernard Law wound up in Rome?] Just as Bozell wants Mel Gibson to ignore his criticism, he wants his readers to ignore the difference between bigotry against human beings such as Gibson's -- which is morally repugnant -- and two entirely unrelated things: (1) intellectual objections concerning religion, and (2) discussions about real live scandals in religious institutions. He implicitly condemns the latter even when it means acqiescing to the trampling of the lives of young boys underfoot. Thank you for sharing with us your sense of priorities, Mr. Bozell. You have made my point. -- CAV http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001953.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Babalu Blog remains a must-read during (choose one: Fidel Castro's health/the Cuban succession) crisis. While major news outlets like Reuters simultaneously assert that Castro is alive and yet sound like they're already writing his eulogy, Babalu Blog is making sure that the intelligent reader has access to the cold, hard facts. Just compare this silly bit of cheerleading by Reuters to the plethora of information available from Babalu Blog. I'll make just a few comparisons between what I was able to learn thanks to just one post (pointing to material at National Review Online) on the anti-Castro blog and what Reuters is trying to pass off as news. First, there are the little problems of "illness", timing of death announcements, and general honesty with the media -- and the huge problem of succession -- in Communist countries. Reuters downplays all these problems (and ignores history) in an article touting Castro's power handover to his brother Raul as if it is a test for how well Cuba's "system" of choosing his successor will work. Hopes held by exiles and other die-hard opponents that Fidel Castro's failing health would trigger a crisis of confidence in Cuban communism have been dampened by the apparently smooth succession plan set off by his illness. The immediate appointment of his defense minister brother Raul as provisional president and calm coverage by state media have sent a strong message that the communist system will go on, even without its 79-year-old founder, Cuba-watchers say. ... Some analysts say it could well be a smart move by Castro to test the resilience of his succession plan while he is still around and in charge, even from a hospital bed. Horse hockey! If Castro is such a genius and is so genuinely concerned about Cuba, why did he wait to do this until he was eighty freaking years old, and why is his brother, no spring chicken himself, the apparent successor? Meanwhile, we have this much more believable explanation of events at National Review. In Communist societies, the fall of a dictator is often marked by a public statement about the dictator's failing health that (a) doesn't make sense, and ( is not delivered by the dictator himself. That's what we saw on Monday night, when Cuban dictator Fidel Castro issued a "letter to the people" in which he explains that he had suffered intestinal bleeding due to stress, needed an operation, and would be in bed for several weeks. The missive was coldly Orwellian in how little it said about Castro -- and in how much detail it gave about those who were now "temporarily" assuming power. The next day another Cuban official read a more entertaining letter in which Castro purports to explain (again in pure Newspeak) that because of the imminent threat from the United States, the details of his health are now a state secret. But there's only one detail about Castro's health that could possibly be a state secret: that he's dead. Sure, he could be in a coma. But any student of Communism can say now with certainty that his reign is over. The only thing his heirs care about now is figuring out who really controls the estate -- and who's going to end up with it. Castro's non-death declaration -- essentially his last will and testament -- leaves a series of key posts, and control of the state budget, to several senior leaders. But it only establishes the initial position of the players. The real game starts now, as the realities of internal power dynamics start making for unexpected conflicts and strange bedfellows. This unstable phase of the struggle for succession is highly characteristic in Communist regimes. It may last many weeks or months, and it is doubtful, if history is any guide, that all of the initial players will survive -- literally. [bold and link added] Mario Loyola then takes a look at four people who may end up in charge after the dust settles and, for the sake of the generation of readers who didn't grow up with the Soviet Union around, does an entertaining bit of historical review. I love the ending: "And on and on went the history of the Soviet Union, until the day it finally died, when a group of would-be coup leaders explained in a press conference that Premier Gorbachev had been taken ill, and some reporters just started laughing." And while we're on the matter of succession, Reuters runs a real gem about Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's thoughts on the matter. "The succession process is a decision the Cuban people will have to take," Lula told reporters in Brasilia. ... "The main concern of representatives from countries friendly to Cuba is that Cubans decide their future without interference," said Tilden Santiago, Brazilian ambassador in Havana. "It would be very bad to see interventionist attitudes repeated in Cuba, in a world that has seen episodes like those in Iraq," he said without naming the United States. Lula, you see, equates the will of "the Cuban people" with that of Castro. He would apparently rather see anything besides free elections held in a nation that respects individual rights. He has just voiced support for Castro, support for his hand-picked successor (See below.), opposition to any American-aided transition of Cuba to freedom, and implicit support for the way "the Cuban people" chose Castro, as detailed by the wife of an eye-witness. [F]or days [after Batista fled] there was chaos in Havana. Mobs looted the casinos and smashed open the parking meters. No one was in control. ... "What's happening in Havana?" Castro asked. [Radio sportscaster Buck] Canel began to explain: Different groups had taken over different parts of the city. Castro wanted to know specifics. "Who's in control of the police? The airport? The university?" he asked. And finally, "Who is running the radio and television station?" Canel didn't have all the answers, but knew definitely that Castro's supporters were in charge at the radio and television station. He had been there earlier that day to make a broadcast. "Are you sure?" asked Castro. "Absolutely sure." Canel replied. "Let's go then," said Castro. He and his bodyguards left the building and climbed into a battered old American jeep. My husband and Canel got back into their taxi and followed behind as they headed towards Havana. Nearing the city, the crowds got bigger and bigger as they realized Castro was on his way. Outside the broadcasting building, Castro leaped out of the jeep and went inside. He went straight to a studio, told the technicians to switch on the transmitter, and Castro started talking into the camera. He talked and talked and talked -- for seven hours non-stop. And that, my husband always says, is how Castro took Cuba. [bold added] Yeah. A guerilla war, followed by anarchy, and seizure of the press by thugs, all so the windbag control freak who started the whole mess can take over the country! God, if only our Founding Fathers had thought of that! And finally, in another story, we have this terse and rather unsatisfying comment on how a permanent succession of Raul Castro would affect United States policy towards Cuba. The U.S. administration, which has tightened a long embargo of Cuba, has dismissed any possibility of a softer stance toward the Cuban government even if Raul Castro takes over permanently. "Even if Raul Castro takes over"? Leaving aside the question of whether American policy towards Cuba has been effective, if it is premised on harming the regime, why should it change "even if" Castro's brother takes over? This seems to imply, among other things, that Raul is "not so bad". Those wanting a more detailed (and therefore sober) assessment of such outcome can find it here. Nothing suggests that Raul Castro -- Fidel's designated successor since 1959 -- will fail to take control of the country upon his elder brother's death. And nothing about Raul suggests that he would be a more benevolent dictator than his predecessor. He is reportedly more ideological than Fidel, having belonged to a Communist youth group well before the older Castro publicly declared himself a socialist. He is responsible for hundreds of extra-judicial assassinations. Fidel has described him as "more radical than I." And while he has expressed interest in Chinese-style economic reforms, he has shown no desire to retreat from Cuba's Stalinist politics, and has hinted that his hostility toward the United States exceeds even that of his brother. Though Raul is 75 years old, the upper ranks of the Communist leadership are filled with his loyalists, making it likely that his poisonous ideology will live many years longer than he. Babalu Blog deserves daily visits as these events unfold. You owe it to yourself to have other sources of information besides the fawning liberal media, and when the offical death announcement occurs, your sanity may need it! (Actually, things are already getting quite ugly.) What do I think? Castro has got to be in mortal peril if not already dead. Beyond that, I don't know what could occur. I think Raul has a decent shot of coming out on top, but he is too old to see Chinese-style market reforms help him, personally, hold on to power. If he does implement such reforms, the survival of "communism", Chinese-style is possible for a time -- unless there is enough popular discontent for a rebellion to occur before the economic benefits (to the regime) of reform are realized. But as with other communist states, capitalist reforms have a way of whetting a people's taste for freedom. Whether the regime in charge of Cuba is in danger of losing power any time soon depends largely on how much of its power depended on Castro himself and on how unhappy (and assertive) the Cubans are, two variables with which I have no familiarity. Certainly, U.S. policy ought to change in favor of destabilizing Cuba if the regime remains intact. -- CAV PS: I congratulate Babalu Blog on its recent well-deserved media exposure (e.g., Investor's Business Daily on the subject of socialized medicine in Cuba). http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001951.