Ten Ways Progressive Policies Harm Society's Moral Character

Agree with him or not, this piece by Dennis Prager is a good example of writing with clarity (I sometimes think his writing would be better with more examples, but I thought this piece was well-written for a short summary). Read the whole thing. As usual with Prager, I didn't find a single "weasel word" in the piece.  Kicker at the end.

If you'd rather watch a video, he did short one with the same theme earlier. I hope that most people would fall somewhere between the extremes in how much government they think is good:   no government (true anarchy with its risks of destruction) and really big government (national or international egalitarian government with its risks of totalitarianism).  But about the only people agitating for anarchy today are faux anarchists who want to see Western Civilization fall so they can build a new, utopian system.  Progressive policies which lead toward really big government, on the other hand, remain popular.  The ten moral downsides which Prager identifies are:

1. The bigger the government, the less the citizens do for one another.

The greatest description of American civilization was written in the 19th century by the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville. One of the differences distinguishing Americans from Europeans that he most marveled at was how much Americans — through myriad associations — took care of one another.

2. The welfare state, though often well intended, is nevertheless a Ponzi scheme.

As a result, virtually every welfare state in Europe, along with many American states, like California, is going broke.

3. Citizens of liberal welfare states become increasingly narcissistic.

4. The liberal welfare state makes people disdain work.

5. Nothing more guarantees the erosion of character than getting something for nothing.

And the rhetoric of liberalism — labeling each new entitlement a “right” — reinforces this sense of entitlement.

6. The bigger the government, the more the corruption.

Of course, big businesses are also often corrupt. But they are eventually caught or go out of business. The government cannot go out of business. And, unlike corrupt governments, corrupt businesses cannot print money and thereby devalue a nation’s currency, and they cannot arrest you.

7. The welfare state corrupts family life.

8. The welfare state inhibits the maturation of its young citizens into responsible adults.

9. As a result of the Left’s sympathetic views of pacifism, and because almost no welfare state can afford a strong military, European countries rely on America to fight the world’s evils and even to defend them.

10. The leftist weltanschauung sees society’s and the world’s great battle as between rich and poor rather than between good and evil.

This is what produces the morally confused liberal elites that can venerate a Cuban tyranny with its egalitarian society over a free and decent America that has greater inequality.

Bill Whittle: Michael Moore's Right

Ace: Bill Whittle: "Michael Moore's Right: We Can Balance the Budget By Taking Money From The Rich.   Ah, but there's a catch. Great video; stay with it." Allahpundit: Long, but it has to be.

First came the video by Mary Katherine Ham's analysis of Michael Moore's simple, elegant solution to America's financial crisis.

 The reviews above concern Bill Whittle's visual illustration of a more detailed Iowahawk blog post on Moore's Madison speech ON VIDEO. Iowahawk is a genius. Bill Whittle, a screenwriter, provides the images to make his words memorable.

One thing you have to say about Michael Moore is that he is effective in persuading and energizing his intended audience. Since Moore declared war on the government of Wisconsin, Governor Walker's poll numbers have been going down, and now the Left is engaging in a deceitful and intimidating campaign to unseat a supreme court judge in Wisconsin. (They are also going door-to-door for signatures on recall petitions, while misrepresenting the language of the petitions.)

There are powerful psychological reasons for the allure of liberal social policies even in the face of economic disaster.   Mark Steyn characterizes two very different types of protesters in the London protests and riots against modest cuts in government benefits, in The Human Right to Suspend Reality, then makes the following observation:

In a democracy, there are not many easy ways back from insane levels of “social” spending, and certainly not when the leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition panders to the mob by comparing them to anti-apartheid activists.

Michael Moore is apparently proud of his recent appearance on the Colbert Report.   Note, starting at about 6 minutes and 30 seconds how viciously and falsely he characterizes America's 400 billionaires, from Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to the "littler Mubaraks" like Oprah Winfrey.  Who could really believe that Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey are conspiring to concentrate ALL of the money in the United States into the hands of exactly 400 people?  But it's the emotion that counts -- no evidence needed.

I am in no position to judge the deepest intentions of America's billionaires, but I would imagine that not all of their motives are altruistic.  However, the leadership of the Left proclaims that it knows EXACTLY what  "the rich" are thinking.   Might this be a form of projection?  The Left tends to think of money as power more than classical liberals, libertarians or conservatives do.

The leadership of the Left knows that its primary weapon is to demonize some person or group on the other side. "Personalize and Polarize", as Saul Alinsky liked to say. It is impossible for them to portray those on the other side as having ANY honorable motives. Their worldview REQUIRES them to attribute evil motives to others, because the record of the left's economic policies has been consistently disastrous (given enough time).

Questions for Michael Moore:   If these 400 billionaires are conspiring to control ALL of the wealth in the United States, WHY DO MANY OF THEM GIVE AWAY SO MUCH OF THEIR MONEY TO CHARITY?  And why do they have so many employees?  And to whom do they sell products or services?  What is the true nature of their wealth?

Compare Moore's economic philosophy with that of Abraham Lincoln.

