The Fiftieth Star

Paul Krugman's Obfuscation About Adam Smith

2011-10-13T07:22:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

This particular blog post by Per-Olof Samuelsson alerted me to something quite troubling.Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman quotes from Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations to give his readers the impression that Smith is advancing a viewpoint that accords with Krugman's when, in fact, it does not.

In his usual snide tone, Krugman states,

One line I’ve been seeing in various places, including comments here, is the claim that the real way to deal with Wall Street is laissez-faire economics: no more bailouts! On this view, policy makers should raise their right hand in the air, place their left hand on a copy of Atlas Shrugged, and swear in the name of A is A that they will never again step in to rescue failing banks. And all will be well with the world.

He then says, "First of all, bank regulation is important even in the absence of bailouts. Don’t trust me, trust Adam Smith. Scotland invented modern banking; it also invented modern banking crises; and Smith, having witnessed such a crisis, favored bank regulations..."

As evidence, Krugman quotes this passage from The Wealth of Nations:

Such regulations may, no doubt, be considered as in some respect a violation of natural liberty. But those exertions of the natural liberty of a few individuals, which might endanger the security of the whole society, are, and ought to be, restrained by the laws of all governments; of the most free, as well as or the most despotical. The obligation of building party walls, in order to prevent the communication of fire, is a violation of natural liberty, exactly of the same kind with the regulations of the banking trade which are here proposed.

From such a quotation, we are led to believe that Smith is making a concession to Krugman's big-government view: to the mercantilist outlook that would eventually develop into Keynesian economics. However, when you read the Wealth of Nation paragraphs around the passage Krugman quoted, you find that the passage is part of a much larger argument that Smith is making. And that argument is actually contrary to Krugman's Keynesian intrusionism. Adam Smith was arguing in favor of a gold standard, wherein all paper money is backed by a hard metal. The "regulations" Smith was urging were restrictions against the issuance of paper money that is not backed in any way by gold.

However, in the Keynesian economics that Krugman advocates, the federal government has rules in place that require that the quantity of monetary units in circulation can always increase by government fiat. The "stimulus" fiscal policies that Krugman espouses definitely preclude a gold standard.

The passage of Wealth of Nations that Krugman quoted was from Book 2, Chapter 2, Paragraph 93. In the very next paragraph, Smith talks about this.

A paper money consisting in bank notes, issued by people of undoubted credit, payable upon demand without any condition, and in fact always readily paid as soon as presented, is, in every respect, equal in value to g old and silver money; since gold and silver money can at any time be had for it. Whatever is either bought or sold for such paper, must necessarily be bought or sold as cheap as it could have been for gold and silver.

Then in Paragraph 96, Smith continues,

It would be otherwise, indeed, with a paper money consisting in promissory notes, of which the immediate payment depended, in any respect, either upon the good will of those who issued them; or upon a condition which the holder of the notes might not always have it in his power to fulfil; or of which the payment was not exigible till after a certain number of years, and which in the mean time bore no interest. Such a paper money would, no doubt, fall more or less below the value of gold and silver, according as the difficulty or uncertainty of obtaining immediate payment was supposed to be greater or less; or according to the greater or less distance of time at which payment was exigible.

The "regulations" Smith was advocating were laws forbidding the arbitrary increase in the quantity of monetary units and laws upholding the gold standard. Yet the ability of the government on increase the quantity of monetary units -- and the preclusion of the gold standard -- is essential to the Keynesian economics that Krugman sides with. And yet Krugman quotes Smith to imply that Smith is making concessions to a viewpoint more aligned with Keynesian governmental interference than with laissez-faireist hard-line gold-standard advocates like Ron Paul and, well, Per-Olof Samuelsson.You can see the Wealth of Nation paragraphs in question yourself over here in Book 2, Chapter 2. You can find the paragraphs in question (93-96) using the search words "payment was exigible".

Orwellian, Self-Contradictory Language from the New York Times

2011-10-10T21:54:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

The New York Times reports, "In a grim sign of the enduring nature of the economic slump, household income declined more in the two years after the recession ended [in June 2009] than it did during the recession itself, new research has found."

Um, if household income only worsened since June 2009, don't you think this indicates the recession didn't end in June 2009? The Times is saying that the economy is worse in a period of supposed economic recovery than during the recession.

The same article continues, "The finding helps explain why Americans’ attitudes toward the economy, the country’s direction and its political leaders have continued to sour even as the economy has been growing."

Um, don't you think that if the trend since June 2009 has been for the economy to worsen, that indicates the economy has not been growing?

The New York Times reporter's verbiage is like something out of 1984 or Alice in Wonderland.

My One Complaint About 'Atlas Shrugged,' 2009

2009-02-01T20:41:00.004-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

Writing this is an annual tradition for me, as February 2, 2009, marks 104 years to the day of Ayn Rand's birth. Of course, American culture associates the date of February 2 with yet another tradition. It is said that, on this day, if a politician crawls out of his hole and sees his shadow, then we will have sixty more years of federal farm subsidies.

A crusty old man once said to me, "I find Ayn Rand's writings v-e-r-y l-o-n-g - w-i-n-d-e-d."

I beg to differ with his assessment. On second thought, I don't even beg; his assessment is plain wrong. When I read a 1985 paperback edition of Atlas Shrugged, I enjoyed every syllable on each of its 1,084 pages. (Previously, I mistakenly said that this edition was 1,087 pages.) The prose sparked vivid images that made me feel as if I were gazing upon an exquisite painting.

Unfortunately, it all went by too quickly. Almost every other novel I read was much longer, or, at least, that's how it felt.

I was so enthralled by the grandeur of Atlas that I was quite sad to finish it. It was as if I were a small child again, and summer was coming to an end, and I was parting with a dear friend and playmate whom I would not be able to see again for the rest of the year.

And so I have only one complaint about Atlas Shrugged:

It was too short. :'-)

My One Complaint About 'Atlas Shrugged,' 2008

2008-02-02T23:28:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

Writing a post like this has become an annual ritual for me, so it's about time I do it again.

February 2, 2008, marks 103 years to the day of Ayn Rand's birth. The day of the month is of particular importance in American culture because, every February 2, if a politician comes out and sees his shadow, we will have sixty more years of the welfare state.

As for Miss Rand's magnum opus, I enjoyed every syllable on each of the 1,087 pages of the paperback edition I read. The prose sparked vivid images that made me feel as if I were gazing upon an exquisite painting.

I was so enthralled by the grandeur of it all that I was quite sad to see it eventually come to an end.

And so I have only one complaint about Atlas Shrugged:

It was too short.

:-)

Delicious

2007-11-08T23:43:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

Lately, I have been watching the burgeoning Objectivist community on YouTube...

Recently, Objectivist "Qtronman" has made an Objectivist video lampooning YouTube's most notorious "Creation Science" promoter, "VenomFangX," and exposing the illogic of his video "Proof God Is Real."

You can see Qtronman's video, "God, Time, Space and a Chocolate Bar" below.

The SuperFerry

2007-09-28T18:54:00.000-10:00

Pablo Wegesend

I have so busy this past month, that only I'm able to blog about the biggest controversy in Hawaii --- The SuperFerry.

The SuperFerry is a group of boats that transports people between the different islands of Hawaii. This is something that should've done a long time ago. That way, we're not over-reliant on airplanes to visit the other islands.

However, some on Kauai don't want any visitors! They're angry that the SuperFerry will give Oahu residents another way to (gasp) visit their island. They want Kauai to be same way it was when they were growing up! (Nevermind that NO PLACE IN THE WORLD hasn't experienced change in the last 20 years)

These anti-SuperFerry fanatics believe that their utopia island would be ruined by Oahu people who would clog their highways, shopping centers, and commit crime, etc, etc, etc.

These anti-SuperFerry were so pissed off about it, that when the SuperFerry made it's 1st attempt to travel from Oahu to Kauai, some came on their surfboards to block the SuperFerry, they yelled threats, and vandalized cars!

Let's call those punks what they are --- Nostalgia Fascists! They're so set on keeping their island 100% the same as was in the past, that they'll use violent tactics against any change, no matter how minor!

If that's how they're gonna be, this is how we ought to deal with them

1) No Kauai Nostalgia Fascist would be allowed recieve non-Kauai assistance if their homes were damage by hurricanes, tsunamis, etc.

Those ingrates took advantage of all the help Oahu residents gave when their island was ruined by Hurricane Iniki in 1992. Many Oahu carpenters (my dad included) helped in renovating homes, airports, businesses, etc in Kauai after Hurricane Iniki. Those Nostalgia Fascists ought to be ashamed of themselves!

2) No Kauai Nostalgia Fascist would be allowed to visit anywhere outside Kauai!

Any of them want to visit Las Vegas? (most popular tourist destination for Hawaii residents)TOO BAD!

Any of them want to watch their young relatives on Kauai high school teams playing a game on Oahu? TOO BAD!

Any of them want to visit a long-time friend who moved to Maui? TOO BAD!

Any of them want to visit the volcanoes on the Big Island? TOO BAD!

Any of them have a curiosity of what it's like in foreign lands? TOO BAD! That's what they get for being rude to those who were curious of what it's like on Kauai!

=====

Meanwhile, some said the SuperFerry would help disabled people visit other islands, and give high school sports team a cheaper way to travel to the other islands to play in tournaments!

These people are the onese most hurt by those Nostalgia Fascists!

'Consuming Hypocrisy'

2007-09-02T14:47:00.000-10:00

This is a video starring and written by Rhys Southan. The music is done by Eliza Wren Payne, who briefly speaks in the film.

It originally appeared online on FreedomAds.Org in the year 2000.

My One Complaint About 'Atlas Shrugged,' 2007

2007-02-02T12:55:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

I first posted a version of this piece on February 2, 2005. Re-posting it every year has become an annual tradition for me. --S.H.

February 2, 2007, marks 102 years to the day of Ayn Rand's birth. That day of the month is of particular importance in American culture because, every February 2, if a politician crawls out of his hole and sees his shadow, we will have 60 more years of the welfare state.

As for Miss Rand's magnum opus, I enjoyed every syllable on each of the 1,087 pages of the paperback edition I read. The prose sparked vivid images that made me feel as if I were gazing upon an exquisite painting.

I was so enthralled by the grandeur of it all that I was quite sad to see it eventually come to an end.

And so I have only one complaint about Atlas Shrugged:

It was too short.

The Coase Theorem Can Guard Against Any Adverse Effects of Global Warming

2006-10-17T05:24:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

This originally appeared in Tali Satele's Critique of American Samoa's Government on Tuesday, October 17, 2006.

Shikha Dalmia has written many brilliant essays on subjects like illegal immigration, India's economic liberalization, and private financing of education in India.

Recently, I came across an intriguing piece she wrote about whether private property rights and market forces could alleviate any harm that global warming may impose in the next one hundred years.

I believe Coase theorem, devised by University of Chicago economist Ronald Coase, has important implications for addressing the extent to which carbon dioxide emissions from heavy industry may contribute to the harmful effects of global warming. That is to say that market economics and private property could be the most important tools to correct adverse effects of global climate change, if only so many government regulations did not stand in their way.

Three of the biggest problems that anthropogenic global warming will supposedly exacerbate are:

1. The spread of tropical diseases like malaria

2. Lands that were once arable no longer will be

3. Rising sea levels

Let us assume, for argument's sake, that the fossil-fuel emissions from the coal and oil industry really do worsen theese problems.

What should be done if an increase in average global temperature, which the coal and oil industries supposedly helped cause, causes malaria vectors to advance?

First, if malaria finds its way into the United States, then limited DDT use should be legalized. Fighting malarial mosquitoes in the U.S. would not lead to Americans spraying large clouds of malaria all over as was done in the 1950s. Malarial mosquitoes will stay away from a house if its walls are sprayed with DDT once every six months.

But the federal government has banned it in America.

Furthermore, if dangerous epidemics spread themselves throughout the U.S., then private communities should be able to find their own safeguards over whom is allowed to set foot on its grounds. Just as the state government of Hawaii has methods of inspecting visitor luggage to prevent "invasive species" from entering the Hawaiian ecosystem, private communities should be able to inspect newcomers or visitors for disease before entry.

If an infectious disease made its way into a private community, then its property values would drastically decrease. If an epidemic spread throughout America, then the owners of private communities may see fit to perform check-ups upon people before they move into the new community.

Also, a purely consistent laissez-faire night watchman state would hold individuals liable for spreading dangerous diseases. If someone gives me a terrible disease, then the infector has damaged the private property that is my body, and I should be able to sue for compensatory damages. This would mean that, if Person X carried syphilis and had sex with Person Y without informing Person Y, Person Y should be able to sue Person X to make up for the costs that this imposed on Person Y.

If such a legal system were implemented, people would take more precautions to ensure that they do not infect others.

Now we can move on to the agriculture argument.

Global warming alarmists say that the changing climate will harm agriculture because lands that are currently arable will lose their arability over decades, while other lands will become arable when they previously weren't.

If that is the case, then the "creative destruction" of the market should be allowed to commence. Owners of farmland that is no longer arable will liquidate their holdings in that real estate, selling it off to investors who can find a more profitable use for it. Meanwhile, investments will be made into the newly-arable lands in other parts of the globe.

What is the impediment to this? Federal farm subsidies and price supports. If the federal government finds that an agribusiness's productivity is dropping as a result of global warming depriving the agribusiness's land of its arability, then it would not be surprising if the federal government used taxes to bail out the agribusiness. his will erase the investors' incentives to liquidate their holdings in farmlands that are no longer productive.

Finally, it is said that global warming will cause sea ld destroy the homes of people in coastal regions. Some scream that beachfront properties will be further devastated by an increasing frequency of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes.

If it is true that beachfront property is under such assault, then private insurance companies should be free to raise their rates so high that people will be discouraged from building homes so close to the shore. Furthermore, the fact that beachfront properties may be submerged within a 30 year period will cause beachfront real estate to decline in marketability, thus discouraging developers from continuing to erect properties that are too dangerously close to shore.

What would stop that from happening? The fact that the federal government implements a National Flood Insurance program that compensates people who imprudently build structures so close to shore that they are destroyed almost every single year. When these structures are destroyed, the National Flood Insurance program provides the property owners with the funds they need to re-build the structures . . . that will be destroyed once again. Without the government's financial crutch, these people would see that they only lose money from continually building too close to shore, and finally more further inland.

And, finally, there is the issue of liability for all of the property damage for which anthropogenic global warming is blamed.

Suppose that a group of attorneys call upon experts who scientifically prove that fossil fuel emissions from the coal industry and petroleum rock-oil industry contributed to global warming. And suppose that they could scientifically prove that it was these industries' carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that caused the average temperature, since 2000, to increase by a margin that othewise would not have existed had only non-human natural factors been involved.

If it can be proved that it was this margin that caused so many people to be infected with tropical diseases, or to have depreciation in agricultural real estate and coastal real estate -- that, without all of these CO2 emissions, these tragedies otherwise would not have happened -- then all of the aggrieved parties can file a civil action lawsuit against the industries that have contributed to the Warming.

The more expensive the lawsuits are for these industries, the more these industries will have an incentive to find methods of providing energy without contributing so much to adverse global warming.

For example, there is something called "the gasification of coal." To "gasify coal" is to burn the coal so hot that it converts into a gas that can be transported through pipelines.

Gasified coal provides just as much energy as regular solid coal, but it emits much smaller quantities of carbon dioxide.

Yet the reason why businesses refrain from gasifying coal is that gasification is much costlier than emitting higher quantities of CO2.

However, if civil action lawsuits kept driving up the coal industry's costs, making the industry lose billions of dollars, then we may reach a point where it becomes cheaper for the coal industry to gasify its product -- thus reducing the number of big lawsuits -- than to continue harming people and paying out so much money in damages.

Here, a leftwing critic may respond that the big coal and oil industries would win every single lawsuit that middle-class victims filed against them, since Big Oil and Big Coal have so much more money at their disposal.

A solution to that would be to legalize champterty -- the practice of allowing individuals to invest their money into lawsuits. If venture capitalists believe that some farmers and beachfront home owners have a strong scientific case against Big Coal -- but that these aggrieved parties are woefully outmatched by Big Coal in terms of capital -- then the venture capitalist can finance the plaintiffs' case under the agreement that he receive a percentage of the damages if they win.

Now, I am well aware that, as attorney Walter Olson frequently points out, a ridiculously litigious society can easily penalize businesses that have not done harm. This is because, even if the business defendant wins a tort case that was filed against it, that business still loses money by having to pay for the cost of its defense. Thus, I would recommend that the United States adopts the "loser pays" system of England and many other industrialized countries -- the loser of the lawsuit should pay the legal fees of the other side.

With such reforms in place, businesses can be secure from frivolous lawsuits even as tort law can be used to "internalize" the "externalities" of industry-contributed greenhouse warming.

As Julian Morris writes,

I have argued elsewhere (Morris, J., 2003: 'Climbing out of the Hole: Sunsets, Subjective Value, the Environment and English Common Law' [read the PDF of that here --S.H.] Fordham Environmental Law Journal, Vol XIV, No. 2, 343) that much more could be done to enable private parties to resolve environmental problems through the legal system. Most legal systems in principle enable the owners of private property to recover damages when that property (or the beneficial use of that property) is damaged by the actions of another, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

Morris observes that it would be difficult to compensate the victims of such problems in Third World countries for such harm, as what makes these nations poor is almost always their lack of rule of law. The long-term solution, of course, is for these countries to finally develop a system of rule of law in which the courts bother to enforce individual rights to life and private property rather than to ignore them or abrogate them.

In the meanwhile, if only the First World more consistently adopted the principles of a "night watchman state," it would more effectively utilize the institutions of private property and liability to ameliorate the level to which industry may add to the global warming problem.

Copyright © 2006 Stuart K. Hayashi. This piece may not be reproduced by any means without the author's expressed written permission.

Us vs. TheBus

2006-08-09T18:13:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

This is a revised version of an op-ed I wrote that originally appeared in Hawaii Reporter on September 17, 2003.

Back in September 2003, Honolulu's residents were quite upset when the city's bus drivers went on strike.

Why was that such a big deal? Because Honolulu only has one bus company, the city government-owned Oahu Transit Services, Inc. (OTS), and, consequently, only one brand of city bus services, known simply as "TheBus" (a company doesn't need a fancy brand name for its service when it's the only game in town).

The strike would have been easier for people to cope with had the city had a competing bus service, say, "Better Bus," that tried to win the business of Honolulu's resdients by charging them for tickets than OTS does.

But it would be illegal for anyone to start a firm like "Better Bus" in Honolulu. One cannot start a private bus company to compete against the government's "TheBus," and, even if one could, TheBus's subsidies from the government would give it an unfair advantage.

This problem began in the 1940s. Back then, Honolulu had two major bus companies, with competition from transportation services using smaller vehicles called "jitney buses." Then the head of one of those major bus corporations, the late Harry Weinberg, convinced Hawaii's Public Utility Commission (PUC) that this cutthroat, dog-eat-dog competition was madness.

Invoking "the public good," Weinberg persuaded the PUC to grant his own organization, Hawaii Rapid Transit, Ltd. (HRT), a regulated monopoly through prohibiting any company from directly competing against it.

The PUC, which actually had the authority to make laws because the Legislature gave it that power, agreed. It forced jitneys off the street. (Tour bus companies like Robert's Hawaii never provided direct competition to TheBus; they only go to tourist destinations.)

Since HRT had no true competition, its service was terrible, and it treated its drivers shoddily (they had no competing bus service to defect to), causing strikes like the one we have now.

In 1971, Honolulu's then-Mayor Frank Fasi purchased HRT from Weinberg and converted it into today's government-owned corporation: OTS. The laws against competition remained.

Many people believed TheBus's tickets were cheaper than HRT's because the TheBus's were cheaper "up front" (i.e., "at the door"). They failed to notice that what really paid for TheBus's operations came out of their skyrocketing taxes. When factoring taxes into the price, TheBus's services were actually more expensive.

If TheBus were privatized and competition re-legalized, prospects would improve. Strikes would be less frequent because, if drivers were dissatisfied with pay at one company like TheBus, our hypothetical "Better Bus" could lure away TheBus's best drivers by offering superior compensation. And if drivers for one company did go on strike, at least you could catch a ride on the competitor's vehicles.

Plus, only people who actually ride buses would have to pay for their services, which is fairer than taxing non-riders (if poorer people cannot afford tickets, then private charity can help).

But what if competing bus firms made arrangements with one another to charge the same high price for tickets?

After all, many leftists often snidely remind us that even Adam Smith wrote in Book I, Chapter 10, Paragraph 82 of The Wealth of Nations,

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.

Leftists' recitations of that Smith quotation are ridiculous on multiple levels. First, there is no reason why anyone -- free-market advocate or not -- should accept an assertion as truth just because Smith said.

Secondly, those who cite that Smith quotation take it out of context when they use it to imply that Smith advocated the existence of antitrust law. Such was the case when, following his quotation of Smith, the late journalist Robert M. Rees said that free-market proponents "must be thankful for the antitrust and other legislation that keeps laissez-faire capitalism under control."

Actually, in the sentence following the aforementioned quotation (still Bk. I, Ch. 10, Para. 82), Smith says that it would be immoral for the government to pass any laws forbidding businesses from colluding on prices.

Then, in subsequent sentences, Smith attributes the existence of monopolies and cartels primarily to government regulations forbidding competition -- not unlike the PUC regulations forbidding competition against OTS's TheBus in Honolulu.

Finally, contrary to political cliches like Mr. Rees's, collusion has been historically unprofitable in the long term insofar as capitalism has remain unrestrained. John D. Rockefeller, Sr.'s Standard Oil proves it.

Myth: "Unencumbered markets gave Rockefeller an exploitative monopoly until regulators stopped him."

Reality: In the years before Standard's government-imposed breakup in 1911, it already competed against eight gigantic oil-refining corporations and a total of 147 refining firms. Its 90 percent market share from 1880 dropped to 64 percent by 1907.

Standard actually drove prices down. When Standard incorporated in 1870, kerosene cost consumers 30 cents/gallon; it cost 6 cents/gallon by 1897. In 2005 A.D. dollars, that's a price reduction from $4.61/gallon in 1870 to $1.41/gallon in 1897.