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog I don't have much time to blog tonight, with it being late already and my wife getting ready to start another medical school rotation tomorrow morning. Nevertheless, I cannot let the potential for Fidel Castro's long-overdue demise go without comment! Fidel Castro has apparently taken ill and will be in surgery soon for intestinal bleeding. He has ceded power to his younger brother, Raul, who is both more radical and less charismatic -- a bad combination for keeping the proles down. According to Babalu Blog (which also posts numerous updates on the situation in Miami and a roundup of related posts), Castro may be out of commission for a couple of months! Val Prieto has seen too many unfortunate near-misses already to allow himself much optimism, but he expresses the following wishes for the dictator: On a personal note, I truly hope the bearded dictator bleeds, as Henry put it to me just now, like a stuck pig and that today, July 31, 2006 is the beginning of Cuba's future. All I can add to that is the sincere hope that Castro meets a fate much like Huey P. Long's: death by the incompetent hand of a surgeon he installed himself. If freedom returns to Cuba as a result of this illness, it will make the inevitable fawning MSM eulogies of Castro and his "endurance" as a "world leader" almost bearable. -- CAV http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001945.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Psychotherapist Michael J. Hurd did an excellent job distilling the recent retrial of Andrea Yates -- mother and murderer of five -- down to its essence. In a short commentary which appeared in the Boston Globe, he begins by noting Rusty Yates's reaction to the recent verdict of "not guilty, by reason of insanity": Her ex-husband, with whom she's still friends, applauded the new jury's decision. He thanked them for "rising above the superficial facts" because she was obviously psychotic rather than a true killer. Hmmm... Five dead kids, maliciously tortured and killed by their mother. These are superficial facts? This man clearly has issues. [bold added] And if Hurd hit that nail on the head, a recent article in the Houston Chronicle describes in lurid detail how this came about in the court system, through an unholy synergy of five years of relentless left-wing propaganda and the misuse of legal technicalities by lawyers for whom protecting the innocent is plainly not the priority. This Houstonian fully agrees with prosecutor Joe Owmby's description of how local news media willfully biased the entire pool of potential jurors for the retrial. "We've had five years of editorial opinions, especially in the local paper [The Chronicle --ed], editorial opinions about Andrea Yates, most of it weighing heavily in favor of her," Owmby said. "I think the last thing I read from a Texas law professor was 'Why don't we just let her go?' So we've had that kind of opinion out there for five years, informed or not, (and) I think it must have had an effect in a similar way on the jury. I'm not talking about jurors not following their instructions, but they are human beings and they have been living with this for the last five years, as have we all." [bold added] Frankly, this description borders on understatement. It has been clear since the end of the first trial that if there were any way imaginable for this multiple child murderer to have the judicial equivalent of a recount, it would happen and all the stops would be pulled to make sure she could walk. And here's how a murderer -- nobody disputes that she drowned all five of her children -- is allowed to walk on a technicality and with the aid of a hand-picked panel of useful idiots. ... Because the first jury had sentenced her to life, prosecutors could not ask for death in the second trial. That made a significant difference in the selection process. As a general rule, death-qualified juries are considered more conservative and prosecution-oriented. ... "This was a totally different jury pool, totally different selection process and totally different jury as a result, much more like a jury you normally get at the courthouse," [defense attorney Wendell] Odom said. When the second trial started in late June, just over five years had passed since the death of Yates' children. The retrial was still front-page news around the country, but the media frenzy was past. Odom sensed that the atmosphere of the trial was significantly different and, in his view, had a less vengeful tone. [bold added] "Vengeful" is the politically correct term for "just". Michael Hurd is on the money when he describes the implications of this verdict, which follows no less than three other cases of mothers being let off the hook for murdering their own children in Texas alone. Let's be blunt here. It takes work to drown all five of your kids. You must watch them gasp for breath, struggle for life -- and still decide to let them die. If Andrea Yates can be released from responsibility for killing her children in a clearly insane, yet also systematic and premeditated way, then you or I can be released from any wrongdoing we commit in a period of "depression." Could this be the true motive behind a jury forgiving the unforgivable? A world where everything becomes tolerable and excusable is the real definition of insanity, if you ask me. The Chron, hoping we'll forget all about the five victims of this home murder spree, had the audacity to headline its story "Playing field leveled for defense". A "level playing field" ?!?! The only "field" that has been "leveled" is the one these kids should be playing on -- by each one now being six feet under without possibility of appeal. Good job, Chronicle. Way to go, Messrs. Odom and Parnham. And good thinking, jurors. I guess Andrea Yates did get a "jury of her peers". -- CAV http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001942.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog There is a superb article on the post-electoral situation in Mexico over at the Washington Post. Things are playing out pretty much as I thought they might as far as Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (aka AMLO, which seems to be turning into a new Spanish word for "pain in the ass") is concerned. If the PRD candidate had simply implemented this legal strategy, his behavior would not have unforgivably sullied the process or undermined Mexico's fragile democracy. But as might have been predicted, Lopez Obrador wasn't satisfied with legal action. Just as he's always done, he had to go for broke -- resorting to "ad terrorem" methods. ... Most troubling of all is that Lopez Obrador has called for demonstrations all over the country "in support of democracy" -- the same democracy whose institutions he has impugned. Even though he insists that the marches will be "peaceful" and "won't get out of hand," he knows very well that in the atmosphere he has created, violent actions might be initiated by either side. It isn't hard to gauge his intentions. He's made them very plain, and since he's a man of his word, he must be believed: "I'll go as far as the people want me to go." Apparently, however, "the people" are not the 27,034,972 Mexicans of all classes who didn't vote for him; they're not even the 14,756,350 citizens who supported him at the polls. "The people," or "the nation," will be those sectors of the population that Lopez Obrador is able to get out into the country's streets and plazas in coming days and weeks -- those who see him as he sees himself, as the Mexican messiah. And who will interpret the wishes of this "people," a repository of natural and divine law rather than of the petty laws written by men? The charismatic leader who incarnates Truth, Reason, History and Virtue, the leader who will save Mexico from oppression, inequality, injustice and poverty, who will "purify national life": Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Oops. He forgot the bit about AMLO possibly having used government funds as Mayor of Mexico City to pay for weapons purchases for Marxist guerrillas. So we know what AMLO has done. At best, this will simply backfire. At worst, Mexico has a major problem on its hands. Stay tuned. -- CAV http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001939.