I don’t believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. So while we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else. …. I want every man to have the chance — and I believe a black man is entitled to it — in which he can better his condition — when he may look forward and hope to be a hired laborer this year and the next, work for himself afterward, and finally to hire men to work for him! That is the true system.

p.s.:   While taxes for corporations are not fairly distributed in the U.S., tomorrow the United States will have the worlds highest corporate tax rate. Not only that, but no country leans on upper-income households more than the U.S. for tax revenues. And then there's this little bit of fact to counter Mr. Moore's scary scenario of total control of America's assets by 400 very rich people:

I like to point out that the low rate at the top of the income scale is an artifact of the lower capital gain rate, that it doesn't count the double taxation of corporate income, and the fact that people usually get to the very top of the income scale once, when they sell their business or some other big asset in capital gain transactions.

In other words, most rich people reach high, temporary income levels by giving up control of the businesses or stocks which made them rich. There is, over a period of decades, a fair amount of turnover in the richest families in America. But Michael Moore will present only the worst possible characterization of "the rich" because it is part of his strategy.

Meg McArdle via Instapundit: THE RICH REALLY ARE DIFFERENT: Their Incomes Fluctuate More. “This is one of the reasons that we can’t fix all our budget problems with higher taxes on the rich – if we do that, revenues are going to collapse dangerously every time there’s a recession.” McArdle quotes Robert Frank:

Nearly half of California's income taxes before the recession came from the top 1% of earners: households that took in more than $490,000 a year. High earners, it turns out, have especially volatile incomes--their earnings fell by more than twice as much as the rest of the population's during the recession. When they crashed, they took California's finances down with them.

Mr. Williams, a former economic forecaster for the state, spent more than a decade warning state leaders about California's over-dependence on the rich. "We created a revenue cliff," he said. "We built a large part of our government on the state's most unstable income group."

As far as I can tell, if Michael Moore had his way, there would be no risky investments because there would be no rich people. Only people toiling happily under the direction of the Federal Government (or the Revolutionary Council or whatever), which would magically provide good jobs, good wages and benefits to all of the 300 million people in America. It would be a Worker's Paradise. Sort of like Cuba. THE POSSIBILITY OF BILLIONAIRES TAKING ALL YOUR MONEY WOULD VANISH.

Captains of Capitalism set out to CHANGE capitalism

Via the New York TImes, GE's profits are now highly dependent on its tax strategy:

The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.
Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

In other words, you've been paying taxes to GE! Unfettered Free Enterprise rules in the United States!  Everybody follows the same rules!  Heh.

Ace says:

Via Nathan Wurtzel . . . who reminds us that until earlier this year GE owned the pro-tax MSNBC. Well, pro tax for the little people, not them. Big difference.

Which gives me an excuse to link the fantasy video in which Chris Matthews Tells the Truth. Rich Democrats DO seem awfully good at evading or avoiding taxes: John Kerry docking his yacht out of state to avoid taxes amd Clair McCaskill's maneuvers to avoid taxes on her plane are just two recent examples. Of course, the very rich don't necessarily have to be Democrats to find ways to avoid paying taxes. But high tax rates motivate the very rich to seek help from government in finding loopholes or other ways to avoid paying "their fair share".  Watch what they do, not what they say.

Special deals for certain corporations can be more damaging to the economy than loopholes for individuals because they provide the favored companies with an unfair advantage over competitors. "As The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney has reported, days after President Barack Obama’s inauguration, Immelt wrote to GE shareholders:

[W]e are going through more than a cycle. The global economy, and capitalism, will be ‘reset’ in several important ways. The interaction between government and business will change forever. In a reset economy, the government will be a regulator; and also an industry policy champion, a financier, and a key partner."

Hmmm. "regulator, industry policy champion, financier and key partner."   WHERE HAVE WE SEEN THIS KIND OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND INDUSTRY BEFORE? ITALY?   What could possibly go wrong? 

Tigerhawk on Obama and the Fortune 500:

. . . I wish that the president would stop catering to the Fortune 500 tools. These are not the companies that innovate. They don't create a lot of American jobs in the long run, they are big enough to lobby for legislation to protect their entrenched businesses, their CEOs consort with politicians partly for the fun of it, and they are in general willing and inevitable participants in the government-corporate complex. If President Obama really wants to motivate business, he will start paying attention to the next several thousand companies, which are the real engine of growth and innovation in the great American prosperity machine.

Meanwhile, Left-wing billionaire George Soros is reportely quietly planning to push for 'a grand bargain that rearranges the entire financial order.' Because, you know, American leadership at present is "unacceptable" to Mr. Soros, who wants to use us as guinea pigs in his grand design to establish a global sheriff. I wonder if he is boosting greater power for China at the expense of India? We know he thinks America is awful, but does he think India is worse than China because the people are somewhat more free?

I think these people bear watching. But we're too busy watching the Marxist incitements of Michael Moore, who's only a millionaire, and a former SEIU official.

Kind of reminds me of the rumor that Jamie Gorelick is on President Obama's short list to head up the FBI, even though she's the "Typhoid Mary of policy fiascos." If the villains from Enron should be in prison for cooking the books, so should she. Being a reliable Washington Democratic insider has its privileges. But even though she's not in prison, her name makes all the other candidates seem wonderful by comparison.

Libya: Whatever you think, a lot of people probably disagree with you

What do you think the U.S. approach to the Libyan crisis should be?  Some varied responses here. Could be interesting to review later.  Liberals are divided in their opinions.  Conservatives are divided in their opinions.  Some foreign tyrants are still pulling for Qaddafi. The UN undermines Obama.