Why do I mention Standard Oil? Because Rockefeller occasionally tried to fix prices with competing oil refiners, but, every time that happened, greed tempted some "co-conspiring" firm to "cheat" and undersell the "price-fixers," restarting competitive pricing. The same happened when the U.S. steel industry tried collusion in 1907.

And, if free-market competition were restored for Honolulu's bus industry and its members then attempted collusion, the same would likely occur.

Thus, it would be optimal to privatize TheBus and re-legalize direct competition -- with no government subsidies allowed.

That wouldn't strongly threaten jobs either; a private bus company could save money by hiring experienced bus drivers instead of paying for the training of new ones, so a private company would likely rehire the government bus drivers now on strike.

In the end, privatization would allow all of us -- bus drivers and passengers alike -- to triumphantly ride off into the sunset.

Related articles by Stuart K. Hayashi:

"Privatized Systems, Public Benefits"

"'Natural Monopoly,' or Your Economics Teacher Doesn't Know What He's Talking About"

Recommended links:

"It's Time to Rethink TheBus" by Cliff Slater, Reason Foundation representative

"Bring Back Bus Competition" by Cliff Slater

"Monopoly" by Dominick T. Armentano,Ph.D.

"The Ghost of John D. Rockefeller" by Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Ph.D.

"Antitrust's Greatest Hits" by David B. Kopel, Esq., and Joseph L. Bast

"Abolish Antitrust!" by Edwin A. Locke, Ph.D.

This essay is Copyright (C) 2003, 2006 Stuart K. Hayashi, and may not be reproduced in any form without his expressed written consent.

Nooooooooooooooooooooo!!!! :-O

2006-07-13T12:49:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

Atlas Shrugged is being made into a movie and the front runner for the starring role is . . . Angelina "The Lips" Jolie (referral from: Brown 7/13/06)

I recall Atlas Shrugged explaining that it was wrong for the federal government to extort people's money and then send it to impoverished people's republics.

Angelina Jolie famously demands that the federal government extort your money and then send it to the Third World.

And she makes that demand after having read and publicly praised this book.

Why is this woman getting the role? (Because she has more box-office clout than anyone else; that's why.)

I know that an actress doesn't necessarily have to agree with her character's philosophy, but . . . geez Louise!

What next? How about casting Al Franken as John Galt?

And how about a cameo from Prof. Cornel West as Hugh Akston?

The Estate Tax Is Fun . . . But It Won't Save You Any Money on Car Insurance

2006-07-06T03:39:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

Note: This post also appears here, in Tali Satele's Critique of American Samoa's Government.

Warren Buffett, the world's second-richest person, is yet another leftwing billionaire who goes around blabbing about the depravity of laissez-faire economics and the glories of the welfare state.

Lately, he has been demanding the retention of the estate tax, a.k.a. "the death tax."

And why shouldn't he? He brags that he won't let any of his kids inherit the vast fortune he's built himself, since he wouldn't want them to become spoiled wastrels who feel entitled to properties they haven't even managed.

That may very well be Buffett's conscious reason for opposing the repeal of the estate tax. However, there may be other reasons why an investor of his stature would fear an end to this law.

In a Wednesday, July 5 op-ed released by the Reason Foundation, J. Peter Freire observes,

The estate tax weighs heavily on those who have asset-rich businesses, typically family businesses that have taken years to break even and accumulate value. When the owner dies and the children take up the reins, the estate tax comes into play, sometimes costing as much as the business itself. The heirs are then forced to sell the business before losing any more money. This is how Buffett came to own Dairy Queen and the Buffalo News, among other businesses, as they were being sold at lower prices than their actual value. In the latter case, Buffett bought the paper for less than what it would wind up making him each year.

Beyond providing Buffett with a bumper crop of businesses to purchase, the estate tax also provides him with customers. Any financial advisor will tell you that the major component of a sound financial plan is composed of asset allocation, not blue chip trades on the stock market. And that is why they recommend you purchase some life insurance to shelter your money from large taxes such as the estate tax. And why not purchase that life insurance from Buffett's very own insurance company, GEICO?

So I have bad news and good news.

The bad news is that the estate tax has provided "corporate welfare" to the world's second-richest man.

The good news is that he saved a bunch of money on investments by purchasing GEICO.

Americarus -- And Those Who Expect Him to Fall

2006-06-25T06:26:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

Recently, a fellow of mine wrote to me saying that he agreed with me that current hysteria over global warming harkens back to the 1970s, when "Malthusian" doomsday myths about "overpopulation" ran rampant.

But I believe that the reason why the idea that global warming will destroy humanity actually harkens back to a far older mythology that is deeply ingrained in both the West and the East.

The notion of Anthropogenic Global Warming Apocalypse resonates so strongly with the mainstream opinion leaders because it speaks to their brand of collectivism that has its roots in Ancient Athens.

My fellow pro-science, pro-reason, pro-individualism laissez-fairists often talk of Ancient Athens reverently because they look up to Aristotle. Well, I like Aristotle, too, but it seems to me that the collectivism and authoritarianism of his teacher, Plato, was more representative of what constituted mainstream thought in Ancient Athens.

Ancient Athens may have been far more individualistic than the animistic tribal cultures both before and during that time, but that civilization was still terribly collectivistc and authoritarian by the standards of a modern free-marketer. So it's not surprising that the Ancient Athenians believed and spread their traditional myths about how the cardinal sin is to take pride in your own abilities.

Who, asked the Ancient Greeks, was Oedipus to believe that he could control his own fate? It was through his very own attempt to control his own life that he catapulted himself toward disaster. Though, of course, how can he be responsible for this when the gods were so intent on denying him any free will in the first place?

The Greeks said that having pride in your own abilities is Hubris, and that this is the cardinal sin for which one must be punished.

Environmental apocalypse is so popular with our Zeitgeist because, on a subconscious level, it still clings to those old legends of Hubris. Our industrial civilization is full of Hubris, say the mainstream intellectuals. America is too confident in its own technological marvels and in having greater economic and political freedom than most nation-states. It's about time that our current god -- Mother Nature -- reach down its mighty hand to smack us, knocking that smug smile of self-satisfaction off the face of the developed world.

This is one of the worst aspects of Greco-Roman culture, and it pervades the popular Western (and Japanese) imagination. To the journalism community, the industrial West is like Icarus, becoming so haughty as he flies close to the sun. Well, say the journalists, the melting of Icarus's wax wings sent the poor boy to his doom, just as the melting of the polar ice caps will deliver us to a similar fate.

Icarus was punished.

And America, say the intellectuals, is following his lead. America is Americarus.

In the popular collectivist view of today's journalism community, America is a modern Tower of Babel. Who were those arrogant men in the Bible, who tried to build a tower so high that it could reach God? The Lord sure taught them a lesson when He smashed their tower to rubble and scattered its builders across the globe. It's only a matter of time, the anti-globalizers warn (or threaten), that the gods will smite us as well.

In every story of Greek hubris, there was only one way in which the protagonist could redeem himself. If only Icarus weren't so proud -- if only Phaeton humbly accepted his place and refrained from trying to drive Helios's solar chariot -- if only Arachne had kept her mouth shut and never proved herself to be a better seamstress than the goddess Athene, disaster could have been averted.

According to the popular collegian view, we Americans, too, must learn such humility, by learning to forego so much of our material comforts. The politicians, the press, and the academicians say we should stop being so conceited in our mastery of our natural environment. We should learn to live with less luxury, and to be more like the collectivist Noble Savages in the fevered dreams of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Herbert Marcuse, and Kevin Costner.

That is a story going back to antiquity -- a story told by a governmental elite to its commoners, so that they would know better than to become part of a rather impoverished but individualistic (and therefore hubristic) merchant class unsatisified with its lowly social status and thus constantly trying to improve its living standards. And inheritors of that power elite's legacy -- today's opinion leaders -- mourn the fact that the the hubristic merchants have largely succeeded in controlling their own destinies and have gained such prominence in the West and even East Asia. That is wrong, believe many opinion leaders, and so there must come a day when our now-wealthy merchant class finally meets its come-uppance. That especially applies to the Phaetons and Icaruses of the coal and oil industries.

I believe that it is this well-estaslished attitude against individual autonomy that pervades ancient Greco-Roman-Judeo-Christian mythology that has made tales of Anthropogenic Global Warming Catastrophe so captivating to the witch doctors of our own time -- the witch-doctor "intellectuals" in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and especially media.

We are finally witnessing the era, they say, in which America -- Americarus -- will be smote by the left hand of ~~God~~ Gaia.

Schools and Diversity

2006-06-06T13:57:00.000-10:00

Pablo Wegesend

The US Supreme Court is going to soon hear 2 cases, one from Seattle, and one from Louisville about public schools that admit only a certain percentage from each racial group for the sake of "diversity".

Click here to see article.

The idea that schools choose the race of it's students, for any reason, is ridiculous. Especially if it's a government school.

Our state of Hawaii is more racially integrated than most of the mainland. This state has the largest rate of inter-racial marriages and multi-racial people.

And we didn't get that way by having government schools choosing the race of it's students.

The real reason people had problems with segregated schools in the South pre-1960's, was because the government schools chose the race of it's students. Now, forcing schools to have a certain percentage of whites. blacks, etc for the sake of "diversity" is just as crazy! Let the people figure out their own way of dealing with diversity. That's what we in Hawaii have done.

Yes, a school like Waipahu High would have a lot of Filipinos, but anyone living in that school's district can go to that school. A school like Waianae High would have mostly Native Hawaiians, but anyone living in the district can go there. Hardly anyone in Hawaii has a problem with Waipahu High being mostly Filipino or Waianae High being mostly Native Hawaiian, because people can choose where they live.

Other schools have very different combinations of people, with Kahuku High having a lot of Polynesians and Caucasians; Roosevelt High having a lot of local Japanese and Native Hawaiians, or McKinley High having a large of number of immigrants from Asia and the Pacific (which, by the way, is where I, a Mexican/PuertoRican/Portuguese//German, graduated from). The people in those district choose to live among such diversity.

Yes, Hawaii has Kamehameha Schools, which admits only Native Hawaiians, but it's a private school. And even that has caused controversy. A person with 99% European/1% Hawaiian ancestry can go to Kamehameha School, but a 100% Samoan or a 100% Tongan can't go there, all because their ancestors landed on the wrong island

The Moral Rightness of Disregarding Immigration Quotas

2006-04-22T12:38:00.000-10:00

Recently, George Mason University economics professor Walter E. Williams wrote a piece on the subject of immigration quotas that warrants some response.

Here, on my page is a reply from Ken Schoolland, an associate professor of economics and political science at Hawaii Pacific University and the author of The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: A Free Market Odyssey (serialized here). Some years ago, Prof. Schoolland met Dr. Williams in person.

Aside from the comments on immigration that shall be addressed below, we are generally fans of Dr. Williams's work.

___________________________

Walter E. Williams wrote,

My sentiments on immigration are inscribed at the foot of the Statue of Liberty:

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

These words of poet Emma Lazarus served as the welcome mat for tens of millions seeking liberty and opportunity in America -- legally. Being a relatively land-rich and labor-scarce nation, immigration has always been good for our country. Plus, for most of our history, there was a guarantee that immigrants would come here to work. The alternative was starvation.

With today's welfare state, there's no such guarantee. People can come here, not work and not starve because the welfare state guarantees that they can live off the rest of us.

Ken Schoolland replies: The welfare state is not caused by immigrants. The cause is U.S. politicians. It is collectivist to say that immigrants should be deprived of liberty in America when it is native-born politicians who chose to create a welfare bribery system to win votes in the first place. Illegal immigrants don't qualify for welfare anyway.

In answer to the myth that welfare is the biggest predictor of what attracts migrants into a geographic region, one should note that, statistically, both native-born Americans and immigrants have a tendency to move away from U.S. states that pay out the most in welfare benefits and to move into U.S. states that pay out the least. A more significant predictor of whether one can expect migrants to move into a U.S. state is whether that is where many job opportunities are. When this trend occurs with U.S. states, why should we assume that it does not also occur in the case of nation-states?

Williams wrote,

At the heart of today's immigration problem is its illegality. According to several estimates, there are 11 million people who are in our country illegally, mostly from Mexico. Many people, including my libertarian friends and associates, advance an argument that differs little from saying that people anywhere in the world have a right to live in the United States irrespective of our laws or preferences. According to that vision, American people do not have a right to set either the number of people who enter our country or the conditions upon which they enter.

Prof. Schoolland replies: Thomas Jefferson et al. wrote in the Declaration of Indepencence,

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men Are Created Equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness [emphasis added].

Observe that the document says "all men are created equal." It doesn't say, "Only those born within the thirteen colonies have rights." It says all men are "endowed" with the "unalienable Rights" to "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

It isn't only libertarians who espouse this, but most Americans every Fourth of July. If most of us truly mean these words, then are not those born in Mexico endowed with these same unalienable rights that, well, all men are? Since when did the U.S. Founders say that one only had these rights if one happened to be born within U.S. borders? Thomas Paine was not born in the United States; did he not have rights then?

Contrary to what Dr. Williams says, you do not need to have any immigration quotas or regulations to determine the number of immigrants that come onto your private property. On your private property, you can invite or not invite as many immigrants as you want. That does not give you the right to demand, with all the force of law (backed by the government's guns), that your neighbor be prevented from inviting as many immigrants as he wants onto his own private property.

Dr. Williams said himself that nobody has the right to dictate what you peacefully do with other consenting adults on your own private property. The logical conclusion to draw from this is that Dr. Williams has no business sending armed men after me or my guests if I invite dozens of Mexicans into my home every year when we commit no trespasses upon others.

Dr. Williams wrote in 2002 that "in the house, restaurant, airplane or workplace that I own, another doesn't have the right to prohibit smoking. If you don't like the fact that smoking is permitted in my restaurant, you can go elsewhere. Similarly, I can do the same if you don't permit smoking."

Paraphrasing Dr. Williams, "in the house, restaurant, airplane or workplace -- like a strawberry field! -- that I own, another doesn't have the right to prohibit my having peaceful Mexican aliens over as my guests or employees. If you dno't like the fact that Mexicans are allowed to work at my business, you can shop elsewhere. Similarly, I can avoid associating with you if you don't permit Mexicans onto your property.

In his recent column on immigration, Williams continues,

Some of the arguments and terms used in the immigration debate defy reason. First, there's the refusal to call these people "illegal aliens." The politically preferred term is "undocumented workers," which is nothing less than verbal sleight-of-hand.

Prof. Schoolland replies: Runaway slaves were also committing an illegal act. They were "stealing themselves" from their unrightful masters. During World War Two, Jews defied U.S. federal law when they fled Hitler and entered the United States when the U.S. immigration quotas would allow no more foreign Jews. The Founding Fathers of this nation were acting illegally. So
what?

"Laws don't determine morality" -- Walter Williams said those exact words to John Stossel in the 1997 TV documentary "Freeloaders." Has Dr. Williams changed his mind since then? Or is he being very selective and arbitrary when it comes to choosing the cases in which he will apply his own standards?

Williams wrote,

My colleague, Thomas Sowell, exposes some of this verbal sleight-of-hand in a recent column. He questions calling for "guest worker" status for people who, because they weren't invited, are not guests at all but gate-crashers. Sowell argues that the more substantive arguments for flaunting our immigration laws are just as phony.

Prof. Schoolland replies: Dr. Williams is wrong yet again. The "guest workers" are invited by any employer willing to hire them for the diligence they offer, the low pay, hard work, dangerous and dirty work they are more willing to do than many native-born Americans. And every American employee invites them to come and hire them in the businesses these imm igrant entrepreneurs start up. They are invited by every business that wants to sell them food and clothing, by every landlord who wants to rent an apartment.

Was an invitation necessary for all the European settlers? No. They came for the opportunity, and dismissed native American "Indians" who might not have invited them. Indeed, invitations were made illegal when the immigration laws of 1882 outlawed contract immigrant labor.

Williams wrote,

How about the argument that "We can't catch all the illegals"? That's true, but should we apply that rinciple to other illegal acts? For example, we can't catch every rapist or burglar, but does it follow that we shouldn't try?

Prof. Schoolland replies: Does Dr. Williams believe that moving across the U.S.-Mexican border -- a line that exists only on maps and not on the actual soil of the Earth -- falls into the same ethical category as burglary and rape? Why is Dr. Williams comparing honest, peaceful employment to actual acts of violence? Because this country's immigration quotas outlaw foreign-born work within its borders, turning away people who are escaping to freedom from tyrants such as those of North Korea and Cuba?

I say that the criminal act is not in North Koreans escaping to freedom in America, but in Americans denying freedom to them by sending them back! That's a fugitive slave law.

Williams wrote,

The base motives for much of the political response to illegal aliens are fear of losing the Hispanic vote and pressure by employers who want to maintain a source of cheap labor. Politicians are calling for "guest worker" programs, but they're really calling for amnesty. They are fearful of actually using that term because they know it's political suicide, but the "guest worker" proposal is essentially the same as amnesty."

Prof. Schoolland replies: The major motive of politicians to stop immigrants is because those fearful citizens who have the vote are more powerful than those courageous immigrants who don't have the vote.

Williams wrote,

The word amnesty comes from the Greek "amnestia," defined in part as: "the selective overlooking or ignoring of those events or acts that are not favorable or useful to one's purpose or position." That's what the proposed guest worker program essentially says: Forget that you're here illegally.

Prof. Schoolland replies: Let's talk about something. Dr. Williams is siding with the U.S. federal government for putting quotas on the number of people, including Mexicans, allowed to come into this country every year and stay only on the private property of those willing to provide them with shelter or employment.

Dr. Wiliams supports that quota while opposing quotas of another kind -- quotas on the number of taxi cabs that may be operated in a city at a given time. Several cities have what they call a "medallion" system. There is a quota on the number of taxis in operation, and, for a taxi cabe service company to operate an additional cab, it has to obtain a permit called a "medallion." Walter Williams has proudly told the story many times of his operating an illegal, "undocumented," black-market taxi cab -- without any permit -- when growing up in New York. That was illegal, but he believed he had the right to give a ride to people despite the preferential laws that tried to exclude him on account of his not having a medallion.

If Dr. Williams believes it is right to operate a taxi cab without a government-authorized permit, then why does he oppose the right of a Mexican to obtain shelter from willing American providers on the providers' own private property without this Mexican having a government-authorized permit?

Williams wrote,

In principle, the solution to people being in our country illegally is simple. No one in the country illegally should be eligible to receive any social services except emergency medical services. Efforts should be made to deport illegal aliens. Our borders should be made secure both against illegal entry of persons and potential threats to national security.

Prof. Schoolland replies: Excuse me? Has Dr. Williams forgotten about private churches and private charities that give social and medical services to Mexican immigrants voluntarily? And yet the anti-immigration legislators are trying to have these private organizations punished for their aid to immigrants who do not have visas Of course, government forced payment for services should not be done for immigrants -- nor for native-born U.s. citizens.

Oh, and national security? Security of our rights does not routinely begin by first denying people their rights, both citizen and immigrant. If I want to hire a maid or gardener cheaply, so that they can live much better than in Guatemala and I can live better without doing cooking, cleaning, or gardening, then that is my right and it is none of the government's business. Williams should not be scapegoating these people for our national security woes. That has much much more to do with the shenanigans of the politicians in D.C. Of course, the politicians in DC already have their protected (often illegal) maids and gardeners, so it won't really affect them either way.

Williams concludes,

Finally, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services procedures for obtaining work permits and citizenship should be streamlined so that law-abiding people around the world can more easily contribute to and enjoy America's greatness.

Prof. Schoolland replies: Finally, something I can agree with.

A Distinction Between Freedom and 'Due Process'

2006-04-18T22:00:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

The following is a slighlty revised version of an article of mine that originally appeared in the Tuesday, April 18, 2006 edition of Hawaii Reporter.It also appears here in the online 'zine Tali Satele's Critique of American Samoa's Government.

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. Government is force ... "
--Apocryphally attributed to George Washington

Political freedom is security against spoliation. Dictionary.Com defines spoliation as "the act of...plundering."

More precisely, "spoliation" means the initiation -- that is, the starting -- of physical force against non-consenting parties' person or property. That includes larceny, kidnapping, and unintended property damage.

If you survived a stickup because you handed the muggers your wallet, the robbery still counts as violence, as you would've been killed if you didn't cooperate.

Contract violation (such as fraud) is also spoliation, as it's theft for me to contractually promise to pay you for something, and then take it without paying.

To secure our liberty from the rule of cutthroats, we entrust government to exercise retaliatory violence. The more someone resists our laws, the more violence the State responds with.

Suppose Murray never pays the compounding fines for his jaywalking offense. The city eventually sends armed men to apprehend him. Murray runs from them, so they mace him. If he fights back ferociously, he may need to be roughed up . . . or even shot.

Laws are ultimately enforced at gunpoint.

Cops are right to employ such force against spoliators -- pickpockets, rapists, swindlers, murderers, and abductors, all of whom start violence. But when it passes laws forbidding peaceful behaviors, the government itself spoliates innocent individuals.

Here critics scoff, replying that citizens implicitly consent to anything democratically-elected legislators decree. I disagree, for Ancient Athens was doubtlessly wrong to democratically vote on executing Socrates for his rhetoric.

Of course, U.S. authorities cannot detain or bludgeon civilians arbitrarily. America, unlike Third-World dictatorships, has "due process of law," which places numerous procedural barriers in front of officials before they can kill a lawbreaker without being penalized for it.

However, just because America's Founders set up "due process" to rein in frivolous prosecution, that doesn't mean that "due process" equals freedom. That confuses means with ends. If you lock jewels inside a chest, you wouldn't say the chest is itself a jewel; the chest's purpose is to protect jewels.

Now imagine some democratically-elected lawmakers enacting legislation to incarcerate someone for three years if she houses a cat. Angela illegally keeps one anyway, harming nobody. Neighbors see the pet and snap pictures of her with it.

Eventually, detectives grow suspicious. After they show "probable cause," a jurist awards them a warrant to search her residence, where they find the animal. They read Angela her "Miranda rights" and book her. She gets her phone call in custody. Because she cannot afford an attorney, the state provides her one.