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog I have mentioned here on past occasions my frustration with the wide currency of the misconception that what America has (and needs to export to the world) is "democracy". The fallacy of this notion is nowhere more evident than in "Palestine", whose benighted people recently elected into power terrorists, who not only seek endless war with Israel, but continue Yassir Arafat's other tradition: of running roughshod over the rights of the people they govern. As Yaron Brook so ably pointed out some time ago: Viewed in this context of dictatorial rule, the alleged right of Palestinians to "self-determination" is groundless. No group has a right to its own state if what it seeks is a dictatorship. Arafat's "Palestinian self-determination" really means more of Arafat's despotism--it means granting legitimacy to a state that is utterly hostile to its own citizens. As Ayn Rand wrote, "the right of 'the self-determination of nations' applies only to free societies or to societies seeking to establish freedom; it does not apply to dictatorships." The only legitimate reason to found a new state is to escape tyranny and secure freedom. Thus, America's Founding Fathers rightly fought for independence from England's oppressive rule; the United States was founded on the recognition of individual rights. What Arafat desires, however, is the "right" to rule rightless serfs in a state run by a ruthless dictator. Nobody has a right to create and maintain such a state. Just because large numbers of people go through the same physical motions as free people holding elections does not somehow magically transform what they have into the same thing that our Founding Fathers won by their own sweat and blood -- not to mention their not inconsiderable intellectual efforts. In fact, what distinguishes our form of government is that it respects individual rights. The practice of voting to enact some legislation or to choose representatives is merely the mechanism by which the opinions of the governed are taken into consideration. As the famous warning went shortly after the revolution, "A republic -- if you can keep it." If men make enough foolish decisions, they can destroy their government and with it, their freedom. This happened in one election (which should never have occurred) in "Palestine" and it is happening slowly (but not irreversibly) here. But there are those who, completely failing to appreciate the intellectual dimension of the government of a free society, seem hell-bent on making us lose our freedom by replacing the considered deliberation of the earnest voter with the ritual of voting copied endlessly by trained monkeys. For these champions of democracy, and they do in fact champion mob rule, it is quantity over quality. "If only we can get as many people as possible to punch ballots," they seem to think, "we will have good government." Only someone who would rather a million imbeciles than thousands of intelligent and well-informed voters make important decisions would favor, as one John Vasconcellos of California did two years ago, lowering the voting age to 14. And the same (or worse) could be said of Arizona's Mark Osterloh, a busybody who has introduced a ballot initiative to "reward" voting with a chance at winning the lottery -- as if the chance to secure one's freedom by participating in the process of governing weren't its own reward. It should come as little surprise that so much devotion to mere ritual -- and so little stock placed in reason -- would come from a Bible-thumper. Osterloh said the concept of rewards is not so odd. He said it actually comes from the Bible -- that if you do the right thing, you get into heaven. "If incentives are good enough for God, they're good enough for Arizona," he said. Osterloh said he'd be willing to look at the punishment side of the equation -- don't act properly and wind up somewhere unpleasant. That actually is the system in Australia, where citizens can be fined $20 or more for failing to vote, a system that has resulted in a 95 percent turnout. But that isn't an option here, Osterloh said, because of U.S. Supreme Court rulings. "It's an issue of free speech," he said. Even his apparent respect for freedom of speech is formulaic! For what difference does freedom of speech make -- in the form of political debates -- if we do everything we can to lure dolts who don't give a damn about these debates to the polls? This is a foolish idea. Fortunately, it seems that the idea is not going over well with everyone out there, and there is some time for opponents to offer their counter-arguments. They will need it, though. If the measure is approved, it will be retroactive, meaning that exactly the kind of moron who will vote randomly simply to have a shot at the loot will probably show up in droves. In other words, the bribery -- for one foolish vote and many more that are quite literally nothing more than getting one's ticket punched -- has already begun. -- CAV http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001934.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Aside from the timely reminder that Hezbollah is responsible for the murder of hundreds of Americans, this excellent article from the Seattle Times says a few more things that have needed to be said for quite some time. Can anything positive emerge from the current carnage? Perhaps. Since Hezbollah has over the years killed hundreds of Americans (most notably the Marines in Lebanon) without ever paying a price, its destruction by Israel would constitute a major American victory; the same may be said of Hamas, whose agents of mass murder are already operating in America. Perhaps the incessant nattering about "the occupation" will finally give way to a recognition that the real "root cause" of Middle Eastern wars is a genocidal Islamicist culture, which must be uprooted by a process roughly akin to the denazification of Germany after World War II. It's nice to see something that makes this much sense coming out of the MSM for a change! All I would add to this is, at the risk of sounding like I'm beating a dead horse here, a few good examples of bringing the war to the enemy would likely go a long way towards this "denazification". -- CAV http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001827.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Who started this, anyway? Via this roundup at The Intellectual Watchman, comes a very informative post from The Dougout, in which Grant Jones first quotes Ed Koch on the origins of the Battle of Lebanon, for the benefit of anyone who can't wrap his mind around Israel's decision to operate there. (Wretchard provides us with a good idea of what the Israelis are up against, here.) A second front was opened on Israel's border with Lebanon on July 11th, with Hezbollah crossing Israel's border killing eight Israeli soldiers and taking two soldiers prisoner. Hezbollah has rained more than 1,000 missiles down on Israel, inflicting 24 deaths and 300 casualties. Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese government having several cabinet ministers and 13 members of parliament. Hezbollah has been ceded by the Lebanese government the right to control southern Lebanon and its border with Israel. The leader of Hezbollah, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, has threatened before and during these latest hostilities the destruction of the State of Israel. And then Jones quotes from an article written by an Arab who holds American citizenship for the sake of convenience. Protecting Israelis while leaving Arabs to a fate of humiliation, occupation, degradation and subservient acquiescence to Israeli-American dictates only guarantees that those Arabs will regroup, plan a resistance strategy, and come back one day to fight for their land, their humanity, their dignity and the prospect that their children can have a normal life one day. As if a "normal life" includes launching missiles at the homes of complete strangers miles away. As if the desire held by the Israeli people not to be attacked at random is some sort of humiliating demand. As if compliance with this whiner's demand for surrender will result in and end to Arab savagery. If our leaders were more forceful in their prosecution of this war, an alternative that Rami Khouri seems unaware of -- the total defeat of his people -- would provide a needed context to his petulant musings, perhaps causing him to realize that leaving us the hell alone isn't really all that "degrading" or "subservient", after all. Thanks for providing us with yet another reason to dispense with the unmitigated folly of the "proportional response", Rami. The Middle-Eastern "Cycle of 'Proportionality'" In considering the ramifications of the idea of the "proportionate" response, I have realized that it has other negative implications besides just hamstringing our side. Here are a couple. For one thing, proportionality also lends false credibility to the notion that the two sides in a conflict are morally equivalent. Since this requirement of Just War Theory precludes any decisive action by the moral side, any conflict that does not end quickly in a decisive victory for the aggressor will devolve into a long, drawn-out exchange of hostilities, a "cycle of violence 'proportionality'", if you will. Why? Because the aggressor wants the war and will continue to attack as the Moslems continuously do to Israel while the moral side merely retaliates, instead of doing what it ought: ending the threat by whatever means are necessary. After awhile, it looks exactly as senseless as a family feud. For another thing, proportionality also feeds into the chronic myopia caused by the pervasive influence of pragmatism. Notice that for all its predations against Israel (and America), the focus of the current battle with Hezbollah isn't "How can Israel (and America) most quickly and effectively eliminate Hezbollah (and Iran) as threats to peace (i.e., our lives)?", but "What deal can we broker that will secure the release of the two imprisoned Israeli soldiers in exchange for a cessation of 'hostilities' (meaning: defensive activity by Israel, which did not begin the fighting)?" Not that I am unmoved by the kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers, but the conflict in Lebanon is not merely about them. (Although I hope the kidnapping is the straw that broke the camel's back of this ridiculous stalemate.) And the conflict in Lebanon is not the only event in the ongoing Islamic war against civilization. Almost as a footnote to the conflagration in Lebanon, various news outlets have been reporting something about which our leaders and the commentariat seem largely unconcerned (so far, I hope): That Iran and North Korea are collaborating. One or more Iranians witnessed North Korea's recent missile tests, deepening U.S. concerns about growing ties between two countries with troubling nuclear capabilities, a top U.S. official said Thursday. (HT: Resident Egoist) Whack-a-Mole Andrew Dalton points to an excellent horse-whipping