Under cover of fighting global warming, developing countries try to slow America's economy.
By Pete Du Pont
Wednesday, December 19, 2007 12:01 a.m.
Ten years ago, as the 1997 Kyoto Agreement was about to be signed, the Senate on a 95-0 vote passed a resolution stating that the United States should not be a signatory to any Climate Change or Kyoto negotiations that "mandate new commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the Annex I Parties"--then 37 industrial nations--"unless the protocol or other agreement also mandates new specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for Developing Country Parties."
The senators understood that exempting developing countries like China, India and Brazil from mandates against global warming was a mistake, for warming was a global not just a Western matter. More important, the senators understood that the underlying argument was less about global warming than about economic growth. Developing nations don't want to be limited in any way, and they do want to slow down the economic growth of developed nations so they can gain economically.
Fast forward to the just-concluded global environment conference in Bali, and the discussion had much the same theme. On the surface it was about global warming, but in reality it was as much about mandating an international agreement that would slow economic growth in developed nations.
The developing country parties still believe they must be exempted from a requirement to reduce global warming. The G77 Group (150 developing nations) said they were not ready to cut emissions from fossil fuels to fight climate change. India argued that it should receive compensation for protecting its forests rather than having to pledge to reduce emissions.
China is vastly expanding its factories and power plants--it is building another coal-fired power plant every seven to 10 days--and so opposed emission targets that would bind it. As the New York Times reported a year ago, China now "uses more coal than the United States, the European Union and Japan combined," and so "the increase in global warming gases from China's coal use will probably exceed that for all industrialized countries combined over the next 25 years." China is already home to 20 of the world's 30 most polluted cities, but Su Wei, China's top climate expert in Bali, said the burden of reducing global warming pollution is one that belongs to the wealthy, not China.
Developing countries nevertheless signed on to the Bali Action Plan, agreeing that with financial and technical help from developed nations they would consider "nationally appropriate mitigation actions"--not "commitments or actions" as developed countries had to agree to--to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
What they did not get was the binding emission reductions for developed nations that the European and United Nations delegates sought: emission cuts 40% below 1990 levels by 2020, and 50% by 2050. That disappointed the anti-American Bali establishment--the Papua New Guinea climate change ambassador said, "If you cannot lead, leave it to the rest of us. Get out of the way." American environmentalists weren't happy either. Hans Verlome of the World Wildlife Fund remarked that we had "lost substance" in removing the emission reduction requirements for developed nations.
But America's Bali delegation, understanding that economic limitations were more significant to nations than environmental ones, succeeded in getting rid of the Bali-favored emission standards that would limit America's--but not developing nations'--economic growth.
In light of all this criticism, what is the status of global emissions over the past few decades? Compared with other countries, how has America done? We generate about 25% of the world's global warming emissions, which is not surprising since we are about 27% of the global economy.
From 1990 to 1995, America's emissions increased 3.9% compared with 3.4% for other developed nations.
From 1995 to 2000, the emissions increased to 11.3%, compared with other developed nations' decline of 1.4%.
From 2000 to 2005, our increase was 0.6% compared with other nations' 2.7%.
So we are making progress. Comparing us with other nations over the 1990-2005, period we are doing better than Canada, Greece, Ireland, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain and Turkey, and not as well as Australia, France, Germany, Britain and the Scandinavian nations.
There is no question we must do the research to find ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and that is going forward. As President Bush pointed out in last year's State of the Union address: "Since 2001 we have spent nearly $10 billion to develop cleaner, cheaper and more reliable alternative energy sources." If the Congress fully funds the President's 2008 budget it will total $15 billion.
Hopefully a technological solution will be forthcoming, but meanwhile we will need to continue expanding our energy generation to meet our nation's economic needs. Today we generate one million megawatts of electricity, 52% of it from coal, 36% from gas and nuclear power, 11% from petroleum-fired and hydro-electric plants, and just 1% from wind and solar sources. According to future projections we will need another 100,000 megawatts--10% more energy--by 2020. Just a little of that will come from the congressional preference for "renewable energy," so we will need energy from all our existing sources for many decades.
Neither Kyoto nor Bali will solve our global energy emission problems. According to a Princeton University study a few year ago the world could hold its carbon dioxide emissions flat if 700 nuclear power plants were built around the globe, for they do not increase global warming. But they are not favored by the climate establishment, and so are not a part of the Bali solution.
Which makes one wonder whether the Kyoto/Bali emotion isn't really energy ballyhoo. Progress can be made in reducing global emissions through technological breakthroughs, not by an economic equality effort by nations irritated by America's economic success over the past decades.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Torture and the Democrats
By Mona Charen
Friday, December 21, 2007
It didn't get a lot of attention, but in mid-December, U.S. forces in Iraq discovered an al Qaeda torture center north of Baghdad. Muqdadiya is about 60 miles north of the capital. American soldiers found a blood-spattered room where chains still hung on the gory walls. A metal bed frame was still connected to an electric shock generator. The Americans also found bloody knives and swords. Outside, the bodies of 26 people were buried in common graves.
That al Qaeda has made rape, torture and murder its calling card in Iraq is not news. Michael Yon (michaelyon-online.com), among others, has reported the atrocities committed by al Qaeda in Iraq, and even the major media have at last come to acknowledge that Sunni leaders -- disgusted by the atrocities they have witnessed -- have teamed up with the Americans to defeat al Qaeda. It was Iraqi locals who pointed the U.S. patrol to the torture house in Muqdadiya.
Last May, according to The Smoking Gun website, U.S. troops unearthed an even more grisly site, an al Qaeda torture chamber in Baghdad itself. When they entered, the soldiers found an Iraqi man suspended from the ceiling by chains. The room contained torture implements including hammers, whips, meat cleavers and wire cutters as well as a crude torture manual, displaying various methods of inflicting unbearable pain. These included using a blowtorch on the skin, gouging out eyes, using an electric drill to cut through a hand, and many more.
It's useful to be reminded of what real torture looks like when the Democrats in Washington are working themselves into a characteristic froth about the CIA and the destroyed interrogation tapes. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., declared that for "the past six years, the Bush administration has run roughshod over our ideals and the rule of law." It reminded him of nothing so much as the "18-and-a-half-minute gap on the tapes of Richard Nixon." Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., smells "obstruction of justice."
So now we will have an inquiry into whether the CIA has violated the law by destroying tapes it was under no obligation to make in the first place; concerning an interrogation technique that at the very worst (according to most reliable reports) involved making three notorious terrorists think, for a few seconds, that they were drowning.
I have severe doubts as to whether waterboarding constitutes torture. But I am certain that the unceasing attention it receives and the eagerness of many Democrats to indict the Bush administration has done more damage to America's image than anything the CIA has done. I say this for two reasons:
1) When Democrats talk of coverup and torture, we know they're referring to waterboarding, but the world doesn't know that. People in the Middle East and elsewhere naturally assume that torture is torture -- the kind that al Qaeda was grimly practicing in Muqdadiya and elsewhere. And the more dark insinuations that issue from Capitol Hill and the New York Times, etc., the more certain the rest of the world is that we are doing similar things. I was recently invited, for example, by the Oxford Union in England to debate (for the affirmative) the proposition "Resolved: This House Would Torture to Save Lives." I declined but counter-offered on David Frum's advice to debate "Resolved: This House Believes Terrorists Deserve the Full Protection of the Geneva Conventions." I await their reply.
2) The unending controversy about waterboarding has completely obscured the reality of what is going on at Guantanamo, where inmates are gaining weight on the culturally sensitive diet, having surgeries to repair old injuries, reading their Korans and praying on the U.S.-supplied prayer mats, and conferring with their lawyers while troops of journalists, politicians and human rights activists parade by.
All of this comes against the backdrop of Iraq, where at long last the violence has been contained, al Qaeda is in retreat, and refugees are returning home. If present trends continue, Iraq will not be the failure and disaster for the United States our enemies were hoping for. Could it be that the Democrats too are disappointed, and are seeking in the CIA story another way to undermine the progress?
Friday, December 21, 2007
It didn't get a lot of attention, but in mid-December, U.S. forces in Iraq discovered an al Qaeda torture center north of Baghdad. Muqdadiya is about 60 miles north of the capital. American soldiers found a blood-spattered room where chains still hung on the gory walls. A metal bed frame was still connected to an electric shock generator. The Americans also found bloody knives and swords. Outside, the bodies of 26 people were buried in common graves.
That al Qaeda has made rape, torture and murder its calling card in Iraq is not news. Michael Yon (michaelyon-online.com), among others, has reported the atrocities committed by al Qaeda in Iraq, and even the major media have at last come to acknowledge that Sunni leaders -- disgusted by the atrocities they have witnessed -- have teamed up with the Americans to defeat al Qaeda. It was Iraqi locals who pointed the U.S. patrol to the torture house in Muqdadiya.
Last May, according to The Smoking Gun website, U.S. troops unearthed an even more grisly site, an al Qaeda torture chamber in Baghdad itself. When they entered, the soldiers found an Iraqi man suspended from the ceiling by chains. The room contained torture implements including hammers, whips, meat cleavers and wire cutters as well as a crude torture manual, displaying various methods of inflicting unbearable pain. These included using a blowtorch on the skin, gouging out eyes, using an electric drill to cut through a hand, and many more.
It's useful to be reminded of what real torture looks like when the Democrats in Washington are working themselves into a characteristic froth about the CIA and the destroyed interrogation tapes. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., declared that for "the past six years, the Bush administration has run roughshod over our ideals and the rule of law." It reminded him of nothing so much as the "18-and-a-half-minute gap on the tapes of Richard Nixon." Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., smells "obstruction of justice."
So now we will have an inquiry into whether the CIA has violated the law by destroying tapes it was under no obligation to make in the first place; concerning an interrogation technique that at the very worst (according to most reliable reports) involved making three notorious terrorists think, for a few seconds, that they were drowning.
I have severe doubts as to whether waterboarding constitutes torture. But I am certain that the unceasing attention it receives and the eagerness of many Democrats to indict the Bush administration has done more damage to America's image than anything the CIA has done. I say this for two reasons:
1) When Democrats talk of coverup and torture, we know they're referring to waterboarding, but the world doesn't know that. People in the Middle East and elsewhere naturally assume that torture is torture -- the kind that al Qaeda was grimly practicing in Muqdadiya and elsewhere. And the more dark insinuations that issue from Capitol Hill and the New York Times, etc., the more certain the rest of the world is that we are doing similar things. I was recently invited, for example, by the Oxford Union in England to debate (for the affirmative) the proposition "Resolved: This House Would Torture to Save Lives." I declined but counter-offered on David Frum's advice to debate "Resolved: This House Believes Terrorists Deserve the Full Protection of the Geneva Conventions." I await their reply.
2) The unending controversy about waterboarding has completely obscured the reality of what is going on at Guantanamo, where inmates are gaining weight on the culturally sensitive diet, having surgeries to repair old injuries, reading their Korans and praying on the U.S.-supplied prayer mats, and conferring with their lawyers while troops of journalists, politicians and human rights activists parade by.
All of this comes against the backdrop of Iraq, where at long last the violence has been contained, al Qaeda is in retreat, and refugees are returning home. If present trends continue, Iraq will not be the failure and disaster for the United States our enemies were hoping for. Could it be that the Democrats too are disappointed, and are seeking in the CIA story another way to undermine the progress?
Success Against the Axis
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, December 21, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Just four months after 9/11, George Bush identified Iran, Iraq and North Korea as the "axis of evil" and declared that defanging these rogue regimes was America's most urgent national security task. Bush will be judged on whether he succeeded.
Six years later and with time running out on this administration, the Bush legacy is clear: one for three. Contrary to current public opinion, Bush will have succeeded on Iraq, failed on Iran and fought North Korea to a draw.
Iran. Bush has thrown in the towel on Iran's nuclear program because the intelligence bureaucracy, in a spectacularly successful coup, seized control of the policy with a National Intelligence Estimate that very misleadingly trumpeted the claim that Iran had halted its nuclear program. In fact, Iran only halted the least important component of its nuclear program, namely weaponization.
The hard part is the production of the fissile material. Iran continues enriching uranium with 3,000 centrifuges at work in open defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions. Once you have the necessary fuel, you can make the bomb in only a few months.
Thus to even speak of the Iranian program as having been stopped while enrichment continues is absurd. And that is true even if you discount recent dissidents' reports that the weaponization program, suspended in 2003, in fact resumed the following year -- contrary to the current NIE estimate, offered with only "moderate confidence," that it has never been restarted.
The administration had to immediately release and accept the NIE's sensational conclusions because the report would have been leaked and the administration then accused of covering up good news to justify going to war, the assumption being that George Bush and Dick Cheney have a Patton-like lust for the smell of battle.
The administration understands that the NIE's distorted message that Iran has given up pursuing nukes has not only taken any military option off the table but jeopardized any further sanctions against Iran. Making the best of the lost cause, Bush will now go through the motions until the end of his term, leaving the Iranian bomb to his successor.
North Korea. We did get Kim Jong Il to disable his plutonium-producing program. The next step is for Pyongyang to disclose all nuclear activities. This means coming clean on past proliferation and on the clandestine uranium enrichment program that North Korea had once admitted but now denies.
Knowing we have no credible threats against North Korea, we now come bearing carrots. President Bush writes a personal letter to Kim Jong Il, in essence entreating him to come clean on his nuclear program so we can proceed to full normalization.
Disabling the plutonium reactor is an achievement and we do gain badly needed intelligence by simply being there on the ground to inspect. There is, however, no hope of North Korea giving up its existing nuclear weapons stockpile, and little assurance that we will find, let alone disable, any clandestine programs. But lacking sticks, we take what we can.
Iraq is a different story. Whatever our subsequent difficulties, our initial success definitively rid the world of Saddam Hussein and his monstrous sons. The Hussein dynasty will not -- as it would have, absent the U.S. invasion -- rebuild, rearm and threaten the world.
The taking down of Saddam led directly to Libya's full nuclear disarmament and, undoubtedly, to Iran's 2003 suspension of weaponization. As for Iraq itself, after three years of disorientation, the U.S. has finally found a winning counterinsurgency strategy.
It took Bush three years to find his general (as it did Lincoln) and turn a losing war into a winnable one. Baghdad and Washington are currently discussing a long-term basing agreement that could give the United States permanent military presence in the region and a close cooperative relationship with the most important country in the Middle East heartland -- a major strategic achievement.
Nonetheless, the pressure on this administration and the next to get out prematurely will remain. There are those for whom our only objective in Iraq is reducing troop levels rather than securing a potentially critical Arab ally in a region of supreme strategic significance.
On North Korea and Iran, with no real options at hand, the Bush administration heads to the finish line doing what Sen. George Aiken once suggested for Vietnam: Declare victory and go home. With no good options available, those decisions are entirely understandable. But if Bush or his successor does an Aiken on Iraq, where success is a real option, history will judge him severely.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
This Is Not Your Land Anymore
An outrageous story of eminent-domain abuse.
By Jonathan V. Last
Tuesday, December 18, 2007 12:01 a.m.
The legal phrase "eminent domain" has become all too familiar to nonlawyers in recent years as the U.S. Supreme Court has gradually expanded the power of municipalities to condemn private property and seize it for "public" use--even if they just end up handing property over to another private party. The court's now infamous Kelo decision (2005) no doubt pleased the city fathers of New London, Conn., who had taken possession of some residential neighborhoods for the sake of private developers. But it outraged nearly everyone else, not least Susette Kelo, the plaintiff whose home was coveted.
Outrage, appropriately, is the sustained effect of Carla Main's "Bulldozed," the case study of another instance of eminent-domain abuse, this time in the working-class town of Freeport, Texas (pop. 13,500), on the Gulf coast. Six years ago, after decades of decline, Freeport decided to revitalize itself by building a private marina on the Old Brazos River, which runs through the center of town. City leaders hoped that the development would attract hotels, restaurants, art galleries and tourists. But to make it all happen, they needed the land of a local family business. "Bulldozed" tells the story of a fight over domain, eminent and otherwise.
Ms. Main begins with the members of the Gore family, whose shrimping business has operated in Freeport since the 1940s. They own 330 feet of riverfront land, where shrimp boats dock and unload, and a state-of-the-art processing plant nearby. The family's company, called Western Seafood, employs more than 50 people and pays Freeport nearly $20,000 in taxes every year. Not that such good citizenry was enough to shield the company from the hazards of municipal overreach.
In March 2002, a group of private investors, led by a man named H. Walker Royall, formed a company called Freeport Waterfront Properties. Six months later, consultants hired by the city released a redevelopment plan--and, amazingly, it recommended a private marina, just what Mr. Royall's investors had hoped for. The city did not open the marina project to competition; it just handed it over to Freeport Waterfront. Conveniently, Mr. Royall sat on the board of Sun Resorts, another company that the city selected, also without competition, this time to manage the marina once it was built.
The cozy arrangements didn't stop there. Freeport agreed to give the private investors $6 million in the form of a no-recourse loan. (The city's annual budget was $13 million.) It promised to cover their cost overruns with a loan of up to $400,000. It gave them a tax abatement. And it limited the investors' financial liability to $250,000 in cash, leaving the city on the hook for other cost overruns.
The only obstacle to this sweetheart deal was Western Seafood. It owned the land where Mr. Royall and his friends wanted to build. The city came up with a clever way around this problem. Claiming eminent domain, it proposed to take only part of the company's land--paying the Gores $260,000 in compensation. But the part the city officially wanted was riverfront land. Without it, Western Seafood wouldn't have access to its shrimpboats, and the "problem" of the rest of Western Seafood's land--expensive property, crowded with buildings and industrial equipment--would take care of itself. The city would get it virtually without paying for it.
The tale gets worse. Freeport was in a position to consider building a marina in the first place only because a "guillotine gate" in the river--insulating boats from hurricanes and storm surges--made Freeport a safe harbor. When the guillotine gate needed modernization several years ago, Ms. Main reports, the city didn't have the money for the $300,000 job. So the Gores gave the city a gift of $150,000. If they hadn't been so generous, the city never would have tried to take their land.
Ms. Main's legal background and reporting skills serve her well as she navigates the Gores' messy, twisting fight against city hall. Her tone is usually judicious, though not always. (Recounting one insincere proposal from the city to create a tiny buffer between Western Seafood and the marina, she exclaims: "Buffer, my ass!") From time to time, she steps away from Freeport to give a primer on eminent domain and the legal arguments surrounding the claims of municipalities on private land.