Angela only gets convicted after prosecutors demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt to impartial jurors that she kept a cat, calling her neighbors as witnesses, displaying their photographs, and exhibiting the evidence taken from her premises. Angela appeals her sentence, but it's consistently upheld since judges find it obvious that she in fact did the crime.

Throughout this entire scenario, Angela received "due process." Investigators could only search her estate because they secured a warrant after establishing "probable cause." Angela got her requisite phone call, reading of "Miranda rights," jury trial, counsel, and appeals, and the onus was upon the prosecution to irrefutably prove her lawbreaking.

Yet the State still violated Angela's rights, because it threatened violence upon her for actions that didn't hurt anyone else's body or private belongings. Her guards would've manhandled her if she tried to flee the courtroom.

Though the above case is imaginary, real-life democratic governments with "due process" really can -- and often do -- promise to imprison people as punishment for peaceful-but-illegal behaviors, with even greater force reserved for those who attempt to escape their captivity. Such measures amount to government-enforced kidnapping.

Government kidnaps those who privately smoke recreational marijuana in their own homes, for example.

Likewise, you cannot legally hire a willing adult who offers to work for you for hourly compensation below the mandated minimum wage. If you're caught doing that and don't pay the fines for it, you can expect government to abduct you over it.

"Due process" won't save you from the slammer if you openly disobey a wicked law that never should've existed. America had long-established "due process" in the 1940s, but that wouldn't have prevented police from locking you up if you, in fact, flouted racial segregation laws back then.

True freedom requires that laws only prohibit spoliation -- not peaceful, mutually consensual activities among legally-competent adults, whether they are personal or commercial in nature.

Related articles by Stuart K. Hayashi

* "The Invisible Gun" (FreelyThinking.Com Version, Mad Prophet Version, Jacques Tucker's Website Version)

* "The Grown-Up Bullies of Democracy"

* "What Capitalism Is and Is Not"

* "Freedom Before Democracy"

* "The Properness of Property" (Pt. 1, Pt. 2)

* "The Myth of the Social Contract" (link goes to the first of several installments)

* "Conservative Author Michelle Malkin Defends FDR's Policy of Mass Kidnapping"

* The Costs and Benefits of the Corporation"

* " 'Animal Rights' Are Human Wrongs"

* "Positive Reform Through Good Philosophy"

* " 'Death With Dignity' Must Live Again"

* Campaign Finance Follies"

Recommended links:

* "Escalating Crimes" by Ken Schoolland (shorter audio version here)

* News articles about a corrections officer shooting an inmate trying to escape. I don't believe the corrections officer in any way acted improperly by shooting; I post these links in case there are those who are still skeptical of my point that laws are ultimately enforced at gunpoint: Honolulu Star-Bulletin Version, Honolulu Advertiser Version

* Read about John Singer of Utah, who was shot dead by the government for not sending his kids to government school or private school

* Information on Californian millionaire Donald Scott being shot dead by federal agents even after obeying their orders: One, Two, Three

* Thomas Jefferson stressed that, even if jurors knew that a defendant had in fact broken a law, the jurors would have a right to acquit the defendant if they believed that the law itself was wrong. In recent decades, however, U.S. judges have betrayed Jefferson's legacy by telling jurors that they have no legal authority to use their position to nullify laws they disapprove of: One, Two, Three

* "Why Rent Control Is Immoral" by Michael S. Berliner, Ph.D.

* "What Trustbusters and Marxists Have in Common: Equating Economic and Political Power" by Richard M. Salsman, CFA

* "Production vs. Force" by Robert W. Tracinski

* Jeff Landauer and Joseph Rowlands on individual rights

* The late Kerry Pearson ("Lux Lucre") did this flash animation of Ken Schoolland's "The Philosophy of Liberty"

* "Campaign Finance Limits vs. Free Speech" by Andrew Lewis

* "The U.N.'s Distortion of Rights" by Robert W. Tracinski

* United Nations Declaration on Rights Destroys Individual Rights" by Glenn Woiceshyn

* John Locke's Second Treatise on Government (a very long book online)

* Online version of Frederic Bastiat's pamphlet, The Law (note: in the treatise's original French, Bastiat used the term "spoliation" just the way I do, but the English translator changed the word to "plunder")

*"State-Sponsored Terrorists" by Noel Malcolm

Freedom Before Democracy

2006-04-15T19:48:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

Note: This is a revised version of a piece of mine originally published in the April 4, 2002 edition of Hawaii Reporter.

To make the record clear, Adolf Hitler was not directly elected by the general public to the office of German Chancellor. However, the members in the German Parliament -- whose members were each democratically elected -- did, through a majority vote, democratically ratify a bill that gave arbitrary "emergency powers" to Hitler. So democracy -- if we take the term to mean the elevation of majority votes above that of intransigent individual, private property rights -- cannot be taken off the hook here.

Almost everyone believes that democracy equals freedom.

Not surprisingly, anti-capitalist activist Michael Moore often invokes democracy. “I’ve read the U.S. Constitution, and the word ‘shareholder’ doesn’t appear once in it,” he says. “It’s a Democracy!" (Actually, the word democracy doesn’t appear in the Constitution either.)

When campaigning in Hawaii, Green Party 2000 Presidential candidate Ralph Nader said that those who weren’t out lobbying for more stifling regulations were necessarily mindless “gazers and gawkers.”

His “solution” was that we revive the ancient Greek concept of the “public citizen,” which said that all men must be politically active -- or otherwise be looked down upon by eveyrone else in the community. “Freedom,” Nader insists, “is participation in power.”

But democracy and freedom aren’t always the same. If democracy is so perfect, then why did the majority of Germany's democratically-elected parliamentarians vote for the 1933 Enabling Act, which gave Germany's appointed Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, an unlimited authority to make his own laws? Hitler himself was not elected, but an elected legislature nevertheless gave him absolute political power in a democratic vote.

Democracy is correctly defined as a political system in which laws or lawmakers are chosen by the majority of voters.

Meanwhile, Nader’s claim notwithstanding, freedom is not “participation in power,” but security against power. Specifically, it means that people can rest assured knowing that the power of physical force cannot be initiated upon their life, liberty, or property, by anyone -- not even a government -- even if 100 percent of the population approved.

That is what a good government protects us from; not imposes upon us.

For instance, let’s say democratic voting always won out over individual rights. Then, if the majority of the citizens disliked a group of rich people, it could democratically vote on whether they should all be executed, even though they have inflicted no harm to the life, liberty or property of others.

If at least 51 percent of the votes choose “kill,” then these rich people are massacred by the state.

Fantasy, you say? Actually, this happened periodically throughout the history of the ancient Greek city-state of Athens. Even back then, the majority claimed to represent “the people as a whole,” even if it was only 50.99 percent.

They disregarded the fact that there never was a “people as a whole,” since every person is an individual, with his own preferences, motives, and life. A “group of people” is only a group of individuals, each acting upon his own free will -- never a true collective.

Some might say, “People would never democratically vote for something as awful as mass murder today.” That’s irrelevant -- no one should even have the option to vote on that at all.

America’s Founders, such as John Adams and James Madison, may have deeply admired how Ancient Greece took power away from monarchs, but they were also aware of how the nation would become tyrannical if the Greco-Roman tradition were applied fully.

They understood that democratic voting could only work if individual rights always superseded it.

Under a truly free system, if 99 percent of the population lobbied Congress to steal from a whole class of people, the government was to say, “Those people didn’t do anything to you, so too bad. We protect rights consistently and majority opinion won’t change that.”

The Founding Fathers often proclaimed, “This a republic; not a democracy.” And, by that, they meant a “constitutional republic” in which individual rights were adhered to -- as opposed to the “classical republic” of Rome, in which people didn’t vote for every little law, but instead voted for representatives to craft the oppressive rules for them.

That’s why the Founders considered it an insult when others accused them of supporting democracy.

That also explains why James Madison, the father of the very U.S. Constitution that Michael Moore poses as an expert on, distrusted a state empowering "the people." In the Federalist Papers No. 10, he wrote that

democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

John Adams, who famously championed American Independence in the Continental Congress, once stated, “The fundamental article of my political creed is that despotism, or unlimited sovereignty, or absolute power, is the same in a majority of a popular assembly, an aristocratic council, an oligarch junta, and a single emperor” (emphasis added).

Whether a government is run by one person or everybody is unimportant. The real question is: Does a particular law -- regardless if it was passed by a monarch or a mass -- protect the rightful ownership of one’s own life and material possessions, or does it deny it?

Before we continue to “make the world safe for democracy,” as the rights-violating President Woodrow Wilson put it, we should actually make the world safe for individual rights -- and safe from too much democracy.

Harry Browne Was Right on This

2006-03-11T14:07:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

Just three posts ago, I took Harry Browne to task for his comments on 9/11. Of course, most of his remarks on domestic politics were still very much accurate, and it is with sadness that I look upon his recent passing.

Back in 1996, when the Republican Party took control of U.S. Congress and promised to shrink government, Browne accurately predicted that the party would fail to follow through:

...Republicans are moving in the wrong direction -- voting to enlarge the government by $45 billion a year for the next seven years, to raise the minimum wage, to censor the Internet, to take away more civil liberties in the guise of fighting terrorism, to drive the health insurance companies out of business with oppressive new regulations. This may be incremental change, but it's change in the wrong direction [emphasis addded].

What Browne said about taking away civil liberties in the fight against terrorism was particularly prescient since it was ten years ago.

In Memory of Harry Browne

2006-03-03T12:58:00.000-10:00

Pablo Wegesend

Harry Browne, the Libertarian Party Presidential candidate in 1996 & 2000 elections, has died on March 1, 2006.

http://www.lp.org/media/article_294.shtml

I have learned about Browne through some politically minded friends in the summer of 2000. At the time, I was struggling between voting for Al Gore or George W. Bush. I knew what their political tendencies were, I just don't always agree with either of them.

Anyways, I read Harry Browne's political advertisement and his book "Why Government Doesn't Work" and I found his writings very convincing, especially on controversial viewpoints on ending the War on Drugs, privatizing all health care, selling national parks to those committed to preserving them, privatizing education, etc. His writings on those topics were so convincing that it changed the way I viewed those issues.

Though after 9/11, I became more of a foreign policy, and was disillusioned with Browne's anti-war politics. I thought that Browne spent too much blaming America, and not enough time on denouncing the Islamic Fascists.

I also think that while Browne's views on privatizing government services are very convincing, I think that having an immediate privatization of all those services (which he advocates) would cause mass confusion among the people who might be unprepared to deal with it. Which is why I prefer a more gradual approach to privatizing most government services.

I dont agree with the Libertarian Party on everything, but I do think they have valuable things to say about very important political issues, so please check out www.lp.org to learn more about it. Even if you don't agree with it, you would learn something from it.

And you can still check out www.harrybrowne.org

My One Complaint About 'Atlas Shrugged,' 2006

2006-02-02T21:59:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

This is a revision of a post that appeared on The Fiftieth Star one year ago and later here at The Rebirth of Reason.

February 2, 2006, marks 101 years to the day of Ayn Rand's birth. That day of the month is of particular importance in American culture because, every February 2, if a politician crawls out of his hole and sees his shadow, we will have 60 more years of the welfare state.

As for Miss Rand's magnum opus, I enjoyed every syllable on each of the 1,087 pages of the paperback edition I read. The prose sparked vivid images that made me feel as if I were gazing upon an exquisite painting.

I was so enthralled by the grandeur of it all that I was quite sad to see it eventually come to an end.

And so I have only one complaint about Atlas Shrugged:

It was too short.

Yes, Osama Does Hate Us 'for Our Freedom'

2006-01-10T19:50:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

For the past four years, it has been very common for a number of libertarians to say that the reason al-Qaeda attacked the United States was not "hatred for our freedom." Instead, they maintain, the 9/11 atrocity was retribution against an aggressive U.S. foreign policy that has oppressed the Middle East for decades.

The Libertarian Party's 2000 presidential candidate, Harry Browne, gave an assessment of 9/11 that surprised many of his readers. While, I agree with Browne's opinions on domestic political economy, he confounded me with the remarks he made on September 12, 2001 about the previous day's attacks.

"When will we learn," he asked rhetorically, , "that we can't allow our politicians to bully the world without someone bullying back eventually?"

The terrorists "bullying back"?

A few years after Browne published those thoughts, the Libertarian Party's 2004 presidential candidate, Michael Badnarik, weighed in on this as well. He had very sound views on domestic issues. Yet I felt uncomfortable with his pronouncements about what he perceived to be al-Qaeda's legitimate grievances. "First," he stated,

allow me to dispel a myth. People in the Middle East do not hate us for our freedom. They do not hate us for our lifestyle. They hate us because we have spent many years attempting to force them to emulate our lifestyle.

What does he mean by "[p]eople in the Middle East"? Not everyone in the Middle East "hate[s] us." The United States has a number of supporters in Iraq (though having even more of them would be preferrable).

Aren't Osama bin Laden and al-Qaedea so offended by "our freedom" that they see destroying it as a purpose in their jihad?

Jacob G. Hornberger, who is also usually right on domestic fiscal issues, evidently doubts that. "U.S. officials claim," he commented in October 2001,

that the attacks on New York and Washington were motivated by hatred for freedom, democracy, and Western values. But what if they're mistaken? After all, doesn't Switzerland support those values? Why aren't the Swiss being targeted by terrorists?

I don't know bin Laden's opinion on the Swiss, but, a year after Hornberger's commentary was published -- and over a year before Michael Badnarik began campaigning for U.S. President -- we already had access to something that provides much insight on what reasons Osama bin Laden gives for killing Americans.

I am referring to an "Open Letter to Americans" penned by none other than Osama bin Laden himself, published in the November 24, 2002 London Guardian. This same letter was republished in 2005's Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden -- an anthology of bin Laden's political writings.

In the first half of his letter, the terrorist mastermind does cite the excuse for murdering Americans that some libertarians allude to -- he strongly objects to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, accusing our military of imperialism. Browne said he was "bullying back" the U.S. government for "bullying the world" first, and bin Laden, independent of Browne, concurs.

But the second half of bin Laden's open letter completely contradicts the contention so popular among numerous libertarians and radical leftwingers that al-Qaeda and other Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups would stop attacking America if only it withdrew occupying troops in Saudi Arabia and other countries.

Indeed, bin Laden does intend to murder those who do not submit to his interpretation of Islam. He explains,

While seeking Allah's help, we form our reply based on two questions directed at the Americans:

(Q1) Why are we [al-Qaeda members] fighting and opposing you [Americans]?

(Q2) What are we [al-Qaeda members] calling you to, and what do we want from you? [ . . . ]

(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam. [ . . .]

It is to this religion that we call you; the seal of all the previous religions. [ . . . ] It is the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah's Word and religion reign Supreme.

Radley Balko, a Cato Institute scholar who has written many excellent commentaries like "Prosperity's Nitpickers," has mocked hawks who attribute the World Trade Center attack to bin Laden's "hatred for our freedom."

"Unfortunately," he propounds,

the 'they hate us for our freedom' reasoning fails the Occam's Razor test. It's difficult to believe that a loathing of strip clubs, rock music, cable TV, and all-you-can-eat buffets would motivate 19 young Arab men would move to the U.S. from thousands of miles away, live and work here for several years, learn to fly airplanes, and then immolate themselves in a mass suicide attack [emphasis added --S.H.].

That sentiment was also voiced by the intelligent and articulate Sheldon Richman, editor of The Freeman, in September 2001:

The Bush administration says incessantly that the terrorism was an attack on civilization: freedom, prosperity, self-government. Government officials, pundits, and cartoonists insist that the terrorists' intent is to bring down American society. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, 'What this war is about is our way of life.'

That view may give some people comfort, but it misses the mark by miles. [ . . . ] If Osama bin Laden was really the instigator or mastermind, we can know precisely what he intended. He's given many interviews to Western journalists. Transcripts are available on the Internet. Never does he say that his motive for a holy war against America is the destruction of capitalism, wealth, freedom, or any other abstraction [emphasis added].

If what Richman said in 2001 -- that bin Laden had not denounced America for its capitalism -- was true at the time, it was no longer true when the Guardian published bin Laden's open letter in 2002.

Recall that Balko dismissed the possibility that al-Qaeda could want to murder Americans for merely having the following institutions:

* Strip clubs

* Rock music

* Cable TV

Actually, bin Laden does want to kill us for alleged sins relating the those three cultural indicators.

He says that for we Americans to spare ourselves from his violent wrath, we must give in to his demand that we "reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and trading with interest."

Richman sounded skeptical of "[g]overnment officials, pundits, and cartoonists" for "insist[ing] that the terrorists' intent is to bring down American society." Nor did he appreciate it when "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, 'What this war is about is our way of life.'"

However, this was one of the few cases in which Rumsfeld was right. Bin Laden does see "our way of life" as something bad enough to kills us over by his own hands. He tells you that his intent is to bring down American society. As bin Laden puts it, "It is saddening to tell you that you are the worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind."

Al-Qaeda's head honcho provides a list of reasons for wanting to annihilate us Americans so specific that it makes little sense to claim, after reading it, that bin Laden's violent actions are meant only to punish the U.S. for its foreign policy and not for peaceful behaviors its laws allow domestically. Bin Laden's list of grievances for American actions that so enrage him include:

(iii) You are a nation that permits the production, trading and usage of intoxicants. You also permit drugs, and only forbid the trade of them, even though your nation is the largest consumer of them. [ . . . ]

(v) You are a nation that permits gambling in its all forms. The companies practice this as well, resulting in the investments becoming active and the criminals becoming rich.

In this litany of America's supposed sins, sexual freedom is an item:

(iv) You are a nation that permits acts of immorality, and you consider them to be pillars of personal freedom. [ . . . ] Who can forget your President Clinton's immoral acts committed in the official Oval office? After that you did not even bring him to account, other than that he "made a mistake," after which everything passed with no punishment. [ . . . ]

(vi) You are a nation that exploits women like consumer products or advertising tools calling upon customers to purchase them. You use women to serve passengers, visitors, and strangers to increase your profit margins. You then rant that you support the liberation of women. [ . . . ]

The above indicates that bin Laden sees our strip clubs as a sufficient reason to exterminate us. We will put a check mark next to "strip clubs." We can move on to other items Balko listed as bin Laden continues,

(vii) You are a nation that practices the trade of sex in all its forms, directly and indirectly. Giant corporations and establishments are established on this, under the name of art, entertainment, tourism and freedom, and other deceptive names you attribute to it.

Rock music is associated with what bin Laden perceives to be debauchery. The box for "rock music" should probably be checked. What else dose bin Laden carp about?

(x) Your law is the law of the rich and wealthy people, who hold sway in their political parties, and fund their election campaigns with their gifts. Behind them stand the Jews, who control your policies, media and economy.

Does bin Laden see our cable TV stations as grounds for punishing us with violent death? Check! Our cable channels, he believes, are the tool of a Jewish conspiracy he aims to wipe out.

The items on Balko's list check out.

Recall also Sheldon Richman's September 2001 comment that "[n]ever does" bin Laden say in the "[t]ranscripts" of "many interviews available on the Internet" that "his motive for a holy war against America is the destruction of capitalism, wealth, freedom, or any other abstraction."

A year later, bin Laden complains to Americans,

(ii) You are the nation that permits Usury, which has been forbidden by all the religions. Yet you build your economy and investments on Usury. As a result of this, in all its different forms and guises, the Jews have taken control of your economy, through which they have then taken control of your media, and now control all aspects of your life making you their servants and achieving their aims at your expense;[...]"

Is bin Laden hostile to what Richman called capitalism? The answer is yes if the right to charge interest is a part of free enterprise.

If you consider the First Amendment's Establishment Clause to be part of your freedom, then bin Laden explicitly takes offense at your freedom, shrieking,

You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator [emphasis added --S.H.].

Interestingly, the al-Qaeda leader even faults the United States for not curbing fossil fuel emissions:

(xi) You have destroyed nature with your industrial waste and gases more than any other nation in history. Despite this, you refuse to sign the Kyoto agreement so that you can secure the profit of your greedy companies and industries.

By now, it has become much more evident that, for Osama bin Laden, this campaign to extinguish the lives of Americans is not only about U.S. foreign policy. Even if America withdrew its troops from other nations and adopted a more "isolationist" position, bin Laden would still see us as an affront to Allah for our domestic freedoms, for items like those Radley Balko listed: "strip clubs," "rock music," and "cable TV."

Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda do hate your freedom. Accusing the United States of being a bigger bully will not satiate al-Qaeda; withdrawing troops from Saudi Arabia is not an action that would sufficiently stave off assaults from this band of illiberal terrorists.

Bin Laden disapproves of the United States for allowing its citizens to engage in homosexuality, charging usury, and playing Las Vegas slot machines. If he had his way, women would be forcibly banned from employment. It is Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda that have bullied the United States; not the other way around (to put it mildly).

Fortunately, one libertarian -- Ronald Bailey -- remains objective in this regard. In fact, it was this article of his that brought bin Laden's "Open Letter" to my attention. He, too, notices,

Opponents of [laissez-faire, free-market republican, classical] liberalism like bin Laden are fully aware that [laissez-faire] liberal tolerance undercuts the traditional totalitarianisms they fight for by making all such totalitarian systems of belief voluntary. If an individual chooses to change her beliefs and her way of life, she is free to do so, and her religious, political, or cultural community cannot force her to remain. Thus the traditional sources of authority -- families, chieftains, priests -- are undermined as people seek new ways of shaping their lives. [ . . . ]

So would terrorist bombs stop going off in Madrid and London if the United States and its allies withdrew their troops from the Middle East entirely? Perhaps there would be a respite, but a showdown between the world's remaining traditional totalitarianisms and the expanding sphere of [laissez-faire] liberalism is inevitable.

Someone else with good judgment about this, Edward Hudgins, observes that "explaining suicide terrorism by way of purely political calculations is superficial and naive. Most suicide killers, in fact, are religious or ideological fanatics." Al-Qaeda terrorists do not want to only alter U.S. foreign policy, but to coerce us into living in "the kind of society to which their values lead: straight to the chamber of horrors that was Taliban Afghanistan."