of George Gilder, a prominent figure in the "Intelligent Design" sect of Creationism, that I'd intended to mention in yesterday's roundup when I read it a few days ago. One point is that "debating" Creationists is like playing a game of "whack-a-mole". This is a good analogy, but there are many other things to recommend the article, such as these choice passages. Speciation via evolution underpins all of modern biology, both pure and applied. Note that in the latter category fall such things as new cures for diseases and genetic defects, new crops, new understandings of the brain, with consequences for pedagogy and psychology, and so on. To say to biologists: "Look, I want you to drop all this nonsense about evolution and listen to me," is like walking into a room full of pilots and aeronautical engineers and telling them that classical aerodynamics is all hogwash. ... Scientists discover things. That's what they do. In fast-growing fields like genomics, they discover new things almost daily -- look into any issue of Science or Nature. What has the Discovery Institute discovered this past 16 years? To stretch my simile further: Creationists are walking into that room full of pilots and aeronautical engineers right at the peak of the Golden Age of flight, never having flown or designed any planes themselves. Are they really surprised that they get a brusque reception? [link added] Very amusing and very informative. And then there were three.... Is it just me, or are have the moons of Pluto been, like clothes hangers in a closet, reproducing while we aren't looking? (HT: Adrian Hester. And no, I had no idea there were three of them!) Happy (Belated) Birthday, ... ... <a href="http://secularfoxhole.blogspot.com/2006/07/self-promotion.html">Blair! -- CAV http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001828.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Some time ago, I linked to an article that described the already-dire straits of the Zimbabwean economy when its inflation rate was only 782 per cent. Today, I encountered a lengthier article that not only informs us that the rate is now 1,200 per cent, but that the inflationary policies of the Mugabe regime have acted synergistically with its previous expropriation of land from white-minority farmers to cause the former breadbasket of Africa to see its once-productive farmlands lie fallow. This reads like it was lifted straight out of Atlas Shrugged . With unemployment at more than 70 percent and the average monthly salary at about 140 U.S. dollars -- not enough to pay rent or school fees -- a vast parallel market has sprung up. Pulling up at a supermarket in the eastern city of Mutare, my former hometown, I was approached by a dozen youths offering to sell me sugar, cooking oil and maize meal -- essential foods that supermarkets must sell at low, state-controlled prices. Informal traders hoard these goods and, when the inevitable shortages come, sell them at inflated prices. Informal trading is illegal, but it is the only way many Zimbabweans earn a living. How did Zimbabwe get to this point? It began in the late 1990s when, in order to pay for a costly military incursion into civil war-torn Congo, President Robert Mugabe ordered the printing of vast amounts of money, and inflation climbed steeply. But it has reached today's levels only since the commercial farm invasions, in which 4,000 out of 4,500 white commercial farmers were kicked off their land, beginning in 2000. White farmers accounted for an estimated 60 percent of the country's foreign currency earnings through the export of tobacco and other crops. The invasions not only crippled domestic production, they scared away foreign investment. To dig itself out of debt and pay its bills, the government has simply printed more money. Meanwhile, production by "new farmers" -- landless peasants who moved in to occupy the white farms -- is pitifully low. Part of the reason is that although the government offers fuel and maize-seed subsidies to new farmers, many have discovered that it's more profitable to sell the maize seed and fuel on the black market for inflated prices than to use them on the farm. Millions of acres of once-productive commercial farmland lie fallow. The government blames drought, even though the rains have been good. This is just a taste. I found the entire article morbidly fascinating reading, not to mention worth remembering. Why? Because at least one analyst fears that the United States faces the threat of similar inflation down the road unless it drastically changes its ways. A newly published paper by a researcher for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis warns that a ballooning budget deficit and pension and welfare timebomb is growing into a $65.9 trillion fiscal gap that will force the United States into bankruptcy. ... How much is $65.9 trillion dollars? "This figure is more than five times U.S. GDP and almost twice the size of national wealth," writes Kotlikoff. "One way to wrap one's head around $65.9 trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this red hole. The answers are terrifying. One solution is an immediate and permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits. A third alternative, were it feasible, would be to immediately and permanently cut all federal discretionary spending by 143 percent. [link dropped] And what if we do none of the above? (Or a preferable fourth alternative, abolishment of the welfare state altogether.) Given "the fiscal irresponsibility of both political parties," the professor sees the most likely scenario for maintaining solvency as the government simply printing money to pay its bills. Kotlikoff explains: "This could arise in the context of the Federal Reserve 'being forced' to buy Treasury bills and bonds to reduce interest rates. Specifically, once the financial markets begin to understand the depth and extent of the country's financial insolvency, they will start worrying about inflation and about being paid back in watered-down dollars. This concern will lead them to start dumping their holdings of U.S. Treasuries. In so doing, they'll drive up interest rates, which will lead the Fed to print money to buy up those bonds. The consequence will be more money creation -- exactly what the bond traders will have come to fear. This could lead to spiraling expectations of higher inflation, with the process eventuating in hyperinflation." Yes. He said "hyperinflation". Whether Zimbabwe serves us as a cautionary tale or a prophetic one is entirely up to us. So when do we start discussing the phasing-out of social security and other attempts to pretend that the state can create guarantees out of thin air? -- CAV http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001813.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Robert Tracinski's superb analysis of recent goings-on in the Middle East (which appeared in yesterday's TIA Daily) has top billing in today's listing of commentary at RealClear Politics and is a must-read. Tracinski discusses (and provides links to other relevant material for) several important aspects of the situation, including: current American policy towards Iran, the rationale for why (and where) Iran is acting now, and the limitations inherent in its approach. He ends with the following: Iran has revealed its hand, challenging the US and its allies and openly demonstrating its desire to dominate the Middle East through force and terror. While we have been trying to delay the war with Iran, it has brought the war to us, in a manner so obvious that even the mainstream media cannot evade it. In doing so, they have made their threat to America and its interests more obvious and more urgent--providing a stronger case for war than their nuclear program could provide. There can be no question here about whether Iran really has aggressive designs in the Middle East, whether it really seeks the weapons to attack the US and its allies, and how long it might take for such a threat to materialize. The threat is here and Iran's newest war on the West has already begun. Iran is risking everything on this new strategy, and the only hope they have of success is the expectation that, as they bring the war closer and closer to America, we won't fight back. But that means that we have an easy way to blow their strategy to smithereens. All we have to do is to start fighting back. There are two further things beyond this analysis that warrant further consideration by our leaders and the public that elects them. (1) As two recent posts at Principles in Practice point out, we have not -- our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq notwithstanding -- even begun fighting back. We have been fighting a partial war and not even against the main enemy so far. As Craig Biddle puts it in "The Taliban Can ... Because We Let Them": Our primary target after 9-11 should not have been the Taliban in Afghanistan; it should have been the regime in Iran. But if we were going to pursue the Taliban, we certainly should have eliminated these vile creatures swiftly and permanently. In order to have done so, however, our military would have to have been under the command of a president who was willing to use the full force of the military -- and to use it not only against the Taliban but also against the regime in Pakistan, which materially and spiritually supports the Taliban. Instead, the Bush administration dropped small bombs and much bread on Afghanistan, permitted the Taliban to escape into Pakistan, and dubbed the regime in Pakistan our "friend." [bold added] One could just as well say, "Iran Can ... Beacuse We Let It". And David Holcberg, in a reprinted letter to the editor, sums things up very nicely in this way: "It is long past time for Israel to wage a real war against these terrorist groups and states. And it is long past time for the United States to join." If recent events wake us up, we will at least finally have the right target in our sights. That will correct one error we have made. The other