But "Bulldozed" is at heart a story about trouble in a small town, a sort of eminent-domain version of "In Cold Blood," although it lacks a satisfying conclusion. In 2003, the Gores and Freeport took one another to court and fought a long, rancorous battle. After a series of defeats, the family was seemingly victorious. Freeport abandoned its plan for a private marina--only to unveil a plan for a public marina that would also need much of the Gores' land. As "Bulldozed" closes, the two sides are heading back to the courthouse once more.
By Jonathan V. Last
Tuesday, December 18, 2007 12:01 a.m.
The legal phrase "eminent domain" has become all too familiar to nonlawyers in recent years as the U.S. Supreme Court has gradually expanded the power of municipalities to condemn private property and seize it for "public" use--even if they just end up handing property over to another private party. The court's now infamous Kelo decision (2005) no doubt pleased the city fathers of New London, Conn., who had taken possession of some residential neighborhoods for the sake of private developers. But it outraged nearly everyone else, not least Susette Kelo, the plaintiff whose home was coveted.
Outrage, appropriately, is the sustained effect of Carla Main's "Bulldozed," the case study of another instance of eminent-domain abuse, this time in the working-class town of Freeport, Texas (pop. 13,500), on the Gulf coast. Six years ago, after decades of decline, Freeport decided to revitalize itself by building a private marina on the Old Brazos River, which runs through the center of town. City leaders hoped that the development would attract hotels, restaurants, art galleries and tourists. But to make it all happen, they needed the land of a local family business. "Bulldozed" tells the story of a fight over domain, eminent and otherwise.
Ms. Main begins with the members of the Gore family, whose shrimping business has operated in Freeport since the 1940s. They own 330 feet of riverfront land, where shrimp boats dock and unload, and a state-of-the-art processing plant nearby. The family's company, called Western Seafood, employs more than 50 people and pays Freeport nearly $20,000 in taxes every year. Not that such good citizenry was enough to shield the company from the hazards of municipal overreach.
In March 2002, a group of private investors, led by a man named H. Walker Royall, formed a company called Freeport Waterfront Properties. Six months later, consultants hired by the city released a redevelopment plan--and, amazingly, it recommended a private marina, just what Mr. Royall's investors had hoped for. The city did not open the marina project to competition; it just handed it over to Freeport Waterfront. Conveniently, Mr. Royall sat on the board of Sun Resorts, another company that the city selected, also without competition, this time to manage the marina once it was built.
The cozy arrangements didn't stop there. Freeport agreed to give the private investors $6 million in the form of a no-recourse loan. (The city's annual budget was $13 million.) It promised to cover their cost overruns with a loan of up to $400,000. It gave them a tax abatement. And it limited the investors' financial liability to $250,000 in cash, leaving the city on the hook for other cost overruns.
The only obstacle to this sweetheart deal was Western Seafood. It owned the land where Mr. Royall and his friends wanted to build. The city came up with a clever way around this problem. Claiming eminent domain, it proposed to take only part of the company's land--paying the Gores $260,000 in compensation. But the part the city officially wanted was riverfront land. Without it, Western Seafood wouldn't have access to its shrimpboats, and the "problem" of the rest of Western Seafood's land--expensive property, crowded with buildings and industrial equipment--would take care of itself. The city would get it virtually without paying for it.
The tale gets worse. Freeport was in a position to consider building a marina in the first place only because a "guillotine gate" in the river--insulating boats from hurricanes and storm surges--made Freeport a safe harbor. When the guillotine gate needed modernization several years ago, Ms. Main reports, the city didn't have the money for the $300,000 job. So the Gores gave the city a gift of $150,000. If they hadn't been so generous, the city never would have tried to take their land.
Ms. Main's legal background and reporting skills serve her well as she navigates the Gores' messy, twisting fight against city hall. Her tone is usually judicious, though not always. (Recounting one insincere proposal from the city to create a tiny buffer between Western Seafood and the marina, she exclaims: "Buffer, my ass!") From time to time, she steps away from Freeport to give a primer on eminent domain and the legal arguments surrounding the claims of municipalities on private land.
But "Bulldozed" is at heart a story about trouble in a small town, a sort of eminent-domain version of "In Cold Blood," although it lacks a satisfying conclusion. In 2003, the Gores and Freeport took one another to court and fought a long, rancorous battle. After a series of defeats, the family was seemingly victorious. Freeport abandoned its plan for a private marina--only to unveil a plan for a public marina that would also need much of the Gores' land. As "Bulldozed" closes, the two sides are heading back to the courthouse once more.
Climate Change Rallies, Realities, and Sacrifices
By Paul Driessen
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
The mantra is repeated daily. There is consensus on climate change. Global warming is real. It will be a disaster. Humans are to blame. We have to do something – immediately.
However, the consensus of 100 scientists is undone by one fact, Albert Einstein noted. The United Nations and its Climate Cataclysm army of 15,000 in exotic Bali clearly understood that.
They were not about to let even one fact prevent them from promoting climate scares and a successor to the Kyoto treaty. Gloom-and-doom scientists and bureaucrats owned Bali’s podiums. Radical environmentalists fumed and staged stunts. Al Gore denounced President Bush, repeated myths that enthralled the Academy and Nobel committees, and demanded sacrifices – by others.
Meanwhile, respected climate scientists were barred from panel discussions, censored, silenced and threatened with physical removal by polizei, if they tried to hold a press conference to present peer-reviewed evidence on climate, such as:
Climate change is natural and recurrent. The human factor is small compared to that of the sun and other natural forces. There has been no overall global warming since 1998, and most local and regional warming trends have been offset by nearby cooling. A half-degree of net warming since 1900 (amid a number of ups and downs) does not foreshadow a catastrophe. Recent glacial retreats, sea-level rise and migrations of temperature sensitive species are all within the bounds of known natural variability.
The best approach is to adapt, as our ancestors did. Money and resources devoted to futile climate prevention actions would be better spent on malaria, AIDS, poverty and other pressing problems. Perhaps most important, no country can progress or prosper without abundant, reliable, affordable energy that would be in short supply if draconian climate laws are implemented.
UN alarmists would not tolerate such heresies. They blamed every regional weather and climate blip on human emissions, and trotted out computer scenarios that they insist “prove” we must take drastic actions to avert Armageddon.
But computer models do a poor job of incorporating our still poor grasp of complex and turbulent oceanic, atmospheric and solar processes. They are based on conjecture about future technologies and emissions, and cannot predict climate shifts even one year in the future, much less 50 or 100. They simply produce “scenarios” and “projections” of what might happen under assorted assumptions – enabling alarmists to trumpet the most alarming outputs to support drastic action.
Those scenarios are evidence of climate chaos the way “Jurassic Park” proves dinosaurs can be cloned from DNA trapped in prehistoric amber.
However, Bali negotiators insisted that the world faces a climate crisis that can be averted only by slashing greenhouse gas emissions. Ultimately, they could agreed only to “deep cuts” by 2050, with definitions to be written later by countries that are not about to commit economic suicide. Many environmentalists and members of Congress nonetheless continue to demand CO2 reductions of up to 40% below current emission levels by 2020 – and 80% or more by 2050.
It’ll be easy, they insist. Rubbish, Even a 25-40% reduction over the next twelve years would impose major sacrifices on families, workers and communities, especially poor ones – while leaving no room for population or economic growth.
Fossil fuels provide 85% of the energy we use. Slashing emissions by even 25% means slashing the use of these fuels, paying vastly more to control and sequester emissions, and radically altering lifestyles and living standards. Families will do so voluntarily, or under mandatory rationing systems, enforced by EPA, courts, climate police and “patriotic” snitches. Getting beyond 25% would require a “radical transformation” of life as we know it.
Senator Joe Lieberman admits his “climate protection” bill would cost the United States “hundreds of billions” of dollars. Economist Arthur Laffer calculates that “cap-and-trade” schemes would reduce economic growth and penalize average American families $10,800 in lost income by 2020.
That’s on top of the $2000 in higher energy costs that US families have endured since 1998 – and the 11% extra that USA Today says average households will pay this winter compared to a year ago. Higher energy costs will increase the price of everything we eat, drive, buy and do.
Reaching or exceeding 25% targets could require transformations like these.
Parking your car – and riding a bike. You’d get to work and the grocery in better shape – and guilt-free if you don’t exhale.
Disconnecting air conditioners and setting thermostats to 50 degrees all winter. Swim suits and UnderArmor are excellent substitutes.
Eating all leftovers. Seattle has decreed that by 2009 single-family homes must recycle all table scraps – because their decomposition generates greenhouse gases – or have their garbage collection terminated.
Shutting down coal and gas power plants, and replacing them with new nuclear plants or forests of gargantuan wind turbines. Blanketing Connecticut with turbines could meet New York City’s electricity needs, and covering Texas and Louisiana could satisfy US needs, at least when the wind is blowing, says Rockefeller University professor Jesse Ausubel.
Closing paper mills and factories. Perhaps newly unemployed workers could find jobs in China and other developing countries, where the tough emission standards won’t apply – or in the new carbon-free economy that politicians promise will arise once climate bills are enacted.
Closing dairy and poultry farms. Producing meat accounts for 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions, so this would make both greens and PETA happy.
Adopting “sustainable green technologies,” like the treadle-powered irrigation pumps environmentalists are sending to poor countries, to replace diesel pumps. An Indian villager toiling on his eco-bicycle for three years could offset the CO2 from one jetliner full of environmentalists heading to Bali.
An appropriately green solution would be requiring that climate confabs be via video-conference – from Albania or Zambia, to discourage attendance by bureaucrats and activists. We might also insist that politicians eschew private jets and take Smart Cars to campaign and global warming rallies.
Meanwhile, China is adding the equivalent of another Germany every year to global greenhouse emissions, says climatologist Roger Pielke. Thus, if CO2 really does cause climate change, all these sacrifices might prevent global temperatures from rising 0.2 degrees.
Adapting to whatever heat, cold, floods, droughts and storms nature (or mankind) might bring seems a much saner and less costly course of action.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
The mantra is repeated daily. There is consensus on climate change. Global warming is real. It will be a disaster. Humans are to blame. We have to do something – immediately.
However, the consensus of 100 scientists is undone by one fact, Albert Einstein noted. The United Nations and its Climate Cataclysm army of 15,000 in exotic Bali clearly understood that.
They were not about to let even one fact prevent them from promoting climate scares and a successor to the Kyoto treaty. Gloom-and-doom scientists and bureaucrats owned Bali’s podiums. Radical environmentalists fumed and staged stunts. Al Gore denounced President Bush, repeated myths that enthralled the Academy and Nobel committees, and demanded sacrifices – by others.
Meanwhile, respected climate scientists were barred from panel discussions, censored, silenced and threatened with physical removal by polizei, if they tried to hold a press conference to present peer-reviewed evidence on climate, such as:
Climate change is natural and recurrent. The human factor is small compared to that of the sun and other natural forces. There has been no overall global warming since 1998, and most local and regional warming trends have been offset by nearby cooling. A half-degree of net warming since 1900 (amid a number of ups and downs) does not foreshadow a catastrophe. Recent glacial retreats, sea-level rise and migrations of temperature sensitive species are all within the bounds of known natural variability.
The best approach is to adapt, as our ancestors did. Money and resources devoted to futile climate prevention actions would be better spent on malaria, AIDS, poverty and other pressing problems. Perhaps most important, no country can progress or prosper without abundant, reliable, affordable energy that would be in short supply if draconian climate laws are implemented.
UN alarmists would not tolerate such heresies. They blamed every regional weather and climate blip on human emissions, and trotted out computer scenarios that they insist “prove” we must take drastic actions to avert Armageddon.
But computer models do a poor job of incorporating our still poor grasp of complex and turbulent oceanic, atmospheric and solar processes. They are based on conjecture about future technologies and emissions, and cannot predict climate shifts even one year in the future, much less 50 or 100. They simply produce “scenarios” and “projections” of what might happen under assorted assumptions – enabling alarmists to trumpet the most alarming outputs to support drastic action.
Those scenarios are evidence of climate chaos the way “Jurassic Park” proves dinosaurs can be cloned from DNA trapped in prehistoric amber.
However, Bali negotiators insisted that the world faces a climate crisis that can be averted only by slashing greenhouse gas emissions. Ultimately, they could agreed only to “deep cuts” by 2050, with definitions to be written later by countries that are not about to commit economic suicide. Many environmentalists and members of Congress nonetheless continue to demand CO2 reductions of up to 40% below current emission levels by 2020 – and 80% or more by 2050.
It’ll be easy, they insist. Rubbish, Even a 25-40% reduction over the next twelve years would impose major sacrifices on families, workers and communities, especially poor ones – while leaving no room for population or economic growth.
Fossil fuels provide 85% of the energy we use. Slashing emissions by even 25% means slashing the use of these fuels, paying vastly more to control and sequester emissions, and radically altering lifestyles and living standards. Families will do so voluntarily, or under mandatory rationing systems, enforced by EPA, courts, climate police and “patriotic” snitches. Getting beyond 25% would require a “radical transformation” of life as we know it.
Senator Joe Lieberman admits his “climate protection” bill would cost the United States “hundreds of billions” of dollars. Economist Arthur Laffer calculates that “cap-and-trade” schemes would reduce economic growth and penalize average American families $10,800 in lost income by 2020.
That’s on top of the $2000 in higher energy costs that US families have endured since 1998 – and the 11% extra that USA Today says average households will pay this winter compared to a year ago. Higher energy costs will increase the price of everything we eat, drive, buy and do.
Reaching or exceeding 25% targets could require transformations like these.
Parking your car – and riding a bike. You’d get to work and the grocery in better shape – and guilt-free if you don’t exhale.
Disconnecting air conditioners and setting thermostats to 50 degrees all winter. Swim suits and UnderArmor are excellent substitutes.
Eating all leftovers. Seattle has decreed that by 2009 single-family homes must recycle all table scraps – because their decomposition generates greenhouse gases – or have their garbage collection terminated.
Shutting down coal and gas power plants, and replacing them with new nuclear plants or forests of gargantuan wind turbines. Blanketing Connecticut with turbines could meet New York City’s electricity needs, and covering Texas and Louisiana could satisfy US needs, at least when the wind is blowing, says Rockefeller University professor Jesse Ausubel.
Closing paper mills and factories. Perhaps newly unemployed workers could find jobs in China and other developing countries, where the tough emission standards won’t apply – or in the new carbon-free economy that politicians promise will arise once climate bills are enacted.
Closing dairy and poultry farms. Producing meat accounts for 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions, so this would make both greens and PETA happy.
Adopting “sustainable green technologies,” like the treadle-powered irrigation pumps environmentalists are sending to poor countries, to replace diesel pumps. An Indian villager toiling on his eco-bicycle for three years could offset the CO2 from one jetliner full of environmentalists heading to Bali.
An appropriately green solution would be requiring that climate confabs be via video-conference – from Albania or Zambia, to discourage attendance by bureaucrats and activists. We might also insist that politicians eschew private jets and take Smart Cars to campaign and global warming rallies.
Meanwhile, China is adding the equivalent of another Germany every year to global greenhouse emissions, says climatologist Roger Pielke. Thus, if CO2 really does cause climate change, all these sacrifices might prevent global temperatures from rising 0.2 degrees.
Adapting to whatever heat, cold, floods, droughts and storms nature (or mankind) might bring seems a much saner and less costly course of action.
Academic Intimidation
By Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
There is an article in the current issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education -- the trade publication of the academic world -- about professors being physically intimidated by their students.
"Most of us dread physical confrontation," the author says. "And so these aggressive, and even dangerous, students get passed along, learning that intimidation and implied threats will get them what they want in life."
This professor has been advised, at more than one college, not to let students know where he lives, not to give out his home phone number and to keep his home phone number from being listed.
This is a very different academic world from the one in which I began teaching back in 1962. Over the years, I saw it change before my eyes.
During my first year of teaching, at Douglass College in New Jersey, I was one of the few faculty members who did not invite students to his home. In fact, I was asked by a colleague why I didn't.
"My home is a bachelor apartment" I said, "and that is not the place to invite the young women I am teaching."
His response was: "How did you get to be such an old fogy at such a young age?"
How did we get from there to where professors are being advised to not even have their phone numbers listed?
The answer to that question has implications not only for the academic world but for the society at large and for international relations.
It happened because people who ran colleges and universities were too squeamish to use the power they had, and relied instead on clever evasions to avoid confrontations. They were, as the British say, too clever by half.
"Negotiations" and "flexibility" were considered to be the more sophisticated alternative to confrontation.
Most campuses across the country bought that approach -- and it failed repeatedly on campus after campus, when caving in on one set of student demands led only to new and bigger demands.
The academic world has never fully recovered. Many congratulated themselves on the restoration of "peace" on campus in the 1970s. Almost always, it was the peace of surrender.
In order to appease campus radicals, all sorts of new ideologically oriented courses, programs and departments were created, with an emphasis on teaching victimhood and resentments, often hiring people whose scholarly credentials were meager or even non-existent.
Such courses, programs, and departments are still with us in the 21st century -- not because no one recognizes their intellectual deficiencies but because no one dares to try to get rid of them.
One of the rare exceptions to academic cave-ins around the country during the 1960s was the University of Chicago. When students there seized an administration building, dozens of them were suspended or expelled. That put an end to that.
There is not the slightest reason why academic institutions with far more applicants than they can accept have to put up with disruptions, violence or intimidation. Every student they expel can be replaced immediately by someone on the waiting list.
In case of more serious trouble, they can call in the police. President Nathan Pusey of Harvard did that in 1969, when students there seized an administration building and began releasing confidential information from faculty personnel files to the media.
The Harvard faculty were outraged -- at Pusey. To call the cops onto the sacred soil of Harvard Yard was too much.
It just wasn't politically correct. And, as a later president of Harvard, Lawrence Summers, could tell you, being politically correct can be the difference between remaining president of Harvard and having to give up the office.
Authority in general, and physical force in particular, are anathema to many among the intelligentsia, academic or otherwise. They can always think of some "third way" to avoid hard choices, whether on campus, in society, or among nations.
Moreover, they have little or no interest in the actual track record of those third ways. Having to learn to live with intimidation by their own students is one of the consequences.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
There is an article in the current issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education -- the trade publication of the academic world -- about professors being physically intimidated by their students.
"Most of us dread physical confrontation," the author says. "And so these aggressive, and even dangerous, students get passed along, learning that intimidation and implied threats will get them what they want in life."
This professor has been advised, at more than one college, not to let students know where he lives, not to give out his home phone number and to keep his home phone number from being listed.
This is a very different academic world from the one in which I began teaching back in 1962. Over the years, I saw it change before my eyes.
During my first year of teaching, at Douglass College in New Jersey, I was one of the few faculty members who did not invite students to his home. In fact, I was asked by a colleague why I didn't.