Osama bin Laden wasn't "bullying back" on 9/11. He initiated the Terror Wars going on from 2001 to today -- he is the bully who started this ("bully" being too puny a word to describe bin Laden's brand of evil).

I implore you: The party that must be blamed first for 9/11 is not America or even the foreign policy that libertarians accuse of being too aggressive. The primary culprit we should blame for this war has been Osama bin Laden's own illiberalism all these years.

Moi

2005-12-22T02:36:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

This is a picture of me.

This post serves no purpose other than to get my photograph to appear on the margin of this weblog. I hope this works; I'm not good at this sort of thing I'm also hoping that the photo won't send you to any outside link.

UPDATE several minutes later... I see it didn't work. I don't know if this is because I established this as a team weblog to begin with. But what I was attempting did work in Stu-Topia.

A Book Reviewer Who Doesn't Know the Definition of 'Book Review'

2005-12-04T23:09:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

Jenny Turner was supposed to review the book Ayn Rand by Jeffrey Britting for the London Review of Books (referral from Rockwell; 11/3/05).

What Ms. Turner wrote can hardly be called a book review. You can see right on the top what the assigned subject was:

Ayn Rand by Jeff Britting [ Buy from the London Review Bookshop ] · Duckworth, 155 pp, £12.99

Yet, in this humungous mess belched out by Ms. Turner, we find that, out of all 49 of its paragraphs, Britting's book is only mentioned in three of them . . . in passing.

And in those three paragraphs, there are barely any references at all to Britting's writing style, to the manner in which he organized ideas, or in his presentation. Ms. Turner cares not to inform us whether this book is easy or difficult to read, whether it is worthy of interest by the general public or not, or whether it had any good or bad points.

You would expect the London Review of Books to notice that a book review's purpose is to assess the quality of work done by the author of the book being reviewed: in this case, the job Jeff Britting did with his book -- the one this publication claims to be reviewing, remember?

Turner's essay is a sham from the get-go, because it cannot be considered a book review by any reasonable standard. Instead, it's a review of Ayn Rand's reputation. Rather than address the quality of Jeff Britting's book, this "reviewer" launches a screed against the tome's subject.

Excuse, me, Ms. Turner, but if I wrote a book about Napoleon, you're supposed to talk about how well I wrote the book; not about how much you like or hate Napoleon.

Somebody needs to inform Jenny Turner and the London Review of Books that the publication's name isn't London Review of People. How difficult is it to understand that a book review is actually supposed to review a book?

He Denounced Japanese Internment When It Mattered

2005-11-21T00:30:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

Steven Greenhut is the author of a terrific book about the horrors of eminent domain, titled Abuse of Power.

And, on Sunday, November 20, he produced a fascinating op-ed piece (referral from: L. Rockwell) about Orange County Register publisher R. C. Hoiles, who spoke out against the U.S. government's interment of Japanese-Americans when it mattered most: when this injustice was actually occurring.

As Greenhut observes, it's very easy for people today to condemn some horrible government action decades after the fact. It takes a real man, such as Hoiles, to speak out against it when it's happening. He was among a minority of people who spoke out for the rights of a minority whom bigots stereotyped as enemies of the American way on account of their being "unassimable" and coming from a "savage culture."

Speaking of people who stereotype m inorities I am getting increasingly disappointed with Thomas Sowell. Greenhut's piece on the Japanese-American internment reminds me of this.

I found it quite self-contradictory that, in the very same column, Sowell endorsed the conclusions of two political books -- Greenhut's criticism of eminent domain and Michelle Malkin's apologia for Japanese-American internment.

Sowell correctly faults the governemnt for forcibly taking houses away from people, and yet he apparently doesn't fault the government for forcibly taking people away from their houses.

The real defenders of freedom are not jingoists, but people lik Hoiles who are rabidly in favor of laissez-faire enterprise and civil liberties and privacy rights equally.

Not surprisingly, Hoiles counted himself as an adm irer of Ayn Rand's.

His is an example worth following.

Right On, Tibor!

2005-11-08T20:42:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

Last Saturday, C-SPAN aired a panel discussion held at the second annual Liberty Film Festival. I taped it because its participants included communist-turned-neoconservative Ronald Radosh (ho-hum), NewsMax writer James Hirsen (ho-hum), and the Ayn Rand Institute's Jeff Britting, who was a co-producer of Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life (excellent!).

I was rather disappointed in the event, as Jeff Britting only got to have his say about three times. The moderator from the American Enterprise Institute pretty much let the leftwing movie critic Richard Schickel interrupt everyone else whenever he wanted.

Fortunately, business ethicist Tibor R. Machan of the International Society for Individual Liberty noticed what was wrong with this "discussion": "I think Jeff Britt[ing], with his Randian ideas, was treated shabbily and hypocritically." How shabbily?

Upon airing these views as Rand’s, Britting was told his ideas are ridiculous—by Schickle and some others. Even Ron Radosh, who is an ex-Communist but has long since recanted, made a special point of dismissing and deriding Rand’s viewpoint on this issue.

What did these people object to?

The gist of it went that if one seriously disapproves of someone's views, one has every right (and often ought) to boycott them. Otherwise one is aiding and abetting someone who is working against one’s ideals. Accordingly, if one is pro-capitalist and they are procommunist, one has the right and maybe even the responsibility to boycott and, if possible, blacklist them.

This really is a simple idea: Jews who didn't wish to purchase German cars even way after WWII were engaging in such a justified boycott -- refusing to give jobs to and enrich Germans who were very likely complicit in the horrors of Nazism. If one refuses to hire someone to clean one’s home or type one’s manuscripts or whatever, someone who is an avowed or secret but well enough known communist, one is doing the right thing. If one, a pro-choice advocate, refuses to do business with pro-life advocates, this makes perfectly good moral sense.

Generally, Rand held that one has every right to make a determination who one will freely do business with. She was not advocating any government action against the Hollywood folks. She did, however, think they were morally depraved for giving aid and comfort to Soviets and their American spies. So Hollywood had every right, even responsibility, to boycott or blacklist them.

Free speech means that you can say whatever you want to anyone willing to listen, without violating anyone else's right to life or property and without any other party -- government or otherwise -- threatening violence upon you on account of your speech. The threat of violence is embodied in every injunction, every citation, and every regulation of government since, the more one resists the law, the more severe the penalty will be enforced by armed government officials.

Free speech means that I can either make a movie out of my own screenplay or sell my screenplay to any studio wishing to purchase it. If I want someone other than myself to make a film out of my treatment, then I can only rightfully make this happen if I have the other party's permission. We have a natural, Lockean right to do this without anyone -- government-employed or otherwise -- threatening violence on us in order to coerce us to stop.

Free speech does not mean that, if no one will buy my screenplay willingly, I have the right to have the government or some gang of thugs coerce some film studio to purchase it under the threat of violence for noncompliance. That isn't upholding my right to free speech; it is violating the right of the studio to its own property -- and thus violating the free speech rights of the studio's owners. The right to free speech entails the right of any private citizen to refuse participation in any form of expression outside a court of law.

Interestingly, the movie Schickel called "the best of 2004" actually glamorized a real-life wealthy Hollywood producer who was a very outspoken participant in the blacklist. I suppose he likes seeing Hollywood producers consistently practicing capitalism in biopics but not in concrete reality.

The second-best panelist was James Hirsen, since he pointed out that Joseph McCarthy was right that Soviet agents really had infiltrated the U.S. federal government. But he didn't voice any support for Britting's view, I'm sad to say.

I should have known that only Dr. Machan would give this event the criticism it deserves.

UPDATE from Wednesday, November 9, 2005: I also like this November 8 column of Dr. Machan's about the hypocrisy of media corporations distributing motion pictures that denounce corporations per se.

Middle-Eastern Civilians More Murderous than American Ones?

2005-11-08T04:38:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

I have often been told that Middle-Eastern Muslims should not be allowed to immigrate into the United States, because they are "culturally stuck in the Stone Age and murder is inherent to their culture."

When I ask people making such accusations to actually bother backing themselves up with statistics, they tell me that I'm just plain "ignorant of Muslim culture. If you weren't ignorant, you would understand that the Middle-Eastern culture enshrines murder and that Middle-Eastern immigrants carry that cultural baggage with them when they settle in the U.S. and Europe."

But if one is going to accuse an entire demographic of people of being murderous, one should actually look at the hard data collected on the number of murders. And it won't help to simply create a long list of all the murders ever committed by Muslims, because that doesn't put anything into perspective. That has no context. If one wants to prove that an immigrant from a Muslim-dominated country is likelier to commit murder than someone born in a Western country like America, then one should compare the murder rates of Muslim-dominated countries to Western ones.

When it comes to murder committed by the State itself, it is difficult to compete with an Islamic fundamentalist state like that of Iran or Saudi Arabia. For information on mass murder committed by national governments, one can check out information provided by Rudolph J. Rummel.

However, the story is different when it comes to the civilian populations of various countries, according to a chart provided by the United Nations Survey on Crime, which takes into account murders in general, as opposed to just "honor" killings.

The people who keep telling me about how Middle-Eastern immigrants are so likely to commit "honor" killings didn't provide me with statistics on this when I asked them for it last week, so I had to find this information myself. According to Human Rights Watch, one third of all the homicides in Jordan -- the Islamic country that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is from -- are "honor" killings.

Additionally, there were 400 "honor" killings in Yemen in 1997, and, out of the 812 homicides performed in Egypt in 1995, 52 were "honor" killings.

Expect some people to cite those statistics as proof that all Muslims are evil, without bothering to measures these figures against murders committed by non-Muslims or the number of Muslims who have not been charged with murder or domestic violence.

Inthe United States, where Muslims comprise only 1 percent of the population, there are 4 civilian-committed murders for every 100,000 people per year. That's a higher annual murder rate than in places like India, whose 144 Muslims comprise 13.4 percent of the population, the Muslim-dominated constitutional monarchy of Yemen, and Azerbaijan, which is 93.4 percent Moslem. The murder rates for India, Yemen, and Azerbaijan are all 3 civilian-committted murders per 100,000 people.

And Qatar,a Middle-Eastern nation that is 95 percent Muslim, the notorious Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia, which is 88 percent and which has seen attacks from particularly vicious Islamic terrorists, have the respective annual rates of civilian-committed murder: 1 per million per year (since the country has fewer than 1 million residents, this suggests that , occasionally a year may go by without any civilian-committed murders) 4 per million, and 1 per 100,000.

If these figures are corect, then that means that Qatar and Saudi Arabia have fewer civilian-committed murders than many of the more civilized countries that Middle-Easterners often migrate to: Norway (1 per 100,000), Denmark (1 per 100,000), Holland (the place where an Islamic fanatic murdered Theo Van Gogh, 1 per 100,000), the United Kingdom (1 per 100,000), and Canada (1 per 100,000).

It also means that Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia have fewer civilian-committed murders per population than even more countries that Middle-Eastern immigrants flock to: Australia (2 per 100,000), France (2 per 100,000 [my rightwing critics would have you believe that the riots in France prove the evil of Middle-Eastern immigrants, of course, but we have yet to see how this will affect the overall trend in France]), and Finland (3 per 100,000). And all these countries have fewer murders per person per year than the USA.

And let's return to the subject of Jordan, where one third of all homicides are "honor" killings. That comes down to an estimated average of 33.4 "honor" killings out of 100 civilian-committed murders per year in a country with a population of 5.759 million people. That's an annual murder rate of approximately 2 people per 100,000 per year.

And we can also revisit Egypt, in which there were a total 812 recorded civilian-created murders in 1995. If that were the number of people civilians murdered per year, in a population of 77.5 million, then that also comes to an annual murder rate of 2 per 100,000.

That would mean that even Jordan and Egypt have fewer civilian-committed murders than Finland, India, Romania, and the United States.

None of this is to say that you are less likely to be violently killed in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or Jordan than in the United States. The opposite is true! It's just that the party doing the vast majority of killing in illiberal, Islamic fundamentalist countries is the authoritarian government.

It it the autocratic states of Saudi Arabia, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Iran that prop up the terrorists who have waged war against the West. Middle-Eastern immigrants flee to America, Finland, Holland, and Australia to escape from being executed by the State over something harmless like being homosexual, charging usury, or saying something blasphemous.

The point is not that Muslim countries are safer than America. They clearly aren't. The point is that, when somebody asserts -- without citing any statistics, mind you -- that allowing Middle-Easterners from Mohammedan countries to immigrate into Western countries will necessarily increase the Western coutries' murder rates, he doesn't make a rational case.

When my critics say that a Middle-Eastern Muslim immigrant is likelier to murder me than a native-born American, because that immigrant will "refuse to assimilate into American culture, and will isntead behave in America the same way he did in his home country," that rightwing critic refutes himself.

If an immigrant from Islamic Yemen is just as likely to murders someone when he's in America as he would be in Yemen, then there is a 33-percent greater chance of an American murdering that Yemenese alien than for that Yemenese alien to murder an American.

If my critics choose to dismiss the U.N. statistics I have cited, then I challenge them to come up with better, more reliable statistics. My critics can call me "ignorant of Middle-Eastern culture" all they want. The truth remains that, as long as my critics go along prattling about how letting Middle-Eastern peoples freely immigrate into the United States will necessarily increase the likelihood of my being murdered, their case will be based upon nothing but presumptions if they do not present any statistical data to support their inflammatory claims.

A Note About Changes at 'The Fiftieth Star'

2005-11-02T00:42:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

As he has noted in the previous post, Fiftieth Star writer Grant Jones has started a new blog titled The Dougout.

For the record, he will remain on The Fiftieth Star's team and will still post here occasionally. However, The Dougout will now be his primary blog. More of his writing will appear there than over here. For Mr. Jones's many fans, The Dougout is the site to bookmark.

As of this moment, I am unsure about the future of The Fifieth Star. Before Mr. Jones's arrival on this blog, I had gone for an entire year without posting anything on it. I cannot promise that I will post on this blog very often in the near (or even distant) future.

I apologize for any disappointment this may cause our readers.

Rest assured, however, that this will probably not be the final post on The Fiftieth Star, which is currently undergoing a transitory phase.

UPDATE from Friday, November 4, 2005: Grant Jones will not be making any occasional posts on this blog in the future. Those who wish to read his work are directed solely to his new blog, The Dougout.

I Hate Moving

2005-10-31T15:27:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

But, sometimes it is necessary. I've started a new weblog called The Dougout.

Thanks to all the visitors of The 50th Star.

Another World War II Soldier's Body Found

2005-10-31T08:55:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

Earlier this month the story of an American pilot's body found in Northern California was in the news:

The wreckage of an airplane lost during World War II in northern California
has been found.

The TBM Avenger went down in Clear Lake just south of the Oregon border Dec. 4, 1944, during a training mission. The crash killed both men on board. The body of radioman David Herget was recovered in 1945. The body of the pilot, Lt. Robert Pinz, was never found.

Now here is a story about an American servicemen who was murdered and buried in a Auckland New Zealand back yard as a result of a fight over a woman:

United States officials are investigating claims that the body of an American soldier from World War II is buried in the backyard of an Auckland, property.

New Zealand police have confirmed their staff are working on what could be a 60-year-old murder mystery.

The Herald on Sunday understands the claims came to light only this year, following the death of a New Zealander who identified himself as the killer of the soldier to a member of his family.

The man is believed to have told a family member he had fallen out with the American serviceman over a woman. There was a brawl, and the American died. The man then buried the soldier's body in the backyard of a house in Ponsonby.

Historian Harry Biolette said New Zealand men envied the American servicemen and often the tension erupted in fights.

"It was a man shortage situation during the war," said Mr Bioletti, who wrote the book The Yanks are coming: the American invasion of New Zealand, 1942-1944.

"They envied them because they had so much money and looked so smartly turned out. There were stoushes and fights."

Of course, to this day Americans and America are still hated and envied for their virtues.

Hat tip: Patrick

Al Qaeda-Academic Leftists versus U.S. Military Recruitment

2005-10-29T13:51:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

The draft meeting minutes of the UHH Faculty Congress meeting on September 23, 2005 state in part:

Members Present: Tausilia Amoa, Justin Avery, Philippe Binder, Marilyn Brown, Kelly Burke, Jerry Calton, Rick Castberg, Keola Donaghy, Jonathan Groelz, April Komenaka, Jim Mellon, Jene Michaud, Dylan Nonaka, Helen Rogers

Ex-Officio Members Present: Randy Hirokawa, Steve Hora, Corinne Tamashiro

Others Present: Beau Butts, Audrey Furukawa, Gail Makuakane-Lundin

Meeting called to order by Chair Jene Michaud at 3:02 pm.

8. Motion: Waive the 48-hour rule to permit Justin Avery to speak regarding military recruitment on campus. Motion seconded.

Justin Avery said that he believes UH Hilo is in violation of the University’s policy on non-discrimination. He suggested that Congress consider making a statement that would acknowledge that allowing military recruiters on campus violates University policy. Discussion followed regarding the current legal status of this situation nationally and whether the military is indeed discriminating against certain individuals.

Motion: That this matter be referred to the CEC.

Vote: 10 in favor, 0 opposed. Motion passed.

Meeting adjourned at 4:10 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Jim Mellon
Congress Secretary

The agenda for the October 28 meeting reads in part:

1. At the CEC meeting on October 17, student Justin Avery gave a presentation on military recruiting on campus. The CEC committee passed the following resolution:

The Congress Executive Committee (CEC) recognizes that military recruitment on campus raises some legitimate issues regarding discrimination against homosexuals. The CEC encourages concerned students to organize forums to educate the campus community on this issue. The CEC also encourages student organizations (for example GLO, UHSA, and the political science club) to take action on this issue if they feel it is appropriate.

The idea that the federal government's actions in facilitating military preparedness can be stopped by invoking anti-discrimination laws and policies has already been floated by Richardson Law School professor Jon Van Dyke in order to prevent UH Manoa from becoming a UARC.

By the liberation of both Afghanistan and Iraq the U.S. military has done more for gay rights than all the college whiners combined. The real motives behind this resolution are obvious. On Wednesday, the 26th UHH student club Global Hope, which Avery is president of, showed the film "Martial Law: Rise of the Police State" on campus. This film claims, among other things, that the 9/11 attack "was an inside job."

Global Hope has a link on their website to WhatReallyHappened. This bunch of kooks claims that 9/11 was another Reichstag fire conducted by Republican operatives to get America into a war. This group also openly compares President Bush to Adolf Hitler

The purpose of this Avery's motion is to undermine the war effort. The Faculty Senate knows this and yet passed their resolution anyways.

Not that I'm questioning anyone's patriotism.

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University of Hawaii at Hilo Administrator Admits to Policy Opposing Free Speech

2005-10-29T09:20:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

Here is an article in Ka Leo regarding the status of bulletin boards at the various campuses in the UH system. As UH Hilo's own Nadine Austin states:

The University of Hawai'i at Hilo only allows campus-related items to go up on bulletin boards. "We do contact people who post without authorization to tell them that they can't do it," said Nadine Austin of UHH Auxiliary services. "Our boards are not free speech."

This policy is, of course, to insure that students are not contaminated with ideas not to the liking of radical faculty and administrators. This is not an exaggeration. DePaul University has a similar policy which was used to silence dissenters of Ward Churchill's visit and message.

Last semester the UH College Republicans and the leftist group Global Hope engaged in a bout of "dueling flyers" on the campus bulletin boards. This was harmless enough. It provided some entertainment for the college community, while the students involved were able to vent their opinions in a civilized forum. It was, however, too much real argument for the administration. One administrator threatened to revoke both groups club status over the incident.

University faculty and administrators are only in favor of "debate" and "discussion" that they control. If the venue does not allow them the ability to set the terms of the debate then they will try to silence the discussion. One way of doing this is by the control faculty "advisors" maintain over student clubs. The university controls the clubs' access to funding. They also make "suggestions" designed to control the terms of debate on campus.

What "debate" occurs in the Orwellian university world will not identify, much less criticize, liberal assumptions. An example of this at UHH was the United Nations dog and pony show last week. The real nature of the U.N. is not subject to discussion at official university venues. This annual event "celebrating" the vile U.N. has been ongoing for many years. This is not a student event. It is the agenda set by the "advisor:"

Services Provided

Faculty advisor for the International Student Association, including
United Nations Day and International Nights activities
Supervisor of the "Becoming Culturally Aware Project" (BCAP)

Instead of genuine adult debate on the nature and purpose of the U.N., students receive in the latest issue of the UHH student paper Ka Kalahea, a photo spread of the event gushing about the joys of bagpipes and ethnic foods. The "news" story is available here in pdf format.

Unfortunately for the UHH thought police, it is a state university supported almost entirely by tax dollars. If the administration attempts to enforce their anti-free speech bulletin board policy upon a litigious student the results are sure to be interesting.

Hat tip: Doug

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Ward Churchill Wants Hitler to Kill Your Grandparents

2005-10-27T13:58:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

The loathsome Ward Churchill has just given a talk at the equally loathsome DePaul University. Earliar this month there was a minor flap over some kook with a Ph.D calling for the genocide of all white people.

Ward Churchill is not to be outdone. The American Thinker has a report on Churchill's bloodthirsty rant at DePaul:

The talk turned to his favorite bottom line for evil, Adolph Eichmann. He pointed out that even in Israel they were never able to convict him of personally killing anyone. The Israelis tried but they dropped that charge. Eichmann was someone who did the scheduling for the Holocaust. He was a desk murderer. For Churchill the people who were bond traders in the Twin Towers were not innocent because they participated in the corporate system that is responsible for the vast majority of slaughter in the world. Presumably they were desk killers too. Churchill stated that Hitler exterminated the wrong people. He should have exterminated the audience’s grandparents, not the Jews.

The moral calculus of equating the buying and selling of stocks with coordinating the extermination of six million Jews is at the heart of the controversy that surrounds Ward Churchill and marks him as a complete crackpot and a moral idiot. It is simply amazing that there are people on the left, some of them at DePaul, that want to claim Churchill as their own. The Churchill lecture shows that on a college campus, an applause line these days is that one’s grandparents should have been exterminated by Hitler.