error, as Biddle indicates, lies in what "fighting back" means. A review of the end of the conflict with Japan in World War II is in order for that purpose. As John Lewis puts it: Were it true that total victory today creates new attackers tomorrow, we would now be fighting Japanese suicide bombers, while North Korea -- where the American army did not march -- would be peaceful and prosperous. The facts are otherwise. Our purpose in this war should be for our self-defense only. We should do whatever it takes to make Iran unable to threaten us or our ally Israel ever again. This includes exercising if need be the option that Iran wants (and will use if they get it) -- but that we already have. (2) Tracinski has often pointed out that the Democrats, being the anti-war party, have severely handicapped their chances for success in this November's elections. This is probably true, but a recent poll shows that we are in danger of a Democratic success at the polls this November anyway. (Of course, this is truly dangerous only if the Republicans suddenly develop a spine. Read on.) Republicans are in jeopardy of losing their grip on Congress in November. With less than four months to the midterm elections, the latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that Americans by an almost 3-to-1 margin hold the GOP-controlled Congress in low regard and profess a desire to see Democrats wrest control after a dozen years of Republican rule. Further complicating the GOP outlook to turn things around is a solid percentage of liberals, moderates and even conservatives who say they'll vote Democratic. The party out of power also holds the edge among persuadable voters, a prospect that doesn't bode well for the Republicans. The story goes on to say that, given the huge advantage incumbents hold in elections, the Democrats will have to find a way to nationalize the elections like the Republicans did in 1994 in order to win control of either house of Congress. Predictably, they're focusing on economic issues, where Republicans, having long-since morphed into Democrats, are now very weak -- and hoping to sneak their pacifism into office under the radar. There is a lesson in this for the Republicans -- if they would bother to listen. The last time the Democrats ran everything the way they wanted, back in the Carter era, the results were disastrous. Reagan got elected because he offered an alternative to this. He got reelected because, although he was far from consistent, his leadership was an improvement over Carter's. The Democrats are hoping to cash in on the failures of the Republicans to control spending and to fight a decisive war -- not by providing a real alternative, but by pointing out how poor a job the Republicans are doing. In other words the Republicans have become "Democrats Lite". The results have not been disastrous -- yet. The fact remains, however, that they have made the American public extremely unhappy and looking for an alternative. The real question is not whether the Democrats provide one (They do not.), but whether the Republicans will provide one. If they do not, and fast, they will have effectively already "nationalized" the election for the Democrats and they have better than even odds of losing control of at least one house of Congress. And they will deserve it. Rather than look at Bush's poll numbers and conclude that the way to stay in Congress is to turn into Democrats, the Republicans ought to consider the fact that we have been fighting a long, drawn-out, indirect (at best) war against a weak opponent. They should act quickly to (1) give the President the authority he needs to fight this war and (2) pressure him to act against Iran before it gets the bomb and uses it on our one ally in the Middle East, Israel. In short, Congress should declare war on Iran. Bush's weak poll numbers are not a bad reflection on the patience of Americans or our willingness to fight this war. They are a reflection of the fact that we are tired of getting yanked around and asked to provide the good life to a bunch of savages in the Middle East instead of fighting that war. Bush is a lame duck. Forget him and save your our own hides by demonstrating that there is a real choice between the abject surrender offered by the Democrats and the slow wearing-down of American resolve caused by a long military campaign with no clear objective. (In the process of saving your own skins, you will incidentally provide a much-needed spine transplant to Bush.) Otherwise, the Democrats will win, sooner or later, and then maybe "that opposition party that ought to have a chance to govern" from back in 1994 will reappear. We're at war whether we choose to fight back or not. My hide is on the line. Please don't make me wait. -- CAV http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001809.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog As our nanny state acts to "protect" us from "second-hand smoke" so it will act to "protect" us from -- what is the phrase I'm looking for? -- "first-hand fat". First, revenue-hungry governments and trial lawyers took Big Tobacco for a ride. And now, it's Fast Food's turn -- as if Ronald McDonald ties people up and force-feeds them. Not surprisingly, local governments have taken the cue from the national stage and are deciding to start micromanaging how we live with respect to yet another "vice". First, we saw a shameful nationwide proliferation of "no smoking" ordinances. (Even Houston has one!) Now, we're seeing localities use zoning to prevent fast-food restaurants from opening! Worried by soaring levels of obesity and the health problems that go with it, the city council's youthful and slim health committee chairman says the time has come to challenge the rampant growth of fast-food chains. "They make good-tasting, affordable food, but unfortunately, it lacks nutrition," says council member Joel Rivera, of the Bronx, who also leads the Democrats at City Hall. "What I want to do is limit the number of fast-food establishments within specific proximity of each other, and try to give incentives for healthy alternatives, and give people choices," he adds. What I find supremely ironic here is the following. Not in any way to condone what he is doing, but Rivera and his fellow fitness fascists have a point. Lots of people do make stupid choices. But the government telling them what to do is a violation of individual rights, and would-be dictators like Rivera are destroying one necessity of life, freedom, in the name of promoting another, good health. We need both to survive, and it is Rivera's job to provide the first. That's what government is for. The second is up to each of us individually, as our medical bills should be. But what the hell is a busybody like Rivera doing in office? He got elected. By the same people who, apparently, are already extremely indifferent about their own well-being. When the predominant trend of a culture is to shirk personal responsibility, it will get what it deserves one way or another. In order to live, one must think. And in order to act on his judgement, one must be free. This is why each of us should do what he can to fight silliness like this. An individual can be rational or not, but if most of his society is irrational, his rationality may do him no good. -- CAV http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001805.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog I have been less-than-happy and thoroughly unimpressed with the postelection antics of leftist Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who seems to be readying for massive protests or worse based on a carefully-cultivated propaganda campaign aimed to make it appear that Mexico has not run a fair election. But now, thanks to the Wall Street Journal, I can see a silver lining in AMLO's ploy: if he fails to steal this election and continues to maintain his fiction that Felipe Calderon's victory was fraudulent, might this undermine the confidence of his particular bloc of voters for the next election? In the U.S. opponents of such anti-fraud measures [unsurprisingly, they're all Democrats. -- ed] as photo ID laws claim they will disenfranchise many voters and reduce voter turnout. But John Lott, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, notes that in the three presidential elections Mexico has conducted since the National Election Commission reformed the election laws "68% of eligible citizens have voted, compared to only 59% in the three elections prior to the rule changes." People are more likely to vote if they believe their ballot will be fairly counted. I maintain that AMLO is playing with fire and that he should not be underestimated, but it is nice to know that he may do Mexico a favor in the end, by causing the voters who would hurt his country the most to be less likely to show up for future elections. -- CAV http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001804.