"My home is a bachelor apartment" I said, "and that is not the place to invite the young women I am teaching."
His response was: "How did you get to be such an old fogy at such a young age?"
How did we get from there to where professors are being advised to not even have their phone numbers listed?
The answer to that question has implications not only for the academic world but for the society at large and for international relations.
It happened because people who ran colleges and universities were too squeamish to use the power they had, and relied instead on clever evasions to avoid confrontations. They were, as the British say, too clever by half.
"Negotiations" and "flexibility" were considered to be the more sophisticated alternative to confrontation.
Most campuses across the country bought that approach -- and it failed repeatedly on campus after campus, when caving in on one set of student demands led only to new and bigger demands.
The academic world has never fully recovered. Many congratulated themselves on the restoration of "peace" on campus in the 1970s. Almost always, it was the peace of surrender.
In order to appease campus radicals, all sorts of new ideologically oriented courses, programs and departments were created, with an emphasis on teaching victimhood and resentments, often hiring people whose scholarly credentials were meager or even non-existent.
Such courses, programs, and departments are still with us in the 21st century -- not because no one recognizes their intellectual deficiencies but because no one dares to try to get rid of them.
One of the rare exceptions to academic cave-ins around the country during the 1960s was the University of Chicago. When students there seized an administration building, dozens of them were suspended or expelled. That put an end to that.
There is not the slightest reason why academic institutions with far more applicants than they can accept have to put up with disruptions, violence or intimidation. Every student they expel can be replaced immediately by someone on the waiting list.
In case of more serious trouble, they can call in the police. President Nathan Pusey of Harvard did that in 1969, when students there seized an administration building and began releasing confidential information from faculty personnel files to the media.
The Harvard faculty were outraged -- at Pusey. To call the cops onto the sacred soil of Harvard Yard was too much.
It just wasn't politically correct. And, as a later president of Harvard, Lawrence Summers, could tell you, being politically correct can be the difference between remaining president of Harvard and having to give up the office.
Authority in general, and physical force in particular, are anathema to many among the intelligentsia, academic or otherwise. They can always think of some "third way" to avoid hard choices, whether on campus, in society, or among nations.
Moreover, they have little or no interest in the actual track record of those third ways. Having to learn to live with intimidation by their own students is one of the consequences.
Monday, December 17, 2007
The Unbelievable Tenacity of George W. Bush
By Dinesh D'Souza
Monday, December 17, 2007
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
--Theodore Roosevelt
Listening to the fatuous Al Gore claim his undeserved Nobel Prize and maunder on about how America is ruining the planet makes me realize how fortunate America is to have as its president George W. Bush. Yes, Bush has his ample share of failings. He occasionally speaks at the fifth-grade level. He is too willing to surround himself with cronies and sycophants. An unsupple man, Bush sometimes reminds me of the toy soldier who walks into the wall and keeps going.
Bush's weaknesses, however, are more than compensated for by his one great strength. This is a man with unbelievable tenacity. No American president in my lifetime, not even Reagan, had Bush's guts. Perhaps one would have to go all the way back to Franklin or Teddy Roosevelt to find comparable determination. On the international stage, Bush's stamina recalls that of Churchill. Consider: when Bush was elected in 2000 with the tiniest conceivable margin--a margin so slender it required Supreme Court intervention to place him in the Oval Office--I was sure that Bush's proposed tax cuts were dead. But no: Bush pushed ahead and got most of what he proposed. And the subsequent health of the economy--low interest rates, low unemployment, steady growth--has undoubtedly been nourished by Bush's tax cuts.
Then in 2006, after the midterm debacle, I thought that Bush's Iraq policy was finished. And you could hear the pundits and the newly-elected Democratic congressmen and the pathological Bush-haters gleefully declaring, "Now he's going to have to start pulling out of Iraq." Instead Bush pressed for an increase of 20,000-25,000 troops. Incredibly, he got it. Congress shrieked and howled but went along. The American people were very doubtful, but Bush serenely told them to "wait and see." Bush has seemingly singe-handedly pursued his vision for Iraq even when his allies both at home and abroad have dwindled or lost their nerve. And once again Bush's policy seems to be working. Iraq is becoming more peaceful, and apparently there are Shia and Sunni leaders cooperating with the Americans. The Bush-haters are still with us, but the wind has gone out of the antiwar movement.
Bush has had a tough second term in office. But I think history will be kinder to him than the opinion polls, at least in the past couple of years, have been. When the country looks back at Iraq and sees a standing, even if fragile, democracy, Americans will see that when they became impatient, Bush forged ahead. When they were ready to give up, he was undeterred. And as a consequence the Middle East has its first Muslim democracy, and a pro-American democracy to boot. The lesson of Iraq may well be: Thank God we didn't listen to those advocates of defeat on the left; if we had, it would have been Vietnam all over again.
The diplomat Clare Luce once wrote that history, which has no room for clutter, will remember every president by just one line. I'm not quite sure how Bill Clinton will be remembered: perhaps his only distinguishing mark will be the one that Paula Jones identified. As for Bush, he will go down in history as the president who refused to back down, and if staying the course in Iraq proves to be the right move, then Bush could be remembered as one of America's great presidents.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
--Theodore Roosevelt
Listening to the fatuous Al Gore claim his undeserved Nobel Prize and maunder on about how America is ruining the planet makes me realize how fortunate America is to have as its president George W. Bush. Yes, Bush has his ample share of failings. He occasionally speaks at the fifth-grade level. He is too willing to surround himself with cronies and sycophants. An unsupple man, Bush sometimes reminds me of the toy soldier who walks into the wall and keeps going.
Bush's weaknesses, however, are more than compensated for by his one great strength. This is a man with unbelievable tenacity. No American president in my lifetime, not even Reagan, had Bush's guts. Perhaps one would have to go all the way back to Franklin or Teddy Roosevelt to find comparable determination. On the international stage, Bush's stamina recalls that of Churchill. Consider: when Bush was elected in 2000 with the tiniest conceivable margin--a margin so slender it required Supreme Court intervention to place him in the Oval Office--I was sure that Bush's proposed tax cuts were dead. But no: Bush pushed ahead and got most of what he proposed. And the subsequent health of the economy--low interest rates, low unemployment, steady growth--has undoubtedly been nourished by Bush's tax cuts.
Then in 2006, after the midterm debacle, I thought that Bush's Iraq policy was finished. And you could hear the pundits and the newly-elected Democratic congressmen and the pathological Bush-haters gleefully declaring, "Now he's going to have to start pulling out of Iraq." Instead Bush pressed for an increase of 20,000-25,000 troops. Incredibly, he got it. Congress shrieked and howled but went along. The American people were very doubtful, but Bush serenely told them to "wait and see." Bush has seemingly singe-handedly pursued his vision for Iraq even when his allies both at home and abroad have dwindled or lost their nerve. And once again Bush's policy seems to be working. Iraq is becoming more peaceful, and apparently there are Shia and Sunni leaders cooperating with the Americans. The Bush-haters are still with us, but the wind has gone out of the antiwar movement.
Bush has had a tough second term in office. But I think history will be kinder to him than the opinion polls, at least in the past couple of years, have been. When the country looks back at Iraq and sees a standing, even if fragile, democracy, Americans will see that when they became impatient, Bush forged ahead. When they were ready to give up, he was undeterred. And as a consequence the Middle East has its first Muslim democracy, and a pro-American democracy to boot. The lesson of Iraq may well be: Thank God we didn't listen to those advocates of defeat on the left; if we had, it would have been Vietnam all over again.
The diplomat Clare Luce once wrote that history, which has no room for clutter, will remember every president by just one line. I'm not quite sure how Bill Clinton will be remembered: perhaps his only distinguishing mark will be the one that Paula Jones identified. As for Bush, he will go down in history as the president who refused to back down, and if staying the course in Iraq proves to be the right move, then Bush could be remembered as one of America's great presidents.
Alexander the Mediocre
By Mike S. Adams
Monday, December 17, 2007
Recently, I gave a speech at Bucknell University, during which I urged responsible citizens to consider gun ownership – carefully explaining that certain people ought not to own firearms. I also urged those who would qualify to obtain a concealed carry permit (CCW). Finally, I talked about the need to change gun laws to stop mass murders inside “gun-free zones.”
Alexander Tristan Riley, a sociology professor at Bucknell, was “unable to attend” the talk but, nonetheless, offered a scathing criticism of the event in a letter to The Counterweight, which is Bucknell’s conservative student newspaper. In his letter, Alexander described my ideas on firearms as simple-minded. As an example, he claimed: “(Adams) believes that anyone who thinks that more effective record-keeping of firearms transactions is a good public policy idea is adequately described as ‘statist.’”
In reality, I referred to a woman who could not state unequivocally that a government form should not be required every time a weapon is taken from a gun safe as a “statist.” I added: “And if you cannot answer simple questions about gun control, you may be a statist, too.”
Obviously, I never said that “anyone” opposed to “more effective record-keeping” is a “statist.” This raises the question of whether Alexander Tristan Riley is illiterate or simply a liar. One can only assume the latter since he is writing letters to the editor about events he was “unable to attend.”
Alexander also stated that my idea that MLK Day should be replaced with a John Browning Day was “truly bizarre and ludicrous.” He tried to suggest that my reasoning for Browning Day was based solely on the fact that he invented a firearm responsible for killing more deer in America than any other. He failed to mention that my reasoning was also based on the fact that Browning’s inventions helped us preserve freedom (read: civil rights) for all by winning two world wars. This is approximately two more world wars than MLK helped us win – although I do acknowledge that he was our second greatest civil rights leader.
This kind of reporting by Alexander raises the question of whether he is illiterate or just very simple-minded. One can only assume the latter since he is writing letters to the editor about events he was “unable to attend.”
Alexander was also very upset about the fact that I have my NRA membership listed on my university webpage as a “professional membership.” I put it there because so many of my colleagues in the field have memberships in societies with words like “feminist” and “critical” in the title of the organization. Since those are obviously political groups – critical, for example, means “Marxist” or “communist” – I thought I would put an obviously political group among my “professional membership” listings. This was to see whether any hypocritical sociologists or criminologists would be critical of the NRA but not critical of the “critical.”
Alexander took the bait. I could have explained it all at the lecture had he the courage to attend. Perhaps he could have explained why he characterized me as an “extremist” in his letter. After all, I’m not a member of a communist “professional” organization. I’m only in the NRA – an organization many times larger than the total communist population of the United States.
In addition to calling me an “extremist” Alexander used the term “extremist” to describe the leadership of the NRA, which he ultimately characterized as a “fringe group.” The reason for the tantrum of name-calling was our supposed opposition to “more effective and rational gun policy.” But Alexander nowhere states what “rational gun policy” I oppose.
After attacking both me and the NRA leadership, Alexander attacked the Bucknell conservatives for circulating an email with survey results from a study by Gary Kleck. He said that “an organization made up of students at a university” should “better inform itself” before uncritically repeating the statistics like “gun extremists and bloggers on the Internet.” He added that “experts” who “actually do research on these matters” have found “significant problems with them.” But a cursory examination of his vita shows that he is not one of those sociologists doing “research on these matters.”
Alexander mentioned the notion of “scholarly consensus” in the final sentence of his letter to the editor. But he said nothing about the fact that fifteen refereed publications have shown that CCW laws reduce homicide rates while zero studies show that they increase them. That was really the major theme of the speech that Alexander was “unable to attend.”
But, thank God that just days after my speech a former law enforcement officer with a CCW was “able to attend” church in Colorado when an anti-Christian bigot came in opening fire while in possession of 1000 rounds of ammunition. In stark contrast to the cowardice of a sociologist who cannot attend lectures - or back up his letters that criticize the lectures he missed with relevant facts - she exhibited true courage. After asking her God for guidance, she drew her weapon and calmly felled a psychopath who then ended his own life in humiliation. In the process she certainly saved dozens of innocent lives.
As I said in my talk at Bucknell, we must empower the innocent citizen with a CCW that will help him to protect both self and others. But, perhaps I should have said “her.” Some “men” are simply not up to the task and, hence, too cowardly to even discuss the issue with those willing to return fire, intellectually speaking.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Recently, I gave a speech at Bucknell University, during which I urged responsible citizens to consider gun ownership – carefully explaining that certain people ought not to own firearms. I also urged those who would qualify to obtain a concealed carry permit (CCW). Finally, I talked about the need to change gun laws to stop mass murders inside “gun-free zones.”
Alexander Tristan Riley, a sociology professor at Bucknell, was “unable to attend” the talk but, nonetheless, offered a scathing criticism of the event in a letter to The Counterweight, which is Bucknell’s conservative student newspaper. In his letter, Alexander described my ideas on firearms as simple-minded. As an example, he claimed: “(Adams) believes that anyone who thinks that more effective record-keeping of firearms transactions is a good public policy idea is adequately described as ‘statist.’”
In reality, I referred to a woman who could not state unequivocally that a government form should not be required every time a weapon is taken from a gun safe as a “statist.” I added: “And if you cannot answer simple questions about gun control, you may be a statist, too.”
Obviously, I never said that “anyone” opposed to “more effective record-keeping” is a “statist.” This raises the question of whether Alexander Tristan Riley is illiterate or simply a liar. One can only assume the latter since he is writing letters to the editor about events he was “unable to attend.”
Alexander also stated that my idea that MLK Day should be replaced with a John Browning Day was “truly bizarre and ludicrous.” He tried to suggest that my reasoning for Browning Day was based solely on the fact that he invented a firearm responsible for killing more deer in America than any other. He failed to mention that my reasoning was also based on the fact that Browning’s inventions helped us preserve freedom (read: civil rights) for all by winning two world wars. This is approximately two more world wars than MLK helped us win – although I do acknowledge that he was our second greatest civil rights leader.
This kind of reporting by Alexander raises the question of whether he is illiterate or just very simple-minded. One can only assume the latter since he is writing letters to the editor about events he was “unable to attend.”
Alexander was also very upset about the fact that I have my NRA membership listed on my university webpage as a “professional membership.” I put it there because so many of my colleagues in the field have memberships in societies with words like “feminist” and “critical” in the title of the organization. Since those are obviously political groups – critical, for example, means “Marxist” or “communist” – I thought I would put an obviously political group among my “professional membership” listings. This was to see whether any hypocritical sociologists or criminologists would be critical of the NRA but not critical of the “critical.”
Alexander took the bait. I could have explained it all at the lecture had he the courage to attend. Perhaps he could have explained why he characterized me as an “extremist” in his letter. After all, I’m not a member of a communist “professional” organization. I’m only in the NRA – an organization many times larger than the total communist population of the United States.
In addition to calling me an “extremist” Alexander used the term “extremist” to describe the leadership of the NRA, which he ultimately characterized as a “fringe group.” The reason for the tantrum of name-calling was our supposed opposition to “more effective and rational gun policy.” But Alexander nowhere states what “rational gun policy” I oppose.
After attacking both me and the NRA leadership, Alexander attacked the Bucknell conservatives for circulating an email with survey results from a study by Gary Kleck. He said that “an organization made up of students at a university” should “better inform itself” before uncritically repeating the statistics like “gun extremists and bloggers on the Internet.” He added that “experts” who “actually do research on these matters” have found “significant problems with them.” But a cursory examination of his vita shows that he is not one of those sociologists doing “research on these matters.”
Alexander mentioned the notion of “scholarly consensus” in the final sentence of his letter to the editor. But he said nothing about the fact that fifteen refereed publications have shown that CCW laws reduce homicide rates while zero studies show that they increase them. That was really the major theme of the speech that Alexander was “unable to attend.”
But, thank God that just days after my speech a former law enforcement officer with a CCW was “able to attend” church in Colorado when an anti-Christian bigot came in opening fire while in possession of 1000 rounds of ammunition. In stark contrast to the cowardice of a sociologist who cannot attend lectures - or back up his letters that criticize the lectures he missed with relevant facts - she exhibited true courage. After asking her God for guidance, she drew her weapon and calmly felled a psychopath who then ended his own life in humiliation. In the process she certainly saved dozens of innocent lives.
As I said in my talk at Bucknell, we must empower the innocent citizen with a CCW that will help him to protect both self and others. But, perhaps I should have said “her.” Some “men” are simply not up to the task and, hence, too cowardly to even discuss the issue with those willing to return fire, intellectually speaking.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Single-Issue vs. Comprehensive Conservatism
By David Limbaugh
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Since its emergence as a dominant political force in the '80s, the religious right has been a favorite whipping boy of the mainstream media and political left and a sometimes embarrassment to certain conservative elitists. Yet neither group of critics can deny the electoral power Christian conservatives have wielded.
The group's uncompromising commitment to protecting life and defending America's traditional institutions has been instrumental in beating back the left's relentless assault on our culture. Without its grassroots contributions, we'd be seeing a lot more Ruth Bader Ginsbergs and a lot fewer Antonin Scalias.
But this primary campaign season, because of the competing resumes and platforms of various Republican presidential candidates and the complex interplay of religion and politics that has emerged, I am concerned that Christian conservatives could lose sight of the big picture of conservatism, all of whose principles are vitally important for this nation.
In my view, there's no perfect GOP candidate, but all of the viable Republican candidates are immeasurably preferable to their Democratic counterparts, and we should all support the eventual Republican nominee. But not all Christian conservatives agree.
The venerable Dr. James Dobson, for example, has said he couldn't support Rudy Giuliani. Rudy is not my first choice either, but he's a strong, capable leader who will fervently protect our national security. I pray he'll honor his pledge to appoint constitutionalist judges. Rudy is a far safer bet on life than any Democratic candidate.
Next, speculation exists that some evangelicals wouldn't support Mitt Romney because of his Mormonism. While I believe there are greater differences between Mormonism and mainstream Christianity than some assume, I will certainly support Romney if he is nominated. Again, my reservations concern his recent flips on social issues and how they bear on his authenticity. But if Mitt is the man he presents himself to be, he could make an extraordinary president. If not, he'll still be head and shoulders above the unapologetic socialists on the other ticket.
Some Christian conservatives have criticized Fred Thompson for refusing to endorse a federal ban on abortion. I understand the concern but believe a legitimate conservative (and pro-life) case can be made for Fred's position. Thompson is an inveterate advocate of federalism and state's rights, and his view that the abortion issue should be left to the states as before Roe squares with conservative principles.
But I confess, my main anxiety about Christian conservatives is their seeming willingness to turn a blind eye to Christian pastor Mike Huckabee's decidedly liberal instincts and either his acceptance of or desire to pander to politically correct conventional wisdom.