March 21: Anti-war movement not dead, but subdued.

Hugo Chavez, reported March 22: End Capitalism, which may have destroyed life on Mars

“I have always said, heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilization on Mars, but maybe capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived and finished off the planet,” Chavez said in speech to mark World Water Day. . . .

He added that the West’s attacks on Libya were about water and oil reserves.

Bolivian President, March 22: Isn't it time to revoke Obama's Nobel Peace Prize? Most Americans disagree.

President Barak Obama, March 22: installing a democratic system that respects the people’s will.?    Needs clarification. He sounds too much like a neocon here.

White House, March 22: We're not at war with Libya.  Interview of Hillary Clinton. Planning on handing off power to an undetermined group of people. President Obama cutting short his Latin American trip.

Congress, March 22: No "King's Army" in U.S.?

Joe Scarborough: Republicans have become the party of reckless interventionism.

David Brooks: The problem with multilateralism.

France proposes political steering committee to guide Libyan operations.

March 23: Center-left TNR weighs in with "What the Left got wrong".

The Hill: President Obama struggles to define mission  Glenn Reynolds offers some ancient guidance:

If you strike at a king, you must kill him.

Michael Kinsley: How did this happen?

Eric Posner: An imperial presidency?

Austin Bay:

Candidate Obama may have pursued smart politics (for the tactical purpose of gaining power) by mainstreaming ‘Bush lied, people died’ and other inflammatory nonsense. The intent was to impugn the motives of those of us who saw the GWOT enterprise as the best choice among many terrible choices. Libya, however, reveals Candidate Obama’s foreign policy prescriptions, billed as smart diplomacy by liberal media operatives, as more balderdash for the dustbin of history. It also calls into question just how smart the politics of 2005 to 2009 will ultimately prove to be for Obama and the Democratic Party.

President Obama: The exit strategy is to stick around, sort of? NOTE: Jazz Shaw writes today about the blatant hypocrisy at the heart of the UN “R2P” doctrine on which Obama relied.

Ace: Germany withdraws from the "Remarkable Coalition". Jeff G. weighs in: "If only we'd been warned."

Ace links VDH: with some "coherent principles" for conservative criticism of the Libyan operation. Then Ace goes on to discuss the current cognitive dissonance of the Left. Interesting.

. . . when they see a Qadaffy killing rebels, they don't understand. They're confused -- aren't heroes supposed to be on the side of justice and liberation?

But they've spent their whole lives ripping into America for doing just that.

Their only resolution of this contradiction is It's okay when we do it, because our hearts are pure.

On the other hand Gingrich is playing politics on this issue in an unsupportable way. More.

Fouad Ajami: The right thing at last.

Who said this?

President Obama Redefines the Term "Exit Strategy" . . . .

Doesn’t sound like an exit strategy at all.

What it does recall is Lewis Carroll.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.

Down the rabbit hole?

Joe Lieberman said WHAT?

Joe Biden: Was the President's decision to use force in Libya an impeachable offense?

March 23: What is the basis of our Libya policy? National interest? "Aligning our interests and our values"?  Who is in charge?

Andrea Mitchell discusses the emerging "vision" for Libya and defines the  Obama Doctrine:

1) "When you have a catastrophe you can avert"

2) "and the benefits outweigh the costs"

3) "and you have an international or multilateral support"

4) "Go for it."

As Ace points out, # 1 almost always exists. #2 is a judgment call. #3 - GWB did this too, except that France was not on board. I wonder if the President agrees with Ms. Mitchell. Maybe we'll find out someday.

March 24: Jonah Goldberg on sterile, impersonal terms for war. Peter Wehner: "Muddled thinking creates muddled language".

Why liberals can't communicate with conservatives

Well, this is just one of the reasons, actually. Nobel Prize Winning Economist and NYT columnist Paul Krugman said today with an expression of superiority that he usually didn't follow conservative sites. Kind of funny.

Crooked Timber is the most liberal site to which I keep a live link in my sidebar. Smart people there, and they usually don't get violent or obscene in their discussions. So I have something in common with Paul Krugman. Heh. Once in a while, I even join a comment thread. Anything I write has to be airtight or I am ripped to shreds (intellectually).

It's easier for liberals to stay in an "echo chamber" than it is for conservatives, because conservatives are exposed to liberal thought through the media all the time. To hear conservative stuff, you have to CHOOSE it.

Krugman recently presented statistics to back up his position that in "low-tax, low-spending" Texas the educational system was so inept as to be immoral. Iowahawk, working outside his normal specialty, ripped Krugman's statistics to bits in half an hour, with an even more devastating follow-up piece.

Pride cometh before the fall, Professor Krugman. Even one of the people he admires at Crooked Timber wondered why Krugman was so sloppy when I brought up Iowahawk's first piece in a comment thread. Maybe Krugman should stick to economics if he's going to keep his mind closed except to people who already agree with him and can say what he thinks in a different way.

Getting Real about Israel

Melanie Phillips discusses the abandonment of the field of battle in the "information war" to the Left and to those in the UK and in Israel wishing to destroy Israel.

