By Dennis Prager
Tuesday, August 02, 2011
The question is in no way meant to be provocative, let alone insulting. But the world, including vast numbers of Muslims, needs this question answered.
After having studied Arabic at college and lectured on comparative religion for decades, and having devoted years to writing my upcoming book comparing American values with leftist and Islamist values, I have become convinced of two things regarding Islam: It must be reformed, and it can be reformed.
Both suppositions are highly controversial. Few believing Muslims think that Islam needs to be reformed; the suggestion would strike most religious Muslims as absurd, if not insulting and ultimately blasphemous. And it would strike many non-Muslim critics of Islam as naive. As Lord Cromer, British consul-general in Egypt from 1883 to 1907, put it in a quote known to all Western students of Islam, "Islam reformed is Islam no longer."
Let's deal first with the question of whether Islam needs reforming.
The case for it is compelling. Here are a few reasons:
-- Majority-Muslim and Islam-based countries are not, and have not been, free societies. According to the 2010 Freedom House "Freedom in the World" survey, of the world's 47 Muslim-majority countries, only two are free, 18 are partly free, and 27 are not free. There is no honest explanation for this nearly total absence of liberty in Muslim countries that does not reflect in some way on Islam.
-- Muslim treatment of Jews and Christians in places like medieval Spain was morally far superior to the treatment of non-Christians by European Christians during the same period. But in the modern period, nowhere that Islam has controlled has afforded non-Muslims anywhere near the equality that non-Christians have taken for granted in the Christian world.
-- There was a burst of intellectual and scientific creativity in the Muslim world for a few hundred years, but then the opponents of reason came to dominate Islam, and with it came a loss of scientific and intellectual curiosity.
How could it have been otherwise? The dominant Muslim view was that the natural world had no laws. Everything that occurred did so solely because Allah willed it. If an arrow hit its target, it was not because of the archer's ability or wind patterns or laws of physics; it was because Allah willed it.
According to a United Nations report written by Arab scholars, the Arab world's lack of interest in the non-Arab and non-Muslim worlds is so great that in any given year comparatively tiny Greece translates more books into Greek than all the Arab countries combined translate into Arabic.
-- Regarding women, one cannot name a culture or religion in which the status of women is as low as it is in many Muslim societies. Moreover, the status of women has actually declined in many Muslim societies in the present generation. For example, the veil is more common in Egypt today than it was a hundred years ago.
-- In nearly every Muslim country in which non-Muslims live (usually Christians) -- from Nigeria to Egypt to Iraq -- they suffer persecution.
-- A very small percentage of Muslims are terrorists. But nearly every international terrorist is Muslim. And according to every poll I have seen, at least 70 million of the world's more than a billion Muslims support Islamist actions and theology.
-- Every state that calls itself an Islamic Republic and rules according to Islamic law is a totalitarian state, and it is usually a bloodthirsty one. Saudi Arabia is an example of the first; Taliban Afghanistan, Islamist Iran and Islamist Sudan are examples of both.
So, yes, Islam needs to be reformed. This is no insult to Muslims. Judaism and Christianity have undergone major changes. And needed to.
Can Islam be reformed? I do not agree with Lord Cromer. I believe it can.
What is necessary is that Muslim reformers:
1. Honestly acknowledge the Muslim moral record -- i.e. the lack of liberty in Muslim nations, the killing of large numbers of non-Muslims, the low status of women, etc. This does not necessitate rejecting the Quran or Islam.
2. Eschew incorporating Sharia into state law and oppose the establishment of any Islamic theocracy (which is not, in any event, Quran-based, according to moderate Muslims).
3. Publicly and unambiguously condemn all violence in the name of Islam, including violence against Israel.
4. Express a deep appreciation of the moral record of America, including its superb treatment of both its Muslim citizens and Muslim immigrants, along with a complete rejection of the Islamist notion that America is hostile to Muslims.
5. Fully accept the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, and distance themselves from the Muslim/Arab obsession with Israel.
At this very moment, there are Muslim reformers who believe and express all five of these propositions.
Examples include University of Delaware Professor Muqtedar Khan, who runs www.ijtihad.com: "American Muslims really have no reason to feel they are victims of anything ... ." The Muslim American community is thriving, proof of "America's benevolence and tolerance of Islam."
Another is Ahmed al-Rahim, a professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia: "The most important message is that we condemn all kinds of hate speech, including anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism, and that we come out as boldly as possible against violence committed by Muslims in Iraq, in Israel ... . "
Regarding the Muslim obsession with Israel, Khan has written: "It is time the leaders of the American Muslim community woke up and realized that ... Islam is not about defeating Jews or conquering Jerusalem. It is about mercy, about virtue, about sacrifice and about duty. Above all, it is the pursuit of moral perfection."
Zainab Al-Suwaij, a refugee from Saddam Hussein's Iraq and executive director of the moderate American Islamic Congress, publicly declared that America "has given Iraqis the most precious gift any nation has ever given another -- the gift of democracy and the freedom to determine its own future."
And Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a physician in Arizona whose parents fled Syria in the 1960s, is the founder and chairman of the board of the moderate American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD). A believing and practicing Muslim, Jasser advocates American values, promotes a Quran-based life to be practiced by the individual Muslim and never imposed by the state. He is courageous in confronting the Islamist Muslim groups that the mainstream media in the Western world have promoted to appear as the spokesmen for Western Muslims.
As Jasser says of organizations such as CAIR and other so-called Muslim civil rights organizations, "There was more concern with hate crimes against Muslims, which I think were relatively low; there was more focus on that than actually looking at the violence and the hate speech that has been committed in the name of Islam."
Islam is too important to deny its need to reform. And it is too important to deny its ability to ever reform.
And if it does reform, Muslims who have embraced America and American values will lead the way.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Doing in defense
By Frank Gaffney
Monday, August 01, 2011
At this writing, many details of the debt ceiling deal wrangled out over the weekend remain fuzzy. One thing is clear, unfortunately: The national security of the United States is going to suffer greatly.