I can't imagine anyone paying tens of thousands of dollars to attend the moral sewer that is DePaul University. The academic left seems to operate on the premise "your children's education and your life, liberty and property."

Hat tip: PirateBallerina

Update, 10/30: It appears that W.C. was misquoted at the above referenced talk:

It is evident that he was quoting from an email, as he claimed in the Denver Post article. We regret the error in failing to note the context of the quotation, which itself was reasonably accurate, considering that no note taking was possible. The intent of the thought was not attributable to Churchill directly, as was originally indicated. Incidentally, the quoted words were spoken in a louder tone of voice than the remarks about an email, which may account for the omission of the context.

It appears that all other aspects of our reporting of his address were fully accurate. Had DePaul and Churchill permitted open recording and note taking of his remarks, the error would not have been made. The forbidding of recording of remarks and banning of the press is both suspicious in itself and an invitation to errors.

2000 Dead Troops in Iraq: Why Are These Leftists Smiling?

2005-10-27T09:31:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

Here are some pictures of the "commemoration" of the 2000th death in Iraq that took place in San Francisco yesterday. Thanks to photo-blogger Zombie:

Just remember not to question their patriotism.

Hat tip: Charles Johnson

A Disgusting Display at the Palace Theater in Hilo, Hawaii

2005-10-26T08:48:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

The Palace theater in downtown Hilo was originally built in 1925. It is now being restored. The new management provides movies and live shows that cater to a particular audience. That audience being the college educated, artsy-craftsy, foreign film, "liberal" crowd.

One currently ongoing live show is a musical celebration of the theater's eightieth anniversary. The Hilo Tribune-Herald has this review online. Here is a description of one of the musical pieces in what is billed as entertainment:

Onstage, local performers sing and dance to memorable movie music of the last eight decades. Pat Rocco, a retired stage, film and nightclub performer who is cutting an album of romantic ballads called "Love Songs for Lovers and Significant Others," pays tribute to the star of the first-ever talkie, 1927's "The Jazz Singer," Al Jolson. And it will be historically accurate, if not politically correct.

"When we first went into rehearsals we were talking about blackface," Rocco said. "And I first said, 'No way.' It's politically incorrect and people are going to boo and do those kinds of things. But after more conversations, (Callaway) said, 'Wait a minute. We cannot change history. Jolson made his fame by doing blackface and he did it for years, and everybody knew him and loved him for that. You can't whitewash history.'"

In a letter-to-the-editor of the Hilo Tribune-Herald that was published yesterday (not available online) Karolyn Lundkvist describes the event:

Blackface is Offensive

On Saturday I attended the performance of "The Big 8-0 Show" at the Palace Theater. They opened the show with a beautiful song called "Happy Birthday, Palace" with the whole cast.

Next came "Rock-a-bye Your Baby With a Dixy Melody," performed by Pat Rocco. This was done in blackface. I do understand that Mr. Rocco is a perfomer, and as he stated to me personally, he just follows direction...

Mr. Rocco's performance was introduced with a statement by Clay Callaway, director, who said, "Let's suspend political correctness for the moment." At the end of Rocco's performance, Saul Rollason, the host, stated, "It's a good thing the NAACP was not present tonight." this was very inappropriate and offensive!

Blackface has no place in our society today...

It's illuminating to see what some people call "political correct." Having Rocco instead perform some Jolson tunes sans blackface would have been exercising common decency and courtesy. It should be needless to say that many blacks (and whites with sense) find the blackface shows demeaning and insulting in the extreme:

With the organized challenges by groups like the NAACP and UNIA and their personal defiance of Jim Crow in their daily lives, African Americans embraced a rich cultural life of, basically, non-political protest against white supremacy that permeated all parts of black life. This cultural defiance manifested itself in African-American musical forms, such as ragtime, the rural-based blues, black gospel music, and urban-based jazz. Together, these black musical expressions constituted a veritable revolution in American music, especially once the recording industry began to market black music to white consumers.

Black audiences had always avoided the demeaning minstrel shows and their so-called "coon songs" that appealed to whites in the years after the Civil War. Instead, blacks expressed themselves musically in their church spirituals and hymns, as well as folk music and small group performances at picnics and in music halls in black neighborhoods.

There have also been recent minstrels show performed on college campuses that have created an uproar. I believe people have the right to put on such demonstrations regardless of how loathsome these performances are:

The University of Tennessee will not penalize six white fraternity members accused in a "blackface" incident, saying the right of expression must be protected even "when some find it to be insensitive and offensive."

The position came as a surprise, especially since Kappa Sigma's national organization had suspended Tennessee's campus chapter and apologized.

But the university's statement emphasized that the incident should not be seen as an innocent college prank.

"To African-Americans, blackface recalls old time minstrel shows that depicted African-Americans as ignorant simpletons — mere human scenery. Blackface resurrects latent stereotypes and undermines progress."

The Palace Theater's strict adherence to historical accuracy must be a recent commitment. The Palace last year showed the mendacious "biography" The Motorcycle Diaries, which whitewashed the career of communist killer Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

The manager of the Palace Theater have, in the past, had other lapses of good taste. For example, there is the Palace's live performance of The Vagina Monologues last year.

Today, a leftist blog used a caricature of Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele in blackface for a vicious attack on the black politician. Steele has just annouced his bid for the U.S. Senate. Here is how black's that leave the Democratic Party plantation are treated by the "reality based community:"

And if he thinks he can win Baltimore and the DC suburbs, he's on crack. Black people will not only not vote for him, but regard him with contempt. When he said it was no big deal that Ehrlich [the current governor] held an event in a restricted [How? Otherwise unsupported] country club, he showed himself to be Simple Sambo, untrustworthy and unreliable. Now, his bossman's people look like they're gonna let him sink, not swim. [Emphasis added]

The racist post referred to above is all that needs be said on why blackface is not entertainment, but a nasty insult to the whole community

Update, 10/28/05: The Palace Theater does the right thing. In today's Hilo Tribune-Herald there is a letter from "Quack" Moore of The Friends of the Palace Theater that reads, in part:

It was never our intention to insult anyone, and our attempt to illuminate this Vaudeville practice "in a proper historical context" [Yeah] has sadly failed if it was ultimately perceived to be an insult. [How else could it be perceived given Mr. Rollason's wisecrack about the NAACP?]

Therefore, to Ms. Lundkvist and to all others in our community who were offended by this depiction, we offer our most sincere apology. Out of respect for their views, the actor will not longer appear in blackface.

Campus Leftists Try to Silence Iraqi War Veterans at University of Hawaii at Hilo

2005-10-23T10:11:00.000-10:00

Here is a guest report on the last meeting of the UHH Student Association by Andrew Walden, president of the UH College Republicans, publisher of the Hawaii Free Press and blogger:

Here is the update on the Global Hope Club's efforts to harass the University of Hawai`i Hilo Student Association (UHHSA) for its co-sponsorship of "Back from Iraq, Iraq war veterans tell their stories."

After a long (2-hr) meeting of the student senate, most of which was taken up by a failed effort by Global Hope to browbeat senators into passing a resolution demanding cancellation of the SODEXHO food service contract effective 12-31-05 (thus relegating the entire University to brown-bagging it or going off campus to eat which is an important story in its own right), the agenda finally moved to point 9.2 which was titled "Andrew Walden."

"Senator" Avery, the president of the Global Hope club asked the UHHSA to never again co-sponsor an event with "Andrew Walden" because "he's got a long record of activity on this campus and he's a radical". Avery refused to put it in the form of a motion.

The message is that if UHHSA co-sponsors a CR event again, there will be more harassment from Global Hope. No other Senator spoke in favor of Avery’s non-motion.

I spoke on the agenda point with my name on it.

I pointed out that the entire SODEXHO discussion was a debate based on the lie that SODEXHO had received a no-bid contract and was designed entirely to harass Ellen Kusano, the campus center director.

I pointed out that Ke Kalahea pulled an entire edition because of Global Hope harassment.

Former Chair Ipo Melendez was ousted because of Global Hope harassment.

Harassment is the key to Global Hope's strategy to grab and maintain a lock on public political and cultural events on campus.

I pointed out that this was an attempt by a group which says the "Israelis" are responsible for carrying out the 9-11 attacks to silence Iraq war veterans from telling the stories of what they experienced on the ground in Iraq. The suggestion that UHHSA should not cosponsor an event with Iraq war vets speaking is an obscene suggestion made even more obscene by the fact that it is being advanced by a group which comes up with every excuse in the book for al-Qaeda.

After Vietnam our veterans were spit on and treated as war criminals. They never got to tell their stories. You all know how this affected Vietnam Veterans.

Many of you have pledged that this new group of veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will not be treated as the Vietnam veterans were. Now it is beginning to happen.

What are you willing to do to stop them from spitting on a new generation of vets?

The entire UHH community owes Andrew a debt of gratitude for his efforts in bringing real debate to the campus.

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Stu-Topia

2005-10-22T13:30:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

The 50th Star's blogfather, Stuart Hayashi has started another blog which he has titled Stu-Topia. Stuart explains his reasons for the new blog:

The purpose of Stu-Topia is for me to unload posts that I may not always find appropriate as material for The Fiftieth Star, though a post from this blog may still end up there if I later deem it appropriate.

While The Fiftieth Star mostly covers politics, Stu-Topia will probably cover other subjects, such as what I think about what I have been watching on television. This will be the space on the internet where I will babble about just anything.

International Hypocrisy Day

2005-10-21T08:17:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

This morning at the University of Hawaii at Hilo some students and faculty will be celebrating United Nations Day. What there is to celebrate regarding this corrupt, racist and genocide enabling institution is not explained:

UH Hilo celebrates United Nations Day!
The International Student Association (ISA) at the University of Hawaii at Hilo invites the public to its annual United Nations Day Celebration on Friday, October 21 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on the UH Hilo Library Lanai.
Students from all over the world will display their unique cultures in performances, a Parade of Nations, cultural display tables, and food sampling. Participants include representatives from Marshall Islands, Italy, France, Vanuatu, New Zealand, Belize, Papua New Guinea, Kosrae, Pohnpei, Chuuk, and many others.

I seriously doubt if the real nature of the United Nations has every been presented by professors at UHH to their students. Notice how a "celebration" of hypocrisy is package dealed with an innocuous international student event. The purpose of such a package deal is to hide the real nature of the U.N. behind a facade of international goodwill and food sampling. This is not education. It is thinly disquised political indoctrination.

The real nature of the contemptable U.N. can be discerned in this picture, courtesy (scroll to bottom of page) of photo-blogger Zombie:

Zombie comments on the significance of this picture:

I walked through United Nations Plaza -- the site where the U.N. was founded in 1945 -- which has a series of pillars commemorating the date the each nation was admitted to the U.N. This one particular pillar has always bothered me, since it reveals that the U.N. admitted Cambodia -- or "Democratic Kampuchea" as it was then known -- in 1976, in the middle of one of the greatest genocides in history, when the Khmer Rouge was in the process of massacring 3 million Cambodians for not being sufficiently politically correct. For 21 years, the UN wouldn't admit Cambodia, but only after it had a Communist revolution and began large-scale politically-motivated massacres did the U.N. deem "Democratic Kampuchea" worthy of admission.

This is what the U.N. considers a "democratic" government:

All foreigners were thus expelled, embassies closed, and any foreign economic or medical assistance was refused. The use of foreign languages was banned. Newspapers and television stations were shut down, radios and bicycles confiscated, and mail and telephone usage curtailed. Money was forbidden. All businesses were shuttered, religion banned, education halted, health care eliminated, and parental authority revoked. Thus Cambodia was sealed off from the outside world.
All of Cambodia's cities were then forcibly evacuated. At Phnom Penh, two million inhabitants were evacuated on foot into the countryside at gunpoint. As many as 20,000 died along the way.

In four years the Communist government of Cambodia murdered between two and three million people.

Meanwhile, as the genocide continues in Darfur, Sudan the U.N. rubs its hands together and does nothing.

However, the U.N. has actively helped with agitation for the destruction of Israel, and the genocide of its Jewish citizens. The racist hate-fest in Durban is a case in point. Also along that theme are General Assembly Resolutions 3236 and 3237. The occasion of these Resolutions was Yassir Arafat's racist diatribe, with a pistol on his hip, before the standing ovation of the General Assembly.

This is what the administration, faculty and many unwitting students at UH Hilo will be celebrating today.

Update, 10/24: The brainwashing continues, here is a report from Ka Leo:

The United Nations Association of the United States of America, Hawai'i Division, will celebrate the UN's 60th anniversary tonight at Honolulu Hale.
"Today's program focuses on our future — the children and youth of Hawai'i — and they share their dreams with us," said Joanne Tachibana, President of the Hawai'i Division of the UNA.

Somebody Should Inform the FBI

2005-10-19T13:13:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

The Ahistoricality guy is upset with me:

Nobody has proven that profiling (the half-witted racial/gender/age profiling that produces such a Pavlovian response from these folks, anyway) is effective at anything except exacerbating racial tensions; you'd think that ideologues who've been making that argument about affirmative action for decades would recognize that they finally found a situation where it was actually relevant. But no, they'd rather segregate us because it makes things simpler, no matter what it does to our souls or our safety.

This is a response to my post here were I said:

Of course, the "diversity" crowd is all for policies that will weaken or Balkanize the United States. "Profiling," or any other action, that would help defend her citizens from a ruthless enemy is another matter (here is one example).

The A...guy's criticism is kneejerk and weird. I have always thought that in a criminal profile the prep's age, sex and race would be fundamental to the physical description. Here is an article on that which begins with relating how profiling helped catch a bomber in the 1950s. The bomber's nationality was, by the way, part of the profile.

I am also at a loss on how my critic got from profiling to segregation. It's the academic left that has led the charge on re-segregation on campus with racial theme dorms and even graduation ceremonies. As to "profiling," regarding race/class/gender entire academic careers have been based on that not to mention Freshman (oops, Freshperson) indoctrination (oops, orientation) that is common on too many college campuses.

Regarding profiling in order to prevent terrorism, what do these nineteen characters have in common? By profiling, I mean that instead of randomly making grandmothers take off their shoes at airports, that those would fit the obvious profile be inconvenienced for an extra ten minutes at the check-in counter.

This would not be singling people out by race or ethnicity alone as nationality, sex, age and overall demeanor are, of course, also factors. If people are going to be subjected to searches when using public transportation, then why should the search "randomly" involve individuals that are most unlikely to be plotting an attack? Is this a public safety or a "fairness" issue? Then perhaps the absurdity of banning nail files, nail clippers, etc. can also be ended.

The United States is at war. At least that's according to those who have declared that war. Does the Ahistoricality guy think individuals who are nationals of hostile foreign powers (most definitely including the Saudi Entity) should not be subject to closer scrutiny? He can live with being a "liberal," but can the rest of us if we evade who is the enemy in this war?

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Prof. Joel Fischer's e-mail to UHM Chancellor Denise Konan

2005-10-19T07:07:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

This e-mail from University of Hawaii at Manoa professor Joel Fischer to Chancellor Denise Konan has found its way to my inbox. Fischer's website is here and it's a classic. There is a lot of information on Fischer's politics and activism but nary a word on his academic specialty, which is social work.

The issue is that apparently the university administration is in favor of the University Affliliated Research Center (UARC) which will conduct research for the U.S. Navy. The radical faculty are, of course, opposed to UARC for a number of stated reasons.

Fischer's complaint of "intimidation of faculty" is interesting in the context of Fischer's parting shot in his last paragraph.

Today's faculty senate meeting at 3:00 PM might actually be interesting. Without further ado the e-mail begins here:

Emily

Denise: I was deeply saddened and personally very hurt when I read the memo (attached as “Chancellor’s memo”) that you sent the Faculty Senate last week.

Since I am the person who has filed the charges with the Attorney General’s office and the Ethics Commission, and I am solely responsible for that work, it seems clear that you are calling my work reprehensible. Yet don’t you think that charges of possible conflict of interest, misuse of funds, illegal contract proposal, and intimidation of faculty deserve to see the light of day?

You stated that “claims are being made to discredit members of my administration.” But isn’t it even more likely that the behavior of your administrator’s secret negotiations and the other alleged violations in the charges- is what brings them the discredit, not the charges themselves?

As a faculty member at UH for 35 years, I would think you would find it far more reprehensible that the charges raised against your team might, indeed, be true. If you are so sure they are not, then I assume you will welcome an independent investigation that would clear your vice chancellors of the clouds hanging over their heads.

You also state that, “to the extent that these claims are being raised to distract from the discussion of whether UH-Manoa should advance a University Affiliated Research Center with the US Navy and are being staged to influence your decision at this critical time, I find this reprehensible and an attempt to interfere with the process.”

However, I must point out that YOU are the person who has publicized these charges. I filed them in confidence; I did not send them to the Faculty Senate, to President McClain, or to the BOR. I only sent acopy as a courtesy to the UH Counsel, whom I know from long, hard experience would never undertake an investigation of possible wrongdoing at UH. In fact, I recognize that investigations by these outside offices can take months. As you can read in my charges, I stated that I believed these charges should be investigated whether or not the UARC was approved.

However, now that you have brought the charges to light, I believe it is only fair that the Faculty Senate, the BOR, and the system administration should have the opportunity to examine them to clear up the mystery of your memo (attached as "AG Final Complaint").

I just hope you can imagine, Denise, how discouraging it is for faculty and students to see our Chancellor, selected from the faculty, appear to blindly side with her administrators – who have secretly engaged in negotiations with the military and who stand accused of far more serious violations - against the faculty who merely point that out, without even expressing a determination to investigate the charges? What do you think the impact of such attitudes will be on campus morale? We do not expect blind agreement from you with faculty positions simply because we are faculty. However, we do expect at least a fair shake from you.

Your three vice chancellors, who are among the main proponents of the UARC, have access to you most of the time, while you adamantly have refused to meet with faculty, students and community members who have serious concerns about the UARC. Is this a sign of “neutrality?" Is this fair play?

What is very worrisome is that it is not clear whether your ringing endorsement of your trifecta of administrators includes the very behaviors of which they stand accused. I realize that you inherited all three of these administrators from the unfortunate Englert era, but are you saying you also approve of the fact that they are continuing Englert's policies and methods, including secret negotiations with the military, misinformation and disinformation? Aren’t these the very methods that led to the demise of Englert as Chancellor?

For years, the culture at the University of Hawai’i has been for the administration to try to set priorities for faculty activities and expect the faculty to follow along. The UARC is the perfect example of such a culture. But for the UH to have a legitimate shot at greatness, that culture must change to a recognition by the administration that their highest priority is to serve the faculty and to facilitate faculty priorities and activities, not the reverse.

A university that attacks faculty for speaking out on issues of fairness and justice and bringing to its attention possible ethical and legal improprieties, while praising administrators for secretly attempting to set priorities for faculty activities, becomes less like a university and more like the military whose money - but not values, I hope- we seem so desperate to possess.

In your memo, Denise, you have taken the course of attacking the messenger while ignoring the message. When you were appointed, as you well know, I celebrated the fact that you were chosen from the faculty and were so devoted to taking guidance from the Faculty Senate. Has something happened in the interim to change the accuracy of my perceptions?

Since you served in the Manoa administration during the tumultuous Dobelle years, you may be aware that I circulated two papers alleging that members of that administration were engaged in unethical, corrupt, incompetent and possibly illegal activities. The reaction of that administration, like all dysfunctional administrations, was to circle the wagons and attack the whistleblower. Subsequent events proved that virtually every one of my allegations was true. I was never accused by anyone other than the Dobellites of lying. In fact, my charges turned out to be only the tip of the iceberg.

Denise, I am absolutely confident that an independent investigation of my charges against your vice chancellors can validate those charges.But that investigation must be conducted so that these issues can be laid to rest, one way or another.

Since you appear to have decided in advance to approve of your staff’s endeavors before even knowing the facts, a thorough investigation at the Chancellor’s level seems out of the question as is any kind of investigation by the UH Counsel. Therefore, I ask you, will you request that the UH hire an independent counsel to pursue this investigation? I also must ask: Can you, will you, pledge to do everything possible to facilitate the AG’s and Ethics Commission investigations?

Further, I also must ask, since you repeatedly have declared yourself to be “neutral” on the UARC issue, but now appear to have been swayed by your close contact with your administrative staff and total lack of contact with the large opposition: Will you be able in any reasonable way to render a decision that is best for the University of Hawai’i and not tainted by your desire to simply support your staff? Or do you think you are now incapable of such objectivity and be willing to step aside and return the decision to President McClain, where it ultimately will reside anyway?

So far, the UARC issue has been extremely disruptive for the UH. If the UARC were to be approved, the possibility that these disruptions could continue for years - until the UARC is dismantled - is very likely, I fear, because so many people of principle oppose it. What about the UARC could possibly be worth that?

Joel

Dr. Joel Fischer, ACSW Professor University of Hawai'i, School of Social Work Henke Hall Honolulu, HI 96822

"There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Never, never, never quit." Winston Churchill

Update, 10/19: UARC opponents claim that all they want is an open and honest debate on the issue. The facts suggest otherwise. Yesterday, October 18, the UH Manoa student paper Ka Leo posted an article by Andrew Walden (an agriculture student at UH Hilo) supporting UARC. By 8:00 AM the next day, today, the article has already been buried in the archives. The article had also been "edited." The "editing" cut the article in half and left out important elements of Walden's argument. The complete article is here. Read both and judge the "honesty" of the UARC opposition. This is what academic leftists consider as "honest debate."

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Don't Really Know What Jefferson Did

2005-10-18T15:04:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

The title of this entry makes an excellent epitaph for the American education system. It's a quote from a thirteen year old on the occasion of Jefferson Str. being renamed Ceasar Chavez Dr. in Clovis, California. While the student is ignorant of the founding ideas of the Republic, he has imbibed the latest in PC agitprop:

Teacher Anne Corsey introduced the students to Cesar Chavez — a Mexican-American labor leader who demanded rights for migrant farm workers after years of picking crops for low wages — because she wanted to give them “someone to look up to.” Corsey, who is relatively new to the education field, spent most her life raising her children at home, but the profession fits well: Students cling to her side; fellow teachers shower her with praise.