Clarity
Clarity
Clarity

From about the 7 minute point, you may recognize some phenomena which occur in the U.S. as well.

UPDATE: Perhaps someone is taking Phillips seriously. There have been some lucid responses to the American mainstream media's framing of Israel as the "Designated Villain". The devious "Designated Villain" journalistic technique seems to be very popular with our mainstream media's reporters. It's a way to editorialize while seeming to report the news. These smear jobs would be far more acceptable if "designated villain" pieces were included in the opinion pages rather than presented as news reports.  The letter to the editor of TIME magazine by Ron Dermer linked above is an exceptional example of:

Clarity and balance

You might want to follow the links to read responses to various other biased reports by our mainstream media.

Reports from Eastern Europe

Eastern European governments begin seizing private pensions. Meanwhile, France and Ireland "use" the money in government-structured pensions for other purposes.

Andrew Klavan:

"Free people can treat each other justly, but they can't make life fair. To get rid of the unfairness among individuals, you have to exercise power over them. The more fairness you want, the more power you need. Thus, all dreams of fairness become dreams of tyranny in the end."

On the other hand, Romanian witches are using spells to protest new taxes. Guess you have to scare 'em somehow.

Reducing Social Divisions and Inequality: When Liberal Pundits Fight

Do you increase social cohesion and reduce social inequality by reducing income inequality through taxation,  or by limiting cultural and racial diversity, for example, by limiting immigration?  Follow the Links  to read about some in-fighting among liberals* on this issue.  Starting off, conservative/libertarian Tom Maguire points out that the same data can lead to different conclusions if you haven't accounted for all variables:

Yesterday Nick Kristof delivered a daft column invoking income inequality as a proxy for social inequality and arguing that inequality is stressful and bad. . .

The obvious conclusion, based on the examples presented by Kristof, is that racial diversity creates undesirable social stress. An obvious public policy implication is that immigration should be discouraged. Believe it or not, Kristof did not reach those conclusions, since they don't fit his narrative. Instead, he rode the data to his preconceived destination, which is that we need to tax the rich and spread the wealth. Yeah, yeah - if you aren't going to let the data tell its story, why send it on stage? Or, if the data leads to unacceptable conclusions, maybe the premises are wrong (e.g., maybe social stress is bad but it is a necessary consequence of achieving other goods.)

Well. As if on cue, the Times has a front-pager telling us how they reduce income inequality and maintain social cohesion in laudable Japan - they kick out foreigners, thereby propping up wages. . .

OK, it looks like national suicide to me and it could never work in America (nor should it be attempted at this level, although we need stricter border control and workplace enforcement), but this is a country Nick Kristof is holding up as our goal.

Mickey Kaus notes differences between the famous New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and less famous  liberal (and libertarian/liberal) commentators on the issue of immigration. Some of whom seem to have a tendency toward name-calling.

Somewhat-related Graphs: Median income vs. incomes for the top 1% in America over time.  Update:  Tom Maguire has no mercy.

* Well, Mickey Kaus is more moderate than the rest - with some libertarian leanings. I sure wish his Democratic primary challenge to Barbara Boxer had been more successful. But he made some good points with very little money.

Southern Europe's Young See Little Benefit in Education

THE NEW YORK TIMES REPORTS on a "Doomed Generation" of highly educated young Europeans who can't find work??? Pigs fly.

Young people in Europe start to understand the looming demographic crisis.

With pensioners living longer and young people entering the work force later — and paying less in taxes because their salaries are so low — it is only a matter of time before state coffers run dry.

“What we have is a Ponzi scheme,” said Lawrence Kotlikoff, an economist at Boston University and an expert in fiscal policy.

Glenn Reynolds: "Funny how it seems to work out this way everywhere that high-tax, high-regulation schemes are tried, but young people are usually dumb enough not to realize who gets hurt the most. And what happens when a higher education bubble bursts:"

In Italy, Ms. Esposito is finishing her lawyer traineeship at a private firm in Lecce. It pays little but sits better on her conscience than her unpaid work for the government.

“I’m a repentant college graduate,” she said. “If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t go to college and would just start working.”

John Hinderaker:"It seems to me that the Times conflates several rather distinct issues in chronicling the malaise of Europe's young. It is not obvious that accumulating "certificates" is the optimum path to gainful employment. Europe has long tended to prize credentials over actual productivity, but that is probably a secondary issue in the current crisis. . .

That is what happens when government inserts itself into every employment decision and when labor unions are given quasi-official powers and status. The result is economic disaster, a disaster first suffered by the young. What has happened in Europe, especially Southern Europe, is a flashing red alert, warning the United States not to follow the same path of government interventionism and union empowerment"

Instapundit reader concerning the demographic problems discussed in the New York Times article:

Mark Steyn  has been warning about this for years, most notably in his book America Alone. Except when he broaches the subject he’s accused of being a right-wing lunatic.

Reynolds: "Well, yes. As with the Hitler/Stalin pact, one must not only have the right opinions, one must have them at the correct time."

Wretchard has additional thoughts on the Times piece, including the phenomenon of educated Europeans moving to Latin America for job opportunities:

So for some Europeans it is Costa Rica or bust; where one of the virtues, in common with most of the Third World, is that there are almost no rules. The absence of regulation must make the non-Western world something like the frontier, where both disaster and great fortune seem to lurk right around the corner. . . .