We get mixed signals on his tax policy, with critics saying he was a big taxer in Arkansas and defenders pointing to his support of the Fair Tax. He has exhibited a Jimmy Carteresque naivete on foreign policy issues, suggesting we can solve our problems with other nations solely with better diplomacy -- as if tyrants and terrorist regimes respond to Golden Rule treatment.
He parrots the Democrat propaganda that President Bush did not extend a hand of bipartisanship to Democrats in his first term or since. He has boarded the left's global-warming train. He's an economic populist who seems to favor yet more state involvement in health care. His record on clemencies is troubling. And, he has nanny-state tendencies, from federal smoking bans to advocating a federal clearinghouse to promote the arts in education. Big government conservatism is oxymoronic.
Don't get me wrong. I think Huckabee is a genuine Christian leader and a decent man whom I'll support, if he's nominated. But I think that on many political issues, he sounds a lot more like a liberal theologian and politician than a conservative one.
Liberal ones invariably translate Jesus's heart for the poor as a mandate for massive wealth redistribution, as if state-coerced transfers of other people's money are acts of Christian compassion. There is nothing compassionate about sapping the human spirit to the detriment of all.
Let's remember that Reagan conservatism, from start to finish, is consonant with Christian values. Abortion may well be the most important issue, but it is not the only one.
Christian conservatives must promote other conservative principles, without which this nation would never have flourished, much less been the freest, strongest and noblest nation in world history.
We must redouble our commitment to free enterprise and fierce opposition to statism, which will destroy the spirit and reality of liberty as surely as abortion destroys babies in the womb. We must defend our borders, safeguard our national security, promote the unique American culture, shrink government spending and regulation, and reduce the federal tax burden.
Finally, as Christian conservatives, let's remember that politics is not the only avenue for championing our values and positively affecting the culture.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Since its emergence as a dominant political force in the '80s, the religious right has been a favorite whipping boy of the mainstream media and political left and a sometimes embarrassment to certain conservative elitists. Yet neither group of critics can deny the electoral power Christian conservatives have wielded.
The group's uncompromising commitment to protecting life and defending America's traditional institutions has been instrumental in beating back the left's relentless assault on our culture. Without its grassroots contributions, we'd be seeing a lot more Ruth Bader Ginsbergs and a lot fewer Antonin Scalias.
But this primary campaign season, because of the competing resumes and platforms of various Republican presidential candidates and the complex interplay of religion and politics that has emerged, I am concerned that Christian conservatives could lose sight of the big picture of conservatism, all of whose principles are vitally important for this nation.
In my view, there's no perfect GOP candidate, but all of the viable Republican candidates are immeasurably preferable to their Democratic counterparts, and we should all support the eventual Republican nominee. But not all Christian conservatives agree.
The venerable Dr. James Dobson, for example, has said he couldn't support Rudy Giuliani. Rudy is not my first choice either, but he's a strong, capable leader who will fervently protect our national security. I pray he'll honor his pledge to appoint constitutionalist judges. Rudy is a far safer bet on life than any Democratic candidate.
Next, speculation exists that some evangelicals wouldn't support Mitt Romney because of his Mormonism. While I believe there are greater differences between Mormonism and mainstream Christianity than some assume, I will certainly support Romney if he is nominated. Again, my reservations concern his recent flips on social issues and how they bear on his authenticity. But if Mitt is the man he presents himself to be, he could make an extraordinary president. If not, he'll still be head and shoulders above the unapologetic socialists on the other ticket.
Some Christian conservatives have criticized Fred Thompson for refusing to endorse a federal ban on abortion. I understand the concern but believe a legitimate conservative (and pro-life) case can be made for Fred's position. Thompson is an inveterate advocate of federalism and state's rights, and his view that the abortion issue should be left to the states as before Roe squares with conservative principles.
But I confess, my main anxiety about Christian conservatives is their seeming willingness to turn a blind eye to Christian pastor Mike Huckabee's decidedly liberal instincts and either his acceptance of or desire to pander to politically correct conventional wisdom.
We get mixed signals on his tax policy, with critics saying he was a big taxer in Arkansas and defenders pointing to his support of the Fair Tax. He has exhibited a Jimmy Carteresque naivete on foreign policy issues, suggesting we can solve our problems with other nations solely with better diplomacy -- as if tyrants and terrorist regimes respond to Golden Rule treatment.
He parrots the Democrat propaganda that President Bush did not extend a hand of bipartisanship to Democrats in his first term or since. He has boarded the left's global-warming train. He's an economic populist who seems to favor yet more state involvement in health care. His record on clemencies is troubling. And, he has nanny-state tendencies, from federal smoking bans to advocating a federal clearinghouse to promote the arts in education. Big government conservatism is oxymoronic.
Don't get me wrong. I think Huckabee is a genuine Christian leader and a decent man whom I'll support, if he's nominated. But I think that on many political issues, he sounds a lot more like a liberal theologian and politician than a conservative one.
Liberal ones invariably translate Jesus's heart for the poor as a mandate for massive wealth redistribution, as if state-coerced transfers of other people's money are acts of Christian compassion. There is nothing compassionate about sapping the human spirit to the detriment of all.
Let's remember that Reagan conservatism, from start to finish, is consonant with Christian values. Abortion may well be the most important issue, but it is not the only one.
Christian conservatives must promote other conservative principles, without which this nation would never have flourished, much less been the freest, strongest and noblest nation in world history.
We must redouble our commitment to free enterprise and fierce opposition to statism, which will destroy the spirit and reality of liberty as surely as abortion destroys babies in the womb. We must defend our borders, safeguard our national security, promote the unique American culture, shrink government spending and regulation, and reduce the federal tax burden.
Finally, as Christian conservatives, let's remember that politics is not the only avenue for championing our values and positively affecting the culture.
Taxing Time for Democrats?
By Michael Barone
Saturday, December 15, 2007
It's been a while since taxes were a potent political issue. It was almost 20 years ago that George H.W. Bush invited voters to "read my lips" and a baker's dozen years since Republicans captured Congress by decrying the Clinton tax increases. George W. Bush did promise to cut taxes, but it didn't help him much in 2000, and the ensuing economic recovery didn't help him much in 2004.
But taxes could be an issue in 2008, as the federal tax structure is poised to change in the next few years.
First, the Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire in 2010, and the Democrats, who seem almost sure to hold or expand their majorities in the next Congress, seem determined not to extend some or all of them. So taxes at least on high earners are likely to rise. And secondly, the alternative minimum tax, passed in 1969 to prevent a handful of millionaires from avoiding income tax altogether, is now slated to hit more than 20 percent of taxpayers. And that percentage is due to rise every year because the AMT is not indexed for inflation.
The paradox is that the same Democrats who want to increase top-bracket income and capital-gains tax rates are desperately eager to spare relatively high earners from the AMT -- so desperate that Senate Democrats agreed to waive the "paygo" rule they reinstated when they took control.
Paygo requires that a tax cut be offset by a tax increase or a spending cut of corresponding dollar amounts. But when the Senate early this month passed its $50 billion AMT "patch" exempting 230 million taxpayers from the AMT for one year, it waived the paygo rule.
House Democrats are simmering, but they will probably have to go along. There's a process argument for waiving paygo, which is that future AMT revenues are fictitious because no Congress will allow the tax to go into effect. But it's nonetheless embarrassing for Democrats to renounce a rule they adopted as a guarantee of their fiscal responsibility.
The reason Democrats risked this embarrassment is that the AMT tends to fall on voters in places with high state and local government spending and taxes -- Democratic places like Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and California.
Taxpayers hit by the AMT can't deduct state and local taxes from their federal income tax bill. Sooner or later, that puts downward political pressure on state and local spending. And that, in turn, threatens the vested interest of a key Democratic constituency, the public employee unions. Democratic voters in suburban New Jersey, for example, who feel far from rich, face a substantial tax increase if they're suddenly covered by the AMT. They may take their revenge on Democratic candidates and on New Jersey public employee union members.
The Democrats' need to get rid of the AMT suggests the possibility of broader tax reform. House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel has put forth such a proposal, with a cut in the corporate tax rate and huge tax increases on very high earners. But it's a nonstarter as long as George W. Bush is in office.
Another approach with more bipartisan appeal would be to combine AMT repeal and extension of the Bush tax cuts with a mass repeal of tax exemptions, along the lines of the 1986 bipartisan tax law.
Meanwhile, in this election cycle, the AMT remains largely invisible to the voters who are threatened by it, and it will remain so unless Congress somehow fails to patch it this year. The more visible issue is whether or to what extent taxes will go up in 2010.
Democrats, conscious of the popularity of some recent governors who have raised taxes (like Mark Warner of Virginia), seem on the surface unfazed by the political risks of tax increases and are preparing to argue that they'll raise taxes only on the rich. But this may be awkward at a time when the budget deficit is rapidly declining and when we face the nontrivial possibility of a recession.
A tax increase in a recession is usually not a good idea. And Republicans will say that when Democrats promise to tax the rich, they end up raising taxes on the ordinary person, as Bill Clinton and the Democratic Congress did in 1993. The Democrats' desperation to patch the AMT and their willingness to break their own paygo rule suggest that they fear the wrath of those New Jersey suburbanites more than they let on.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
It's been a while since taxes were a potent political issue. It was almost 20 years ago that George H.W. Bush invited voters to "read my lips" and a baker's dozen years since Republicans captured Congress by decrying the Clinton tax increases. George W. Bush did promise to cut taxes, but it didn't help him much in 2000, and the ensuing economic recovery didn't help him much in 2004.
But taxes could be an issue in 2008, as the federal tax structure is poised to change in the next few years.
First, the Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire in 2010, and the Democrats, who seem almost sure to hold or expand their majorities in the next Congress, seem determined not to extend some or all of them. So taxes at least on high earners are likely to rise. And secondly, the alternative minimum tax, passed in 1969 to prevent a handful of millionaires from avoiding income tax altogether, is now slated to hit more than 20 percent of taxpayers. And that percentage is due to rise every year because the AMT is not indexed for inflation.
The paradox is that the same Democrats who want to increase top-bracket income and capital-gains tax rates are desperately eager to spare relatively high earners from the AMT -- so desperate that Senate Democrats agreed to waive the "paygo" rule they reinstated when they took control.
Paygo requires that a tax cut be offset by a tax increase or a spending cut of corresponding dollar amounts. But when the Senate early this month passed its $50 billion AMT "patch" exempting 230 million taxpayers from the AMT for one year, it waived the paygo rule.
House Democrats are simmering, but they will probably have to go along. There's a process argument for waiving paygo, which is that future AMT revenues are fictitious because no Congress will allow the tax to go into effect. But it's nonetheless embarrassing for Democrats to renounce a rule they adopted as a guarantee of their fiscal responsibility.
The reason Democrats risked this embarrassment is that the AMT tends to fall on voters in places with high state and local government spending and taxes -- Democratic places like Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and California.
Taxpayers hit by the AMT can't deduct state and local taxes from their federal income tax bill. Sooner or later, that puts downward political pressure on state and local spending. And that, in turn, threatens the vested interest of a key Democratic constituency, the public employee unions. Democratic voters in suburban New Jersey, for example, who feel far from rich, face a substantial tax increase if they're suddenly covered by the AMT. They may take their revenge on Democratic candidates and on New Jersey public employee union members.
The Democrats' need to get rid of the AMT suggests the possibility of broader tax reform. House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel has put forth such a proposal, with a cut in the corporate tax rate and huge tax increases on very high earners. But it's a nonstarter as long as George W. Bush is in office.
Another approach with more bipartisan appeal would be to combine AMT repeal and extension of the Bush tax cuts with a mass repeal of tax exemptions, along the lines of the 1986 bipartisan tax law.
Meanwhile, in this election cycle, the AMT remains largely invisible to the voters who are threatened by it, and it will remain so unless Congress somehow fails to patch it this year. The more visible issue is whether or to what extent taxes will go up in 2010.
Democrats, conscious of the popularity of some recent governors who have raised taxes (like Mark Warner of Virginia), seem on the surface unfazed by the political risks of tax increases and are preparing to argue that they'll raise taxes only on the rich. But this may be awkward at a time when the budget deficit is rapidly declining and when we face the nontrivial possibility of a recession.
A tax increase in a recession is usually not a good idea. And Republicans will say that when Democrats promise to tax the rich, they end up raising taxes on the ordinary person, as Bill Clinton and the Democratic Congress did in 1993. The Democrats' desperation to patch the AMT and their willingness to break their own paygo rule suggest that they fear the wrath of those New Jersey suburbanites more than they let on.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Good Politics? Maybe. Good Policy? Definitely Not!
By David Strom
Friday, December 14, 2007
Congress has taken another substantial step toward passing an Energy bill that could spell disaster for American consumers and manufacturers, ensuring a future of rising energy costs and less economic competitiveness.
Until recently, Republicans had stood firm on opposing the Democratically-controlled Congress’ bill, which would have imposed huge tax increases on oil companies in order to pay for subsidies to promote more “green” alternative energy sources. The original bill passed by the House also includes mandates for utilities to generate 15% of their electricity from renewable sources such as wind, solar, and biomass.
Unfortunately, the opposition in Congress is crumbling to passage of a comprehensive Energy bill. Republicans have forced substantial changes to the bill, stripping the 15% renewable mandate and forcing the Democrats to drop their tax increases.
The politics of this bill are pretty clear: who could possibly oppose more efficient automobiles, buildings, and appliances? And who wouldn’t want the United States to produce more energy through the application of “green” technology?
But still, the bill is a disaster waiting to happen.
The most striking parts of the bill include a mandate to force automobile manufacturers to increase the average fuel economy of their cars by 40%, and a mandate to increase the nation’s consumption of ethanol by sevenfold in the next 15 years. Other changes include an expansion of federal powers to regulate energy efficiency of appliances and commercial buildings.
Unfortunately, the world outside the beltway doesn’t always work by the whim of political leaders. Simply intending to achieve a certain set of goals is no guarantee that the policies set in motion are a good or efficient way to get you there.
Policymakers are ignoring the market—and that means you and me and the rest of us collectively—we are already responding to changes in global energy prices. As prices for fossil fuels, especially oil and natural gas, have skyrocketed due to soaring demand, people and firms are beginning to adjust their behavior to soften the blow of rising prices.
They are already shopping for more fuel efficient cars, and as the demand for them rises, so will the supply. Past experience has shown that forcing automakers to produce fuel efficient cars didn’t make consumers want them any more, but higher fuel prices are likely to change that equation pretty quickly.
The same dynamic applies across the economy: as energy prices increase, people’s behavior will change over time to reduce energy consumption. And because the impetus for change is consumer demand, entrepreneurs will begin to flood the marketplace with goods and services to meet that demand in the cheapest and most efficient way possible.
Of course, the opposite happens when mandates are involved. Consider the Ethanol mandate Congress wants to impose. It not only mandates the increase in Ethanol content in motor fuels, it actually specifies the number of gallons and proportion of what kind of biomass can be used to produce the stuff!
The idea that a bunch of politicians should negotiate in a backroom deal how many gallons of ethanol American should consume in 2022 is absurd on its face. The ethanol industry in its current form only exists because of huge government subsidies and mandates, and without them the entire industry would likely collapse.
But imagine for a moment it didn’t: what if it turned out that ethanol really did have the promise its boosters promise? Wouldn’t we more likely see the technology take off in a free market with competition and private incentives than in the current environment, where government mandates and subsidies distort the market?
What if ethanol or some other alternative fuel really could supplant our current thirst for fossil fuels? In the current economic environment, does anyone doubt that investors would be scrambling to cash in on it? In effect, the need for government mandates and subsidies are proof enough that ethanol is a poor choice for an alternative fuel.
If Congress had really wanted to come up with a coherent energy strategy that relieved the short-term pain of rapidly escalating energy costs and put the United States on the path of a rational energy policy, it could have done two simple things to grease the wheels of the marketplace: 1) change regulations in a manner to promote clean, efficient, and inexpensive nuclear energy production, and 2) reduce or eliminate the barriers to extracting the known huge reserves in fossil fuels in the United States and its coastal waters.
Increased use of nuclear energy would reduce the demand for fossil fuels in the generation of electricity (and could provide a non-polluting source of energy for electric cars, whenever they come). Increased domestic production of fossil fuels would relieve some of the upward pressure in the oil markets as excess demand is accommodated.
Fossil fuels have powered our economic growth over the last century, and they will remain key for at least part of the 21st Century. But the writing is on the wall: our dependence on fossil fuels will need to decrease substantially in the near future. The best way to usher in the next generation of power sources is to let market forces work, unleashing entrepreneurs to seek new ways to meet consumer demands.
That’ll work a darn sight better than have congress mandate the precise number of gallons of ethanol Americans should consume in any given year.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Congress has taken another substantial step toward passing an Energy bill that could spell disaster for American consumers and manufacturers, ensuring a future of rising energy costs and less economic competitiveness.
Until recently, Republicans had stood firm on opposing the Democratically-controlled Congress’ bill, which would have imposed huge tax increases on oil companies in order to pay for subsidies to promote more “green” alternative energy sources. The original bill passed by the House also includes mandates for utilities to generate 15% of their electricity from renewable sources such as wind, solar, and biomass.
Unfortunately, the opposition in Congress is crumbling to passage of a comprehensive Energy bill. Republicans have forced substantial changes to the bill, stripping the 15% renewable mandate and forcing the Democrats to drop their tax increases.
The politics of this bill are pretty clear: who could possibly oppose more efficient automobiles, buildings, and appliances? And who wouldn’t want the United States to produce more energy through the application of “green” technology?
But still, the bill is a disaster waiting to happen.
The most striking parts of the bill include a mandate to force automobile manufacturers to increase the average fuel economy of their cars by 40%, and a mandate to increase the nation’s consumption of ethanol by sevenfold in the next 15 years. Other changes include an expansion of federal powers to regulate energy efficiency of appliances and commercial buildings.
Unfortunately, the world outside the beltway doesn’t always work by the whim of political leaders. Simply intending to achieve a certain set of goals is no guarantee that the policies set in motion are a good or efficient way to get you there.
Policymakers are ignoring the market—and that means you and me and the rest of us collectively—we are already responding to changes in global energy prices. As prices for fossil fuels, especially oil and natural gas, have skyrocketed due to soaring demand, people and firms are beginning to adjust their behavior to soften the blow of rising prices.
They are already shopping for more fuel efficient cars, and as the demand for them rises, so will the supply. Past experience has shown that forcing automakers to produce fuel efficient cars didn’t make consumers want them any more, but higher fuel prices are likely to change that equation pretty quickly.