That will be so no matter how much is taken out of the defense budget as a result of the not-so-grand bargain struck by congressional leaders. If approved by both houses, it would reportedly cut $350 billion from "security" spending as part of a first tranche of deficit-reduction. Then, the Pentagon (and possibly the Homeland Security and State Department budgets) will be wacked by as much as half of the $1.5 trillion more that an as-yet undesignated congressional "super-committee" is supposed to come up with by Thanksgiving.
Put simply, these initiatives will treat national and homeland security as a bill-payer for deficit reduction.
The trouble is that - even if no further reductions were made in the spending allocated to defending our people and interests around the world - we will see ominous reductions in the capabilities needed to meet those vital responsibilities. That will be because of the more than $400 billion already cut from our national security investments over the past few years.
The warnings of what will befall our military and country as a result are beginning to accumulate. President Obama's first defense secretary, Robert Gates, put down repeated markers as he headed for the door to the effect that we risked once again "hollowing out" the armed forces if anything like the sorts of cuts Mr. Obama has proposed ($400 billion), let alone those called for by others (up to $1 trillion), are forthcoming.
Senior military officers, including the new chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey and Admiral James Winnefeld, respectively, are making plain the repercussions would be far-reaching. Adm. Winnefeld told Congress at his confirmation hearing: "...As we get to a higher and higher number [of defense cuts], we're going to find that the strategies that we currently have are going to reach inflection points where we're just going to have to stop doing some of the things that we currently are able to do because what we can't afford is to have any kind of a cut result in a hollow force. We can't afford to have a cut result in irreversible damage to our industrial base."
Last week, the Lexington Institute's Daniel Goure observed that these officers were hardly alone: "The Vice Chiefs [of Staff of the four armed services in congressional testimony] described a military worn out by continuous combat or allowed to age out as the result of a defense buildup that failed to adequately modernize the force. Each of the services has been plagued by readiness problems that, in some cases, have interfered with their ability to deploy forces."
Responsible legislators are expressing concern as well. For example, last week the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon of California, declared that cuts of the magnitude now in prospect, "would have a disastrous impact on our military and we wouldn't be able to carry out our missions."
Earlier last month, the Senate's Number 2 Republican, Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, took to the floor of the Senate to challenge a remark by President Obama to the effect that we had to protect our government's "core commitments" like food stamps at the expense of national security spending. Sen. Kyl observed that there is no core commitment that supersedes the obligation to provide for the common defense, the first business of the federal government.
Yet, President Obama, congressional Democrats and at least a few Republicans aredetermined to make the sorts of reductions that will prevent us from assuring the common defense. Some, particularly in conservative circles, are doing so out of a conviction that only a strong economy can make possible a strong military.
Jamie Fly of the Foreign Policy Initiative reminded us recently of a remarkable statement byRonald Reagan in which he addressed precisely this point: "In a December 1992 address to students at the Oxford Union Society, in a passage that is eerily relevant to today's debate, [the former President declared]: ‘It is a fashionable assertion in these troubled times that nations must focus on economic, not military strength. Over the long run, it is true, no nation can remain militarily strong while economically exhausted. But I would remind you that defeats on the battlefield occur in the short run. As the tragedies of Bosnia, Somalia, and Sudan demonstrate all too well, power still matters. More precisely, economic power is not a replacement for military power.'"
History has taught us a painful lesson that we are poised to learn all over again. Cutting "security spending" in a dangerous world is an invitation to enemies - actual and prospective - to make it much more dangerous for Americans and their vital interests. It invariably proves to be a false economy, and the costs are measured in lives as well as immense amounts of dollars.
We literally cannot afford to make this mistake. Those responsible will surely be held accountable - later, if not sooner. They may never be forgiven, however.
Monday, August 01, 2011
At this writing, many details of the debt ceiling deal wrangled out over the weekend remain fuzzy. One thing is clear, unfortunately: The national security of the United States is going to suffer greatly.
That will be so no matter how much is taken out of the defense budget as a result of the not-so-grand bargain struck by congressional leaders. If approved by both houses, it would reportedly cut $350 billion from "security" spending as part of a first tranche of deficit-reduction. Then, the Pentagon (and possibly the Homeland Security and State Department budgets) will be wacked by as much as half of the $1.5 trillion more that an as-yet undesignated congressional "super-committee" is supposed to come up with by Thanksgiving.
Put simply, these initiatives will treat national and homeland security as a bill-payer for deficit reduction.
The trouble is that - even if no further reductions were made in the spending allocated to defending our people and interests around the world - we will see ominous reductions in the capabilities needed to meet those vital responsibilities. That will be because of the more than $400 billion already cut from our national security investments over the past few years.
The warnings of what will befall our military and country as a result are beginning to accumulate. President Obama's first defense secretary, Robert Gates, put down repeated markers as he headed for the door to the effect that we risked once again "hollowing out" the armed forces if anything like the sorts of cuts Mr. Obama has proposed ($400 billion), let alone those called for by others (up to $1 trillion), are forthcoming.
Senior military officers, including the new chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey and Admiral James Winnefeld, respectively, are making plain the repercussions would be far-reaching. Adm. Winnefeld told Congress at his confirmation hearing: "...As we get to a higher and higher number [of defense cuts], we're going to find that the strategies that we currently have are going to reach inflection points where we're just going to have to stop doing some of the things that we currently are able to do because what we can't afford is to have any kind of a cut result in a hollow force. We can't afford to have a cut result in irreversible damage to our industrial base."
Last week, the Lexington Institute's Daniel Goure observed that these officers were hardly alone: "The Vice Chiefs [of Staff of the four armed services in congressional testimony] described a military worn out by continuous combat or allowed to age out as the result of a defense buildup that failed to adequately modernize the force. Each of the services has been plagued by readiness problems that, in some cases, have interfered with their ability to deploy forces."
