Category: Politics

War & Peace

The Futurist is running a two part article (titled “The Winds of War, The Sands of Time”) discussing the relative state of peace in the world.  The article points out that from the metric of human beings killed in combat; the last couple years have been the most peaceful in recorded human history.  The reasons for this “”expansion of peace” are the usual suspects; expansion of democracy and an increase in overall absolute wealth worldwide.

The other interesting piece of data gleaned from the article is the wikipedia List of wars and disasters by death toll.  When I saw this page I had the same feeling as the one I got the day I first saw the History channel.  Something along the lines of “Ohhhh, crap!  There goes my free-time for the next six months.”  They even list the individual battles by death toll.

Please excuse me, I have some reading to do.

When Life is Fair

Looking through the old digest articles from the Hoover Institution has uncovered this article by Thomas Sowell titled “When Fairness Is Unjust.” My personal history has a strong educational influence; both from an educators perspective as well as an administration one. “Fairness” as a scholastic idea has been one of the most destructive forces in education, especially for the unprivileged and poor. Yet for some reason that continues to defy logic; the public school system (in many places) has continued to pursue a policy of “leveling the playing field.”

Here are a couple facts for those who have not experienced life. “Life” is NOT fair!  It will never be!  And if you attempt to make things “more fair” by expecting less of people; you will get it.

The Slow Death of Democracy

Old Europe is dying. For 200 years philosophers and thinkers have predicted the failure of Democracy. Not from the slow creeping encroachment of civil liberties, but because of the steady natural drift of progress socialism. Once a people learn that democracy can be use as a vehicle for wealth redistribution; the unstoppable decline of freedom will have already begun. While civil liberties are often taken away and returned based on the ebb and flow of a counties appetite for conflict; economic liberties (arguably the more important of the two freedoms), once taken away, are almost never returned.

Witness, France. Long thought to be a fountainhead of liberal progressive socialism. Where, whatever your state of being, the government can always be counted on to save you. The reality is entirely different however. Some places in France are experiencing unemployment levels equal to those of the United States DURING the great depression. The economy is in shambles and the almost universally recognized reason, the very government programs that the citizens have come to depend on. Within a decade or two, the economy of France will be so bad that the government will go totally bankrupt trying to pay for it all.

This problem is both well known and well understood. Regardless of the Utopian ideals of college professors and social activists; the reality is that there is simply a limit to what a government can be expected to do to help its citizens. At some point trust (and personal responsibility) must be places in the citizenry themselves. The USSR (and almost every communist country in the world) failed because of the realization, China has stayed a communist country because they identified and reformed (just) their economy in light of this realization Yet in France’s developed democracy; any reform (to fix the admittedly identified problem) is met with such hostility that their are riots in the streets.

Its a sad reality that the Presidents domestic spying and counter-terrorist programs (in the form of the Patriot Acts) are less likely to hurt American Democracy than his prescription drug package and the “No Child Left Behind” initiative.

The US EU Divide

Two articles from The American Enterprise discussing the slow decline of U.S. and European ties and how they relate to the differences in our economies. The first article (Europe’s Not Working) covers the failure of European style socio-progressive economic model. The second article (Europe Learns the Wrong Lessons) covers the failure of Europe to accurately identify the solution to their current economic crisis.

In addition to pointing out some of the serious flaws in continental European democracy, the articles are especially interesting in their analysis of Europe’s reaction to such failure. Iraq is not the only reason for Europe to feel frustrated with the U.S. While many of us in the states are continually led to believe (mostly from institutional academia) that our form of capitalism and democracy is inferior in every way to the European model; the reality is quite different. Europe’s excessive social progressivism has lead to a standard of living some 40% below U.S. levels and unemployment rates in the double digits.

While the problem is easily identifiable to those who are on the outside of the European economic socialist mind-set; it requires a paradigm sift for those who are comfortable with the welfare state. The solution is as straightforward; implement a more American/Asian model capitalist environment. Dozens of successful examples exist (Ireland being the closes to home for Europe.) Unfortunately, Europe seems dead-set on continuing down the failed course it has begun; at least for the foreseeable future.

Blinded Arab Ideology

Berry Rubin (via the U.S. foreign service website AmericanDiplomacy.org) has an article about the ideological influence of extreme Islam and its failure to provide tangible results to improving the Arab situation in the Middle East. While some people may consider this victim blaming, the reality is that the Arab response has done a great deal to perpetuate the status quo. The article doesn’t provide a solution to the problems of the middle east but it does enable a framework for better understanding the problem.

Failed Ideology

American “bashing” has been a part collegiate academia for the better part of the twentieth century. One of the reason for this is the fundamental nature of professors to question the status quo. This role is entirely justified (and even required) in a free society. However, many of those outside of academia have noticed that this skepticism seems especially focused on the capitalistic nature of our democracy. Why the intensity of disdain for our American style capitalistic democracy?

Lee Harris writing for in the December 2002 issue of Policy Review says that at least part of it stems from the failure of progressive socialist Marxism. Specifically liberal socialism attempt to salvage Marxism by restructuring the theory of material separation (the immiserization thesis) from an absolute difference to a relative one. However, Harris points out that doing so invalidates one of the primary strengths of Marx’s “Communist Manifesto”; namely that the failure of capitalism rested on weakness in its fundamental nature and not some perceived Utopian ideal. Restructuring for relative differences put modern socialists in a position where they were pursuing a theoretical ideal; something Marx himself wholly condemned. Regardless if you agree with Harris or not; his article is wonderfully interesting and worthy of a weekend read.

!Constitution

There are an amazing number of mis-conceptions about the Constitution and what it says. This post by U.S. Constitution.net has a pretty good rundown of some of the most famous. Some of the mis-quotes I hear most often are “separation of church and state”, “right to privacy”, and “Judicial Review.” One that is not in the list is right for the press to protect their sources identity in court.

However, it is important to remember that the constitution DOES say (in the 10th Amendment) that

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Thus we have rights regardless of their explicit existance in the constiution.