The same dynamic applies across the economy: as energy prices increase, people’s behavior will change over time to reduce energy consumption. And because the impetus for change is consumer demand, entrepreneurs will begin to flood the marketplace with goods and services to meet that demand in the cheapest and most efficient way possible.
Of course, the opposite happens when mandates are involved. Consider the Ethanol mandate Congress wants to impose. It not only mandates the increase in Ethanol content in motor fuels, it actually specifies the number of gallons and proportion of what kind of biomass can be used to produce the stuff!
The idea that a bunch of politicians should negotiate in a backroom deal how many gallons of ethanol American should consume in 2022 is absurd on its face. The ethanol industry in its current form only exists because of huge government subsidies and mandates, and without them the entire industry would likely collapse.
But imagine for a moment it didn’t: what if it turned out that ethanol really did have the promise its boosters promise? Wouldn’t we more likely see the technology take off in a free market with competition and private incentives than in the current environment, where government mandates and subsidies distort the market?
What if ethanol or some other alternative fuel really could supplant our current thirst for fossil fuels? In the current economic environment, does anyone doubt that investors would be scrambling to cash in on it? In effect, the need for government mandates and subsidies are proof enough that ethanol is a poor choice for an alternative fuel.
If Congress had really wanted to come up with a coherent energy strategy that relieved the short-term pain of rapidly escalating energy costs and put the United States on the path of a rational energy policy, it could have done two simple things to grease the wheels of the marketplace: 1) change regulations in a manner to promote clean, efficient, and inexpensive nuclear energy production, and 2) reduce or eliminate the barriers to extracting the known huge reserves in fossil fuels in the United States and its coastal waters.
Increased use of nuclear energy would reduce the demand for fossil fuels in the generation of electricity (and could provide a non-polluting source of energy for electric cars, whenever they come). Increased domestic production of fossil fuels would relieve some of the upward pressure in the oil markets as excess demand is accommodated.
Fossil fuels have powered our economic growth over the last century, and they will remain key for at least part of the 21st Century. But the writing is on the wall: our dependence on fossil fuels will need to decrease substantially in the near future. The best way to usher in the next generation of power sources is to let market forces work, unleashing entrepreneurs to seek new ways to meet consumer demands.
That’ll work a darn sight better than have congress mandate the precise number of gallons of ethanol Americans should consume in any given year.
Wishy-Washy on Waterboarding
By Jonah Goldberg
Friday, December 14, 2007
On Wednesday, I was invited to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to defend the war on terror. The university is such a hotbed of liberalism, arguably the most PC university in the country (take that, University of Wisconsin!), that my police security detail included two armed bodyguards. Such is the confidence in free speech on campuses today.
A number of left-wing bloggers had attempted to foment an incident. They failed on that front. But they did fill the room with students not easily inclined to agree with conservative arguments.
In an attempt to make it a constructive evening, I tried to appeal to them on their terms, rather than my own.
Fortunately, the news provided ample ammunition. Earlier this week, we learned that congressional leadership, Republicans and Democrats alike, had been informed in 2002 that the CIA had harshly interrogated high-value al-Qaida operatives, using, among other methods, waterboarding. One of the Democrats in the room: Nancy Pelosi, the current speaker of the House.
This is, shall we say, intriguing, since Pelosi and her party have been until recently reaching new heights of sanctimony on the issue of torture and waterboarding.
There "was no objecting, no hand-wringing," an official who was there told the Washington Post. "The attitude was, 'We don't care what you do to those guys as long as you get the information you need to protect the American people.'" Not only did Pelosi not offer a peep of protest, the Washington Post reports that at least two lawmakers (out of only a few present) pressed the administration about whether the methods were "tough enough" to get the job done.
Either Pelosi asked the question herself, or she sat quietly while one of her colleagues inquired whether the screws were being turned tightly enough.
Either way, her defenders say we need to look at the context. This was just after 9/11, and Pelosi was as angry about the attack and as eager to prevent another one as anyone.
Time magazine's liberal columnist Joe Klein writes: "There was fear that we would be attacked again by terrorists, and on a regular basis. Few were thinking clearly about the nature of the threat and how to deal with it." So, what's the big deal?
Well, it's a big deal for a lot of reasons. But the one that left-wingers should take to heart is that you can't rely on your leaders and champions when the buildings collapse, the bombs explode or the planes fall from the sky.
If it's OK for liberal Democrats to condone what they consider to be torture when they're scared and angry, then the lesson is that the only way you can count on Democrats not to be scared and angry is to prevent future 9/11s.
Recall, for example, that John Edwards, the presidential candidate who now calls the war on terror a "bumper sticker" and spits out the word "neocon" in a way only a trial lawyer can, voted for the Patriot Act. As did the Democratic nominee in 2004, John Kerry. As did Hillary Clinton. As did Ted Kennedy and every other Democrat except for Russ Feingold (D-Wis.). (Mary Landrieu was not present for the vote).
Now, I have no problem with the Patriot Act. I don't condone torture, though the waterboarding immediately after 9/11 (at least as described by the Post) doesn't really trouble me either. But we're not talking about me and my right-wing pals. We're talking about good, decent liberals. And if you're the sort of person who thinks George W. Bush and his evil henchmen have stolen our civil liberties and our souls, you need to at least consider the likelihood that in the wake of another 9/11 a President Hillary Clinton or President Barack Obama wouldn't do things very differently. Or, if that's too gloomy for you, comfort yourself in the fact they'd be powerless to do things very differently. In the wake of another 9/11, the voters and Congress would roll right over them.
The point is that terrorism has consequences beyond life and property. It requires a tightening of liberty no one desires. The prevention of terrorism prevents the need, real or perceived, for further tightening. The Pelosi cop-out is that if you're scared and angry, you get a free pass to do things you find morally objectionable. Well, terrorism makes people scared and angry; that's sort of why they call it "terrorism."
The left loves to snicker at Bush's assertion that the war on terror is a war for the freedom of Iraqis and Muslims abroad. However dubious that proposition may be to left, it seems that by their own standards we need to win the war on terror if we are going to better secure freedom at home.
Friday, December 14, 2007
On Wednesday, I was invited to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to defend the war on terror. The university is such a hotbed of liberalism, arguably the most PC university in the country (take that, University of Wisconsin!), that my police security detail included two armed bodyguards. Such is the confidence in free speech on campuses today.
A number of left-wing bloggers had attempted to foment an incident. They failed on that front. But they did fill the room with students not easily inclined to agree with conservative arguments.
In an attempt to make it a constructive evening, I tried to appeal to them on their terms, rather than my own.
Fortunately, the news provided ample ammunition. Earlier this week, we learned that congressional leadership, Republicans and Democrats alike, had been informed in 2002 that the CIA had harshly interrogated high-value al-Qaida operatives, using, among other methods, waterboarding. One of the Democrats in the room: Nancy Pelosi, the current speaker of the House.
This is, shall we say, intriguing, since Pelosi and her party have been until recently reaching new heights of sanctimony on the issue of torture and waterboarding.
There "was no objecting, no hand-wringing," an official who was there told the Washington Post. "The attitude was, 'We don't care what you do to those guys as long as you get the information you need to protect the American people.'" Not only did Pelosi not offer a peep of protest, the Washington Post reports that at least two lawmakers (out of only a few present) pressed the administration about whether the methods were "tough enough" to get the job done.
Either Pelosi asked the question herself, or she sat quietly while one of her colleagues inquired whether the screws were being turned tightly enough.
Either way, her defenders say we need to look at the context. This was just after 9/11, and Pelosi was as angry about the attack and as eager to prevent another one as anyone.
Time magazine's liberal columnist Joe Klein writes: "There was fear that we would be attacked again by terrorists, and on a regular basis. Few were thinking clearly about the nature of the threat and how to deal with it." So, what's the big deal?
Well, it's a big deal for a lot of reasons. But the one that left-wingers should take to heart is that you can't rely on your leaders and champions when the buildings collapse, the bombs explode or the planes fall from the sky.
If it's OK for liberal Democrats to condone what they consider to be torture when they're scared and angry, then the lesson is that the only way you can count on Democrats not to be scared and angry is to prevent future 9/11s.
Recall, for example, that John Edwards, the presidential candidate who now calls the war on terror a "bumper sticker" and spits out the word "neocon" in a way only a trial lawyer can, voted for the Patriot Act. As did the Democratic nominee in 2004, John Kerry. As did Hillary Clinton. As did Ted Kennedy and every other Democrat except for Russ Feingold (D-Wis.). (Mary Landrieu was not present for the vote).
Now, I have no problem with the Patriot Act. I don't condone torture, though the waterboarding immediately after 9/11 (at least as described by the Post) doesn't really trouble me either. But we're not talking about me and my right-wing pals. We're talking about good, decent liberals. And if you're the sort of person who thinks George W. Bush and his evil henchmen have stolen our civil liberties and our souls, you need to at least consider the likelihood that in the wake of another 9/11 a President Hillary Clinton or President Barack Obama wouldn't do things very differently. Or, if that's too gloomy for you, comfort yourself in the fact they'd be powerless to do things very differently. In the wake of another 9/11, the voters and Congress would roll right over them.
The point is that terrorism has consequences beyond life and property. It requires a tightening of liberty no one desires. The prevention of terrorism prevents the need, real or perceived, for further tightening. The Pelosi cop-out is that if you're scared and angry, you get a free pass to do things you find morally objectionable. Well, terrorism makes people scared and angry; that's sort of why they call it "terrorism."
The left loves to snicker at Bush's assertion that the war on terror is a war for the freedom of Iraqis and Muslims abroad. However dubious that proposition may be to left, it seems that by their own standards we need to win the war on terror if we are going to better secure freedom at home.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Revisit the Clinton Record?
By Brent Bozell III
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
One of the Man from Hope's consistently amazing lines is that the press doesn't offer the Clintons enough credit for all their good works. The latest example came on the trail in Keene, N.H., where the Associated Press found him whining about how the press hasn't underlined the vast chasm in experience between his wife and Barack Obama. "Bill Clinton said Tuesday that if reporters covered the candidates' public records better, his wife's presidential bid would be far ahead of her rivals," reported the AP.
Clinton obviously believes his presidency was a Golden Era, a time when peace and prosperity graced America. The Clintons want the press to replay a sort of glowing Harry and Linda Thomason propaganda movie about The Way They Were, with a soundtrack by Barbra Streisand.
Oh, baloney. The last thing Bill or his wife want is for the press to scrutinize their public records. The media have been absolutely AWOL on this front for 15 years. He knows it, just as he knows that his bellyaching about the press will also succeed in keeping them at bay.
How easy it would be to make a list of all the things the press could do to clear the cobwebs with thorough investigations (as opposed to the infrequent and incomplete spurt of a few negative stories). Reporters could draw up a quick list of "old news" about Hillary Clinton's record of public malfeasance that Bill knows full well have never been resolved:
1. Hillary ordering around the White House staff to fire seven workers in the White House Travel Office for financial mismanagement, with Billy Dale accused of embezzlement. Hillary then lied to a grand jury about how she was not really involved in the firing scheme, even though staffers were writing there would be "hell to pay" if they didn't do Hillary's bidding. Billy Dale's life was ruined. Two years later, it took a jury two hours to acquit him of all charges. Why did she do that? What would voters think, Mr. President?
2. Hillary making a mysterious $100,000 profit off a $1,000 investment in cattle futures with Tyson Foods lawyer Jim Blair making her trades. Was this a bribe for the governor's wife? It certainly didn't fit Hillary's first fairytale explanation: that she made the trades just reading the Wall Street Journal. Would more focus on this still-unresolved scandal help Hillary's campaign, Mr. President?
3. Hillary's staffers rifling through Vince Foster's office for documents in the hours after Foster's death in Fort Marcy Park. One man seen leaving the scene with documents was White House aide and Hillary protege Craig Livingstone. What was he taking away? Why won't anyone in your administration give an honest answer, Mr. President?
4. Hillary's Rose Law Firm records "disappeared," only to reappear in the White House residence after years of requests for documents from the independent counsel investigating her lawyering for her corrupt business partner Jim McDougal. What were they doing right outside Hillary's private office, Mr. President?
5. Hillary demanding the need for a White House database of friends and enemies. The Clinton White House was found to be in possession of over 1,000 FBI files of Republican White House employees. At the center of the controversy again: Craig Livingstone, who told friends he was Hillary's hire. Why were they there? How were they used?
In each of these cases -- and so many more! -- the Clinton-adoring media pulled a collective hamstring and retired before the scandal was ever resolved.
According to the AP, Clinton also said "his wife's bipartisan work in the Senate proves she can accomplish her campaign's message of change, and that records matter more than rhetoric." But Hillary couldn't even get her massive health-care plan through a Democratic House and Senate. In Carl Bernstein's biography, he reported Hillary made enemies among Senate Democrats like Daniel Patrick Moynihan by threatening to "demonize" them if they didn't swallow her health plan whole. Does that sound like a formula for bipartisan rule in 2009?
Looking at Hillary's public record would also mean taking a serious look at her very liberal Senate voting record. She has a perfect 100 pro-abortion score with NARAL Pro-Choice America. Except for "gay marriage," she's pretty much perfect with the gay Human Rights Campaign lobby. She gets an F from the National Rifle Association. On fiscal issues, she gets an F from the National Taxpayers Union, a 14-percent score from Citizens Against Government Waste, and only a 6.7 percent score from Americans for Tax Reform. Her lifetime American Conservative Union rating is 9 percent.
At every turn, whether it is scandalous behavior or a scandalously liberal voting record, Bill Clinton knows full well that if the press were really focusing "like a laser beam" on Hillary's past, her poll ratings would be dropping, not skyrocketing.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
One of the Man from Hope's consistently amazing lines is that the press doesn't offer the Clintons enough credit for all their good works. The latest example came on the trail in Keene, N.H., where the Associated Press found him whining about how the press hasn't underlined the vast chasm in experience between his wife and Barack Obama. "Bill Clinton said Tuesday that if reporters covered the candidates' public records better, his wife's presidential bid would be far ahead of her rivals," reported the AP.
Clinton obviously believes his presidency was a Golden Era, a time when peace and prosperity graced America. The Clintons want the press to replay a sort of glowing Harry and Linda Thomason propaganda movie about The Way They Were, with a soundtrack by Barbra Streisand.
Oh, baloney. The last thing Bill or his wife want is for the press to scrutinize their public records. The media have been absolutely AWOL on this front for 15 years. He knows it, just as he knows that his bellyaching about the press will also succeed in keeping them at bay.
How easy it would be to make a list of all the things the press could do to clear the cobwebs with thorough investigations (as opposed to the infrequent and incomplete spurt of a few negative stories). Reporters could draw up a quick list of "old news" about Hillary Clinton's record of public malfeasance that Bill knows full well have never been resolved:
1. Hillary ordering around the White House staff to fire seven workers in the White House Travel Office for financial mismanagement, with Billy Dale accused of embezzlement. Hillary then lied to a grand jury about how she was not really involved in the firing scheme, even though staffers were writing there would be "hell to pay" if they didn't do Hillary's bidding. Billy Dale's life was ruined. Two years later, it took a jury two hours to acquit him of all charges. Why did she do that? What would voters think, Mr. President?
2. Hillary making a mysterious $100,000 profit off a $1,000 investment in cattle futures with Tyson Foods lawyer Jim Blair making her trades. Was this a bribe for the governor's wife? It certainly didn't fit Hillary's first fairytale explanation: that she made the trades just reading the Wall Street Journal. Would more focus on this still-unresolved scandal help Hillary's campaign, Mr. President?
3. Hillary's staffers rifling through Vince Foster's office for documents in the hours after Foster's death in Fort Marcy Park. One man seen leaving the scene with documents was White House aide and Hillary protege Craig Livingstone. What was he taking away? Why won't anyone in your administration give an honest answer, Mr. President?
4. Hillary's Rose Law Firm records "disappeared," only to reappear in the White House residence after years of requests for documents from the independent counsel investigating her lawyering for her corrupt business partner Jim McDougal. What were they doing right outside Hillary's private office, Mr. President?
5. Hillary demanding the need for a White House database of friends and enemies. The Clinton White House was found to be in possession of over 1,000 FBI files of Republican White House employees. At the center of the controversy again: Craig Livingstone, who told friends he was Hillary's hire. Why were they there? How were they used?
In each of these cases -- and so many more! -- the Clinton-adoring media pulled a collective hamstring and retired before the scandal was ever resolved.
According to the AP, Clinton also said "his wife's bipartisan work in the Senate proves she can accomplish her campaign's message of change, and that records matter more than rhetoric." But Hillary couldn't even get her massive health-care plan through a Democratic House and Senate. In Carl Bernstein's biography, he reported Hillary made enemies among Senate Democrats like Daniel Patrick Moynihan by threatening to "demonize" them if they didn't swallow her health plan whole. Does that sound like a formula for bipartisan rule in 2009?
Looking at Hillary's public record would also mean taking a serious look at her very liberal Senate voting record. She has a perfect 100 pro-abortion score with NARAL Pro-Choice America. Except for "gay marriage," she's pretty much perfect with the gay Human Rights Campaign lobby. She gets an F from the National Rifle Association. On fiscal issues, she gets an F from the National Taxpayers Union, a 14-percent score from Citizens Against Government Waste, and only a 6.7 percent score from Americans for Tax Reform. Her lifetime American Conservative Union rating is 9 percent.
At every turn, whether it is scandalous behavior or a scandalously liberal voting record, Bill Clinton knows full well that if the press were really focusing "like a laser beam" on Hillary's past, her poll ratings would be dropping, not skyrocketing.
Waterboarding-Gate
By Rich Galen
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
It came to light this past week that the current Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca) was one of several Members of Congress who were briefed on the kinds of "enhanced interrogation techniques" which have come under so much recent Congressional scrutiny and have been the subject of so much recent Liberal hand-wringing.
According to the Washington Post, Pelosi may have been joined by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) who is now the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Although, the juxtaposition of the name "Jay Rockefeller" and the word "Intelligence" has caused many thousands of dollars worth of beer to be wasted on Capitol Hill as it came spurting out of the noses of generations of Senate staffers of both parties.
Post writers Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen described the meeting: "Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said."
In the next graf:
"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.
Now, let's play a mind-game. Let's pretend that the Speaker of the House is not Nancy Pelosi Democrat of San Francisco; but Newt Gingrich Republican of suburban Atlanta.
Imagine the shrieks of outrage, from House Democrats as they, quaking with righteous indignation in the Well of the House, demanded - DEMANDED - to know what did Newt know about waterboarding and when did he know it.
WATERBOARDING-GATE!
Democratic staffers clamoring to have their boss be the first to file charges (for conduct unbecoming or something … anything) against Newt would make the House Ethics Committee office look like the run-on-the-bank scene from "It's a Wonderful Life."