Responsible legislators are expressing concern as well. For example, last week the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon of California, declared that cuts of the magnitude now in prospect, "would have a disastrous impact on our military and we wouldn't be able to carry out our missions."
Earlier last month, the Senate's Number 2 Republican, Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, took to the floor of the Senate to challenge a remark by President Obama to the effect that we had to protect our government's "core commitments" like food stamps at the expense of national security spending. Sen. Kyl observed that there is no core commitment that supersedes the obligation to provide for the common defense, the first business of the federal government.
Yet, President Obama, congressional Democrats and at least a few Republicans aredetermined to make the sorts of reductions that will prevent us from assuring the common defense. Some, particularly in conservative circles, are doing so out of a conviction that only a strong economy can make possible a strong military.
Jamie Fly of the Foreign Policy Initiative reminded us recently of a remarkable statement byRonald Reagan in which he addressed precisely this point: "In a December 1992 address to students at the Oxford Union Society, in a passage that is eerily relevant to today's debate, [the former President declared]: ‘It is a fashionable assertion in these troubled times that nations must focus on economic, not military strength. Over the long run, it is true, no nation can remain militarily strong while economically exhausted. But I would remind you that defeats on the battlefield occur in the short run. As the tragedies of Bosnia, Somalia, and Sudan demonstrate all too well, power still matters. More precisely, economic power is not a replacement for military power.'"
History has taught us a painful lesson that we are poised to learn all over again. Cutting "security spending" in a dangerous world is an invitation to enemies - actual and prospective - to make it much more dangerous for Americans and their vital interests. It invariably proves to be a false economy, and the costs are measured in lives as well as immense amounts of dollars.
We literally cannot afford to make this mistake. Those responsible will surely be held accountable - later, if not sooner. They may never be forgiven, however.
Another Islamist Soldier Turns Terrorist in Texas
Is Islam incompatible with serving in the U.S. government?
Daniel Pipes
Tuesday, August 02, 2011
U.S. Army Pfc. Nasser Jason Abdo, 21, first made the news last August when, arguing that his Islamic faith contradicts serving in the American military, he filed for conscientious objector (C.O.) status. Referring to current American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Abdo asserted that a Muslim “is not allowed to participate in an Islamicly unjust war. Any Muslim who knows his religion . . . should not participate in the U.S. military.” Further, he wrote: “I cannot be a soldier in the U.S. Army and continue to remain true to Islam.”
Abdo also made anti-American statements during Pashto language class and listed the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on his Facebook page as one of his “activities and interests.” He announced his intent, on leaving the army, to combat “Islamophobia” and “to show Muslims how we can lead our lives. And to try and put a good positive spin out there that Islam is a good, peaceful religion. We’re not all terrorists, you know?”
In May 2011, Abdo won C.O. status. But he was also notified that due to an investigation prompted by his anti-American statements, he would face an Article 32 hearing (the military equivalent of a grand jury) for downloading 34 child-pornography pictures on his government-issued computer. Abdo vowed to fight this charge and impugned the army’s motives: “It has been nearly ten months since the investigation started, and I am only now being charged with child pornography when my C.O. claim is approved. I think that all sounds pretty fishy.”
On June 15, the Article 32 hearing recommended Abdo be court-martialed for the illegal pornography. On July 4, he went AWOL (absent without leave) from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky. On July 27, he turned up at Guns Galore, a munitions shop in Killeen, Texas, near Ft. Hood, where he bought weapons, ammunition, and bomb-making materials. He also purchased a uniform with Ft. Hood patches from a military-surplus store.
When the police arrested him later that day, an FBI press release recounts, “Abdo was in possession of a .40 caliber handgun, ammunition, an article [from Inspire, al-Qaeda's English-language magazine] entitled ‘Make a bomb in the kitchen of your Mom,’ as well as bomb-making components, including six bottles of smokeless gunpowder, shotgun shells, shotgun pellets, two clocks, two spools of auto wire, an electric drill and two pressure cookers.” Those materials in Abdo’s possession corresponded precisely to the “ingredients” listed in the Inspire magazine article on bomb-making.
Abdo admitted to the FBI that he “planned to assemble two bombs in the hotel room using gun powder and shrapnel packed into pressure cookers to detonate inside an unspecified restaurant frequented by soldiers from Fort Hood.”
What were his motives?
Two stand out: He confessed to planning to kill soldiers to “get even” with the military, presumably because of the court martial. But his larger goal was Islamist. He spouted off about “Islamophobia,” commended CAIR, made anti-American statements, and declared that he could not kill fellow Muslims. His backpack contained what one law-enforcement official called “Islamic extremist literature.” Guns Galore is the same store where Maj. Nidal Hasan bought the weapons he used to kill 14 at Ft. Hood in November 2009. In court, Abdo yelled out “Nidal Hasan — Fort Hood 2009” and “Anwar al-Awlaki” (Hasan’s al-Qaeda spiritual guide). He also screamed “Abeer Qasim al-Janabi — Iraq 2006,” the name of a girl gang-raped and murdered that year by soldiers from the 101st.
This case highlights a profound issue: Is Islam incompatible with serving in the U.S. government? Abdo’s C.O. claim and his would-be terrorism in opposite but complementary ways support an argument for their incompatibility. The U.S. Army tacitly accepted his point by granting him C.O. status, a decision perhaps influenced by repeated Muslim attacks on the U.S. military, including Sgt. Hasan Akbar’s fragging attack in Kuwait, Hasan’s Ft. Hood rampage, and Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad’s assault on a military-recruiting center in Arkansas.
This Abdo-army consensus has vast implications for Islam in America, suggesting that Muslims constitute a fifth column and cannot be loyal citizens. I disagree: Muslims can be patriotic Americans and exemplary soldiers. That said, the Abdo case once again points to the need for additional scrutiny of Muslims, whether serving in government or boarding aircraft. It’s unfortunate, it’s distasteful, but the common security demands no less.