Moderate Muslims, Rational Islamic Theology

Claire Berlinski contrasts the moderate Muslims she lives around in Turkey with radical Muslims. Start the video, then go to full screen for better video quality.

On Ricochet (a blog-like discussion forum), she discusses a new book concerning a time, prior to the ninth century, when Islamic theology may have been more conducive to reason than it is today.

The answer ... completely hinges on God’s relationship to reason in Sunni Islam. Is God reason, or logos, as the Greeks would say? If God himself is reason, then it is hard to close the mind because one would then be closing oneself to God. This, in fact, was the view of the first fully-developed theological school in Islam, the Mu‘tazilites. The Mu‘tazalites asserted the primacy of reason, and that one’s first duty is to engage in reason and, through it, to come to know God. . . .

However, the school of theology that arose to oppose the Mu’tazilites, the Ash‘arites, held the opposite. Unfortunately, by the end of the ninth century, they prevailed and became the formative influence in Sunni Islam. For the Ash‘arites, God is not reason, but pure will and absolute power. He is not bound by anything, including his own word. Since God is pure will, He has no reasons for his acts. Thus what He does cannot be understood by man. One of the things that God does is create the world, which also cannot be understood. . . .

Interesting reading if you're up for some academic cross-talk.

There's a lot most of us don't understand about Islam.

North Korea: Run by and Emperor

Dennis Prager interviewed the author of a new book on the ordinary lives of North Koreans. She noted that North Korea is not a typical communist country, but rather one run by an emperor. Dennis pointed out that most Communist countries are run by emperors, even when the horrors don't get as bad as those in North Korea, China or Cambodia.

She noted that in NK, the people are the possessions of the government. Dennis pointed out that the bigger the government, the more of its citizen's lives it "owns".

Multiculturalists cheering on the Cordoba House

I left a comment at US News and World Report piece by Robert Schlesinger concerning the "new nativism" in the U.S. which is the alleged cause of the Cordoba House controversy, spacing changed here:

The Cordoba Initiative Hardens Differences

The current controversy over this project, and the hardening of positions on all sides, was almost certainly anticipated in advance. I think Victor Davis Hanson got it right. The initial choice of the title, "Cordoba House" for the (now) Park51 complex and the continued use of "Cordoba Initiative" for the project means different things to different people:

"Cordoba is as much a mythical construct of a long-ago multicultural paradise so dear to elite liberals as it is a fantasy rallying cry to Islamists to reclaim the lost Al-Andalus. . . So Cordoba is a two-birds-with-one-stone evocation: in the liberal West proof of one’s ecumenical bona fides; in the Middle East proof of one’s Islamist bona fides."

But even beyond Islamist vs. multiculturalist fantasies about Cordoba, there are reports of Muslim scholars who are convinced that this is a Jewish plot to connect Islam with 9/11.

Everything is so simple to proponents of multiculturalism like Mr. Schlesinger. The "new nativism" in America, as characterized by over-the-top statements by a distant third-place candidate in a primary election in Tennessee, can be the only explanation for the widespread disapproval of the "Cordoba Initiative". Because multiculturalists are in a "group think" intellectual world, they believe that everyone else must think the same way.

And Mr. Schlesinger is certain that this project would "enrage" bin Laden. How does he know that? Hasn't bin Laden repeated western liberal talking points in his most recent messages to the world?


Why wouldn't he be happy about the completion of an Islamic cultural center topped by two floors of mosque, erected in place of a building which had been damaged by parts of one of the 9/11 planes, scheduled to be opened on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, when the Ground Zero memorial will not even be finished? Even if the backers say that they are trying to promote understanding between "people of the book" (excluding atheists and practitioners of Eastern religions, of course)?

Positions do seem to be hardening. People pick out the most extreme positions to characterize others' views. For example, concerning a previous comment, I don't thnk that most honor killings are conducted in accordance with sharia law, or that genital mutilation is part of sharia law, even though both practices occur with impunity in areas where sharia law is considered to be the law of the land. On the other hand, Mr. Schlesinger should not pretend that sharia law is not making inroads in several countries where Muslims are currently pushing against western-style law.

Seriously, VDH has some fascinating thoughts on the cynical brilliance of this project, plus some corrective world history.

And here, he debates Alan Dershowitz concerning the ADL's opposition. Other contributors at VDH's website: Raymond Ibrahim and a "citixen comment" by Karen Lugo.

RELATED: From Twitter

Jim Treacher:

How about "Not-at-Ground-Zero Mosque-Type-Structure for People Who May or May Not Be Muslims, Not That We're Judging"? Kind of a mouthful...

New rule: Turning down a job is now a violation of religious freedom.

If construction crews refuse to work on the #911DebrisFieldMosque, then the religious-freedom-fighters will. Pack a lunch,

Iowahawk:

Of all the arguments in favor of the mosque, I think the "opponents are subhuman racists" one is the most persuasive.

But it's not the one Howard Dean is making. For a change.

Mosque at Ground Zero?

Does opposition to a mosque at Ground Zero mean you're a xenophobic, Islamophobic American hater-of-the-other?