MoveOn.org and its client-state the Democratic National Committee would be apoplectic in their outrage that the Speaker could have known about such interrogation techniques and not have taken immediate steps to shut it down.
Further, there would be riots in the press galleries …
I almost wrote "hunger strikes" but I have been around reporters long enough to understand that love of food ranks second only to love of the clause in the First Amendment dealing with freedom of the press - and a darned close second at that.
… if Newt didn't immediately divulge who the "two lawmakers" were who "asked the CIA to push harder" and which member of the Congressional delegation had asked "if the methods were tough enough."
Questioners in the 1,857th candidate debate would grill the Republican Presidential candidates to determine - perhaps by asking for a show of hands - if they supported Newt's complicity in keeping waterboarding secret from the rest of Congress and, thus, the American people.
But, alas, nothing of the sort has, or will, happen because the Speaker of the House is not Newt Gingrich, but Nancy Pelosi.
The Post reported that while she now believes, that at the time, the techniques were still in the planning stage:
"Pelosi declined to comment directly on her reaction to the classified briefings. But a congressional source … said the California lawmaker did recall discussions about enhanced interrogation … and acknowledged that Pelosi did not raise objections at the time."
Why now and not then? Partisan politics.
There was no partisan gain in objecting to those techniques in the months following 9/11 and so she didn't. As we have moved farther way, it has become politically safe to protest, no matter how dangerous the policy, security, or intelligence implications.
That, in a nutshell, defines the Politics of Pelosi: "Nothing trumps partisan politics."
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
It came to light this past week that the current Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca) was one of several Members of Congress who were briefed on the kinds of "enhanced interrogation techniques" which have come under so much recent Congressional scrutiny and have been the subject of so much recent Liberal hand-wringing.
According to the Washington Post, Pelosi may have been joined by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) who is now the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Although, the juxtaposition of the name "Jay Rockefeller" and the word "Intelligence" has caused many thousands of dollars worth of beer to be wasted on Capitol Hill as it came spurting out of the noses of generations of Senate staffers of both parties.
Post writers Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen described the meeting: "Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said."
In the next graf:
"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.
Now, let's play a mind-game. Let's pretend that the Speaker of the House is not Nancy Pelosi Democrat of San Francisco; but Newt Gingrich Republican of suburban Atlanta.
Imagine the shrieks of outrage, from House Democrats as they, quaking with righteous indignation in the Well of the House, demanded - DEMANDED - to know what did Newt know about waterboarding and when did he know it.
WATERBOARDING-GATE!
Democratic staffers clamoring to have their boss be the first to file charges (for conduct unbecoming or something … anything) against Newt would make the House Ethics Committee office look like the run-on-the-bank scene from "It's a Wonderful Life."
MoveOn.org and its client-state the Democratic National Committee would be apoplectic in their outrage that the Speaker could have known about such interrogation techniques and not have taken immediate steps to shut it down.
Further, there would be riots in the press galleries …
I almost wrote "hunger strikes" but I have been around reporters long enough to understand that love of food ranks second only to love of the clause in the First Amendment dealing with freedom of the press - and a darned close second at that.
… if Newt didn't immediately divulge who the "two lawmakers" were who "asked the CIA to push harder" and which member of the Congressional delegation had asked "if the methods were tough enough."
Questioners in the 1,857th candidate debate would grill the Republican Presidential candidates to determine - perhaps by asking for a show of hands - if they supported Newt's complicity in keeping waterboarding secret from the rest of Congress and, thus, the American people.
But, alas, nothing of the sort has, or will, happen because the Speaker of the House is not Newt Gingrich, but Nancy Pelosi.
The Post reported that while she now believes, that at the time, the techniques were still in the planning stage:
"Pelosi declined to comment directly on her reaction to the classified briefings. But a congressional source … said the California lawmaker did recall discussions about enhanced interrogation … and acknowledged that Pelosi did not raise objections at the time."
Why now and not then? Partisan politics.
There was no partisan gain in objecting to those techniques in the months following 9/11 and so she didn't. As we have moved farther way, it has become politically safe to protest, no matter how dangerous the policy, security, or intelligence implications.
That, in a nutshell, defines the Politics of Pelosi: "Nothing trumps partisan politics."
Racial Hoaxes and the NAACP
By Walter E. Williams
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Last May, firefighters at a Baltimore, Md., fire station came under scrutiny for displaying a deer with an afro wig, gold tooth, gold chain and a cigarette hanging from its mouth.
Marvin "Doc" Cheatham, president of the Baltimore chapter of the NAACP, went ballistic, charging, "There is now and has been a culture of racism and white supremacy within the Baltimore City Fire Department."
As it turns out, it was a black fireman who dressed up the critter. Cheatham refused to apologize for his accusations of fire department racism, maintaining "there is now and has been a culture of racism and white supremacy within the Baltimore City Fire Department."
On Nov. 21, a hangman's noose was found at the fire station with a note, "We can't hang the cheaters, but we can hang the failures. No EMT-1, NO JOB." The noose and note turned up on the heels of an investigation into allegations of cheating on the test that emergency medical technicians must take for certification.
Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon, a black, in a written statement said, "I am outraged by this deplorable act of hatred and intimidation. Threats and racial attacks are unacceptable anywhere, especially in a firehouse." Doc Cheatham said, "We're going to demand that this be handled as a hate crime. This thing really needs to end here in Baltimore city." The incident prompted a federal investigation.
Last week, Donald Maynard, a black firefighter-paramedic, confessed to having placed the noose, note and drawing depicting a lynching on a bunk in the firehouse. City officials said Maynard was recently suspended, prior to his confession, from the department Friday for failing to meet requirements for advanced life-saving training. A spokesman for Mayor Dixon said there would be no criminal charges filed.
In response to Maynard's confession, NAACP President Cheatham still blamed white racism, saying, "It really saddens us to hear that evidently things have reached a stage that even an African-American does an injustice to himself and his own people as a result of a negative culture in that department."
Doc Cheatham is a poster boy for demonstrating a much larger problem, namely that the once proud and useful NAACP has outlived that usefulness and has in some instances become an impediment to black progress. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a black liberal-to-moderate Washington-based think-tank, reported that 88 percent of blacks favored educational choice plans. A Gallup Poll found 72 percent of blacks support school choice. The NAACP, acting as handmaidens for the teachers' unions, is solidly against school vouchers. A Gallup Poll shows 44 percent of blacks are for the death penalty and 49 percent against it, but the NAACP is solidly against it.
The major problems confronting a large segment of the black community have little or nothing to do with racism -- problems such as unprecedented illegitimacy, family breakdown, fraudulent education, crime and rampant social pathology. If white people became angels tomorrow, it would do nothing to solve problems that can only be solved by blacks.
But I'm somewhat optimistic. More and more blacks are seeing through race hustlers such as Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Doc Cheatham. An even more optimistic note is the financial decline of the NAACP. Declining black support is good evidence that the civil rights struggle is over and won. That's not to say there are not major problems but they are not civil rights problems.
Today, most civil rights organizations get their financial support from white businesses and foundations caving in to intimidation or seeking to sooth feelings of guilt. For them, I have a cheaper alternative, "Proclamation of Amnesty and Pardon Granted to All Persons of European Descent," available at walterewilliams.com.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Last May, firefighters at a Baltimore, Md., fire station came under scrutiny for displaying a deer with an afro wig, gold tooth, gold chain and a cigarette hanging from its mouth.
Marvin "Doc" Cheatham, president of the Baltimore chapter of the NAACP, went ballistic, charging, "There is now and has been a culture of racism and white supremacy within the Baltimore City Fire Department."
As it turns out, it was a black fireman who dressed up the critter. Cheatham refused to apologize for his accusations of fire department racism, maintaining "there is now and has been a culture of racism and white supremacy within the Baltimore City Fire Department."
On Nov. 21, a hangman's noose was found at the fire station with a note, "We can't hang the cheaters, but we can hang the failures. No EMT-1, NO JOB." The noose and note turned up on the heels of an investigation into allegations of cheating on the test that emergency medical technicians must take for certification.
Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon, a black, in a written statement said, "I am outraged by this deplorable act of hatred and intimidation. Threats and racial attacks are unacceptable anywhere, especially in a firehouse." Doc Cheatham said, "We're going to demand that this be handled as a hate crime. This thing really needs to end here in Baltimore city." The incident prompted a federal investigation.
Last week, Donald Maynard, a black firefighter-paramedic, confessed to having placed the noose, note and drawing depicting a lynching on a bunk in the firehouse. City officials said Maynard was recently suspended, prior to his confession, from the department Friday for failing to meet requirements for advanced life-saving training. A spokesman for Mayor Dixon said there would be no criminal charges filed.
In response to Maynard's confession, NAACP President Cheatham still blamed white racism, saying, "It really saddens us to hear that evidently things have reached a stage that even an African-American does an injustice to himself and his own people as a result of a negative culture in that department."
Doc Cheatham is a poster boy for demonstrating a much larger problem, namely that the once proud and useful NAACP has outlived that usefulness and has in some instances become an impediment to black progress. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a black liberal-to-moderate Washington-based think-tank, reported that 88 percent of blacks favored educational choice plans. A Gallup Poll found 72 percent of blacks support school choice. The NAACP, acting as handmaidens for the teachers' unions, is solidly against school vouchers. A Gallup Poll shows 44 percent of blacks are for the death penalty and 49 percent against it, but the NAACP is solidly against it.
The major problems confronting a large segment of the black community have little or nothing to do with racism -- problems such as unprecedented illegitimacy, family breakdown, fraudulent education, crime and rampant social pathology. If white people became angels tomorrow, it would do nothing to solve problems that can only be solved by blacks.
But I'm somewhat optimistic. More and more blacks are seeing through race hustlers such as Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Doc Cheatham. An even more optimistic note is the financial decline of the NAACP. Declining black support is good evidence that the civil rights struggle is over and won. That's not to say there are not major problems but they are not civil rights problems.
Today, most civil rights organizations get their financial support from white businesses and foundations caving in to intimidation or seeking to sooth feelings of guilt. For them, I have a cheaper alternative, "Proclamation of Amnesty and Pardon Granted to All Persons of European Descent," available at walterewilliams.com.
So are Duke lacrosse players as black as Obama?
By Jon Sanders
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Suffice for it to say that American "liberals" have some very strange ideas about race and gender.
For example, when civil-rights activist and former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young, who is black, can argue that Sen. Hillary Clinton, who is white, is more qualified for president than Sen. Barack Obama, who is black, on the basis that her husband, former president Bill Clinton, who is white, is "as black as Obama," and this entire exercise in race equivocation is taken by his audience as a compelling argument in favor of a candidate for president – well, this was already bizarre enough before Young made his crack about Clinton (Bill, that is) probably having "gone with" (in the beyond-intern sense) "more black women than Obama." At that point a marker was laid down in American racial-politics silliness.
One hopes it was the nadir, the point of terminal battiness beyond which things can do nothing but improve. But so far every time it seems we've finally reached the bottom, we haven't.
So even if this isn't race-silliness rock bottom, what are we to make of the idea of the black man who isn't blacker than the white wife of the white man who's "gone with" some black women? This notion seems to be a (pardon the expression) whitewashing of the old anti-miscegenation "one-drop rule" such that now one rumored tryst makes a white person black, an idea that is then imbued with transitive properties.
It seems so, but is that actually the case? Would Young also have joked that the Duke lacrosse players accused in the infamous hoax were "as black as" Obama, or nearly so, given that they had hired a black stripper? Because last year, Duke visiting professor and author Timothy B. Tyson wrote in The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., that "regardless of the truth of the most serious charges," the "spirit of the lynch mob" had lived in the house of the notorious party – that being "rich white boys hiring black 'exotic dancers'," the lacrosse players were upholding a "racial caste system" just like when "white men kept black concubines and mistresses and raped black women at will."
No, surely not — no one would say the lacrosse players were "as black as" Obama, let alone that Clinton harbored "the spirit of the lynch mob." Instead, a shifting standard seems to be operative, which must have mutated out of the Left's racial politics over the past few decades, which is derided by the well-known term "the race card." As we all know, nothing can trump the race card, which is usually just fine to liberals playing games with other people's lives and careers, but what to do when their political opponents hold it?
Initially that proved no problem. A black person who wasn't a political liberal was simply disqualified from being black. Feminists adopted the same practice to disqualify conservative women.
This approach colored American liberals' view of diversity — race, gender, etc. as proxies for political liberalism — which they began enforcing across the nation everywhere they held power. Anyone who opposed the quota mentality this approach fostered was accused of racism, sexism, ad nauseam (that is, hit with the respective trump cards). It was tidily done, disposing of their criticisms without even having to touch on the challenge that diversity ought to include diverse ideas.
It worked until this campaign season. Both parties field arrays of candidates exhibiting their approaches to diversity. Republican candidates differ on the proper roles of government, differ widely in religious belief (frontrunners include a Catholic, a Mormon, and a Baptist), but they all happen to be white men. Democrats have nearly indistinguishable philosophies of government but are a mix of races and genders.
Of the Democrat frontrunners, Obama holds the race card, Clinton the gender card, while John Edwards is left trying to play a class card. Supporters of each are struggling against the new reality that the favored old disqualification tack doesn't work, since they're all liberals. Trying to navigate this awkward political reality without dashing the diversity canards has led to moments of high comedy: Young arguing for Clinton being "as black as Obama," Michelle Obama touting her husband as a better candidate for women than Clinton because he's "a man comfortable with strong women in his life," and John Edwards' supporters touting him as potentially the "first woman president."
A revelation of Edwards' bona fides as a black woman seems inevitable. In the meantime, suffice for it to say that American liberals have some very strange ideas about race and gender.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Suffice for it to say that American "liberals" have some very strange ideas about race and gender.
For example, when civil-rights activist and former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young, who is black, can argue that Sen. Hillary Clinton, who is white, is more qualified for president than Sen. Barack Obama, who is black, on the basis that her husband, former president Bill Clinton, who is white, is "as black as Obama," and this entire exercise in race equivocation is taken by his audience as a compelling argument in favor of a candidate for president – well, this was already bizarre enough before Young made his crack about Clinton (Bill, that is) probably having "gone with" (in the beyond-intern sense) "more black women than Obama." At that point a marker was laid down in American racial-politics silliness.
One hopes it was the nadir, the point of terminal battiness beyond which things can do nothing but improve. But so far every time it seems we've finally reached the bottom, we haven't.
So even if this isn't race-silliness rock bottom, what are we to make of the idea of the black man who isn't blacker than the white wife of the white man who's "gone with" some black women? This notion seems to be a (pardon the expression) whitewashing of the old anti-miscegenation "one-drop rule" such that now one rumored tryst makes a white person black, an idea that is then imbued with transitive properties.
It seems so, but is that actually the case? Would Young also have joked that the Duke lacrosse players accused in the infamous hoax were "as black as" Obama, or nearly so, given that they had hired a black stripper? Because last year, Duke visiting professor and author Timothy B. Tyson wrote in The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., that "regardless of the truth of the most serious charges," the "spirit of the lynch mob" had lived in the house of the notorious party – that being "rich white boys hiring black 'exotic dancers'," the lacrosse players were upholding a "racial caste system" just like when "white men kept black concubines and mistresses and raped black women at will."
No, surely not — no one would say the lacrosse players were "as black as" Obama, let alone that Clinton harbored "the spirit of the lynch mob." Instead, a shifting standard seems to be operative, which must have mutated out of the Left's racial politics over the past few decades, which is derided by the well-known term "the race card." As we all know, nothing can trump the race card, which is usually just fine to liberals playing games with other people's lives and careers, but what to do when their political opponents hold it?
Initially that proved no problem. A black person who wasn't a political liberal was simply disqualified from being black. Feminists adopted the same practice to disqualify conservative women.
This approach colored American liberals' view of diversity — race, gender, etc. as proxies for political liberalism — which they began enforcing across the nation everywhere they held power. Anyone who opposed the quota mentality this approach fostered was accused of racism, sexism, ad nauseam (that is, hit with the respective trump cards). It was tidily done, disposing of their criticisms without even having to touch on the challenge that diversity ought to include diverse ideas.
It worked until this campaign season. Both parties field arrays of candidates exhibiting their approaches to diversity. Republican candidates differ on the proper roles of government, differ widely in religious belief (frontrunners include a Catholic, a Mormon, and a Baptist), but they all happen to be white men. Democrats have nearly indistinguishable philosophies of government but are a mix of races and genders.
Of the Democrat frontrunners, Obama holds the race card, Clinton the gender card, while John Edwards is left trying to play a class card. Supporters of each are struggling against the new reality that the favored old disqualification tack doesn't work, since they're all liberals. Trying to navigate this awkward political reality without dashing the diversity canards has led to moments of high comedy: Young arguing for Clinton being "as black as Obama," Michelle Obama touting her husband as a better candidate for women than Clinton because he's "a man comfortable with strong women in his life," and John Edwards' supporters touting him as potentially the "first woman president."
A revelation of Edwards' bona fides as a black woman seems inevitable. In the meantime, suffice for it to say that American liberals have some very strange ideas about race and gender.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Death and Whoopi's Taxes
Goldberg begs to differ with Warren Buffet.
Wall Street Journal
Tuesday, December 11, 2007 10:00 a.m.
We don't normally look to Tinsel Town liberals for insights on U.S. tax policy, but Whoopi Goldberg's comments on the estate tax last week deserve more attention.
During a discussion of Republican Presidential candidates on ABC's "The View," which the comedian co-hosts, Ms. Goldberg said, "I'd like somebody to get rid of the death tax. That's what I want. I don't want to get taxed just because I died." The studio audience started applauding, but she wasn't done. "I just don't think it's right," she continued. "If I give something to my kid, I already paid the tax. Why should I have to pay it again because I died?" (Watch the video here.)
Back in 2001, before President Bush signed estate tax reform into law, the death duty topped off at 55% on estates worth more than $3 million. Today the top federal rate is 45% with an exemption of $2 million, and under current law the rate falls to zero in 2010. In 2011, however, the death tax is resurrected, with the top rate restored to 55% and the exemption set at $1 million.
When another co-host, Joy Behar, responded to Ms. Goldberg's remarks by asserting, "Only people with a lot of money say that," Ms. Goldberg shot back, "No, I don't think so. . . . It doesn't matter if you have or don't have money. Once you paid your taxes, it should be a done deal. You shouldn't have to pay twice."