“We didn’t really know what Jefferson did,” said Vernon Hunter, 13, leaning against a neighborhood car underneath the street sign. “We just knew he was a president. Cesar Chavez inspired people who were down.”

Hat tip: Amritas

Apartheid with "Aloha"

2005-10-18T09:58:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

Michelle Malkin has an update on the lawsuit brought against the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs and comments on the continued racial insanity in the Land of Aloha:

Jeff Goldstein notes a new federal lawsuit by five Hawaiians challenging a similar policy. The plaintiffs claim that the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs "is illegally spending dollars reserved for the benefit of those with 50 percent Hawaiian blood or more." Some of that money, they say, is being used to lobby for the apartheid-style bill sponsored by Hawaii Sen. Daniel Akaka, which is still pending in Congress.

And I would add my observation about the "diversity" crowd's unabashed support for racial profiling in every kind of domestic policy--housing, education, government contracting, etc.--except where homeland security is concerned.

Of course, the "diversity" crowd is all for policies that will weaken or Balkanize the United States. "Profiling," or any other action, that would help defend her citizens from a ruthless enemy is another matter (here is one example).

Oblique Holocaust Denial By Omission at History News Network

2005-10-17T13:19:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

The History News Network as just posted another article by their favorite white-washer of the Holocaust, Günter Bischof. Bischof is director of something called CenterAustria at the University of New Orleans where he also teaches history (God help us).

In a previous article at HNN Bischof has compared American Soldiers in the Pacific Theater during World War II with Nazi Einsatzgruppen:

While in Germany the veterans' organization had failed to salvage their selective memories of the killing fields on the Eastern front, in the United States the veterans succeeded in enforcing their one-sided memory of heroic marines and valiant sailors. Their killing frenzies in the island campaign and trophy taking of Japanese body parts was purged from the public memory.

In another article, also posted at HNN, Bischof laments the poor treatment of German POW’s at the end of WWII. According to this piece Bischof senior was captured by American forces towards the end of the war and was well treated. However, Gunter is not about to let those that vanquished dear old dad off the hook. As Bischof states:

German soldiers were also shot rather than taken prisoner, particularly in the confusing opening battles during the Normandy invasion. A soldier from the Third Armored division told me that they did not take any prisoners among SS-troops in his unit, after the massacre of more than 100 American POWs at Malmedy by the SS during the Battle of the Bulge. Clearly, POW maltreatment is often sparked by a revenge motive.

Bischof thens attempts to build a case, including using discredited “Winter Soldier” testimony regarding Vietnam, that the U.S. military has an unwritten policy of mistreating prisoners. The whole point of this article is to make a mountain out of the Abu Ghaib/Gitmo molehill.

Bischof does manage to forget one group of people in serious need at the end of WWII, which may have been the reason for the relative neglect of those Germans captured at the war’s end. These are, of course, the victims of Germany’s (and Austrian’s) historic crimes against humanity.

Bischof in his latest piece tries to create a tortured analogy between helping the people displaced by Hurricane Katrina and the Displaced Persons (DP) of Europe at the end of the war. Of course, an analogy between rebuilding after Katrina and efforts after other Gulf Coast Hurricanes or the San Francisco quake of 1906 or the burning of Chicago or the devestation left by the Civil War would have been more relevant. Even with a natural disaster that takes place within the United States, to Bischof it’s all about daddy and those long suffering Germans and Austrians of the 1930s and 1940s.

Here is an example of Bischof’s Holocaust Omission revisionism in action:

In Central Europe historic and beautiful cities were burnt and smashed as a result of the war and even more devastated than New Orleans is today. But neither defeated Germans nor victorious allies ever considered abandoning these urban centers; they were a testimony to centuries of civilization before Nazism ever brought on their destruction. New Orleans has been a unique melting pot of Creole culture and it must and can be restored as a less vulnerable center of American civilization, just as Berlin, Munich, Vienna, and Hamburg were restored...

Hundreds of thousands of people in New Orleans live scattered as “displaced persons” across the U.S. This sort of challenge is not unprecedented either. Austria harbored 1.5 million “displaced persons” (DPs) in 1945 – and Germany several millions -- from all over Europe; some lived for years in make-shift camps. Similar to the Gulf Coast now, these DPs relied on the “kindness of strangers.” Just like the Red Cross feeds tens of thousands of Gulf Coast “DPs” these postwar DPs were fed by private aid organizations and the “United Relations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration” (a short-lived postwar relief agency to which the U.S. contributed much), and then the Marshall Plan.

Who is missing from this picture? Bischof writes of the destroyed or damaged cities of “Central Europe” i.e. Germany and Austria, but he makes no mention of the real DPs. The term DP refered to the victims of German atrocities. Germans who were after all still in Germany were refugees or simply homeless. Even those Germans from Eastern Europe could still claim a homeland. Not so the survivors of the concentration camps, many of the slave laborers in Germany brought from all over Europe and one may include Russian POWs who did not wish to return to Stalin’s utopia.

Here is a letter from President Truman dated August 31, 1945 on this issue:

I have received and considered the report of Mr. Earl G. Harrison, our representative on the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, upon his mission to inquire into the condition and needs of displaced persons in Germany who may be stateless or non-repatriable, particularly Jews. I am sending you a copy of that report. I have also had a long conference with him on the same subject matter.

For example, military government officers have been authorized and even directed to requisition billeting facilities from the German population for the benefit of displaced persons. Yet, from this report, this has not been done on any wide scale. Apparently it is being taken for granted that all displaced persons, irrespective of their former persecution or the likelihood that their repatriation or resettlement will be delayed, must remain in camps-many of which are overcrowded and heavily guarded. Some of these camps are the very ones where these people were herded together, starved, tortured and made to witness the death of their fellow-inmates and friends and relatives. The announced policy has been to give such persons preference over the German civilian population in housing. But the practice seems to be quite another thing.

We must intensify our efforts to get these people out of camps and into decent houses until they can be repatriated or evacuated. These houses should be requisitioned from the German civilian population. That is one way to implement the Potsdam policy that the German people "cannot escape responsibility for what they have brought upon themselves."”

Here is Eisenhower’s reply:

Displaced persons have absolute preference over Germans for housing, but the requirements of the distribution of supplies, the provision of medical care and the need for welfare activities make it desirable that displaced persons be sufficiently concentrated so that these services may be performed efficiently by the limited supervisory personnel and transport at our disposal. Thus, considerable use has been made of large installations such as brick barracks, apartment blocks and other public buildings in preference to scattered individual billets.”

The real DP’s travails did not end until the early 1950s, while the German people were beginning to enjoy the fruits of American financed rebuilding:

Quote from Church World Service brochure, DP's are People
(1948):

Since V-E Day, more than 11,000,000 former slave laborers, prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates have been sent home. Some 850,000 still in camps, can never go home.

These 850,000 are today's DP - the hard core of irrepatriables. They are Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, Esthonians, Yugoslavs, Greeks, Ukrainians, Czechoslovaks. Brought into Germany as slave laborers and concentration camp inmates, they cannot return to their Soviet-dominated lands because of fear of political and relgious persecution.

This is the third year since "liberation" that 850,000 DPs continue to live in DP camps. The United States has promised that none of them would be forced to go back to Soviet-dominated countries to face enslavement or death. They must stay in the camps because their homes and homelands have been destroyed or closed to them.

Over 150,000 children, at least half of them under the age of six, live in these camps. Fifty per cent of all DPs are women and children.
All religions and denominations are represented among the DPs. Four out of five are Christian.

I have just commented on this disgusting type of historical revisionism that minimizes or ignores Nazi crimes along with much whining about what poor, little victims the Germans and their allies were during the war. Bischof shamelessly redefines “Displaced Persons” by airbrushing from history the people the term originally applied to.

I had hopes that it wouldn’t be necessary to comment again about this so soon. Thanks to HNN editor Rick Shenkman for giving me yet another project. Call it: Holocaust/German-Guilt Minimizing Watch.

Debating UARC?

2005-10-16T12:02:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

While the University of Hawaii at Manoa Faculty Senate prepares for its dog and pony show regarding the University Allied Research Center the outcome for which is a forgone conclusion:

The Manoa Faculty Senate will be busy in upcoming weeks as it tries to pass a resolution regarding the proposed University Affiliated Research Center. After the senate's regular meeting on Oct. 19, the Manoa Faculty Congress will meet at 4 p.m. to discuss the UARC. The senate will also hold a special meeting on Oct. 26, where the Ad Hoc UARC Committee expects to present its final report...

"We decided to hold it before a decision was made on the UARC because people have wanted an opportunity for a wider discussion before the senate takes its action," said Manoa Faculty Chair Robert Bley-Vroman.

Bley-Vroman a few years ago opposed a Navy ROTC program at UHM for the same reasons that some now claim to oppose UARC: the military's policy on openly gay service members. Of course, like a good academic politician Bley-Vroman doesn't openly oppose anything, he just "questions:"

The UH-Manoa Faculty Senate has voted against allowing the establishment of a Navy ROTC program on campus because of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on homosexuals, along with the lack of academic oversight of the military courses.

Professor Robert Bley-Vroman, a senate member who questioned allowing the program on campus, said it's his understanding that students who "come out of the closet" could lose their scholarships because of the military policy on homosexuality.

Meanwhile, Andrew Walden has challenged UARC opponent Professor Mimi Sharma to a real debate:

In her October 13, 2005, Ka Leo column, U.H. Manoa Asian Studies Professor Mimi Sharma calls on, "those who see utility in the proposed UARC (to) come to the table and openly confront the educational and ethical considerations that a university must bring to bear in its deliberations about the research they engage in and the sources that support it."

In response, this writer challenges Sharma to an open and public debate to be held on the U.H. Manoa campus: The debate topic? "Resolved: U.H. Manoa upholds the motto "above all nations is humanity," and upholds the values of malama aina, aloha, and academic freedom by agreeing to host the University Allied Research Center (UARC)." Let the entire university community see if she is willing to back up her call to openly confront these issues by accepting this challenge.

Don't spend too much time waiting by the phone to hear from this one Andrew. Although, it would be interesting to hear how one who advocates the Race, Class, Gender Trinity, such as Sharma, could uphold universal principles as implied the the university's motto.

Sharma's "specialty" is just an academic cliche that is all too common:

Research/Teaching Specializations: The Reconstructed Village: Ethnography and the Ethnographer a Quarter of a Century Later; Class Formation and Gender Relations; Feminist Theory; International Labor Migration; Social Science Methodology.

Islamist Beauty Contest

2005-10-15T15:58:00.000-10:00

Hat tip: Steve

Ken Conklin in the Minnesota Daily

2005-10-14T11:13:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

In an editorial in the Minnesota Daily, Jason Ketola explains why "liberals" have abandoned all pretense that their goal is a color blind society:

The justness of discriminatory admission policies should be assessed on their consequences for society, not the current standard.

This is what happens when otherwise well meaning people abandoned the genuine liberal standard of individual rights for one of utilitarian calculation. Utilitarianism is an exercise in collectivism, hence "justice" is defined by "consequences to society" not natural rights. And, of course, the calculating will be conducted by self-selected elites whose decisions will then be enforced by legal dictate through the unelected courts or bureaucracy.

Ken Conklin wrote a reply which was posted in the letters-to-the-editor section of the paper. Ken takes Ketola to task for both an evil theory, racism, and erroneous facts. As usual, the utilitarian calculators can't even get their facts right. Utilitarianism, in this case, being used to justify an already arrived at collectivist value system:

Race is what brings Kamehameha kids together. The school’s focus is racial pride and ethnic nationalism. Kids learn they’re genetically entitled to special rights, including political control of Hawaii. The curriculum blames white people and the United States for historical grievances, continuing oppression of their culture and colonial occupation of their indigenous homeland. Ketola says discrimination by race is OK because society benefits from helping downtrodden minorities rise to economic and social equality. If helping society is the standard, is separate but equal good for society?

Ketola says ethnic Hawaiians have been discriminated against. False. Ethnic Hawaiians are 20 percent of the state population. Every politician eagerly caters to this powerful swing vote. Twelve percent have incomes greater than $100,000. More than 160 government programs and exclusionary institutions cater exclusively to this racial group. All illegal. The “Akaka bill” in Congress (S.147) would help ethnic Hawaiians create a racially exclusionary government — Hawaiian apartheid. Coleman seems to agree with Ketola that racial discrimination and separatism are good for society. Minnesota voters should tell him otherwise. For a five-paragraph summary of what’s wrong with the Akaka bill, with extensive additional documentation, see: http://tinyurl.com/5jp5r.

14 October 1943, the Schweinfurt Raid: Black Thursday

2005-10-13T14:00:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

Tomorrow will mark the 62nd anniversary on the famous 8th Air Force raid on the German ball-bearing factory at Schweinfurt. At that point in the war Schweinfurt produced 42% of Germany’s anti-friction bearings a vital component of the Nazi war machine. The commander of VIII Bomber Command, General Frederick Anderson, gave the go ahead to bomb the Schweinfurt factories to rubble with the belief that the resulting shortage of ball-bearings would cripple the German war effort.

The attack of October 14 was not the first time the 8th Air Force had paid Schweinfurt a visit. As a result of the raid of 17 August, Albert Speer, Hitler’s Minister of Armaments, warned that if the raids continued the German war effort would face a severe shortage and “the war economy would truly be crippled.”

The above quote is from Martin Caidin’s masterful book on the October 14 mission: Black Thursday. In this one mission VIII Bomber Command would lose sixty B-17 bombers each with a crew of ten men. This short excerpt from Caidin’s book describes the effect this had on the men of the 8th Air Force:

And then there is the airdrome at Chelveston, home of the 305th Group. Sixteen bombers took off. One aborted, returning early with mechanical troubles. Fifteen Fortresses went on.

Two bombers returned on schedule to land at Chelveston. Where are the others?Have they landed elsewhere? Where are they?

There are no others. Of the 15 heavy bombers that left Chelveston this morning of October 14, 1943, 12 fell in flames before the crews ever saw Schweinfurt. Another made its bombing run and then plunged earthward, torn to pieces be a salvo of rockets.

The 305th Group is virtually wiped out. One hundred and thirty men! The men in 13 ground crews stare at each other in stunned disbelief. It cannot be; it just cannot be.

The concrete, stained with oil and grease where the big bombers have stood, is empty, a terrible, aching void. The ground crewman scuff their feet aimlessly, walk off. Every man looks as if he has lost his brother.

The American (and RAF’s) Air Force’s strategic bombing campaign has been criticized both as a wasteful use of vast resources and as “terror bombing.”

It should not be forgotten that the theory of strategic bombing has its origins in the First World War. The pioneering Italian aviation officer Giulio Douhet was disgusted by both the incompetence of the Italian military leadership and the carnage of the Battle of Caporetto. Douhet argued that if the Austrian factories producing the tools of the Central Power’s war effort, which were less than a hundred miles from the front, were bombed the war could be shortened, allied victory assured and lives saved.

He also asked why it was acceptable for millions of men to be slaughtered in the trenches while the workers in the munitions factories were exempt from the rigors of war. Of course, factories usually located in cities filled with non-combatants. But, anything seemed better than trench warfare and Douhet argued that if one side decided to engage in this type of warfare their opponents would have little choice but to respond in kind or be destroyed.

Douhet’s theory would be tested, and found wanting, in World War II.

According to two recent articles available online the Germans, because of the bombing campaign, are now claiming that they are too victims of the English speaking powers. Here is a lengthy article from the Nation documenting this new revisionist cult.

This week History New Network has also posted an article on the theme of Nazi Germany as victim. The real purpose the HNN article is, of course, to demonize American efforts in Iraq. Here is how this Dagmar Barnouw person sums up her thesis:

Memories of the real [?] war easily gave way before the rising power of “the Holocaust,” [Yes, the sneer quotes are in the original article] the ever growing construct of memory stories around and above the historical persecutions. The “uniqueness” of Auschwitz, its cultural centrality, demanded forgetting the darker aspects of W.W.II. [Darker than Auschwitz?] Why remember that the Allies stripped all German and Japanese civilians of their civilian status to make them fit Churchill’s “total air war” (1942)? [It wasn't Hitler and the Japanese who initiated Total War] The new method and scale of firebombing, followed by the nuclear bomb, would be echoed in the free fire zones in Vietnam and the “collateral damage” in later conflicts. All these events point to the new dimension of W.W.II, namely a new tolerance for human superfluity. The Nazi regime had led in this frightening tolerance, but America and Great Britain followed. The Nazi regime has been safely in the past for sixty years; the invasion and occupation of Iraq is very much in the present; and so is, in this commemorative year, the good, clean, just war we won.

Where does one begin with this sort of stuff? It should be noted that by the time the USA entered the Second World War all the major combatants had long before taken off the gloves regarding bombing. Japan had been indulging in indescriminate bombing of Chinese cities. Germany, of course, made its intentions known with the bombing of Guernica in 1937. There was also the German bombing of Rotterdam while negotiations were taking place for its surrender. This was after the Luftwaffe had leveled much of Warsaw and other Polish cities.

However, with the bombing of London the Germans were attacking a country that could respond in kind. The British did attempt daylight bombing raids on Germany, but the losses were too great. With their back to the wall, and a burning desire for revenge, the British initiated their campaign of night time “area bombing” after the Germans had done so in the London Blitz of the fall and winter of 1940.

There is a basic truth here that the Islamofascists should consider: making a democracy desperate can be very bad for the fascist aggressor.

Sadly it comes as no surprise to me that Rick Shenkman, editor of HNN, has posted yet another article based on his favorite theme that the United States of 2005 is morally equivalent with Nazi Germany. It is sad that an allegedly respectable academic website would post this sort of stuff.

Update, 10/13/05: Shenkman is so desperate for material to smear President Bush that he has actually posted a lenghy blog entry on Bush's alleged drinking based on a National Enquirer story.

Fifth Anniversary of USS Cole Attack

2005-10-13T09:41:00.000-10:00

USS Cole (DDG-67)

Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of the attack upon the USS Cole in Yeman which left seventeen sailors dead.

Michelle Malkin has more here.

Thanks for the reminder: Busco at Island Thoughts.

Nazi and East German Propoganda Posters Online

2005-10-13T09:18:00.000-10:00

The Nazis were not advocates of liberal individualism. The caption translates: "National Socialism: The Organized Will of the Nation."

The Nazis were also not fans of "globalization." This poster is from the 1930's, and encourages Germans to buy domestic rather than imported goods. The top translates as "Germans buy German goods." The bottom text translates: "German Week/German Goods/German Labor."

Give until it hurts. The text translates: "Don't give. Sacrifice."

They're picking on us again. This visual from the mid-1930's shows Germany in white, with the 100,000-man army permitted by the Treaty of Versailles, surrounded by heavily armed neighbors.

This website maintained by Calvin College has much more here and here.

Hat tip: John Ray

University of Hawaii at Manoa: Educating Hawaii's Best

2005-10-12T16:37:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

Ka Leo has a story on the university's outstanding ROTC program and the high percentage of those who have received a commision in the U.S. Army:

Termed the "Commissioning Mission," Army ROTC achieves its goal by commissioning a minimum of 23 cadets to lieutenants every year. With 90 students in the program, coming from UHM, Chaminade, Hawai'i Pacific University and UH-West O'ahu, recruitment levels are fairly high, but with the war on terror at hand it is unknown if this recruitment level and high commission rating will hold steady. Gold Bar recruiters and 2nd Lts. Chad Nakamura and Deanna Manriquez believe it will.

"We do a lot of our recruiting at New Student Orientations, Manoa Experiences, career fairs and by word of mouth," Manriquez said. As for the high commission rating, Manriquez stated, "I think it has a lot to do with location. I think we hold this rating because people like to come to Hawai'i, and our standard is high."

"We let them know that they will probably be sent to war," Nakamura said. Yet, those students in the Army ROTC program know that it is a responsibility that comes with the job. John Cole, a junior majoring in political science, has been in the program for three years. "I know it's dangerous, but it's part of the job. It's something you have to do," Cole Said.

All of these fine, brave young people deserve a hearty "well done" from the entire state of Hawaii.

Richardson Law School Professor Jon Van Dyke Overturns McCulloch v. Maryland

2005-10-11T13:38:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

Doug over at Poinography states that Van Dyke’s letter to the editor of Ka Leo provides an “interesting new wrinkle” regarding the creation of a University Affiliated Research Center (UARC) at UH Manoa. The letter reads in part:

Many reasons have been presented why it would be unwise for the University of Hawai'i to establish a University Affiliated Research Center with the U.S. Navy, but one important reason has been largely left out of the discussion. Section 378-2 of the Hawai'i Revised Statutes prohibits all employers from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.

This provision is written broadly, stating explicitly that it is also illegal "[f]or any person whether an employer, employee, or not, to aid, abet, incite, compel, or coerce the doing of any of the discriminatory practices forbidden by this part, or to attempt to do so." In other words, it is a violation of Hawai'i law for any person to assist any other person or organization in engaging in discrimination based on sexual orientation, or even 'to attempt' to assist.

The U.S. Navy explicitly discriminates with regard to employment based on sexual orientation. Individuals are not eligible to serve in the U.S. Navy if they make any statements indicating that they are gay, lesbian or bisexual, or if they engage in any physical contact with a person of their own sex for sexual gratification, or if they marry or attempt to marry a person of their own sex. Many people are discharged from the Navy each year for violating this discriminatory regulation.

The UARC proposal would require the University of Hawai'i to spend millions of dollars in the first few years to fund the project. Once underway, UHM researchers would work on research projects as agents of the Navy, with security clearances. The purpose of these funds and this research is to help the Navy. The University and those who work on these projects would become partners with the Navy and thus would be 'aiding and abetting' the Navy and its mission, unavoidably including its discriminatory employment practices.

Van Dyke then argues that state employees that work or cooperate with the UARC could be in violation of the state law. However, he does admit that federal employees will have immunity. His argument seems to be that those whose jobs require “aiding and abetting” the U.S. Navy could be prosecuted under the state law. He also implies that university employees would be within their rights to refuse said cooperation and yet still retain their jobs. If he means that UH employees are being “commandeered” by having to work with UARC, I fail to see how the university expanding one’s job description is the same as impressment.