Daniel Pipes
Tuesday, August 02, 2011
U.S. Army Pfc. Nasser Jason Abdo, 21, first made the news last August when, arguing that his Islamic faith contradicts serving in the American military, he filed for conscientious objector (C.O.) status. Referring to current American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Abdo asserted that a Muslim “is not allowed to participate in an Islamicly unjust war. Any Muslim who knows his religion . . . should not participate in the U.S. military.” Further, he wrote: “I cannot be a soldier in the U.S. Army and continue to remain true to Islam.”
Abdo also made anti-American statements during Pashto language class and listed the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on his Facebook page as one of his “activities and interests.” He announced his intent, on leaving the army, to combat “Islamophobia” and “to show Muslims how we can lead our lives. And to try and put a good positive spin out there that Islam is a good, peaceful religion. We’re not all terrorists, you know?”
In May 2011, Abdo won C.O. status. But he was also notified that due to an investigation prompted by his anti-American statements, he would face an Article 32 hearing (the military equivalent of a grand jury) for downloading 34 child-pornography pictures on his government-issued computer. Abdo vowed to fight this charge and impugned the army’s motives: “It has been nearly ten months since the investigation started, and I am only now being charged with child pornography when my C.O. claim is approved. I think that all sounds pretty fishy.”
On June 15, the Article 32 hearing recommended Abdo be court-martialed for the illegal pornography. On July 4, he went AWOL (absent without leave) from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky. On July 27, he turned up at Guns Galore, a munitions shop in Killeen, Texas, near Ft. Hood, where he bought weapons, ammunition, and bomb-making materials. He also purchased a uniform with Ft. Hood patches from a military-surplus store.
When the police arrested him later that day, an FBI press release recounts, “Abdo was in possession of a .40 caliber handgun, ammunition, an article [from Inspire, al-Qaeda's English-language magazine] entitled ‘Make a bomb in the kitchen of your Mom,’ as well as bomb-making components, including six bottles of smokeless gunpowder, shotgun shells, shotgun pellets, two clocks, two spools of auto wire, an electric drill and two pressure cookers.” Those materials in Abdo’s possession corresponded precisely to the “ingredients” listed in the Inspire magazine article on bomb-making.
Abdo admitted to the FBI that he “planned to assemble two bombs in the hotel room using gun powder and shrapnel packed into pressure cookers to detonate inside an unspecified restaurant frequented by soldiers from Fort Hood.”
What were his motives?
Two stand out: He confessed to planning to kill soldiers to “get even” with the military, presumably because of the court martial. But his larger goal was Islamist. He spouted off about “Islamophobia,” commended CAIR, made anti-American statements, and declared that he could not kill fellow Muslims. His backpack contained what one law-enforcement official called “Islamic extremist literature.” Guns Galore is the same store where Maj. Nidal Hasan bought the weapons he used to kill 14 at Ft. Hood in November 2009. In court, Abdo yelled out “Nidal Hasan — Fort Hood 2009” and “Anwar al-Awlaki” (Hasan’s al-Qaeda spiritual guide). He also screamed “Abeer Qasim al-Janabi — Iraq 2006,” the name of a girl gang-raped and murdered that year by soldiers from the 101st.
This case highlights a profound issue: Is Islam incompatible with serving in the U.S. government? Abdo’s C.O. claim and his would-be terrorism in opposite but complementary ways support an argument for their incompatibility. The U.S. Army tacitly accepted his point by granting him C.O. status, a decision perhaps influenced by repeated Muslim attacks on the U.S. military, including Sgt. Hasan Akbar’s fragging attack in Kuwait, Hasan’s Ft. Hood rampage, and Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad’s assault on a military-recruiting center in Arkansas.
This Abdo-army consensus has vast implications for Islam in America, suggesting that Muslims constitute a fifth column and cannot be loyal citizens. I disagree: Muslims can be patriotic Americans and exemplary soldiers. That said, the Abdo case once again points to the need for additional scrutiny of Muslims, whether serving in government or boarding aircraft. It’s unfortunate, it’s distasteful, but the common security demands no less.
Monday, August 1, 2011
The Poor Are Not Poor Because the Rich Are Rich
By Star Parker
Monday, August 01, 2011
A just released study from the Pew Research center reporting a record high wealth gap between whites and blacks should have been labeled “handle with care.”
Because care is needed to examine the complex reality behind the fact that “median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households….” And without care, this information will be abused and misused by those in the race business as another excuse to claim racism and demand exactly what blacks, or any of us, do not need – more government.
And, indeed, Al Sharpton has already announced plans for protest in Washington, along with the statement: “For those who think we live in some sort of post-racial society, I have news for you: we’re anything but.”
For one thing, “median wealth” should not be confused with “average wealth.” “Median” is simply the number right in the middle – there are an equal number of households with higher and an equal number with lower wealth. “Average wealth” accounts for the actual wealth of those households and reflects the fact, not reflected in the median number, that there are a good number of well-to-do black households.
So whereas median white household wealth is 20 times higher than median black household wealth, average white household wealth is 3 times higher than average black household wealth.
The racially tinged headline obscures the deeper reality of what is driving the growing wealth gap. That is that over the period of the study, 2005 to 2009, the gap between those with more wealth and those with less has increased for the whole country.
In fact, over this period, the gap between the most wealthy and least wealthy blacks became more pronounced than the gap between the most wealthy and least wealthy whites.
In 2005, the top ten percent wealthy black families represented 56 percent of overall black wealth. By 2009, this top ten percent represented 67% of overall black wealth.
You have to wonder what kind of racial claims Al Sharpton will make about this.
All this is not to minimize a genuine problem. Far more important than where black wealth stands relative to white wealth is the fact that median, or average, black wealth is far less than it should be.
That 35% of all black households have zero or negative wealth (net indebtedness) is dismally sad.
What to do?
If there are any public policy implications, it is not to expand government, but to remove it as obstacle to black wealth creation.