Not necessarily. One prominent Muslim scholar claims that the plans for the Ground Zero Mosque are evidence of a nefarious plot by the Jews to discredit Islam!!! Read the whole piece. A teaser:

When the pope comes to London next month, he is going to be greeted by substantial numbers of protests organized by people calling for his arrest and accusing him of the wildest hatreds. Yet we do not hear that critics of the pope are bigoted, “Christianophobic.” Nor even if they were should it cause any alarm.  But Islam is different.

Why? It goes back to the “phobia” business. Arachnophobia is an irrational fear of spiders and claustrophobia is an irrational fear of small places. They are irrational because most small spiders and most small spaces do not kill you. There are, however, very sensible reasons to be fearful of many forms of Islam.  Commuters in London and Madrid know why. As do Dutch filmmakers. And so do the numerous Muslim-born writers, artists, and musicians who spend their lives in hiding for fear of murder from their erstwhile co-religionists for “crimes” like “apostasy” and literary criticism.

But the cowardice in identifying this and cringing stupidity of what passes for intellectuals and commentators in America, like the U.K., today is staggering. . .

For Muslims, the answer to radical Islam may well be some nice official version of Islam that hasn’t yet been discovered. But for free and open societies, the answer to radical Islam is not Islam. It is free and open societies. It doesn’t matter what Muslims believe, anymore than anybody else. But it matters how they behave. . . .

Your Tax Dollars at Work: The Ground Zero Imam is being sent by the U.S. State Department on a good-will trip through the Middle East.   What could go wrong?

Meanwhile, the church which was crushed when the towers fell has not been re-built due to bureaucratic obstacles. This demonstrates a double standard as officials rush to approve the building of the 13-story mosque in time for it to open on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Note: part of one of the planes hit the building where the mosque is proposed.

Iran - Then and Now

In college, I had a pretty modern Iranian roommate. She usually wore rather tight bell-bottomed jeans.  She and her friends were somewhat negative about the Shah, whose regime had allowed her to come to the U.S. They had heard about the Ayatollah in France who might improve human rights in Iran. Lots of Iranians felt the same way. But when "the revolution" came, she quickly became suspect because she had lived in America. In those days, back in Iran before the Revolution, Iranians dressed like this.

NOW, women are gang-raped and murdered by government militias for failing to cover themselves sufficiently. And 12-year-old girls are encouraged to become prostitutes, in "temporary marriages" near religious shrines. With permission of their father or male guardian. To protect public morality.  There is unrest in Iran again. Before the American action against Saddam Hussein, hated (by the Left) "neo-conservative" Michael Ledeen had recommended non-military action to support revolutionary forces in Iran rather than invasion of Iraq. He hasn't changed his mind.

As the regime increasingly wages war against itself, the comings and goings of seemingly powerful people have become almost impossible to sort out. There have been repeated purges in the ranks of the Revolutionary Guards, and the supreme commander, Gen. Jafari, has now publicly stated that many senior officers had actively sided with the opposition. Why then, the general was asked, had he not punished them properly (with torture and death)? His answer was telling: it’s better to convince them of the error of their ways.

This is a surprising answer, to be sure, but after all it is the same answer that the supreme leader has implicitly given to the much asked question: why have you not properly punished the leaders of the Green Movement, Mousavi and Karroubi? In both cases, the regime is afraid to move decisively against their opponents. Khamenei & Co. are real tough guys when it comes to torturing and killing students, political activists, homosexuals, Bahais, Christians and women. But even when it comes to their favorite targets — the women — they retreat in the face of strong protests, as in the recent case when they suspended the stoning of a poor woman unfairly accused of adultery. Her plight has attracted international attention, and the regime backed off.

The Power of Narrative: History of World War II

Via Instapundit, Tigerhawk links Wretchard: “It is a measure of the power of narrative that we publicly grieve more for the deaths of our enemies than those of our allies in a war that is now fading quickly from human memory.”

As the New York Times remembers Hiroshima, try this quiz. Name the two greatest losses of civilian life in the Pacific war. Hint. In both cases the civilian casualties were greater than Hiroshima’s. In one case the event took place on American soil.


Casualties
Hiroshima 70,000–80,000
Battle of Manila 100,000
Nanjing 300,000

Check out the Belmont Club comment thread, too.

Those killed at Hiroshima, and later Nagasaki, were killed in spite of their
being non-combatants.

Most of those killed in Manila and the vast majority of the slain in Nanjing
were killed because they were non-combatants. Wherever the Japanese went, the slaughter started after resistance ceased.

When the Americans carried the day, the killing stopped as soon as the victory was won.


We've nothing to apologize for.

And for a powerful example of how to counter the "narrative", go back to the link at the top of this post and watch the Bill Whittle vs. Jon Stewart video linked by Glenn Reynolds.

A feisty view here.

The value of returning to original source documents when studying history.

More on Our Ruling Class

Further to the Codevilla essay, Wretchard discusses Caroline Glick's article on the foreign policy implications of The Essay Read Round the World. Plus thoughts on Niall Ferguson's positions, presented in Australia: Ferguson describes how rapidly empires can fall.

The Bourbon monarchy in France passed from triumph to terror with astonishing rapidity. The sun set on the British Empire almost as suddenly. The Suez crisis in 1956 proved that Britain could not act in defiance of the US in the Middle East, setting the seal on the end of empire.