Ms. Goldberg has her political facts down. It's not just "people with a lot of money" who oppose confiscatory estate taxes. Billionaires like Warren Buffett have made a crusade of urging Congress to keep the death tax, even as he shelters much of his own wealth from that tax by giving to charity. However, according to polls, some 70% of voters favor a full repeal. And many, like Ms. Goldberg apparently, do so on moral grounds. Death as a taxable event and double taxation offend the average American's sense of fairness.
Wall Street Journal
Tuesday, December 11, 2007 10:00 a.m.
We don't normally look to Tinsel Town liberals for insights on U.S. tax policy, but Whoopi Goldberg's comments on the estate tax last week deserve more attention.
During a discussion of Republican Presidential candidates on ABC's "The View," which the comedian co-hosts, Ms. Goldberg said, "I'd like somebody to get rid of the death tax. That's what I want. I don't want to get taxed just because I died." The studio audience started applauding, but she wasn't done. "I just don't think it's right," she continued. "If I give something to my kid, I already paid the tax. Why should I have to pay it again because I died?" (Watch the video here.)
Back in 2001, before President Bush signed estate tax reform into law, the death duty topped off at 55% on estates worth more than $3 million. Today the top federal rate is 45% with an exemption of $2 million, and under current law the rate falls to zero in 2010. In 2011, however, the death tax is resurrected, with the top rate restored to 55% and the exemption set at $1 million.
When another co-host, Joy Behar, responded to Ms. Goldberg's remarks by asserting, "Only people with a lot of money say that," Ms. Goldberg shot back, "No, I don't think so. . . . It doesn't matter if you have or don't have money. Once you paid your taxes, it should be a done deal. You shouldn't have to pay twice."
Ms. Goldberg has her political facts down. It's not just "people with a lot of money" who oppose confiscatory estate taxes. Billionaires like Warren Buffett have made a crusade of urging Congress to keep the death tax, even as he shelters much of his own wealth from that tax by giving to charity. However, according to polls, some 70% of voters favor a full repeal. And many, like Ms. Goldberg apparently, do so on moral grounds. Death as a taxable event and double taxation offend the average American's sense of fairness.
The NIE Fantasy
The intelligence community failed to anticipate the Cuban Missile Crisis.
By Bret Stephens
Tuesday, December 11, 2007 12:01 a.m.
"The USSR could derive considerable military advantage from the establishment of Soviet medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba, or from the establishment of a submarine base there. . . . Either development, however, would be incompatible with Soviet practice to date and with Soviet policy as we presently estimate it."
--Special National Intelligence Estimate 85-3-62, Sept. 19, 1962
Twenty-five days after this NIE was published, a U-2 spy plane photographed a Soviet ballistic missile site in Cuba, and the Cuban Missile Crisis began. It's possible the latest NIE on Iran's nuclear weapons program will not prove as misjudged or as damaging as the 1962 estimate. But don't bet on it.
At the heart of last week's NIE is the "high confidence" judgment that Tehran "halted its nuclear weapons program" in the fall of 2003, "primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran's previously undeclared nuclear work." Prior to that, however, the NIE states, also with "high confidence," that "Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons." Left to a footnote is the explanation that "by 'nuclear weapons program' we mean Iran's nuclear weapon design and weaponization work. . . . we do not mean Iran's declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment."
Let's unpack this.
In August 2002, an Iranian opposition group revealed that Iran had an undeclared uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and an undeclared heavy water facility at Arak--both previously unknown to the pros of the U.S. intelligence community. Since then, the administration has labored to persuade the international community that all these facilities have no conceivable purpose other than a military one. Those efforts paid off in three successive U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding Iran suspend enrichment because it was "concerned by the proliferation risks" it posed.
Along comes the NIE to instantly undo four years of diplomacy, using a semantic sleight-of-hand to suggest some kind of distinction can be drawn between Iran's bid to master the nuclear fuel cycle and its efforts to build nuclear weapons. How credible is this distinction?
In "Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy" (1996), MIT's Owen Cote notes that "The recipe [for designing a weapon] is very simple. . . . Nor are the ingredients, other than plutonium or HEU [highly enriched uranium], hard to obtain. For a gun weapon, the gun barrel could be ordered from any machine shop, as could a tungsten tamper machined to any specifications the customer desired. The high-explosive charge for firing the bullet could also be fashioned by anyone with access to and some experience handling TNT, or other conventional, chemical explosives" (my emphasis).
In other words, Iran didn't abandon its nuclear weapons program. On the contrary, it went public with it. It's certainly plausible Tehran may have suspended one aspect of the program--the aspect that is the least technically challenging and that, if exposed, would offer smoking-gun proof of ill intent. Then again, why does the NIE have next to nothing to say about Iran's efforts to produce plutonium at the Arak facility, which is of the same weapons-producing type as Israel's Dimona and North Korea's Yongbyon reactors? And why the silence on Iran's ongoing and acknowledged testing of ballistic missiles of ever-longer range, the development of which only makes sense as a vehicle to deliver a weapon of mass destruction?
Equally disingenuous is the NIE's assessment that Iran's purported decision to halt its weapons program is an indication that "Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach"--an interesting statement, given that Iran's quest for "peaceful" nuclear energy makes no economic sense. But the NIE's real purpose becomes clear in the next sentence, when it states that Iran's behavior "suggests that some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige and goals for regional influence in other ways, might--if perceived by Iran's leaders as credible--prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program."
This is a policy prescription, not an intelligence assessment. Nonetheless, it is worth recalling that if Iran did have an active weaponization program prior to 2003, as the NIE claims, it means that former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami was lying when he said that "weapons of mass destruction have never been our objective." Mr. Khatami is just the kind of "moderate" that advocates of engagement with Iran see as a credible negotiating partner. If he's not to be trusted, is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
Then again, when it comes to the issue of trust, it isn't just Mr. Ahmadinejad we need to worry about. It has been widely pointed out that the conclusions of this NIE flatly contradict those of a 2005 NIE on the same subject, calling the entire process into question. Less discussed is why the administration chose to release a shoddy document that does maximum political damage to it and to key U.S. allies, particularly France, the U.K. and Israel.
The likely answer is that the administration calculated that any effort by them to suppress or tweak the NIE would surely leak, leading to accusations of "politicizing intelligence." But that only means that we now have an "intelligence community" that acts as an authority unto itself, and cannot be trusted to obey its political masters, much less keep a secret. The administration's tacit acquiescence in this state of affairs may prove even more damaging than its wishful thinking on Iran.
For years it has been a staple of fever swamp politics to believe the U.S. government is in the grip of shadowy powers using "intelligence" as a tool of control. With the publication of this NIE, that is no longer a fantasy.
By Bret Stephens
Tuesday, December 11, 2007 12:01 a.m.
"The USSR could derive considerable military advantage from the establishment of Soviet medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba, or from the establishment of a submarine base there. . . . Either development, however, would be incompatible with Soviet practice to date and with Soviet policy as we presently estimate it."
--Special National Intelligence Estimate 85-3-62, Sept. 19, 1962
Twenty-five days after this NIE was published, a U-2 spy plane photographed a Soviet ballistic missile site in Cuba, and the Cuban Missile Crisis began. It's possible the latest NIE on Iran's nuclear weapons program will not prove as misjudged or as damaging as the 1962 estimate. But don't bet on it.
At the heart of last week's NIE is the "high confidence" judgment that Tehran "halted its nuclear weapons program" in the fall of 2003, "primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran's previously undeclared nuclear work." Prior to that, however, the NIE states, also with "high confidence," that "Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons." Left to a footnote is the explanation that "by 'nuclear weapons program' we mean Iran's nuclear weapon design and weaponization work. . . . we do not mean Iran's declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment."
Let's unpack this.
In August 2002, an Iranian opposition group revealed that Iran had an undeclared uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and an undeclared heavy water facility at Arak--both previously unknown to the pros of the U.S. intelligence community. Since then, the administration has labored to persuade the international community that all these facilities have no conceivable purpose other than a military one. Those efforts paid off in three successive U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding Iran suspend enrichment because it was "concerned by the proliferation risks" it posed.
Along comes the NIE to instantly undo four years of diplomacy, using a semantic sleight-of-hand to suggest some kind of distinction can be drawn between Iran's bid to master the nuclear fuel cycle and its efforts to build nuclear weapons. How credible is this distinction?
In "Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy" (1996), MIT's Owen Cote notes that "The recipe [for designing a weapon] is very simple. . . . Nor are the ingredients, other than plutonium or HEU [highly enriched uranium], hard to obtain. For a gun weapon, the gun barrel could be ordered from any machine shop, as could a tungsten tamper machined to any specifications the customer desired. The high-explosive charge for firing the bullet could also be fashioned by anyone with access to and some experience handling TNT, or other conventional, chemical explosives" (my emphasis).
In other words, Iran didn't abandon its nuclear weapons program. On the contrary, it went public with it. It's certainly plausible Tehran may have suspended one aspect of the program--the aspect that is the least technically challenging and that, if exposed, would offer smoking-gun proof of ill intent. Then again, why does the NIE have next to nothing to say about Iran's efforts to produce plutonium at the Arak facility, which is of the same weapons-producing type as Israel's Dimona and North Korea's Yongbyon reactors? And why the silence on Iran's ongoing and acknowledged testing of ballistic missiles of ever-longer range, the development of which only makes sense as a vehicle to deliver a weapon of mass destruction?
Equally disingenuous is the NIE's assessment that Iran's purported decision to halt its weapons program is an indication that "Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach"--an interesting statement, given that Iran's quest for "peaceful" nuclear energy makes no economic sense. But the NIE's real purpose becomes clear in the next sentence, when it states that Iran's behavior "suggests that some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige and goals for regional influence in other ways, might--if perceived by Iran's leaders as credible--prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program."
This is a policy prescription, not an intelligence assessment. Nonetheless, it is worth recalling that if Iran did have an active weaponization program prior to 2003, as the NIE claims, it means that former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami was lying when he said that "weapons of mass destruction have never been our objective." Mr. Khatami is just the kind of "moderate" that advocates of engagement with Iran see as a credible negotiating partner. If he's not to be trusted, is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
Then again, when it comes to the issue of trust, it isn't just Mr. Ahmadinejad we need to worry about. It has been widely pointed out that the conclusions of this NIE flatly contradict those of a 2005 NIE on the same subject, calling the entire process into question. Less discussed is why the administration chose to release a shoddy document that does maximum political damage to it and to key U.S. allies, particularly France, the U.K. and Israel.
The likely answer is that the administration calculated that any effort by them to suppress or tweak the NIE would surely leak, leading to accusations of "politicizing intelligence." But that only means that we now have an "intelligence community" that acts as an authority unto itself, and cannot be trusted to obey its political masters, much less keep a secret. The administration's tacit acquiescence in this state of affairs may prove even more damaging than its wishful thinking on Iran.
For years it has been a staple of fever swamp politics to believe the U.S. government is in the grip of shadowy powers using "intelligence" as a tool of control. With the publication of this NIE, that is no longer a fantasy.
Hugo Chavez Democrats' Systematic Removal of Conservatives
By Lisa De Pasquale
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
In Godless Ann Coulter wrote, “Liberals are perennially enraged that Republicans are allowed to talk back.” As such, this has spawned “Hugo Chavez Democrats” that make it their life’s work to get conservatives blacklisted from the media. The Left’s perpetual whining is usually funny, but not so much when the spineless surrender to them. Last month Daily Kos turned their attention to columnist Rachel Marsden. Marsden wrote a column for the Toronto Sun and appears frequently on Fox News and CNN. Daily Kos objected to her recent column on waterboarding and this joke Marsden made on CNN:
I suppose that those who object to terror suspects getting water up the nose would say that, as a young competitive swimmer, I was also tortured. It was called “hypoxic training” — swimming underwater and holding our breath until we passed out. Our coaches didn’t call it torture, just an exercise in “mental toughness.” So think of it this way — terror suspects are getting some free mental toughness training courtesy of the U.S. government.
Daily Kos posted contact information for Marsden’s Toronto Sun editor and encouraged people to get her column removed from the newspaper. “pale cold” wrote:
But we don’t have to sit and take it. Speak up! All Canadian Kossacks can write a letter. If any American Kossacks want to vent, hey, please! Make the Toronto Sun aware of how abhorrent and completely UNCANADIAN they are for publishing such tripe. If they don’t want to live in a country with morals and humanitarian ethics? They know where the door is. I suspect that the rest of Canada won’t lose any sleep in their absence.
Perhaps we should scrap waterboarding and force terrorists to read page after page of incoherent rants from the Daily Kos e-mail monkeys. It gets results: Toronto Sun editor Lou Clancy folded in just a few hours. After a two-year relationship the Toronto Sun dropped Marsden’s weekly column.
As most conservatives would, Marsden is wearing the Daily Kos’s campaign against her as a badge of honor. Marsden responded on her website, “Attention terrorists and Islamofascists: You can now read the Toronto Sun without having your delicate sensibilities offended, as my weekly column is no longer with Sun Media… Best of luck to any principled conservatives who remain.”
However, the knee-jerk outrage toward conservatives isn’t limited to “Kossacks” who get perverted self-satisfaction from firing off angry e-mails. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid basically sent the CEO of Clear Channel an extended, letterhead version of a Kossack e-mail. In addition to Senator Reid, 41 other Senators also signed the letter. The letter backfired on the 42 “Hugo Chavez Democrats” in the Senate. People don’t remember their baseless accusation, but rather Rush’s genius and rebel spirit in the face of the fanatical Left. As we all do remember, Rush auctioned the letter on eBay and donated the winning bid of more than $2 million to the Marine Corps - Law Enforcement Foundation.
Like Rush, Rachel Marsden turned the attempts to silence her as an opportunity to help a good cause. Marsden created a cheeky t-shirt with the phrase “CIA Center for Aquatic Excellence Waterboarding Team.” All proceeds ($500+ so far) will be donated to the Children of Fallen Soldiers Relief Fund. Marsden told me, “Liberals are just projecting when they think that attacks actually cripple conservatives. They only serve to spark new ideas and push us in new entrepreneurial directions.”
In fact, Marsden inspired me to embrace my entrepreneurial spirit and create “Muhammad the Teddy Bear” – the perfect Christmas gift for your favorite infidel or apostate. (Long live capitalism!)
Aside from the Left’s knee-jerk reaction to whatever it deems over the line, they also make knee-jerk pronunciations before a conservative even opens his or her mouth. ESPN announced they were bringing in Rush Limbaugh for a short segment on their NFL Sunday Countdown and every two-bit sports reporter had an opinion on how Limbaugh was undoing the 13th and 19th Amendments. Limbaugh hadn’t even made his infamous comments about the media’s coverage of quarterback Donovan McNabb and sports reporters were already shocked and offended. Apparently, the separation between sports and politics is more sacred to the Left than the “separation between church and state.”
Atlanta Journal-Constitution sports reporter Mike Tierney wrote, “So, in adding this blowhard to the cast, ESPN has done more than further blur the line between entertainment people and sports commentators. Never has someone making the transition alienated a sizable portion of the audience before uttering the first multisyllabic word.”
Seattle Post-Intelligencer sports columnist Derrick Z. Jackson wrote, “It is a touchdown at the old-boy network when ESPN hires Rush Limbaugh for pregame blabber about pro football. It is an extra point when the media think nothing of this event. They both should be penalized for roughing the past.” (Yes, as I recall there was nary a peep from the mainstream media about ESPN hiring their most popular critic.)
In early September 2003, Colorado’s Gazette sports reporter David Ramsey wrote, “Hiring Mr. Right Wing to talk about football is wrong.” He posited, “Imagine the outcry if ESPN had hired a liberal icon, say Al Franken. Conservatives, who dominate TV and radio, would howl with anger, and Bill O'Reilly, who resides in his oh-so narrow no-spin zone, would demand a congressional investigation.”
Yes, imagine the outrage! Oh wait, that quietly happened a few months ago and conservatives didn’t make a peep. This season Keith Olbermann began making weekly appearances on NBC’s “Football Night in America.” No protesting in the streets. No calls for congressional investigations. Not even any token media reports of angry reactions from conservatives.
Like Limbaugh, Olbermann started in sports reporting and later moved into political punditry. Olbermann’s a pompous jerk, but who cares if his parent company hires him to talk about football for five minutes? Perhaps Olbermann will say something offensive on “Football Night in America” and awaken the conservative beast. However, the difference between conservatives and the “Hugo Chavez Democrats” is that conservatives aren’t offended by the mere presence of those with whom they disagree. Whether it’s Ann Coulter, Rachel Marsden or Rush Limbaugh, the Left will always be more infuriated with their existence and success than by what they actually say.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
In Godless Ann Coulter wrote, “Liberals are perennially enraged that Republicans are allowed to talk back.” As such, this has spawned “Hugo Chavez Democrats” that make it their life’s work to get conservatives blacklisted from the media. The Left’s perpetual whining is usually funny, but not so much when the spineless surrender to them. Last month Daily Kos turned their attention to columnist Rachel Marsden. Marsden wrote a column for the Toronto Sun and appears frequently on Fox News and CNN. Daily Kos objected to her recent column on waterboarding and this joke Marsden made on CNN:
I suppose that those who object to terror suspects getting water up the nose would say that, as a young competitive swimmer, I was also tortured. It was called “hypoxic training” — swimming underwater and holding our breath until we passed out. Our coaches didn’t call it torture, just an exercise in “mental toughness.” So think of it this way — terror suspects are getting some free mental toughness training courtesy of the U.S. government.
Daily Kos posted contact information for Marsden’s Toronto Sun editor and encouraged people to get her column removed from the newspaper. “pale cold” wrote:
But we don’t have to sit and take it. Speak up! All Canadian Kossacks can write a letter. If any American Kossacks want to vent, hey, please! Make the Toronto Sun aware of how abhorrent and completely UNCANADIAN they are for publishing such tripe. If they don’t want to live in a country with morals and humanitarian ethics? They know where the door is. I suspect that the rest of Canada won’t lose any sleep in their absence.
Perhaps we should scrap waterboarding and force terrorists to read page after page of incoherent rants from the Daily Kos e-mail monkeys. It gets results: Toronto Sun editor Lou Clancy folded in just a few hours. After a two-year relationship the Toronto Sun dropped Marsden’s weekly column.
As most conservatives would, Marsden is wearing the Daily Kos’s campaign against her as a badge of honor. Marsden responded on her website, “Attention terrorists and Islamofascists: You can now read the Toronto Sun without having your delicate sensibilities offended, as my weekly column is no longer with Sun Media… Best of luck to any principled conservatives who remain.”