At the most basic level, black children need to get better education and this means giving black parents choice to send their children wherever they want to school.
A better educated black population will mean a higher income earning black population. But income alone is a limited tool for creating wealth. Wealth is created through savings, investment, and entrepreneurship. And blacks lag far behind in each category.
The Pew study shows that the major destruction of wealth from 2005 to 2009 resulted from the collapse of housing prices. Blacks suffered disproportionately because black net worth has been almost entirely in their homes.
The idea of allowing of allowing investment in a personal retirement account rather than paying the Social Security payroll tax would be a boon to building black wealth.
But when President Bush suggested the personal retirement account idea, NAACP chairman Julian Bond said this was asking blacks “to play the lottery with their future.”
A life of government guarantees and controls is not a formula for building wealth. Freedom and capital markets are. Blacks need to decide which they want.
And entrepreneurship must become part of black culture. Blacks need to get that poor people are not poor because rich people are rich.
The formula for more black wealth: less government, more ownership and initiative.
Monday, August 01, 2011
A just released study from the Pew Research center reporting a record high wealth gap between whites and blacks should have been labeled “handle with care.”
Because care is needed to examine the complex reality behind the fact that “median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households….” And without care, this information will be abused and misused by those in the race business as another excuse to claim racism and demand exactly what blacks, or any of us, do not need – more government.
And, indeed, Al Sharpton has already announced plans for protest in Washington, along with the statement: “For those who think we live in some sort of post-racial society, I have news for you: we’re anything but.”
For one thing, “median wealth” should not be confused with “average wealth.” “Median” is simply the number right in the middle – there are an equal number of households with higher and an equal number with lower wealth. “Average wealth” accounts for the actual wealth of those households and reflects the fact, not reflected in the median number, that there are a good number of well-to-do black households.
So whereas median white household wealth is 20 times higher than median black household wealth, average white household wealth is 3 times higher than average black household wealth.
The racially tinged headline obscures the deeper reality of what is driving the growing wealth gap. That is that over the period of the study, 2005 to 2009, the gap between those with more wealth and those with less has increased for the whole country.
In fact, over this period, the gap between the most wealthy and least wealthy blacks became more pronounced than the gap between the most wealthy and least wealthy whites.
In 2005, the top ten percent wealthy black families represented 56 percent of overall black wealth. By 2009, this top ten percent represented 67% of overall black wealth.
You have to wonder what kind of racial claims Al Sharpton will make about this.
All this is not to minimize a genuine problem. Far more important than where black wealth stands relative to white wealth is the fact that median, or average, black wealth is far less than it should be.
That 35% of all black households have zero or negative wealth (net indebtedness) is dismally sad.
What to do?
If there are any public policy implications, it is not to expand government, but to remove it as obstacle to black wealth creation.
At the most basic level, black children need to get better education and this means giving black parents choice to send their children wherever they want to school.
A better educated black population will mean a higher income earning black population. But income alone is a limited tool for creating wealth. Wealth is created through savings, investment, and entrepreneurship. And blacks lag far behind in each category.
The Pew study shows that the major destruction of wealth from 2005 to 2009 resulted from the collapse of housing prices. Blacks suffered disproportionately because black net worth has been almost entirely in their homes.
The idea of allowing of allowing investment in a personal retirement account rather than paying the Social Security payroll tax would be a boon to building black wealth.
But when President Bush suggested the personal retirement account idea, NAACP chairman Julian Bond said this was asking blacks “to play the lottery with their future.”
A life of government guarantees and controls is not a formula for building wealth. Freedom and capital markets are. Blacks need to decide which they want.
And entrepreneurship must become part of black culture. Blacks need to get that poor people are not poor because rich people are rich.
The formula for more black wealth: less government, more ownership and initiative.
Why I Hope the Rich Get Richer
By Katie Kieffer
Monday, August 01, 2011
Insecure business moguls like Warren Buffet occasionally spout anti-affluence nonsense like the rich “…should be paying a lot more in taxes.” If Buffet won’t defend the rich, I will. I love rich people. I wish them well and I hope they get richer.
I specifically love rich people who live in a capitalistic society like America. The richer they become, the richer, healthier and happier everyone else becomes. Unlike rich rulers in a monarchy or, worse yet, wealthy dictators, American capitalists are the average person’s best friend and entrepreneurial inspiration.
Wealthy Americans do not rule over other Americans. The Constitution does not grant them special privileges or royal titles. Unlike Queen Victoria, who tried to tap into a fund for low-income families to heat Buckingham Palace, rich Americans don’t receive public funds to heat their mansions.
Let’s say you bump into your old college roommate at a baseball game and you ask him how he’s been. He says, “I’m doing well. I started my own tech firm. I’ve hired a little over 500 hundred people. Oh, and remember how I was always so frugal? Well, I broke down and bought a Lamborghini. I’ve always wanted one. I figure I’ve earned it.”
Unless you’re Michael Moore, you wouldn’t hate his guts. You wouldn’t jealously snap, “Well, I’m glad you’re having fun making piles of money and splurging on yourself.” You would be happy that he pursued his passion, worked hard, took risks and is now helping hundreds of families put food on their tables.
When new innovators rise to achieve wealth and when the already-rich get richer, it’s a sign that the economy is thriving and public policies are business-friendly. The markets are healthy. Inflation, interest rates and taxes are typically low.
Most mainstream journalists do not understand wealth. For example, TIME Magazine columnist Bill Saporito says, “The wealthiest 5% earn 21.7% of the nation’s income but spend proportionately less of it than average folk. That’s logical and also explains why the former save more than the latter and thus become wealthier.”
But money has to come from somewhere. You don’t just stumble upon a billion dollars. You create a billion dollars by taking risks, persevering and working hard.
Even if you inherit all of your money, someone worked hard at some point to create it. For example, if Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s future children or relatives inherit his wealth and become rich, their luck does not negate the work and innovation it took for Zuckerberg to build his wealth.