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog News stories like this one, which speak of the post-election tactics of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) as if they are ordinary (simply because he has a long track record of this type of behavior) or harmless (simply because he hasn't yet succeeded in starting a civil war or enslaving Mexico) are missing the real story behind AMLO's post-electoral antics. Mexico may have dodged a bullet in its last election, but AMLO, whom some have compared to Venezuela's dictator, Hugo Chavez, seems poised to undermine Mexico's political stability for the sake of positioning himself to run in the next election if he cannot steal this one outright. AMLO pretends, when discussing the multiple mass protests he plans to call in the upcoming weeks, that he is merely standing up for rule of law, something that the reporters for the Houston Chronicle seem more than willing to help him do. Lopez Obrador has vowed to fight the outcome in the courts. And though he's asking supporters to take to the streets, he urged them to be peaceful. "We don't want to affect the citizens. This is not about blocking highways," he said. "This is, and will continue being, a peaceful movement." This is coming from the same man who led supporters in a seizure of oil wells in 1994 after he lost a gubernatorial race, and some of whose followers are speaking even now, of armed rebellion. "The people are heading for social conflict, with arms if necessary," said Marcos Montiel, 50, from the Pacific resort city of Acapulco, which Lopez Obrador's party governs. "The people of the south are on the path of struggle." Montiel shook with rage as he spoke. He's hardly alone in his fury. "If they let that thief Calderon take office, I can tell you there will be the biggest strike Mexico has every seen," said Hilario Lizama, a member of the electricians' union, one of Latin America's largest with more than 60,000 members. Although the article does note that the armed movements in Mexico's south do not support AMLO, is it any wonder that his supporters are speaking in such terms? And can anyone honestly believe that AMLO thinks his followers will take his calls for peaceful assembly seriously, given his past record and the fact that he doubtless understands who supports him? AMLO has been speaking of peace for the benefit of the gullible reporters and politicians from El Norte while setting the stage for a huge confrontation when his silly requst is thrown out as being unwarranted under Mexican law. He knows this and so do his followers. [Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) president Luis Carlos ] Ugalde said [a vote-by-vote recount] was not possible. "Mexican law is very clear on when a ballot box can be opened: only when there are problems with the vote tallies, when the tally sheet has obviously been changed, or when the box has been tampered with," Mr. Ugalde said. Once the count is complete, the seven-judge Federal Electoral Tribunal hears any complaints and can overturn elections. By law, it must certify a winner by Sept. 6, and its decision is final. [Leonel] Cota [president of AMLO's party] said the party might take its case to international tribunals. And if this still doesn't sound contrived by now, consider the fact that the tactics of insinuating a rigged election and rabble rousing have been a foregone conclusion -- in the event of a loss by AMLO -- for some time. At one point, Lopez Obrador claimed, falsely, that the IFE had promised to announce results Sunday night. And he claimed the reason there wasn't an announcement Sunday was that he had been ahead all along. Known by his initials, AMLO has been raising the prospect of a stolen election for some time, as the Chicago Tribune reminded readers today. "Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolutionary Party has warned all along that it could be victimized by electoral fraud. During the campaign, he insisted he would win by a large margin so that authorities would not 'mess' with his victory, just as the PRI allegedly stole the presidency from another left-wing candidate in 1988." [link dropped] All of this brings to mind an Ayn Rand quote most recently brought to my attention by Bruno at The Simplest Thing . The only power of a mob, as against an individual, is greater muscular strength -- i.e., plain, brute physical force. The attempt to solve social problems by means of physical force is what a civilized society is established to prevent. The advocates of mass civil disobedience admit that their purpose is intimidation. A society that tolerates intimidation as a means of settling disputes -- the physical intimidation of some men or groups by others -- loses its moral right to exist as a social system, and its collapse does not take long to follow. [Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, p. 256] AMLO doth protest too much when he insists that his movement is and will remain peaceful. The above quote describes his method, intimidation, and its effect if not effectively countered by Felipe Calderon. Interestingly, Ayn Rand continues, describing the only valid use of mass civil disobedience: as a repudiation of all ties with a country's political institutions and thus as a prelude to civil war. It speaks volumes about AMLO that he is so willing to play with this kind of fire, and yet at the same time professes a desire to preserve his country's political institutions, which are fragile to begin with. -- CAV http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001799.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog The Weekly Standard, as if trying to redeem itself for its recent abysmal anti-soccer editorial, features an interesting review of the latest offering by the Loeb Classical Library, a collection of books which feature, on their left-hand pages Greek or Roman classics in the original language, translated into English on their right-hand pages. (The mind reels at the prospect of Frank Cannon and Richard Lessner reviewing anything by Loeb. They'd doubtless complain about all the "pretentious Greek- and Latin-sounding words" littering "texts obviously intended for a snobbish elite" and then, if it was poetry, the lack of rhyme. No wonder the Roman Empire fell! I almost want to write a satirical review along these lines, but I am resisting the urge so far. Barely.) This review, by Tracy Lee Simmons, who directs the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College, is valuable not just for its comments about the Loeb Classical Library Reader, which the famous collection has released in commemoration of its 500th bound translation, but for its discussion of the collection itself. My own last encounter with Loeb was during my freshman year of college, when, after learning Latin under the watchful eyes of a priest during high school, I breezed through a junior-level course on Cicero to satisfy my foreign language requirement. Three of our texts were Loebs, including the one pictured, Cicero III, De Oratore, Books I-II. The diminutive books -- covered in red for Latin and green for Greek -- are very distinctive and, I am sure, stick out like a sore thumb (or is that a red or a green one?) to anyone who becomes familiar with them. As a matter of fact, while waiting for the shuttle bus from my work site recently, I spotted a woman reading a green Loeb. I don't know which, though. Being very introverted and very married, I chose not to strike up a conversation with the Loeb reader, who seemed engrossed anyway.... In any case, the review has lots of information on the history and origins of the collection, which in my youth -- the same youth that saw me fail to steep myself more in the classics when I had the chance -- I never gave a second thought. Despite the sense many of us have that the Loeb Classical Library has always been there, it has in fact existed for only just under a hundred years. The series was founded in 1911 by James Loeb, a gentleman of parts who was both a classicist and a successful businessman, and his goal was straightforwardly democratic in spirit: To make the finest, most consequential literature of the classical Greeks and Romans accessible, if not to the huddled masses exactly, then certainly to the hundreds of thousands of an emerging educated class whose schooling had not embraced the old classical curriculum when they opted for the applied sciences or an earlier form of Humanities Lite. Loeb and the founding editors, the formidable classical scholars and teachers T.E. Page and W.H.D. Rouse, believed that this group sported as much need as any for the Good, the True, and the Beautiful--and, in the new age dawning of mechanical wonders, perhaps more. That this grand inheritance might be conferred without forbidding labor, the new requisite for the educated man and woman was to be not a classical education (with all its numbing rigors and extravagant demands) but a curious, reasonably informed mind aspiring to know much more. The Loeb Classical Library wasn't only for them, as scholars were also to benefit from clean texts tricky to come by; but it served the nonprofessional aspirants best. Matthew Arnold once wrote that the "power of the Latin classic is in character, that of the Greek is in beauty," which makes a tall order for translators of either language. Yet the scholars commissioned by the Loeb's editors for almost a century have produced splendid renderings of the best from each language that all readers of English can understand. Which is not to say that the language used in all volumes matches our own. The translations are inevitably unequal, not only because translators differ in skill, but also because some texts have neither been retranslated nor the editions revised. If this piques your interest at all, there is much more in the review, which is very enjoyable reading. And best of all, the review notes a detail that I'd missed back in college, when my book bill for the semester had been bloated by the accumulated costs of the textbooks for all my other courses: Loebs are cheap! Each volume is only about twenty bucks. (The downside is that many works we are accustomed to seeing in a single volume are spread out over several, making them more expensive. Homer's Odyssey, for example, is published in two volumes.) Over the years, I have heard fellow Objectivists say -- enough times that it is almost a cliche -- words to the effect that they'd like to "read Aristotle in the original Greek". I think this is a laudable goal, but one that would require incredible dedication and an inordinate amount of time for someone with ordinary linguistic talent and the usual obligations of adulthood. Whether or not you really want to try to learn the Greek anyway, a Loeb would be a great way to become better acquainted with the classics. Thanks to this review, Loeb will now be in the back of my mind the next time I'm looking for something to read. They would do well to publicize their new reader as much as possible. I'm a strange bird, but my recent sighting of a fellow fan of the classics demonstrates that there are probably a few more out there. They just need to be reminded of Loeb and made aware of what a good deal it is. -- CAV PS: This also reminds me of an excellent letter to the editor from Andrew Medworth that appeared in the last issue of The Objective Standard. Among other things, he asks: My question for Miss VanDamme is therefore: Can you recommend at least the kernel of a reading list which might address the above concerns, particularly in the sciences, history, and literature? I am sure this would be helpful to many. Lisa VanDamme's reply is excellent and one who follows her advice will, sooner or later, run into the ancient classics. If these prove particularly interesting, Loeb offers a very good place to explore. http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001797.