But those things happen only to the denizens of history.   People who live in the today usually think they are different. So despite evidence of dramatic change, people who have spent their whole lives among the policy certainties of the postwar period find it difficult to accept they may have to build a world of their own from first principles. Ferguson asks his audience: “what would you do in a world without America? Has the question even crossed your mind?” . . .

Australia’s post-war foreign policy has been, in essence, to be a committed ally of the US. But what if the sudden waning of American power that I fear brings to an abrupt end the era of US hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region? Are we ready for such a dramatic change in the global balance of power? Judging by what I have heard here since I arrived last Friday, the answer is no. Australians are simply not thinking about such things.

But if the Australians are not thinking about it, the Chinese are certainly preparing for it. . . .

Don't know if I am ready for China to be "policeman to the world".

More:

If the love of money is the root of all evil, the lack of it is the cause of the fall of empires. Ferguson gave some examples:

Think of Spain in the 17th century: already by 1543 nearly two-thirds of ordinary revenue was going on interest on the juros, the loans by which the Habsburg monarchy financed itself.

Or think of France in the 18th century: between 1751 and 1788, the eve of Revolution, interest and amortisation payments rose from just over a quarter of tax revenue to 62 per cent.

Finally, consider Britain in the 20th century. Its real problems came after 1945, when a substantial proportion of its now immense debt burden was in foreign hands. Of the pound stg. 21 billion national debt at the end of the war, about pound stg. 3.4bn was owed to foreign creditors, equivalent to about a third of gross domestic product.

Alarm bells should therefore be ringing very loudly indeed in Washington, as the US contemplates a deficit for 2010 of more than $US1.47 trillion ($1.64 trillion), about 10 per cent of GDP, for the second year running.

But alarm bells aren’t ringing in Washington. The entire alarm system has been disabled, disconnected, perhaps scrapped. Anyone who wants to turn it back on will have to root through the dumpster to see if any usable parts can still be retrieved. No better symptom of the absence of alarms is the genuine astonishment of Charles Rangel that it is illegal to break the law. Almost as a matter of course he concealed hundreds of thousands of dollars in income, used Congressional letterhead to solicit donations for private causes, took four rent controlled apartments for himself. Innocently. He probably didn’t think he was doing anything wrong. . . .

Everyday evidence of the existence of a Ruling Class:

The Academic-Industrial Complex: University presidents on corporate boards, etc.

Social Privilege and the career of Elena Kagan. Written by a lefty.

Immigration Irrationalities - in Australia

Richard Fernandez (Wretchard) was an immigrant to Australia from the Philippines. The U.S. isn't the only country with an illegal immigrant problem:

‘Just how broken a bureaucracy is,’ someone told me once, ‘can be gauged from how quickly can they take a trivial problem and turn it into an intractable one.’ Walk up to an agency with a cure for cancer and they will throw every obstacle in your path because they don’t have enough bureaucrats trained to regulate the new technology. So when the Australian Labor government was criticized for letting in too many undesirable migrants from the Middle East the predictable result was the denial of asylum to two Egyptians seeking to avoid a fatwa for converting to Christianity. It all makes sense in a twisted kind of way.


. . . “Asylum seeking” is Australia’s equivalent of the Arizona border problem. It’s the Third Rail of Australian politics. Sixty four percent [1] of Australians want asylum seekers arriving by boat to be returned and made to apply through normal channels. Even ethnic leaders [2] want the maritime human trafficking problem stopped. . .

So, converts to Christianity in Egypt facing fatwas are "not persecuted enough" to enter Australia, but militant extremist gang members enter easily.

Read the whole thing.

The political elites in both countries need a steady supply of hyphenated populations to provide sinecures for an army of activists, special pleaders and assorted faddists. What would they do with normal people? Messy multiculturalism a vast outdoor system of relief for the country classes. Hanson writes:

Take away a half-million person influx of illegal aliens of the Hispanic underclass, or take away a permanent group of largely Spanish-speaking, largely poor, and largely undereducated Mexican nationals, and within 30 years the vast majority of Mexican-Americans will assimilate in the pattern of other contemporary minority groups — and, in terms of education and compensation, achieve rough parity. Unfortunately, that would also mean that the argument for a Chicano-Latino Studies program (rather than, say, an Irish Studies program), for the self-identified Chicano journalist, or for any activist who sees his Hispanic heritage as essential rather than as incidental to his persona simply disappears. (We do not have a National Council of Das Volk; nor a self-identified “wise Greek” on the Supreme Court.)


In short, without the arrival of the illegal alien in massive numbers without education, capital, legality and English, the Hispanic activists and cultural elite have no reason to be, since soon there would be no disparity that can be blamed on oppression or racism — and thus no need for self-appointed collective representation. La Raza would have no raza when a Hilda Lopez marries Larry Smith and their daughter Linda Lopez Smith marries Billy Otomo and so on.

The double affliction under which Maher El-Gohary labors is he can’t be admitted because the voters are angry at the people who fatwa’d him — and he’s too ordinary. He doesn’t need special multicultural agencies to pander to him, a special Islamic council to speak for him; a police task force to monitor him or ethnic politicians to run in his name. A hard working, law abiding immigrant is bad news all around. . . .

"All Racism, Only Racism, 24 Hours a Day"

The reason for those bogus charges of Tea Party Racism?  Insufficient empathy and diversity among liberals!