Simply saving money does not magically yield more money, as Saporito infers. No one increases their wealth by hoarding it under a pillow. At the end of the day, wealthy people—whether they are self-made or heirs—must take some level of risk by investing their money if they wish to become wealthier.
When wealthy Americans are confident in the economy, they invest more aggressively, they expand their businesses faster, they lend more generously and they spend their wealth more freely. This behavior produces innovative technologies, loans and jobs so that millions of other people have access to homes, cars, vacations, higher education and high-tech toys.
This summer, affluent parents flying their children to week-long summer camps in private jets took heat from the mainstream media for supposedly over-indulging their children—while the rest of the country struggled with unemployment, foreclosures and rising food prices.
In reality, when a wealthy person drops a few grand on a “luxury” like a round-trip private plane rental, they enrich ordinary Americans by supporting their businesses. An Augusta State Airport manager, Dale Kilmer, told the New York Times: “We have 50 to 60 jets up here in just that one day (when campers flew in).” Ordinarily, the airport caters to just a handful of private planes per day.
We hurt ourselves by envying, over-taxing and slandering the rich. Anti-wealth public policies will only persuade independently wealthy Americans to shut down their businesses, stop hiring and retire early to their hammocks in the tropics. On the other hand, if we “love” the rich, we will receive the love back in the form of ample jobs, loans, innovations and investments.
Let’s love the rich—and the aspiring rich—by implementing pro-business tax reform that motivates them to take risks, invest and create jobs. For, as Justin Timberlake sings:
“What goes around, goes around, goes around
Comes all the way back around”
Monday, August 01, 2011
Insecure business moguls like Warren Buffet occasionally spout anti-affluence nonsense like the rich “…should be paying a lot more in taxes.” If Buffet won’t defend the rich, I will. I love rich people. I wish them well and I hope they get richer.
I specifically love rich people who live in a capitalistic society like America. The richer they become, the richer, healthier and happier everyone else becomes. Unlike rich rulers in a monarchy or, worse yet, wealthy dictators, American capitalists are the average person’s best friend and entrepreneurial inspiration.
Wealthy Americans do not rule over other Americans. The Constitution does not grant them special privileges or royal titles. Unlike Queen Victoria, who tried to tap into a fund for low-income families to heat Buckingham Palace, rich Americans don’t receive public funds to heat their mansions.
Let’s say you bump into your old college roommate at a baseball game and you ask him how he’s been. He says, “I’m doing well. I started my own tech firm. I’ve hired a little over 500 hundred people. Oh, and remember how I was always so frugal? Well, I broke down and bought a Lamborghini. I’ve always wanted one. I figure I’ve earned it.”
Unless you’re Michael Moore, you wouldn’t hate his guts. You wouldn’t jealously snap, “Well, I’m glad you’re having fun making piles of money and splurging on yourself.” You would be happy that he pursued his passion, worked hard, took risks and is now helping hundreds of families put food on their tables.
When new innovators rise to achieve wealth and when the already-rich get richer, it’s a sign that the economy is thriving and public policies are business-friendly. The markets are healthy. Inflation, interest rates and taxes are typically low.
Most mainstream journalists do not understand wealth. For example, TIME Magazine columnist Bill Saporito says, “The wealthiest 5% earn 21.7% of the nation’s income but spend proportionately less of it than average folk. That’s logical and also explains why the former save more than the latter and thus become wealthier.”
But money has to come from somewhere. You don’t just stumble upon a billion dollars. You create a billion dollars by taking risks, persevering and working hard.
Even if you inherit all of your money, someone worked hard at some point to create it. For example, if Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s future children or relatives inherit his wealth and become rich, their luck does not negate the work and innovation it took for Zuckerberg to build his wealth.
Simply saving money does not magically yield more money, as Saporito infers. No one increases their wealth by hoarding it under a pillow. At the end of the day, wealthy people—whether they are self-made or heirs—must take some level of risk by investing their money if they wish to become wealthier.
When wealthy Americans are confident in the economy, they invest more aggressively, they expand their businesses faster, they lend more generously and they spend their wealth more freely. This behavior produces innovative technologies, loans and jobs so that millions of other people have access to homes, cars, vacations, higher education and high-tech toys.
This summer, affluent parents flying their children to week-long summer camps in private jets took heat from the mainstream media for supposedly over-indulging their children—while the rest of the country struggled with unemployment, foreclosures and rising food prices.
In reality, when a wealthy person drops a few grand on a “luxury” like a round-trip private plane rental, they enrich ordinary Americans by supporting their businesses. An Augusta State Airport manager, Dale Kilmer, told the New York Times: “We have 50 to 60 jets up here in just that one day (when campers flew in).” Ordinarily, the airport caters to just a handful of private planes per day.
We hurt ourselves by envying, over-taxing and slandering the rich. Anti-wealth public policies will only persuade independently wealthy Americans to shut down their businesses, stop hiring and retire early to their hammocks in the tropics. On the other hand, if we “love” the rich, we will receive the love back in the form of ample jobs, loans, innovations and investments.
Let’s love the rich—and the aspiring rich—by implementing pro-business tax reform that motivates them to take risks, invest and create jobs. For, as Justin Timberlake sings:
“What goes around, goes around, goes around
Comes all the way back around”
What Really is Poverty?
By Ed Feulner
Monday, August 01, 2011
More than 35 million Americans live in poverty, according to the Census Bureau. Imagine what kind of life they must have.
Actually, you don’t have to imagine. Their federal government conducts numerous surveys that contain detailed information about the living conditions of those classified as poor -- information that comes directly from those in poverty.
Are they experiencing significant hardship? Do they just barely scrape by, with no modern conveniences and hardly any food? Some do, unfortunately. But for most, it’s a different story.
Air-conditioning? Cable TV? A car? The average household defined as poor by the government has these, the survey data show. It also has a microwave, a clothes washer and dryer, a dishwasher, a coffee maker and a cordless phone. Half of poor households have a computer. Add to this two color televisions and a DVD player, along with a video-game system such as an Xbox or a Playstation for those households with children.