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Had a minor emergency this evening, so nothing especially in-depth is in the hopper.... From the Annals of Bankrupt Ideologies, we have the following three stories. Islam, the "Religion of Peace", in Practice Funny how executions like these happen every time Islamic scholars are in charge. Radical Islamic militia fighters in Somalia shot and killed two people who were watching a banned World Cup soccer broadcast, a radio station reported Wednesday. The hard-line Muslim fighters, who have banned watching television, opened fire after a crowd of teenagers defied their orders to leave a hall where a businessman was showing Tuesday's Germany-Italy match on satellite television, according to Shabelle Radio, an independent local station. It said the businessman and a teenage girl were killed. Not even this "funny" is how such things keep getting swept under the rug while the sermonizing that we must "be tolerant" towards Moslems never lets up. A Workers' Paradise In Cambodia, the Communist government has done such a good job providing railway service that "the" people use makeshift sleds on the railroad tracks for the sake of having (relatively) safe, dependable, and fast transportation. There is only one passenger service a week, and it often travels at not much more than walking pace. So people in the north west of the country, near Cambodia's second city of Battambang, have taken matters into their own hands. They have created their own rail service using little more than pieces of bamboo. The locals call the vehicles "noris", or "lorries", but overseas visitors know them as "bamboo trains". A tiny electric generator engine provides the power, and the passenger accommodation is a bamboo platform that rests on top of two sets of wheels. A dried-grass mat to sit on counts as a luxury. One wonders what these same people could have accomplished had their obvious creativity not been wasted by a regime following the very ideology that animates most newsmen. I'm a peace activist ... (Pow!) ... starting now! And finally, we have this Al Franken wannabe in New Zealand.... A New Zealand peace activist is facing serious assault charges after he allegedly punched a rock singer in London, leaving the man in a coma. Christiaan Briggs, 30, who spent three weeks in Iraq with the Truth Justice Peace Human Shield Action Group in 2003, appeared at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court on Tuesday to face a charge of grievous bodily harm. Police say the incident occurred on June 22 when Briggs allegedly punched 19-year-old Billy Leeson, causing the rising rock star to hit his head on the ground. I'm sure Briggs "felt good" after his assault -- just like his grandstanding for an indefensible, immoral, and impractical position also doubtless "feels good" to him. Not without coincidence, both the act and the pacifism harm the innocent. Such are the consequences of placing a higher priority on one's whims than on respect for the rights of others. -- CAV http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001793.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog On June 20, I reacted to Louisiana Governor Blanco's calling up of the National Guard to stem crime in New Orleans in this way. The inept governor of Louisiana now knows how to call out the National Guard. Too bad she still doesn't understand when she should do so, or have a grasp of the proper use of a couple of other parts of her government: the police and the criminal justice system. [Why not] act to fix the revolving-door court system in New Orleans[?] Thanks for taking Louisiana one step closer to becoming a garrison state, moron! Showboating, and temporary measures will not make the Big Easy's crime problems disappear. [indeed it hasn't. -ed] Worse still, this sets a very bad precedent. It is not the job of the military to perform law enforcement on a daily basis. Little did I know how right I was on the score of precedence. Although Louisiana's neighbor hasn't stooped so low as to call in the National Guard, it seems that two days after Governor Blanco's grandstanding, the mayor of Jackson, Mississippi's <a href="http://gusvanhorn.blogspot.com/2005/11/katrina-instant-replay.html">declining and crime-plagued capitol, decided to declare a state of emergency of his own. I learned of this in today's Drudge Report, which breathlessly proclaimed "unrest" in Jackson due to its mayor's decision to extend the declared "state of emergency" indefinitely. Under the proclamation, minors are subject to a 9 p.m. curfew on weeknights and 10 p.m. on weekends. Melton said it will continue until people in the community let him know they are "safe and secure." When asked when that will be, Lewis answered, "until he (the mayor) is comfortable that the community is comfortable. He will make that decision." Melton, who was out of town on vacation, could not be reached for comment on Sunday. Lewis said Melton is receiving feedback from beat officers who are talking to people in the community and observing activities and juveniles in the neighborhoods. Setting curfews for juveniles may not seem like much, but as it turns out, Mayor Melton initially imposed the curfews based on incidents not involving juveniles and was also ready to call in the guard until Governor Haley Barbour nixed the idea. The initial declaration and the appeal for the National Guard he did before he even bothered to consult with the Sheriff of Hinds County, which contains most of his city! Melton would not comment on his earlier plans to use the Mississippi National Guard, Hinds County Sheriff's Department or the Mississippi Highway Patrol. Last week, Melton spoke of using National Guard helicopters and military intelligence units to fight crime. There was no such talk following a brief meeting with Gov. Haley Barbour on Thursday afternoon. Only, "It was a very wonderful meeting. It was a wonderful meeting," Melton said. "I got a lot of good information, a lot of good insight." Sheriff Malcolm McMillin said the mayor has not asked for any special assistance from his department. The sheriff also said he has not spoken to the mayor "in weeks" and has not read the proclamation. "The time to discuss that with me is prior to taking action," McMillin said. "It is inappropriate to announce that and then tell me about it." Melton said he still intended to use JPD's SWAT unit but would not say when or how it would be used. The mayor cited two incidents of violent crime - a shooting Wednesday afternoon of a man who was driving in west Jackson and a police chase during which a man rammed two city police cars and allegedly shot at an officer - as reasons for signing the emergency order. However, police do not believe either incident involved minors. Although I am inclined to stick with my earlier lambasting of Governor Blanco, one could somewhat plausibly argue that New Orleans remains so devastated by Katrina that the use of troops is not wholly out of line there. (Even so, Katrina threatens to become the sort of protracted "emergency" that the most power-lusting politician could only dream of....) But this is not the case at all with Jackson, which suffered little from Katrina. Consider Mayor Melton's attempted actions again. He was willing, based on a couple of violent crimes (in a city that has had way more than its share for quite some time), to impose elements of martial law! So because the government -- by failing to punish criminals adequately and thus creating an "emergency" -- has proven unable or unwilling to protect individual rights, it is thus entitled to run over individual rights and install military troops? For what other pedestrian reasons will we have government officials declaring "emergencies" and what will they capriciously decide to do about them? This trigger-happy willingness to declare "emergencies" seems like the real emergency to me. I do not know whether Frank Melton -- who unseated an incumbent by running as an "anti-crime" candidate -- is taking or calling for other, legitimate, steps towards fighting crime, but his actions (and the incompetent way he carried them out) suggest to me that he does not know or does not care how to fight crime. This is not to minimize the formidable problems he faces. Jackson, like New Orleans, has a large underclass and a revolving-door criminal justice system, which result in a huge crime problem. Last year, both cities were among the ten most dangerous American cities of their size. Two quotes from the first story, about Melton's continuation of the juvenile curfew accidentally sheds more light on other dimensions of the problem he faces. (1) [bobbie] Ramsey, whose eldest child is 14 years old, said she didn't have to worry about her children missing curfew, because they were at home. "If you have a 14-year-old, you should know where they are at 10 p.m.," she said. (2) Geneva Tillman, 72, who was doing yardwork on Campbell Street, said she used to sit out on her porch, but is afraid to because of the crime she hears about in the area. Although her street is "pretty quiet," she said it doesn't seem like crime is being reduced in the city because of the curfew. "You can't tell," she said. "There are things going on every night." But, Tillman said, the curfew