Van Dyke fails to cite precedents of military contractors being subject to state law that is detrimental to the sovereign mission of the U.S. government. However, in one that I have located, McCulloch v. Maryland, the Supreme Court ruled that:

We admit, as all must admit, that the powers of the government are limited, and that its limits are not to be transcended. But we think the sound construction of the constitution must allow to the national legislature that discretion, with respect to the means by which the powers it confers are to be carried into execution, which will enable that body to perform the high duties assigned to it, in the manner most beneficial to the people. Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional. . . .

“his great principle is, that the constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof are supreme; that they control the constitution and laws of the respective States, and cannot be controlled by them. From this, which may be almost termed an axiom, other propositions are deduced as corollaries, on the truth or error of which, and on their application to this case, the cause has been supposed to depend. These are, 1st. that a power to create implies a power to preserve. 2nd. That a power to destroy, if wielded by a different hand, is hostile to, and incompatible with these powers to create and to preserve. 3d. That where this repugnancy exists, that authority which is supreme must control, not yield to that over which it is supreme. . . .

The sovereignty of a State extends to everything which exists by its own authority, or is so introduced by its permission; but does it extend to those means which are employed by Congress to carry into execution powers conferred on that body by the people of the United States? We think it demonstrable that it does not. Those powers are not given by the people of a single State. They are given by the people of the United States, to a government whose laws, made in pursuance of the constitution, are declared to be supreme. Consequently, the people of a single State cannot confer a sovereignty which will extend over them.

The purpose of Van Dyke invoking the state’s anti-discrimination law is to prevent the federal government from exercising its sovereign rights and duties under the Constitution. The opponents of UARC have said as much. UH peace studies scholar Johan Galtung stated just this week:

By conducting such research, leaders are "raping the university," he
said. ”They are destroying that precious instrument of free speech and
free thought. ... We cannot run the risk of having a little group, a little gang
sitting, producing their private knowledge. The university was created exactly
to get out of that."

I’ll leave aside the issue of who is really destroying “free speech and free thought” on American university campuses and just point out that research in an integral part of maintaining a modern military. This is what the anti-UARC crowd oppose. Not only do they want the military out of the university, they want all of Hawaii cleansed of the U.S. military presence.

Regarding the military’s policy of not allowing openly gay individuals serve, the policy now in place “don’t ask, don’t tell” is the result of President Clinton signing Public Law 103-160 in 1993. Historically Congress has given both the President and the armed forces a great deal of leeway in matters of recruitment and personal. The desegregation of the military (which occurred long before the rest of the nation desegregated) was the result of an executive order by President Truman.

However, this is not always the case. Women were first allowed into the service academies as a result of President Ford signing Public Law 94-106. A bill was submitted earlier this year that would allow openly gay individuals to serve in the military, but it is going nowhere. It is very unlikely that President Bush will make any changes in policy. Also, according to the story, the idea is unpopular in the service:

By and large, surveys indicate a majority of the active duty military opposes opening up its ranks to avowed homosexuals. Many believe having gays in the ranks undermines unit cohesion, and are concerned about the privacy of straight members, as showers and dressing areas are often communal, particularly on deployment and during basic training.

Be that as it may, this issue is purely under federal jurisdiction. Those that would try to apply state anti-discrimination law to pressure the U.S. government to alter this policy, or more likely, to undermine military preparedness and thus the War on Terror are totally out of line.

However, this is the type of sophistry one can expect from political activists with law degrees. Unable to get their anti-American, anti-military agenda through the normal elective process, they attempt to subvert law and dictate from the court room. This is not an exaggeration. The Richardson Law School has entire departments whose only purpose is to manufacture activists with law degrees. As Richardson’s Environmental Law Program states:

Recognizing the challenges that Hawai`i faces in developing an environmentally sustainable economy, the School of Law has developed a vibrant and diverse Environmental Law Program (ELP). Since its inception in 1988, the ELP has become a significant part of the curriculum at the School of Law and is a fundamental component of the school's mission. The ELP seeks to train future lawyers to be skilled in the field of environmental law and to contribute to the advancement of environmental law doctrine, scholarship, and practice locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. [Italics added]

Of course, the likes of Van Dyke are hostile to the U.S. Navy’s primary mission. The mission being keeping the sea lanes open so world commerce can prosper and grow:

“We're providing point defense and close security for the Al Basrah and Khawr Al Amaya Oil Terminals,” said Lt. Cmdr. Pat Fulgham, officer in charge of Navy Maritime Security Detachment 22. "Our basic mission is to enable tankers to come and go, to allow Iraq to generate the revenue they need to stabilize their country."

“These platforms are the future for the Iraqi people," said Capt. Kurt W. Tidd, commander of the multinational task force responsible for protecting the terminals. "If there's going to be a future, it will depend on these oil platforms. Preserving them for whomever wins the elections is critical."”Coalition ships remain on station not far off the edge of the platforms. They have been maintaining a multi-layered security posture since the terminals were taken by Polish and U.S. Special Forces at the outset of Operation Iraqi Freedom. USS Harpers Ferry (LSD 49) has been on station since early September.

This is what Van Dyke and the rest of the “Comrades” at UH Manoa don’t want to “aid and abet.”

Update: Right on cue, Hawaii Reporter has this story on the political bias at both law and journalism schools:

A study of 18 elite Law and Journalism faculties by the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, shows that faculty Democrats outnumber Republicans by a factor of 7-1. The total number of Democrats on the 18 faculties studies was 494 while the total number of Republicans was 74. A Stanford Law the ratio was 28-1 and at Columbia Journalism School 15-1. Researchers could not identify a single Republican on the faculty of the Journalism School at the University of California Berkeley. Reputedly conservative law schools like the University of Chicago had a greater ratio of Democrats to Republicans (6.5-1) than did reputedly liberal law schools like Harvard (6.9-1).

"When a school promises a diverse and inclusive education," comment the authors of the study, "it has an obligation to provide it. When the training institutions of entire professions -- in this case law and journalism -- fail to honor their commitment to academic freedom and intellectual pluralism, they and the nation at large have a serious problem."

Update II: Here is a contribution to "peace" by Johann "Little Ward Churchill" Galtung equating the liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban with the attacks of 9/11/01.

Hat tip: Andrew Walden

Seven Myths About Islam

2005-10-11T09:24:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

History professor Timothy R. Furnish must not be too popular in the faculty lounge with articles like this:

First, it is untrue that Islam is the world’s fastest-growing religion...

Second, despite the claims of even President Bush in a number of public statements, Islam is not solely a “religion of peace...”

Third on the misinformation parade is the allegation that jihad does not mean holy war...

Fourth is the whopper that Islam spread peacefully from Arabia, as if the followers of Muhammad went door-to-door ringing doorbells and handing out brochures...

The fifth tiresome myth is that the European Catholic Crusaders started the war with Islam and that for eight centuries Muslims have been brooding over the horrible injustices thereof...

Another fairy tale about Islam is that poverty produces terrorists. This hoary myth tells us more about the worldview of its American adherents than it does about the ranks of the Islamists...

And finally, we have politically-correct mendacity number seven, which even British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently repeated: that Islam has been “hijacked” by terrorists...

I wish the History News Network would post more articles like this one, if only to demonstrate that not all historians are leftist "multicultural" types.

Is Bill Gates a Statist?

2005-10-10T10:09:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

Many Objectivists and libertarians were very sympathetic to Bill Gates and Microsoft during the latest round of Anti-Trust Pogroms. While in principle I am opposed to anti-trust legislation and therefore enforcement, I had difficulty in shedding any tears for Bill Gates.

My reasons for not having much sympathy for Bill Gates, besides his buggy software, was his financial contribution for the passage of Washington Initiative 676. This ballot measure was a heavy handed gun control measure which went down to overwhelming defeat:

Initiative 676, a handgun safety bill in 1997 that would have increased licensing and training requirements for new handgun purchasers, went down to overwhelming defeat. In a campaign where the National Rifle Association spent $4 million, $35,000 turned out not to be enough. Still, Gates had made his stand on a classic hot-button issue -- gun control.

The Co-Chair of the Gates Foundation is William Gates Sr. The Foundation engages in the usual philanthropic enterprises. But, discovering what Bill Gates' political views are has been considered a difficult proposition. I don't think so. With his support of gun control and opposition to tax cuts, Gates is just another guilt-ridden limousine liberal. In this case the fruit does not fall far from the tree.

Here is a letter to the editor of the Hampton Road, Va. Daily Press by Edward Cline taking Bill Sr. to task for his hostility to capitalism:

Injustice?

Bill Gates and Chuck Collins, arguing against repeal of the federal estate tax by Congress in their "Estate tax must stay, especially now" (Sept. 18), ask: "How many people would accumulate wealth in excess of $5 million or $500 million without our system of regulated and orderly markets, property protections, public education institutions, federally subsidized research and public infrastructure?"

Many more thousands than can now, if we lived in a freer country. Our "regulated and orderly markets" are de facto socialist, if not outright fascist. There are few property protections left, especially in lieu of the Supreme Court's recent upholding of eminent domain for "redistribution" of private property to others. Our "public education institutions" are largely crèches to inculcate politically correct ignorance. "Federally subsidized research" cripples genuine private research. And our "public infrastructure" gobbles up more and more money each year. These are the injustices and inequities they want to perpetuate.

Terrorists Incidents in US

2005-10-10T09:45:00.000-10:00

Above is a map of terrorist incidents that have occurred in the U.S. To access information about a specific location on the map go here at MIPT Terrorism Knowledge website.

Hat tip: Steve

The New Axis of Evil

2005-10-08T16:42:00.000-10:00

Guest Editorial by Edward Cline:

President George Bush’s original “axis of evil” has metastasized from one to two axes, and the membership has swollen from three to at least seven: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, on one axis, and China, Russia, North Korea, and South Africa on the other. Iraq, once in the original axis, has become a black hole consuming American lives in a futile, altruist campaign to “democratize” it. The axes are linked by a common goal: To subjugate America and Western civilization. This is the new “non-aggression and aid pact” between tyrannies that faces us.

The cause of this geo-political cancer is pragmatism.

It has been some years since President Bush last used the phrase “axis of evil.” The White House has since tempered its “war” language, preferring equivocating, non-judgmental language that upsets or offends no one. Only terrorists are deemed “evil,” and not as often as in the past, and that designation never encompasses their creed or ideology. According to President Bush, Islam is a “religion of peace,” beyond judgment. As for the ideology founded on that religion, by all the evidence available, it is not taken seriously, not by President Bush, not by his advisors, not by the news media. The FBI, CIA, and other agencies charged with defending this country against enemy attack must all have tons of intelligence on the ends and means of that ideology, but little or none of it sees the light of day, at least, not in the mainstream news.

There is a perilous inconsistency in judging terrorists but not their ideological motivation, an inconsistency unparalleled in recent history. Imagine President Roosevelt inveighing against Kamikaze pilots, but not against the government that sent them to kill Americans, or Winston Churchill’s sonorous voice damning the Luftwaffe, but not Hitler and Nazism. Both leaders knew, at least implicitly, that the Japanese and German pilots were not “hijacking” a “great political philosophy,” but practicing it in its most fundamental terms on orders from their political, military and ideological superiors.

There is another glaring aspect to the inconsistency. Think of how often President Bush has used the term “sacrifice” in his public addresses, a virtue on which he places a high value. The sacrifice usually refers to the lives of American soldiers lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, if Islamic suicide bombers are willing to “sacrifice” their lives to further their “cause” (and we forego here discussion of whether or not their suicides are really “sacrifices,” if their lives are of no value to them), how could their actions be “evil”? Logically, President Bush should be praising and eulogizing our killers, as well. Why discriminate between the causes of self-sacrifice? Why “profile”? But such a question asked of him would never be answered; our commander in chief is terrified of moral judgments. He has a pile of boulders to hurl at our enemies, but he will not cast the first mere stone. That is Christianity for you, and a policy, like Islam’s, consistent with the creed.

Instead, President Bush sends Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and special envoy Karen Hughes on glad-handing tours of the Mideast, Rice on a futile diplomatic venture, and Hughes on a crusade of “good will” to a culture innately and overtly hostile to the U.S. President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and other appeasers seek an unconditional peace in the Mideast, hoping that some Hegelian sorcerer will fashion a workable “synthesis” of the rule of law and the rule of the lawless. President Bush and every president since Jimmy Carter have sought it. And over and over again, that peace, lasting for perhaps a week or a month before exploding again in more strife, has proven as elusive and fake as the Maltese Falcon.

A sustained, permanent peace between the U.S. and fundamentalist Iran is a recurring fantasy, while President Bush’s goal of turning Iraq into a Westernized-cum-Muslim nation is an alchemist’s dream of converting lead into gold. Consider the revelations in a report on Iraq in the August 27th Asia Times, “Iran thrives on the neo-con dream.”

“The new constitution will strengthen the hand of the provincial forces in the south, which are pro-Iranian….The constitutional ban on any law that contravenes Islamic law will likely give Shi’ite clerics significant power over the state, moving Iraq much closer to the Iranian model…..No one in Washington would have imagined that with all the human and financial costs of the war, the United States would find itself supporting a government…{with} close ties to Iran and that would conclude a military agreement with Tehran for the training of Iraq forces, even as nearly 140,000 U.S. troops remained on Iraq soil….Meanwhile, Iranian intelligence is reported to have so thoroughly penetrated Iraq’s security forces and militias -- many of whose members were trained by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard -- that the U.S. military has restricted its own intelligence-sharing with its Iraqi charges….”

And, there is a power shift occurring in Iran, one not much reported or recognized in the West, at least not reported in depth in the news media, from the theocratic fascism of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to the more militantly religious fascism of newly “elected” fundamentalist president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is intent on accelerating Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The internal struggles for political power in Iran are reminiscent of those in Germany in the 1930’s, when Hitler’s National Socialists were hounding the Weimar government and conniving for political and elective legitimacy by fair means and foul, especially in regard to securing the support of the military. That struggle for power was at least reported in the press at the time, and acknowledged by Washington. Whether or not “Adolf” Ahmadinejad will succeed in rallying Iran’s military behind him, remains to be seen. But there is not a peep of acknowledgement of the dangers from Washington, nor much media commentary. The administration feigns ignorance of the phenomenon -- or at least does not remark publicly on the political developments in Iran -- while the American public is kept in genuine ignorance of the peril. Based on President Bush’s waffling record and ambiguous public statements to date, one cannot be certain that he is enacting a sly policy of deflecting Iran’s suspicions of his true intentions, or not acting at all.

Referring to his “historic” speech before the United Nations in September, Ahmadinejad told a gathering of “expert” Iranian clerics: “Our vision for world order is based on a new concept of God-worshiping, justice and addressing the sinful human nature; our vision was met with enthusiasm at the United Nations.” That is a call for war to establish a global caliphate. One can only credit Ahmadinejad with not having lied about his true goals; Hitler claimed he had no more territorial ambitions.

Leading Israeli spokesmen have warned repeatedly of Iran’s threat not only to Israel but also to Europe and the U.S. The Washington Times reports that Yuval Steinitz, chairman of Israel’s Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said that the U.S. must tell Iran that there was “no chance they will ever see the fruits of a nuclear program….Threats and sanctions and isolation alone will not do it.” A member of a delegation sent to Washington to apprise the White House of the Iranian peril, Steinitz said that Iran was two or three years away from producing a nuclear bomb. “We see an Iranian bomb as a devastating, existential threat to Israel, to the entire Middle East, to all Western interests in the region….Despite all the different circumstances, we see similarities to what happened in the 1930s, when people underestimated the real problem or focused on other dangers. For us, either the world will tackle Iran in advance or all of us will face the consequences.”

In the meantime, North Korea has lent Iran its “expertise” in building a maze of tunnels in which to hide its weapons and weapons factories to protect them from possible Israeli or U.S. air strikes, while South Africa is providing Iran with technological assistance in nuclear weapons production, and has offered to store Iran’s weapons to protect them from Israeli or U.S. military action.

But, given the pragmatism-induced blind-sightedness of Western policies, what have they to worry about? As Ahmadinejad himself boasted to the Iranian clerics: “We can hear the cracking of the bones of these straw giants [under our feet] and we’re shocked that these [westerners] are not able to face facts.” This blatantly correct assessment of the crisis is not the kind that America is getting from its political leaders.

A report in the London Daily Telegraph of September 28 underscores the vapid policy the U.S. and its chief ally, Britain, have adopted in answer to Iran’s ill-disguised intention to blackmail the West into surrendering Israel and the Mideast to the mercies of its power.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said, “military action against Iran is ‘inconceivable.’…Speaking at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton today, he was repeating comments made earlier in the month when he said the conflict between Western governments and Iran ‘will not be resolved by military means.’….Mr. Straw said in a radio interview (BBC4): ‘The truth is, as Condoleezza Rice has said, military action in respect of the Iran dossier is not on anybody’s agenda.”

The Telegraph remarked: “His comments are in opposition to Tony Blair’s.”

But elsewhere the Telegraph article reports that Downing Street, or Prime Minister Tony Blair, “has lined up behind President George W. President Bush, who has made it clear that ‘all options are on the table,’ while wanting a diplomatic solution and insisting there are no plans to use force.”

Well, not all options. How can Straw’s statement be in opposition to Blair’s, if the military option is not on Blair’s table, either? More importantly, with this kind of policy, in which military action against a hostile power is not in the cards, or on anyone’s agenda, or not an option, how can the enemies of the West lose? If force is not an option -- ever -- only interminable diplomatic concessions and evasions, what else could be in the West’s future, but ignominious defeat?

Our chief enemy has not ruled out a nuclear option, or military action. The West, however, will not contemplate them. This is a fact that Ahmadinejad has recognized.

Americans face another dilemma: Who will succeed our own Neville Chamberlain in the White House? There is no one on our political horizon who is any better than President Bush. Even the so-called “hawks” in both the Democratic and Republican parties are either mum on the subject or the authors of incoherent pronouncements on President Bush’s foreign policy.

The Iran-China Connection

It is time also to disabuse many people of the notion that Mainland China is a “neutral” power and nominally friendly to the West, especially to the U.S., the biggest market for its goods, and that it is turning “capitalist.” This is as blinkered a fantasy as the one that Israel can ensure its survival by making deals with the Palestinians.

China is partnering with Iran, a dedicated enemy of the U.S. Delegations of Chinese officials regularly travel to Tehran. They are not signing trade pacts to sell Iran Wal-Mart merchandise, such as Nike knock-off shoes or General Electric telephones or other “consumer” products, but rather the means for Iran to produce nuclear weapons. These are chiefly centrifuges with which to enrich weapons grade uranium. They are based on Chinese and Pakistani designs. What components Iran does not manufacture itself, it receives from China and European sources via transshipments from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The National Council of Resistance of Iran, an exiled Iranian opposition organization, also said in a report that Iran had secured tritium, a dual-use element used to enhance the yields of nuclear explosions, from a South Korean firm.

So, why is China allying itself with Iran? For the energy to power China’s economy. UPI in January 2005 reported a $40 billion deal between Iran, China, Russia to supply China with oil and liquid natural gas. India’s Financial Express reported on September 30th 2005 that “China has used its status as the second-largest consumer of energy as an effective tool while striking oil agreements in the Middle East. It has now become the number one oil and gas importer from Iran.” China has secured “energy supplies through bilateral arrangements with non-market reciprocity deals…and also pushed for outright purchases of foreign oil companies with reserves in the region….”

Much of what China exports to the West, particularly to the U.S., is manufactured by “private” Chinese firms. But the catch is that many of those firms, in which untold members of the Chinese political establishment have financial stakes, contract the manufacture of its goods with laogias, or slave labor camps, just as Nazi officials had financial “investments” in companies that produced war matériel using concentration camp labor. While China still proclaims communism, it has in fact spawned a fascist regime. Westerners should remember this the next time they purchase a cheap pair of sandals or a bargain electronic gizmo. The goods are cheap because much of the labor that went into their production was and continues to be forced labor. The skyscrapers and neon lights of Shanghai and other Chinese cities are being paid for with the lives of political prisoners. Millions of them.

But let us bring the slavery closer to home. Senator Diane Feinstein of California has a vested interest in the political status quo in China. According to Harry Wu, a 20-year veteran of the laogia gulag, her husband is a board member of the Chinese Overseas Shipping Corporation, owned outright by the People’s Liberation Army, and has investments throughout China. Doubtless other members of Congress, not content with their lavish incomes, benefits and privileges guaranteed by taxpayers, have similar, unpublicized stakes. The last thing these left-wing “humanitarians” want to see is instability and unrest in China that might result in the overthrow of the dictatorship with which they are de facto partners.

Think of Yahoo! and Google. These Internet giants have complied with China’s Communist Party policies and submitted to censorship, and helped the government set up a system to monitor Internet usage and block traffic and sites the government has deemed subversive.

Consider the amount of U.S. Treasury securities owned outright by China. After Japan, the largest holder, which, as of July 2005, holds $683.3 billion, comes China, at $242.1 billion. Imagine the bind America would have been in if Nazi Germany held a comparable amount of securities and threatened to use that leverage against America -- by cashing in its securities or calling in those loans -- if America interfered with its conquest of Britain or took steps against its ally in the Pacific, Japan. Interestingly, the eighth largest foreign holder of U.S. government securities is OPEC at $52.8 billion. This cartel, of which Iran and Saudi Arabia are the chief members, is made possible by federal regulatory tyranny and environmental laws.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Public Debt, as of August 2005 the total outstanding public debt held domestically was over $4.5 trillion, out of a total outstanding debt of nearly $8 trillion, of which $300 billion is held by this country’s enemies. In brief, Americans are being taxed to pay the interest on billions in U.S. government securities held by their enemies.

Surely the U.S. government has knowledge of these things. Iran, once named a member of the “axis of evil,” is not much mentioned these days in policy speeches, especially not as an enemy, even though it has been documented that it is funding much of the terrorism in the West. China, still intent on conquering Taiwan and becoming the premier bully of the Pacific Rim, is not much on the government’s mind, either, even though our own military intelligence expresses grave concerns about the development of China’s military. Russia, which is building Iran’s President Bushehr nuclear reactor, is still trying to regain its “super power” status by selling Soviet military hardware to the highest bidder -- such as two nuclear submarines in its mothballed fleet to China -- as well as its technological prowess in exchange for cash, trade concessions, and the prestige of tweaking President Bush’s nose.