Timothy Dalrymple:

It is essentially a failure of imagination. Liberals cannot imagine themselves into a way of thinking in which conservatives do what they do and believe what they believe for good reasons. And since they cannot believe that conservatives are motivated by rational beliefs and admirable motives, they must appeal to darker, more primitive impulses to explain their behavior. The racist motive presents itself as a natural and convenient explanation.

Case In Point

Chris Matthews focuses on race as the obvious explanation for the nomination of an Indian-American by the Republican Party in South Carolina. Sounds shockingly malicious, but then maybe it's just the "liberal failure of imagination" concerning the motives of conservatives.

In Hollywood, racism is all about politics. In Illinois, too.

"Think Progress" is so heavily invested in portraying the Tea Party as racist that they use liberal-produced "Crash the Tea Party" signs as evidence of Tea Party racism.

Now Al Queda is racist, too. There are lots of possible explanations for the President's new "racist AQ" theme. But perhaps partly because multi-culturalism dictates that all religions are morally equivalent, it is forbidden to mention Islamic extremism as a motive for terror in the Obama administration.   Racism falls under a different category in the liberal mind.

Update: NASA's Muslim outreach

Commentary on the current state of science in the Muslim world.   Also includes a link to an update on the status of the professor in India whose hand and part of his arm were hacked off due to a false perception that he had insulted The Prophet.   And an effective  cartoon reminder concerning this issue.   How soon we forget.   In related news: Another Fatwa against a cartoonist.

Might be time for another Obama charm offensive with the so-called Muslim world.

Commentary (even if not news) is starting to leak out in parts of the mainstream media. For example, Krauthammer includes it in a discussion of President Obama's selective modesty:

It's fine to recognize the achievements of others and be non-chauvinistic about one's country. But Obama's modesty is curiously selective. When it comes to himself, modesty is in short supply. . .

Mons Charen earlier expressed some thoughts along the same line - that the NASA Muslim self-esteem program indicated hubris on the part of a President who really believes that he that he has significant power to influence how Muslims he doesn't even know think and feel about themselves. (And that this power of his could counteract the influence of Saudi-funded madrassas.) Michael Ramirez lands on target again.

United States vs. Arizona: Politics in the DOJ

Amid Crises, Obama declares war - on Arizona.

There are several cases in which the Department of Justice seems to be choosing its cases based on political considerations rather than the law. Now the Department of Justice has filed a case against the State of Arizona concerning its new immigration law.  The President has compared the law to Chinese abuses of human rights.   He has emphasized the possibility of racial profiling in his condemnations of Arizona, but the actual case against Arizona is based upon federal preemption, and does NOT mention racial profiling, apparently. Arizona's law would short-change federal enforcement resourses in other states, or something.

But Arizona has not started enforcing the "problematic" provisions of its new law, while Rhode Island has. So why isn't the Obama crowd boycotting Rhode Island and calling them racists?

(a) Rhode Island has actually been enforcing the same procedures that allegedly make the Arizona law controversial, and (b) those features (checking immigration status when there is reasonable suspicion to do so, referring illegals to the feds for deportation) have already been upheld by the courts. (Indeed, reasonable suspicion is not even required for the police to be able to ask about a person's immigration status.)

Well, Obama has some company in decrying American immigration policy, which the administration is failing to enforce. Interesting op-ed here:

Attorney General Eric Holder finally filed that long-rumored lawsuit challenging Arizona’s new immigration law. In his opinion, only the federal government has the legal authority to “enforce” (read “completely ignore”) border security. If the Obama administration were convinced that Arizona would treat illegal immigration the same way the feds do, they wouldn’t have bothered to sue.


Unfortunately, Arizonans seem to take the rule of law seriously. And this is a big problem for Team Obama. Holder is worried that trained and knowledgeable local cops will actually prove that the law is enforceable, blowing his boss’s cover. Remember President Barack Obama’s claim last week that our borders are “just too vast” for us to secure them through enforcement, with fences and border patrols?


The border’s too big. The hole in the Gulf is too deep. The recession is too stubborn. Maybe we should find the president a smaller, easier-to-manage country to govern. You know - send him to the minors for a few years. . . .

Personally I think that the reason the Obama administration is going after Arizona but not Rhode Island is that Arizona passed its law during this administration. This is a challenge to Obama's rhetoric and plans concerning immigration. Hence the political selectivity in the filing of lawsuits by the DOJ.

Obama's positions on immigration are not totally unreasonable. And we do need an immigration law which allows for more rational legal immigration and assimilation, without people living in the shadows of society due to an uncertain legal status. But going to war against a state which wishes to help enforce federal law, misrepresenting the population and the state government as racist, is not the action an ethical administration should take.

On the lighter side: Democratic County Supervisor: "Arizona's law might have been justifiable if it was a border state". You know, like Rhode Island. Lots of other stupidity is also evident surrounding this case.

UPDATE: The Secretary of State indicates that the suit was filed under the direction of the President. No attempt to insulate DOJ decisions from the rest of the administration here.

More "racist" immigrant policies have also been in  force in the liberal stronghold of Madison, Wisconsin.    Oops.  The City Council doesn't want to be bashed like Arizona.  The threats by Holder have made them think twice about their current policies.