has only been in effect for 10 days, and it's too early to tell if it's working. "We have to give it time," she said. In the first quote, Bobbie Ramsey makes an excellent point. I would suspect that too many parents in Jackson don't give a hoot about where their children are at night. Setting aside its propriety, I doubt that a government curfew would affect that problem very much. In the second, our intrepid reporter is interviewing someone about citywide crime trends -- who lives on a "quiet" street and apparently hides indoors at night. I'm not making light Miss Tillman's situation as it mirrors my parents' before they left town a decade ago, but collecting anecdotal evidence from her isn't exactly the work of a bloodhound. High crime is a big story, but a bigger one lurks in City Hall. Go there. Parents who don't discipline their children are making Mayor Melton's job more difficult. And reporters who don't make the voting public more aware of what could be done are making it harder for the voters to see that he likely isn't the man for the job anyway. Now that I think of it, the actions of Governor Kathleen Blanco and Mayor Frank Melton, both Democrats, are not unique examples of poor government -- of declaring an "emergency" as a means of wielding greater authority when better solutions already exist. Nor is the problem confined to the South or the Democratic Party. Our President and Congress set the stage for just this in 2001 when they began the undeclared "War on Terror" rather than conducting anti-terrorism operations as part of a larger, declared war against the states that sponsor terrorism. Among the many problems this approach has caused has been the various emergency surveillance measures which, though legitimate for a war, do not currently have appropriate limits set by war. If we declare war, some emergency domestic security measures will be required. But we will have no legitimate reason to fear them, as long as they do not violate fundamental rights and as long as we know when the emergency will come to an end. Congressional critics of the president should realize that our Constitution gives them the power to rein in the president through a war declaration. Thus, if we are to protect our liberty from an unlimited, ever-encroaching police-state--and from foreign enemies who would impose their own police state on us--nothing short of a clear, confident declaration of war will suffice. We have enough emergencies without our government "declaring" them, only to eventually, through the ensuing lack of normal checks and balances, become an emergency itself, as it did in Ayn Rand's famous novel, Atlas Shrugged -- CAV http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001790.html

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Jennifer Snow, reacting to a recent post of mine, brings up an issue that I have seen cause difficulties countless times, and not just among Objectivists, although it is within that context that she speaks of the issue. I have extremely limited patience with other Objectivists telling me that I'm engaging in even mild immorality because of my choice of clothing, speech pattern, or (criminy) sport. I think there are enough things out there that are a lot more closely affiliated with irrationality than any game could ever manage to be. I can understand this impatience! Lots of people new to Objectivism screw this up, not that this isn't an issue that is inherently difficult, and probably made more so by the intellectual practice of dropping context that our culture makes it very hard not to absorb. Along those lines, I have seen positive and negative examples of this type of error in my (this October) two decades of familiarity with the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Two in particular stand out as highly rationalistic misapplications of Objectivism. One guy I knew took up smoking, at least in part because Ayn Rand (and some of her fictional characters) did. He was up to a couple of packs a day the last time I checked. Another acquaintance was a physical fitness nut who regarded overweight people on sight as immoral. Both smoking and the degree of physical fitness someone pursues are optional values. The former can, far more easily than most, become hazardous to one's health (and a moral issue) if it is overindulged while the latter easily can, if underindulged. Any value can become dangerous if pursued to a degree incompatible with one's own well-being, but I think that with optional values, it is especially easy to misjudge the moral appropriateness of someone's pursuit of said value for a couple of reasons. (That "someone" can be oneself or another person, of course.) With the case of clothing, both of the reasons I have in mind frequently apply. First, since most people have no trouble dressing to the degree needed to protect themselves from the environment, their choices end up being made for such reasons as comfort and aesthetics. Second, there are also many social considerations that come into play due to the fact that clothing is a form of nonverbal communication. (Not all optional values are forms of nonverbal communication, but most have some social repercussions of one kind or another.) Consider this news story about how black men who want to become successful businessmen have to adjust themeselves to business culture. Every day, black men consciously work to offset stereotypes about them -- that they are dangerous, aggressive, angry. Some smile a lot, dress conservatively and speak with deference: "Yes, sir" or "No, ma'am." They are mindful of their bodies, careful not to dart into closing elevators or stand too close in grocery stores. ... One selective business program at historically black Hampton University in Virginia directs black men to wear dark, conservative suits to class. Earrings and dreadlocked hairstyles are forbidden. Their appearance is "communicating a signal that says you can go into more places," said business school dean Sid Credle. So are these men, as James Weldon Johnson might put it, selling their "birthright for a mess of pottage"? Are they, as many new to Objectivism might wonder, becoming Peter Keatings? Of course not! These are men who share positive values, like hard work and long-range planning, with their larger society and are merely making it clear that they do so. They individually may or may not prefer to wear dreadlocks or athletic wear, but they recognize that these things could very easily convey to most whites that they might prefer some of the more pathological aspects of black American culture. To put more clearly what they are doing: Communicating seriousness to business associates is more important to these men than adopting the latest fashions among other blacks. These are men with a rational hierarchy of values. Someone who, say, shows up for a job interview at a bank in dreadlocks, is certainly free to do so, but the consequences -- that the interviewer will question his work ethic thanks to the laziness and criminality exhibited by too many other people with the same fashion sense -- will be his to bear. This is not to say that one should become a total conformist. In the above examples, men merely want their seriousness to be understood. But in this example, we see someone making exactly the wrong decision with regards to an optional value. Maria Sharapova is under orders from her agent not to talk about her stamp collection. Why? Because "everyone's calling me a dork now," she says. "We're getting e-mails from stamp collecting magazines asking if I can do an interview," said Sharapova, who is in London competing at Wimbledon. "It's just a hobby. "I'm actually good telling stories, but that is one I should have never talked about. Let's get off the subject because I'm going to be an absolute geek tomorrow." I would submit that a more creative agent would find a way for Maria Sharapova to increase her appeal based on her hobby, rather than kowtowing to one of the more negative aspects of our popular culture: Its hatred of anything even remotely cerebral. There are quite a few men out there, myself included, who love it when we see women whose beauty is more than skin deep. Let me be the first man to shout this into the ether: Stamp collecting is sexy! Meekness is frumpy. Fire your agent, Miss Sharapova, and enjoy your hobby. Of what value is fame or fandom if it involves one's pretending not to enjoy something one loves? Especially if what goes into the hobby speaks well of oneself? What's worse is that Maria Sharapova's hobby has nothing to do with whether she will become or remain famous! Here we have someone whose fame is assured because it rests on proven ability, who is letting that fame become a prison -- to the expectations of the lowest common denominator -- rather than confidently showing off a very interesting part of who she is and thereby perhaps making the pastime she loves even more popular! But no, it is apparently more important for Miss Sharapova to tell the world that she's really just another dumb blonde who happens to be able to hit a tennis ball. Too bad. I have just barely begun to scratch the surface of the interesting topic of the morality of optional values, but it should be clear that, as with any other moral judgement, one must take into account the context of the person making the choices. Specifically, does a person have a rational hierarchy of values? How one dresses or what hobbies one pursues are optional values, neither of which should detract from other, more important goals. If I were to show most people a picture of a black man in gold chains, loose-fitting clothing, and a backwards baseball cap; and a picture of Maria Sharapova with her stamp collection, and then ask for a snap moral judgement, guess who would usually come out on top? But if the former is a successful stockbroker on his day off and the latter hides her hobby as if it were a dope addiction,would you change your mind? I would. -- CAV http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/001789.html