But what about where they live? One could have any number of modern gadgets and conveniences and still live in a broken-down, cramped residence. That isn’t the case, however. “Poor Americans are well housed and rarely overcrowded,” writes Heritage Foundation welfare expert Robert Rector in a new study. “In fact, the houses and apartments of America’s poor are quite spacious by international standards. The typical poor American has considerably more living space than does the average European.”
Moreover, 43 percent own their own homes, the government data show, nearly all of which are in good condition.
OK, so the average poor family lives in an uncrowded house or apartment, it’s in good repair, and it has many modern conveniences. What about food? Again, the surveys indicate that, on average, the poor are well-nourished. The level of protein, vitamins and minerals that children in poverty consume is virtually identical to what middle-class children get.
Some poor households do experience temporary food shortages. But again, this is a distinct minority. More than 92 percent of poor households say they always have “enough food to eat” over the last four months. Only 6 percent say they “sometimes” don’t have enough, and 1.5 percent say it happens often.
The point of all this is not to argue that there aren’t people in this country living in poverty. There are. And those truly in need deserve a helping hand. But the good news is that the problem isn’t as widespread or as chronic as we’re led to believe. We wind up wasting money when we pretend otherwise.
In addition, we fuel the anti-American propaganda spread by countries such as Russia and China, who accuse the United States of human-rights violations. Why? Because they claim that the millions of Americans classified as poor are enduring a life of desperate poverty -- “like a third world nightmare,” as the Russia Today TV network once put it.
The average poor household in the U.S. isn’t living the high life. But it’s also not the dust-bowl existence pictured in John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” or the dramatic “Two Americas” picture painted by John Edwards. As scholar James Q. Wilson notes, “The poorest Americans today live a better life than all but the richest persons a hundred years ago.”
We do those who experience substantial hardship a real disservice when we spread misinformation that inflates their true numbers, especially in a time of tight budgets. We need to base anti-poverty policy on facts, not on lurid anecdotes and exaggerated rhetoric.
Monday, August 01, 2011
More than 35 million Americans live in poverty, according to the Census Bureau. Imagine what kind of life they must have.
Actually, you don’t have to imagine. Their federal government conducts numerous surveys that contain detailed information about the living conditions of those classified as poor -- information that comes directly from those in poverty.
Are they experiencing significant hardship? Do they just barely scrape by, with no modern conveniences and hardly any food? Some do, unfortunately. But for most, it’s a different story.
Air-conditioning? Cable TV? A car? The average household defined as poor by the government has these, the survey data show. It also has a microwave, a clothes washer and dryer, a dishwasher, a coffee maker and a cordless phone. Half of poor households have a computer. Add to this two color televisions and a DVD player, along with a video-game system such as an Xbox or a Playstation for those households with children.
But what about where they live? One could have any number of modern gadgets and conveniences and still live in a broken-down, cramped residence. That isn’t the case, however. “Poor Americans are well housed and rarely overcrowded,” writes Heritage Foundation welfare expert Robert Rector in a new study. “In fact, the houses and apartments of America’s poor are quite spacious by international standards. The typical poor American has considerably more living space than does the average European.”
Moreover, 43 percent own their own homes, the government data show, nearly all of which are in good condition.
OK, so the average poor family lives in an uncrowded house or apartment, it’s in good repair, and it has many modern conveniences. What about food? Again, the surveys indicate that, on average, the poor are well-nourished. The level of protein, vitamins and minerals that children in poverty consume is virtually identical to what middle-class children get.
Some poor households do experience temporary food shortages. But again, this is a distinct minority. More than 92 percent of poor households say they always have “enough food to eat” over the last four months. Only 6 percent say they “sometimes” don’t have enough, and 1.5 percent say it happens often.
The point of all this is not to argue that there aren’t people in this country living in poverty. There are. And those truly in need deserve a helping hand. But the good news is that the problem isn’t as widespread or as chronic as we’re led to believe. We wind up wasting money when we pretend otherwise.
In addition, we fuel the anti-American propaganda spread by countries such as Russia and China, who accuse the United States of human-rights violations. Why? Because they claim that the millions of Americans classified as poor are enduring a life of desperate poverty -- “like a third world nightmare,” as the Russia Today TV network once put it.
The average poor household in the U.S. isn’t living the high life. But it’s also not the dust-bowl existence pictured in John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” or the dramatic “Two Americas” picture painted by John Edwards. As scholar James Q. Wilson notes, “The poorest Americans today live a better life than all but the richest persons a hundred years ago.”
We do those who experience substantial hardship a real disservice when we spread misinformation that inflates their true numbers, especially in a time of tight budgets. We need to base anti-poverty policy on facts, not on lurid anecdotes and exaggerated rhetoric.
Republicans Win When the Fight Is Over Cuts Not More Taxes
By Michael Barone
Monday, August 01, 2011
Everyone seems pretty cross at this juncture in the fight over raising the debt limit. As this is written, the House has just passed the bill that Speaker John Boehner yanked from the floor Thursday night and then revised with a balanced-budget amendment on Friday. The Senate has yet to pass Majority Leader Harry Reid's measure that in many but not all respects is not that much different.
It looks like the Senate will approve Reid's measure and that the two bills, framed in a way that makes compromise relatively easy, will be melded into one version that could be passed by bipartisan majorities of both houses in time to meet the supposedly hard deadline of Tuesday, Aug. 2.
But it's not certain everything will work out, and in the meantime nobody's very happy about the whole situation.
Democrats seem especially unhappy. They could have avoided the fight in the first place by raising the debt ceiling in the lame duck session in December, when they had large majorities in both houses of Congress.
But they decided not to. Reid's comments then suggested that he expected the issue to split the House Republicans, pitting the leadership against the 87 Tea Party-sympathizing freshmen. The leaders would have to agree to a tax increase in order to get a deal, with a party schism like the one that followed George H.W. Bush's agreement to a tax increase in 1990.