However, the knee-jerk outrage toward conservatives isn’t limited to “Kossacks” who get perverted self-satisfaction from firing off angry e-mails. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid basically sent the CEO of Clear Channel an extended, letterhead version of a Kossack e-mail. In addition to Senator Reid, 41 other Senators also signed the letter. The letter backfired on the 42 “Hugo Chavez Democrats” in the Senate. People don’t remember their baseless accusation, but rather Rush’s genius and rebel spirit in the face of the fanatical Left. As we all do remember, Rush auctioned the letter on eBay and donated the winning bid of more than $2 million to the Marine Corps - Law Enforcement Foundation.
Like Rush, Rachel Marsden turned the attempts to silence her as an opportunity to help a good cause. Marsden created a cheeky t-shirt with the phrase “CIA Center for Aquatic Excellence Waterboarding Team.” All proceeds ($500+ so far) will be donated to the Children of Fallen Soldiers Relief Fund. Marsden told me, “Liberals are just projecting when they think that attacks actually cripple conservatives. They only serve to spark new ideas and push us in new entrepreneurial directions.”
In fact, Marsden inspired me to embrace my entrepreneurial spirit and create “Muhammad the Teddy Bear” – the perfect Christmas gift for your favorite infidel or apostate. (Long live capitalism!)
Aside from the Left’s knee-jerk reaction to whatever it deems over the line, they also make knee-jerk pronunciations before a conservative even opens his or her mouth. ESPN announced they were bringing in Rush Limbaugh for a short segment on their NFL Sunday Countdown and every two-bit sports reporter had an opinion on how Limbaugh was undoing the 13th and 19th Amendments. Limbaugh hadn’t even made his infamous comments about the media’s coverage of quarterback Donovan McNabb and sports reporters were already shocked and offended. Apparently, the separation between sports and politics is more sacred to the Left than the “separation between church and state.”
Atlanta Journal-Constitution sports reporter Mike Tierney wrote, “So, in adding this blowhard to the cast, ESPN has done more than further blur the line between entertainment people and sports commentators. Never has someone making the transition alienated a sizable portion of the audience before uttering the first multisyllabic word.”
Seattle Post-Intelligencer sports columnist Derrick Z. Jackson wrote, “It is a touchdown at the old-boy network when ESPN hires Rush Limbaugh for pregame blabber about pro football. It is an extra point when the media think nothing of this event. They both should be penalized for roughing the past.” (Yes, as I recall there was nary a peep from the mainstream media about ESPN hiring their most popular critic.)
In early September 2003, Colorado’s Gazette sports reporter David Ramsey wrote, “Hiring Mr. Right Wing to talk about football is wrong.” He posited, “Imagine the outcry if ESPN had hired a liberal icon, say Al Franken. Conservatives, who dominate TV and radio, would howl with anger, and Bill O'Reilly, who resides in his oh-so narrow no-spin zone, would demand a congressional investigation.”
Yes, imagine the outrage! Oh wait, that quietly happened a few months ago and conservatives didn’t make a peep. This season Keith Olbermann began making weekly appearances on NBC’s “Football Night in America.” No protesting in the streets. No calls for congressional investigations. Not even any token media reports of angry reactions from conservatives.
Like Limbaugh, Olbermann started in sports reporting and later moved into political punditry. Olbermann’s a pompous jerk, but who cares if his parent company hires him to talk about football for five minutes? Perhaps Olbermann will say something offensive on “Football Night in America” and awaken the conservative beast. However, the difference between conservatives and the “Hugo Chavez Democrats” is that conservatives aren’t offended by the mere presence of those with whom they disagree. Whether it’s Ann Coulter, Rachel Marsden or Rush Limbaugh, the Left will always be more infuriated with their existence and success than by what they actually say.
At Last!
By Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
People for whom indignation is a way of life -- and there seem to be an increasing number of such people -- repeatedly have outbursts of outrage whenever the police fire a lot of shots at some criminal.
People who have never fired a gun in their lives, and have never had a split-second in which to make a decision that could mean life or death for themselves or others, are often nevertheless convinced that the police used excessive force.
As someone who once taught pistol shooting in the Marine Corps, it has never seemed strange to me that the police sometimes fire dozens of shots at a criminal.
While an expert shooter can run up impressive scores in the safety of a pistol range, it doesn't take much to make shots go off into the wild blue yonder in the stress of life and death shooting.
Even on a pistol range, it was not uncommon to see shooters not only miss the bull's eye, but miss the whole target, which was the size of a man's torso.
Among other things, this suggests that a pistol may not be the best firearm to keep for home protection. A shotgun is far more likely to hit the target -- and far less likely to have to be fired in the first place.
Any intruder who hears the distinctive sound that is made when you load a shotgun is likely to decide that he would much rather be somewhere else, very quickly. Nor is he likely to return.
Getting back to shootings by the police, now -- at last -- there is a study introducing some facts into controversies that have thus far been largely a matter of emotions, rhetoric, ideology, and politics.
This study shows how often the police in New York City miss when shooting at various distances during the stress of actual confrontations with criminals.
Even within a range of 6 feet or less, the police miss more often than they hit -- 57 percent of the shots at that distance miss and 43 percent hit.
As you might expect, there are even fewer hits at longer distances. At 75 feet -- which is less than the distance from first base to second base -- only 7 percent of the shots hit.
Moreover, just because a shot has hit does not mean that it is now safe to stop shooting.
First of all, this is not like an arcade game, where lights go on when you hit something. Depending on where the shot hit, the policeman who is firing may have no idea whether he has hit the criminal or not.
With the adrenalin pumping, the criminal himself may not be aware that he has been hit, if it is not a serious wound.
Even if the policeman knows that his shot has hit the criminal, the real question is whether the hit has rendered the criminal no longer dangerous. If the bad guy is still capable of shooting back, it is no time for the cop to stop firing, because his life is still in danger.
When there is more than one policeman on the scene, there is no reason for any of them to keep track of how often the others have fired. After it is all over, it may turn out that 30 or 40 shots were fired at the criminal.
But so what? It is very doubtful that the criminal has been hit 30 or 40 times.
Only part of the problem is that many people have no idea of the capabilities and limitations of different kinds of guns, much less how much difference it makes if the shooter is in the safety of a firing range or in the stress of a life and death battle. What is a bigger and wider problem is that too many people feel no hesitation to go spouting off about things they know nothing about.
People who have never run even a modest little business assert with great certainty and indignation that heads of multinational corporations are paid much more than they are worth. People who know nothing about medicine and nothing about economics unhesitatingly declare that pharmaceutical drugs cost too much.
Maybe all this is a product of the "self-esteem" taught in our schools, instead of the academic subjects in which American children trail children from other countries.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
People for whom indignation is a way of life -- and there seem to be an increasing number of such people -- repeatedly have outbursts of outrage whenever the police fire a lot of shots at some criminal.
People who have never fired a gun in their lives, and have never had a split-second in which to make a decision that could mean life or death for themselves or others, are often nevertheless convinced that the police used excessive force.
As someone who once taught pistol shooting in the Marine Corps, it has never seemed strange to me that the police sometimes fire dozens of shots at a criminal.
While an expert shooter can run up impressive scores in the safety of a pistol range, it doesn't take much to make shots go off into the wild blue yonder in the stress of life and death shooting.
Even on a pistol range, it was not uncommon to see shooters not only miss the bull's eye, but miss the whole target, which was the size of a man's torso.
Among other things, this suggests that a pistol may not be the best firearm to keep for home protection. A shotgun is far more likely to hit the target -- and far less likely to have to be fired in the first place.
Any intruder who hears the distinctive sound that is made when you load a shotgun is likely to decide that he would much rather be somewhere else, very quickly. Nor is he likely to return.
Getting back to shootings by the police, now -- at last -- there is a study introducing some facts into controversies that have thus far been largely a matter of emotions, rhetoric, ideology, and politics.
This study shows how often the police in New York City miss when shooting at various distances during the stress of actual confrontations with criminals.
Even within a range of 6 feet or less, the police miss more often than they hit -- 57 percent of the shots at that distance miss and 43 percent hit.
As you might expect, there are even fewer hits at longer distances. At 75 feet -- which is less than the distance from first base to second base -- only 7 percent of the shots hit.
Moreover, just because a shot has hit does not mean that it is now safe to stop shooting.
First of all, this is not like an arcade game, where lights go on when you hit something. Depending on where the shot hit, the policeman who is firing may have no idea whether he has hit the criminal or not.
With the adrenalin pumping, the criminal himself may not be aware that he has been hit, if it is not a serious wound.
Even if the policeman knows that his shot has hit the criminal, the real question is whether the hit has rendered the criminal no longer dangerous. If the bad guy is still capable of shooting back, it is no time for the cop to stop firing, because his life is still in danger.
When there is more than one policeman on the scene, there is no reason for any of them to keep track of how often the others have fired. After it is all over, it may turn out that 30 or 40 shots were fired at the criminal.
But so what? It is very doubtful that the criminal has been hit 30 or 40 times.
Only part of the problem is that many people have no idea of the capabilities and limitations of different kinds of guns, much less how much difference it makes if the shooter is in the safety of a firing range or in the stress of a life and death battle. What is a bigger and wider problem is that too many people feel no hesitation to go spouting off about things they know nothing about.
People who have never run even a modest little business assert with great certainty and indignation that heads of multinational corporations are paid much more than they are worth. People who know nothing about medicine and nothing about economics unhesitatingly declare that pharmaceutical drugs cost too much.
Maybe all this is a product of the "self-esteem" taught in our schools, instead of the academic subjects in which American children trail children from other countries.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Giving Tanks
Across Europe, thinkers are promoting free-market ideals.
Wall Street Journal
Monday, December 10, 2007 12:01 a.m.
LONDON--The Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute and other free-market Washington think tanks are known to many Americans. What isn't generally understood is that there has been an explosion of free-market think tanks around the world that are increasingly challenging the conventional view that government is the solution to society's problems.
Last week the Stockholm Network, an umbrella organization for European free-market think tanks, held its first annual award ceremonies to honor the groups that have been most effective in informing policy makers and the general public about policies like school choice, portable pensions and decentralized approaches to delivering health care. The Wall Street Journal was a co-sponsor, in line with its adherence to an editorial philosophy of "free markets and free people."
In 1997, the Stockholm Network had five members; it now boasts more than 130 affiliated groups, stretching from Iceland to Armenia. In Bulgaria, the Center for Market Economics has played a major role in building support for the country's adoption of a 10% flat-rate income tax, effective Jan. 1. "Watch Bulgaria," says Steve Masty, an economic development specialist based in London. "The intellectual light bulbs that have been switched on there are now having real-world results."
More than one guest at the Stockholm Network dinner commented that several countries in Europe that escaped the Soviet bloc less than two decades ago are now pursuing reforms that would be regarded as too radical for Western European electorates. In Slovakia, the introduction of a profit-based health system has led to the entry of two private health-insurance companies that have helped drop the state share of the health-care market to 65% from 80% in just two years.
Some of the think tank presidents attending the dinner have suffered more than criticism for their work. Prof. Atilla Yayla, the president of the Association for Liberal Thinking in Turkey, gave a speech last year in which he stated that the single-party secular rule imposed by Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s "appears backward rather than progressive." He said he found it difficult to explain to visitors to Turkey why statues and pictures of Ataturk appear in almost every public space.
Mr. Yayla was viciously attacked in the media and subjected to criminal prosecution for his comments. Now teaching on a yearlong sabbatical in England, he plans to return to Turkey to continue his fight for a truly liberal society that represents a third way between Islamism and Ataturk's state-imposed secularism. He has more than 500 Turkish academics and intellectuals on his mailing list.
While the Stockholm Network focuses on Europe, that doesn't mean that free-market think tanks in developing countries are being ignored. This week the Cato Institute is launching a series of international Web sites to build support for the ideas of liberty and to promote the work of local think tanks. Web sites in French, Portuguese, Chinese, Kurdish, African languages and Persian will join existing Cato Web sites in Russian, Spanish and Arabic.
The project is the work of Tom Palmer, who 20 years ago as a young libertarian scholar smuggled photocopiers into the Soviet Bloc so dissidents could produce their own samizdat publications. "In many countries there is a clear need for private efforts not subject to or tied to any government entity," he told me. "Clearly, the government-led efforts aren't doing such a hot job of promoting the ideas of liberty at the moment."
John Blundell, president of Britain's Institute for Economic Affairs, says an increasing emphasis on promoting liberty in developing nations and among immigrants from those nations is appropriate. At IEA's annual conference for up-and-coming free-market scholars in October, white men were a distinct minority of the 100 students attending. The children of Indian and Chinese immigrants won almost half of the prizes and honorable mentions in IEA's annual student essay contest.
The original inspiration for much of the worldwide growth in free-market ideas was a slender volume written by F.A. Hayek, obscure professor at the London School of Economics, in 1944. As World War II was winding down and postwar planning for growing welfare states was under way, Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom," made a powerful case that the collectivist ideas then gaining ground would almost inevitably lead to a loss of liberty in all its forms.
Hayek also made a positive case that the venerable ideas expounded by thinkers like Adam Smith, David Hume and Edmund Burke, who promoted limited government and the rule of law, could prove a powerful antidote to socialism. Hayek urged proponents of liberty to build on the example of socialists, who built a network of theorists and philosophers that later helped them gain political power. He called for a "a truly liberal radicalism (in the European meaning of that term) . . . which does not confine itself to what appears today as politically possible."
A few years after publication of "The Road to Serfdom," a young entrepreneur named Anthony Fisher met with Hayek and started IEA. It spent 20 years building the case for a freer society until its ally, Margaret Thatcher, became prime minister in 1979.
While the Stockholm Network dinner was held in a celebratory mood, several speakers reminded the audience illiberal notions like protectionism are making a comeback in many countries, and that global warming has become a pretext for those advocating draconian limits on economic growth.
Such wrongheaded ideas are also on the march in America. Everyone seems focused on which party will control the White House and Congress after next November's election. But regardless of who wins, real changes in the public-policy landscape are likely to come only if those who hold political power also have won the battle for their ideas. That's why, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on the 2008 election, advocates on both the left and right are also pouring money into think tanks. They are preparing for the day when those ideas can be taken off the shelf and put to the test.
Wall Street Journal
Monday, December 10, 2007 12:01 a.m.
LONDON--The Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute and other free-market Washington think tanks are known to many Americans. What isn't generally understood is that there has been an explosion of free-market think tanks around the world that are increasingly challenging the conventional view that government is the solution to society's problems.
Last week the Stockholm Network, an umbrella organization for European free-market think tanks, held its first annual award ceremonies to honor the groups that have been most effective in informing policy makers and the general public about policies like school choice, portable pensions and decentralized approaches to delivering health care. The Wall Street Journal was a co-sponsor, in line with its adherence to an editorial philosophy of "free markets and free people."
In 1997, the Stockholm Network had five members; it now boasts more than 130 affiliated groups, stretching from Iceland to Armenia. In Bulgaria, the Center for Market Economics has played a major role in building support for the country's adoption of a 10% flat-rate income tax, effective Jan. 1. "Watch Bulgaria," says Steve Masty, an economic development specialist based in London. "The intellectual light bulbs that have been switched on there are now having real-world results."
More than one guest at the Stockholm Network dinner commented that several countries in Europe that escaped the Soviet bloc less than two decades ago are now pursuing reforms that would be regarded as too radical for Western European electorates. In Slovakia, the introduction of a profit-based health system has led to the entry of two private health-insurance companies that have helped drop the state share of the health-care market to 65% from 80% in just two years.
Some of the think tank presidents attending the dinner have suffered more than criticism for their work. Prof. Atilla Yayla, the president of the Association for Liberal Thinking in Turkey, gave a speech last year in which he stated that the single-party secular rule imposed by Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s "appears backward rather than progressive." He said he found it difficult to explain to visitors to Turkey why statues and pictures of Ataturk appear in almost every public space.
Mr. Yayla was viciously attacked in the media and subjected to criminal prosecution for his comments. Now teaching on a yearlong sabbatical in England, he plans to return to Turkey to continue his fight for a truly liberal society that represents a third way between Islamism and Ataturk's state-imposed secularism. He has more than 500 Turkish academics and intellectuals on his mailing list.
While the Stockholm Network focuses on Europe, that doesn't mean that free-market think tanks in developing countries are being ignored. This week the Cato Institute is launching a series of international Web sites to build support for the ideas of liberty and to promote the work of local think tanks. Web sites in French, Portuguese, Chinese, Kurdish, African languages and Persian will join existing Cato Web sites in Russian, Spanish and Arabic.
The project is the work of Tom Palmer, who 20 years ago as a young libertarian scholar smuggled photocopiers into the Soviet Bloc so dissidents could produce their own samizdat publications. "In many countries there is a clear need for private efforts not subject to or tied to any government entity," he told me. "Clearly, the government-led efforts aren't doing such a hot job of promoting the ideas of liberty at the moment."
John Blundell, president of Britain's Institute for Economic Affairs, says an increasing emphasis on promoting liberty in developing nations and among immigrants from those nations is appropriate. At IEA's annual conference for up-and-coming free-market scholars in October, white men were a distinct minority of the 100 students attending. The children of Indian and Chinese immigrants won almost half of the prizes and honorable mentions in IEA's annual student essay contest.
The original inspiration for much of the worldwide growth in free-market ideas was a slender volume written by F.A. Hayek, obscure professor at the London School of Economics, in 1944. As World War II was winding down and postwar planning for growing welfare states was under way, Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom," made a powerful case that the collectivist ideas then gaining ground would almost inevitably lead to a loss of liberty in all its forms.
Hayek also made a positive case that the venerable ideas expounded by thinkers like Adam Smith, David Hume and Edmund Burke, who promoted limited government and the rule of law, could prove a powerful antidote to socialism. Hayek urged proponents of liberty to build on the example of socialists, who built a network of theorists and philosophers that later helped them gain political power. He called for a "a truly liberal radicalism (in the European meaning of that term) . . . which does not confine itself to what appears today as politically possible."
A few years after publication of "The Road to Serfdom," a young entrepreneur named Anthony Fisher met with Hayek and started IEA. It spent 20 years building the case for a freer society until its ally, Margaret Thatcher, became prime minister in 1979.
While the Stockholm Network dinner was held in a celebratory mood, several speakers reminded the audience illiberal notions like protectionism are making a comeback in many countries, and that global warming has become a pretext for those advocating draconian limits on economic growth.
Such wrongheaded ideas are also on the march in America. Everyone seems focused on which party will control the White House and Congress after next November's election. But regardless of who wins, real changes in the public-policy landscape are likely to come only if those who hold political power also have won the battle for their ideas. That's why, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on the 2008 election, advocates on both the left and right are also pouring money into think tanks. They are preparing for the day when those ideas can be taken off the shelf and put to the test.
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