That didn't happen. Instead Reid abandoned his demand for a tax increase. The reason, I think, is that he hasn't had a 50-vote majority for a tax increase in the Senate, just as Senate Democrats haven't been able to pass a budget.
All of which left Barack Obama looking somewhat ridiculous when he called for more taxes in his televised speech Monday night. When you're trying to show you're leading and your followers have already gone off in another direction, you tend to look like something other than a leader.
Some Democrats, in frustration, have said House Republicans are acting "almost like a dictatorship" or are using "terrorist tactics." But in opposing tax increases, House Republicans are just being true to the voters who gave them in November 2010 a larger majority than they have won since 1946.
Other Democrats have taken to blaming Obama. Robert Reich, labor secretary in the Clinton administration, decries an empty bully pulpit. Paul Krugman, the trade economist who writes partisan vitriol for The New York Times, talks about a centrist copout.
Such complaints seem to ignore a lesson that Democrats were happy to teach Republicans after November 2008: Elections have consequences.
Our Constitution does not allow the Republicans, who won big in 2010, to immediately repeal Obamacare and pare back spending to 2007 levels, and they're pretty frustrated about that. Enough of them remained obdurate to prevent Boehner's bill from passing Thursday and to push him to include a provision supposedly forcing passage of a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget.
All of which weakens Boehner's bargaining position and may mean a final bill less tilted to Republican demands. But, as many Democrats note, the battle is being fought over how much spending to cut, which means that Republicans are winning. The question is just how much.
Democrats went into this fight with a precedent in mind, the budget fight between President Clinton and Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1995-96. The conventional wisdom is that Clinton won that fight and Republicans lost.
That's not quite right: After shifting to noticeably more moderate policies, Clinton was re-elected in 1996, but Republicans lost few House seats and held onto their congressional majorities at the same time.
The difference this time is that Obama has not shifted policies noticeably, but instead has seemed to position himself as a complainer on the sidelines, asking voters to call their congressman. He has presented no specific plan of his own. His chief of staff reports that he hasn't spoken at all to Boehner lately.
Just as he left the specifics of the stimulus package and Obamacare to congressional Democrats, so he has left the framing of an alternative to Harry Reid, whose Senate Democrats haven't passed a budget resolution in two years.
On Friday, the Gallup poll showed Obama's job approval down to 40 percent, the lowest of his presidency. Voters are cross with everybody, but he has the most to lose.
Monday, August 01, 2011
Everyone seems pretty cross at this juncture in the fight over raising the debt limit. As this is written, the House has just passed the bill that Speaker John Boehner yanked from the floor Thursday night and then revised with a balanced-budget amendment on Friday. The Senate has yet to pass Majority Leader Harry Reid's measure that in many but not all respects is not that much different.
It looks like the Senate will approve Reid's measure and that the two bills, framed in a way that makes compromise relatively easy, will be melded into one version that could be passed by bipartisan majorities of both houses in time to meet the supposedly hard deadline of Tuesday, Aug. 2.
But it's not certain everything will work out, and in the meantime nobody's very happy about the whole situation.
Democrats seem especially unhappy. They could have avoided the fight in the first place by raising the debt ceiling in the lame duck session in December, when they had large majorities in both houses of Congress.
But they decided not to. Reid's comments then suggested that he expected the issue to split the House Republicans, pitting the leadership against the 87 Tea Party-sympathizing freshmen. The leaders would have to agree to a tax increase in order to get a deal, with a party schism like the one that followed George H.W. Bush's agreement to a tax increase in 1990.
That didn't happen. Instead Reid abandoned his demand for a tax increase. The reason, I think, is that he hasn't had a 50-vote majority for a tax increase in the Senate, just as Senate Democrats haven't been able to pass a budget.
All of which left Barack Obama looking somewhat ridiculous when he called for more taxes in his televised speech Monday night. When you're trying to show you're leading and your followers have already gone off in another direction, you tend to look like something other than a leader.
Some Democrats, in frustration, have said House Republicans are acting "almost like a dictatorship" or are using "terrorist tactics." But in opposing tax increases, House Republicans are just being true to the voters who gave them in November 2010 a larger majority than they have won since 1946.
Other Democrats have taken to blaming Obama. Robert Reich, labor secretary in the Clinton administration, decries an empty bully pulpit. Paul Krugman, the trade economist who writes partisan vitriol for The New York Times, talks about a centrist copout.
Such complaints seem to ignore a lesson that Democrats were happy to teach Republicans after November 2008: Elections have consequences.
Our Constitution does not allow the Republicans, who won big in 2010, to immediately repeal Obamacare and pare back spending to 2007 levels, and they're pretty frustrated about that. Enough of them remained obdurate to prevent Boehner's bill from passing Thursday and to push him to include a provision supposedly forcing passage of a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget.
All of which weakens Boehner's bargaining position and may mean a final bill less tilted to Republican demands. But, as many Democrats note, the battle is being fought over how much spending to cut, which means that Republicans are winning. The question is just how much.
Democrats went into this fight with a precedent in mind, the budget fight between President Clinton and Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1995-96. The conventional wisdom is that Clinton won that fight and Republicans lost.
That's not quite right: After shifting to noticeably more moderate policies, Clinton was re-elected in 1996, but Republicans lost few House seats and held onto their congressional majorities at the same time.
The difference this time is that Obama has not shifted policies noticeably, but instead has seemed to position himself as a complainer on the sidelines, asking voters to call their congressman. He has presented no specific plan of his own. His chief of staff reports that he hasn't spoken at all to Boehner lately.
Just as he left the specifics of the stimulus package and Obamacare to congressional Democrats, so he has left the framing of an alternative to Harry Reid, whose Senate Democrats haven't passed a budget resolution in two years.
On Friday, the Gallup poll showed Obama's job approval down to 40 percent, the lowest of his presidency. Voters are cross with everybody, but he has the most to lose.
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