Saudi Arabia, in the meantime, still churns out Islamic Kamikazes and generously funds “charitable” organizations that in turn fund Islamic jihadists, propaganda machines in the U.S. such as CAIR, and lobbying outfits staffed by venal American lawyers and aspiring politicos, all with the implicit sanction of its ruling family of Bedouins. Its agents are turning up in Bosnia in partnership with Iranian agents to better plan and launch terrorist attacks in Europe and Russia. But President Bush insists on holding hands with Crown Prince Abdullah, now the Saudi king, and calls Saudi Arabia an ally in the war against terror. And has nothing to say about the recent firing of Michael Graham, a talk-show host on an ABC radio affiliate, WMAL, in Washington, D.C., at the behest of CAIR, when he dared equate Islam with terrorism.

Perhaps more significantly, the Gulf Daily News reported on September 25 that Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal has purchased 5.46 percent of the Fox Corporation. The Fox news channel has maintained a consistent anti-terrorist position ever since 9/11, but this will likely change. Waleed is the one who offered New York Mayor Rudy Guliaini a $10 million check for relief in the wake of 9/11 (which Guliaini rightly spurned). Waleed has since blamed U.S. foreign policy and support for Israel for the attacks. It would be interesting to investigate the extent of Saudi stock ownership in ABC, CBS, NBC, and other American news outlets.

But, back to China and its ambitions. One would think that of all the powers at large that could quash Kim Jong Il and North Korea, China would be able to exert the most pressure on that “pure” communist tyranny to cease and desist its nuclear weapons program. After all, the countries closest in range to North Korea’s missiles are South Korea and China. But Kim Jong Il’s bellicosity has never been directed at China. Why not? Without China -- not to mention U.S. vacillation in its policies -- North Korea would collapse. China’s much vaunted military could easily decimate North Korea’s army of manqués. But, instead, China “brokered” an agreement between North Korea and the U.S. by which the U.S., South Korea, and Japan will bribe North Korea not to develop nuclear weapons -- for the time being. China has a vested interest in North Korea; it serves as a scarecrow to distract the U.S. from China’s overall imperialist ambitions.

What is President Bush doing about any of this? Chiefly, sacrificing American lives and wealth in Iraq so that its citizens can “democratically” establish a theocracy that will, sooner or later, despite his best intentions, overtly align itself with Iran and Syria against Israel and the U.S.

Novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand established a principle concerning compromise: “In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.” She further established this rule: “When opposite basic principles are clearly and openly defined, it works to the advantage of the rational side; when they are not clearly defined, but are hidden or evaded, it works to the advantage of the irrational side.”

The U.S. is reaping the harvest of a multiplicity of pragmatic compromises and evasions committed over a period of several decades in its foreign policy. The irrationalities are appearing everywhere and claiming their due. One cannot imagine a more dismal scenario.

Pragmatism also explains why, after the expenditure of billions of dollars and thousands of lives, no formal declaration of war was ever asked of Congress by President Bush. Yet, we are still at war. With whom? About what? A declaration of war presumes an acknowledged enemy. A combination of Islamic states has declared jihad on the West, but no Western leader will declare war on that “axis of evil.” There are states that sponsor terrorism. The West will not acknowledge them. Pragmatism is seen as the cure-all that will save it from acting on principle.

So, here is the corner that the U.S. has painted itself into: On one hand, an Islamic jihad against the West with the purpose of transforming the West into an Islamic satrapy, the better to absorb it into as broad a global caliphate as possible. Tools? Terrorism, and multiculturalism. The chief point regimes in this campaign are Iran and Saudi Arabia, with Syria and other Islamic regimes lending manpower and funds. Main targets: Israel first, then Europe, then the U.S.

On the other hand, an aggressive drive by communist-fascist China to establish political and economic hegemony in the East. Tools? The economic seduction of especially the U.S. -- what Harry Wu and other observers have called the “rope” with which the U.S. will hang itself -- with the consequence that primarily the U.S. will effectively underwrite China’s ability to challenge the U.S. militarily. Main target: Taiwan, its physical conquest. Then pressure Japan, South Korea and other Asian countries into becoming its “client states.” It is working on transforming Hong Kong into a politically more manageable province.

War is likely to result at the pleasure and instigation of either axis.

In the meantime, the U.S., which has more or less abandoned or disowned its legacy as a republic or free country -- that is, a country whose government is committed to upholding and protecting life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness -- is becoming fascist in turn. There is hardly a senator, congressman, appointed official or Supreme Court justice imbued with the faintest glimmering of what our government was originally instituted to perform, or who cares to or is able to grasp the principles on which it was founded, or who would not panic if the subject came up in a Senate hearing or investigative committee and lash out at the “extremists” who would advocate it.

Can you imagine Senator Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, or Hillary Clinton rising and announcing: “We are all parasitical frauds lusting after power and guaranteeing ourselves sumptuous livings paid for by bilked American taxpayers, and we just keep adding to the public tab. Look at the Federal Register and the Congressional Record. We are none of us concerned with representing the people, but rather with reprehending and stealing from them and calling it public service.” No? Can you imagine any Republican rising and making such a confession? No? Democrats and Republicans are equally guilty in the gutting of America.

The problem is that since no political leader today can or will think in principles, that is, in terms of what ought to be -- and what very nearly was when the Constitution was ratified in 1788 -- and since no political leader can think of solutions except the repeatedly and necessarily failed pragmatic panaceas of altruism and collectivism in domestic and foreign issues, nothing radical is going to occur any time soon.

We can only hope that reason becomes an operative philosophy in time to save this country. Reason, self-interest, pride, and justice require the neutralization of Iran by any military means at our disposal. North Korea’s weapons facilities should be vaporized. Israel should be allowed to preserve its existence on its own terms. An act of righteous self-assertion by America, followed by another, and another, will put this country’s and Western civilization’s enemies on notice that we will no longer tolerate irrationality in foreign affairs. And then civilization, and especially America, will again have a chance to survive and thrive.

Sources:

The Daily Telegraph (London)
The Asian Times (Hong Kong)
The Gulf Daily News (Dubai)
The Financial Express (India)
The Washington Times
Geostrategy-direct.com
United Press International
WorldNetDaily.com
National Review Online
The U.S. Bureau of Public Debt
The U.S. Treasury Department

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Blue Angels Return For Fleet Week

2005-10-07T13:19:00.000-10:00

Speed, power and some top-flight piloting were on display Thursday above San Francisco as the Navy's Blue Angels navigated F/A-18 Hornets past the spires of SS Peter and Paul's Church in North Beach and through some very blue Bay Area skies. More precision maneuvers will be part of air shows that begin both Saturday and Sunday at 2:15 p.m. The Blue Angels were established by Adm. Chester W. Nimitz in 1946. Chronicle photo by Deanne Fitzmaurice

A Blue Angel passes by the south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge during a practice flight Thursday. Associated Press photo by Ben Margot

The Blue Angels roared past Bay Area landmarks on Thursday in advance of this weekend's annual Fleet Week air show. Chronicle photo by Frederic Larson

Although they hate to admit it, even some of the American hating denizens of San Francisco can't help liking and admiring the Blue Angels.

Hat tip: Steve

Big Brother On Campus

2005-10-07T09:23:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

Earlier this week I posted some comments here at The 50th Star regarding academia's responses to the United States Congress demanding accountability of federal funds dispersed to higher education. For example, here is a professor sniveling about legitimate Congressional oversight as "Big Brother:"

"It's an invitation for the government to get involved in the internal affairs of the university," says William Scheuerman, a political scientist at the State University of New York at Oswego, and president of the state's faculty union. "We don't want Big Brother here."

Prof. Scheuerman must live in some alternative reality from the rest of us. If there is a Big Brother on campus all one has to do is read the papers, surf the net or spent a few semesters at a university to discover the most likely candidate for the role of Thought Policeman on an American university campus.

The day after my above post, right on cue, came yet more outrages from the campus Thought Police. Kathleen Parker's latest column highlights two of the cases:

The First Amendment has been getting a workout in recent weeks on two college campuses - the University of Florida and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - where students are learning that free speech is a messy business.

The two cases, one involving a columnist at UNC and the other a political cartoonist at UF, have inflamed minority groups - Muslims and blacks, respectively - provoking protests and debate. That's the good news insofar as protest and debate are the currency of free speech.

What's not such good news is that the columnist was fired, while the Florida cartoonist has been condemned and threatened. Both students have been virtually abandoned by university officials, some of whom apparently are more concerned about burnishing their multiculti self-images than in demonstrating the importance of a founding principle that finds itself on increasingly shaky ground these days.

The Thought Police do not limit themselves to college. They are also busy at the high school level. The unionized teachers are apparently concerned that some of their charges are not succumbing to their programming. One hasn't lived until being lectured by a six-year-old on the evils of smoking or the moral imperative of recycling.

Andrew Waldon has this report on the Thought Police in a Lewiston, Idaho high school:

The incident occurred last Monday when Bowen, who founded the first Teenage Republican chapter in Maine, was handing out copies of the official Maine College Republican newspaper, The Pachyderm Press, in the school cafeteria: "After handing out the paper at the first lunch, an openly socialist teacher came up and questioned me," recounted Bowen. "She asked whether I had permission to hand out the paper." After replying that there was no policy regarding handouts at lunch, the faculty member then told Bowen he had to get permission from school administrators to continue handing the newspaper out. "I didn’t know I needed permission to practice free speech," Bowen remarked.

After receiving the support of the school’s vice principal to continue handing out The Pachyderm Press, Bowen was confronted by a group of faculty who threatened him with suspension. "It’s actually not the first time I’ve been threatened like that because of my political views," said Bowen. "Another Lewiston High School faculty member ripped four or five of the newspapers up in frustration after hearing I had permission to distribute them. The papers certainly made quite a splash at Lewiston High," he concluded….

A week doesn't go by without reading of similar events on campus. The more academia attempts to enforce their "smelly little orthodoxies," the greater will be the need for Congressional monitoring of the suppression of First Amendment rights, of both students and dissenting faculty, in the academy.

Also, for better or worse, the Supreme Court has ruled that federal law and oversight follows federal dollars, even into private universities.

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Don't Mess With Texas

2005-10-06T06:17:00.000-10:00

The Second Amendment is not about duck hunting.

Hat tip: Ed and Lorelei

Academics Believe Themselves Above Accountability

2005-10-04T11:29:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

According to this Wall Street Journal report the United States Congress is about to administer a long overdue reality check upon the Theory Class:

Congressional pique with universities has been growing for years. Conservative lawmakers, including House Education Committee Chairman John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, complain that they are relentlessly badgered for more money for student grants and loans, but are stiff-armed when they ask for accountability measures in return. Two years ago, with college tuition soaring, higher-education lobbying groups beat back a House Republican attempt to link some federal aid to the colleges' willingness to limit price increases. Colleges also have battled House attempts to hold them accountable for the graduation rates and learning progress of their students.

But professors say Mr. Horowitz [Founder of Students for Academic Freedom] really is trying to silence liberal faculty members. "It's an invitation for the government to get involved in the internal affairs of the university," says William Scheuerman, a political scientist at the State University of New York at Oswego, and president of the state's faculty union. "We don't want Big Brother here." [No, he just wants the people's tax dollar no strings attached]

I've been told by professors that their definition of "democracy" is that academia gets billions $ from the federal treasury with zero accountability. If the people's representatives attempt, in anyway, to monitor the quality of the service being paid for by the people's tax dollars it would be a violation of "academic freedom." Academic freedom to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) means they get to spend public funds however they want without public oversight. Nice work if you can get it.

Since academia refuses to reform its behavior regarding both skyrocketing tuition fees (to fund a great deal of pointless "research" and grad programs) or hire professors who will provide a little balance in the classroom, the AAUP can anticipate a painful lesson in just how democracy works.

AAUP's contempt for the people who pay the bills is evident in this statement:

Roger Bowen, general secretary of the American Association of University Professors, the faculty union, dismisses Mr. Horowitz's assertion that he is only acting to protect colleges. He sees a bill of rights as an attempt by conservative politicians to "rectify what they believe is an ideological imbalance" [Hint guys, denying the obvious is not helpful to your cause.] on the campuses. Because it "comes at a time when power in Washington is heavily tilted in one direction, that concerns me," he adds.

It may be news to Mr. Bowen, but here in America we have these events every two years called elections. Therefore, if Congress is "tilted" in one direction it is the result of the popular will. I can imagine that Bowen is SHOCKED that some parents don't want their children indoctrinated with the latest nihilistic, Postmodern, PC drivel or that many students feel the same way. Notice how leftists academic types are all for "corporate accountability" to consumers, unless it is their corporate entity that consumers (students, parents and taxpayers) are demanding the accounting from.

Update, 10/04: Thanks to both Malia at Hawaii Reporter and Andrew at Moonbat Central for reposting this piece. The commenters at Moonbat Central make some good points about this issue:

drmiltown Says: I am troubled by the Liberal technique of pre-emptive name-calling. When they complain that they don’t want “Big Brother here” they are finessing their way out of the fact that THEY ARE BIG BROTHER, and they are already there! Even more annoying is the fact that they are also MORE EQUAL! They get to dominate what is taught on campus and anything that contradicts them is identified as “Fascist”. There heavy-handed discouragement of any ideas other than their own is the epitome of fascist behavior. Perhaps they could be sued on the basis of devaluing the educational experience of a class of students.

kyle Says: Funny how a bunch of leftie academic elites dont want big brother in their institution, but have never had any qualms whatsoever to advocating government involvement in everyone else’s business. [Well, that's different don't you know]

Vulgorilla Says: “”We don’t want Big Brother here.”" Nope….Just Big Brother’s money, please. Why should there be accountability? … It’s only tax payer’s money … after all, who cares? … right?

The liberal/left is going to regret that universal suffrage thing. Conservatives and libertarians also go college and they remember.

Rate Your Professors

2005-10-03T10:27:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

The website RateMyProfessors has been around for years, but it seems to be quickly gaining popularity. It appears that the professors are not amused and do not care for this particular type of free speech. According to a report from Wired News:

RateMyProfessors -- a 6-year-old site that archives student critiques of most popular and least liked profs. With a database of more than 4 million ratings at more than 5,000 institutions of higher learning, the website has become a staple for many college students who use it to choose classes based on professors' evaluations.

While the site is ridiculously popular with students, university administrators and professors are finding it neither funny nor instructive. John Swapceinski, the site's founder, says he gets lawsuit threats "pretty much on a weekly basis" (though no actual suits), for publishing allegedly defamatory comments.

"By and large, RateMyProfessors is unmentionable in university administrations," said Kenneth Westhues, a sociology professor at the University of Waterloo who completed a study of the rating site last year. "Many professors won't even admit that they look at their ratings on the website."

Westhues finds that professors and administrations are "deeply threatened" by the site in part because work with students has generally been a very minor part of a faculty member's evaluation. When doling out grants of tenure, promotions and raises, universities look mainly at a professor's scholarship and publications. But RateMyProfessors, Westhues said, is forcing administrations to take a professor's teaching capability more seriously.

"Here's this tenured professor with high rank and high salary and students say he's a disaster in the classroom," he said. "RateMyProfessors gets that information out into the open."

To be fair, I'll mention that at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, at the end of every semester, students are asked to fill out an evaluation form about their professors. Professors I have asked stated that these forms are used in determining tenure. Of course, this sort of feedback in meaningless to those with tenure if they choose to ignore it.

It is the public nature of this criticism that has the dons so upset and threatening litigation:

At his university, Robie said he and many of his colleagues suspect that one faculty member has been doctoring colleagues ratings to make his or her own appear more favorable [I'm shock that an academic truthseeker would stoop to such a thing!]. Across RateMyProfessors, he believes there is more than enough defamatory material to launch a class action suit against the site and the people posting the offensive comments.
Swapceinski disagrees. He said the site filters out obscene language, deletes multiple posts on professors that appear to be coming from the same computer, and signs up volunteer student administrators to monitor comments posted at their universities.

RateMyProfessors in providing a needed public service in opening a window to what goes on inside the classroom. For example, here are some comments on UHH's own adjunct professor of philosophy, Timothy Freeman:

Struggles with being clear at times. Definitely a better prof for advanced classes. Sometimes gets caught up so much in his own knowledge of the subject that he forgets to come back to a student's level.
He uses his class lectures to recruit students for anti-war protests.
He was too Hippy for me participating in antiwar protest and what not. I thought he could have been more dynamic about the subject. It seemed as if he struggled to speak through his mustache.

And here are comments about academic activist Noelle Rodriguez, who teaches at the neighboring community college:

An amazing person and teacher. Really heavy on politics and brainwashing by the media and current administration. She uses Michael Moore's "Dude where's my country" as a text book [Seriously she does, I've seen this embarrassment on the University's bookstore shelf], so basically if you like bush- be ready to be challenged and keep your mind open.
Her class is all propaganda. Be prepared to just go thru the motions of pretending to agree.
This was one of the first classes I took straight out of high school. What an eye-opening experience. She definitely has me really thinking about the world I live in today.

Michael Moore and word "thinking" can not be used in the same sentence or classroom. This indoctrination goes on every day in too many classrooms, which is why this website is needed. Although, most of the ratings have less to do with course content and more with the demeanor of the professor and the difficulty of their tests. Some of the students can be quite cutting in putting holes in their professor's dignity. Which is the reason, I suspect, for the threatened lawsuits. Calling Republicans, conservatives, Christians and even libertarians Nazis or ala Michael Moore blaming Bush for 9/11 are not libel, but calling one's professor a poseur is.

Thanks for the Hat tip: Peter Kay

The Politics Test

2005-10-02T16:17:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

You are a
Social Liberal
(70% permissive)

and an...
Economic Conservative
(85% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Libertarian

Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating
Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

This test is available here. Some of the questions are ambiguous, but under the "famous people" menu my "You" was in the same spot as Thomas Jefferson. I can live with that.

Charles Murray Says Underclass is Growing

2005-10-02T11:56:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

Charles Murray writes that one of the unlearned lessons of Katrina is the growing size of the underclass which most Americans have managed to ignore:

Watching the courage of ordinary low-income people as they deal with the aftermath of Katrina and Rita, it is hard to decide which politicians are more contemptible--Democrats who are rediscovering poverty and blaming it on George W. Bush, or Republicans who are rediscovering poverty and claiming that the government can fix it. Both sides are unwilling to face reality: We haven't rediscovered poverty, we have rediscovered the underclass; the underclass has been growing during all the years that people were ignoring it, including the Clinton years; and the programs politicians tout as solutions are a mismatch for the people who constitute the problem.

The government hasn't a clue. Versions of every program being proposed in the aftermath of Katrina have been tried before and evaluated. We already know that the programs are mismatched with the characteristics of the underclass. Job training? Unemployment in the underclass is not caused by lack of jobs or of job skills, but by the inability to get up every morning and go to work. A homesteading act? The lack of home ownership is not caused by the inability to save money from meager earnings, but because the concept of thrift is alien. You name it, we've tried it. It doesn't work with the underclass.

Perhaps the programs now being proposed by the administration will help ordinary poor people whose socialization is just fine and need nothing more than a chance. It is comforting to think so, but past experience with similar programs does not give reason for optimism--it is hard to exaggerate how ineffectually they have been administered. In any case, poor people who are not part of the underclass seldom need help to get out of poverty. Despite the exceptions that get the newspaper ink, the statistical reality is that people who get into the American job market and stay there seldom remain poor unless they do something self-destructive. And behaving self-destructively is the hallmark of the underclass.

Hurricane Katrina temporarily blew away the screens that we have erected to keep the underclass out of sight and out of mind. We are now to be treated to a flurry of government efforts from politicians who are shocked, shocked, by what they saw. What comes next is depressingly predictable. Five years from now, the official evaluations will report that there were no statistically significant differences between the subsequent lives of people who got the government help and the lives of people in a control group. Newspapers will not carry that story, because no one will be interested any longer. No one will be interested because we will have long since replaced the screens, and long since forgotten.

The only long-term solution to this problem is to abolish welfare, along with the anti-social and self-destructive incentives the welfare state creates. The privatization of the failed public school system would also be most helpful in doing something about the hordes of illiterate, hostile and angry children which the socially disfunctional, Prussian school system helps to create. I would also advocate legalizes drugs in order to close that avenue of criminal temptation off from those who would rather play gangster than work for a living.

Of course, no genuine reforms will be proposed, much less passed, by Congress and Murray will be proven right yet again.

.

Hawaii Legalizes Gambling

2005-09-30T16:32:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

Yesterday, September 29, was the monthly meeting of the governor's East Hawaii Council of Advisors. And did they get an earfull! According to the article in today's Hilo Tribune-Herald nobody had anything good to say about the Gas Cap. From gas station owners to consumers to gas truck drivers to John Cole, executive director of the state Division of Consumer Advocacy, the complaints multiplied and filled the meeting room at Waiakea High School. University of Hawaii at Hilo economics professor David Hammes quipped:

"The Legislature passed the first legalized gambling bill in Hawaii, because this is gas bingo." If oil prices keep rising, he said, even though the oil is taken from Asia and Alaska, they go into tankers that could bypass Hawaii altogether if oil companies operate at a loss.

I'm sorry I couldn't make this meeting, it sounds like it was a success in that people are waking up to the real legislative agenda in Honolulu:

Vernon Kim Jr., who said he delivered gas for 20 years, said he has never seen such drastic changes in the price of gasoline. "The people who voted this law, they have a personal vendetta against industry," he said. "This law is acting as a communistic-style law and it's wrong."

Apparently also missing from the meeting were the Big Island's state representatives who are already running for cover:

Big Island legislators, when called late Thursday night, were either not available or declined to speak on the record.

UH Newspaper Prints Yet Another Free Advertisement for Leftwing Propaganda

2005-09-30T12:42:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

Here we have yet another example of Ka Leo O Hawai'i, the official student newspaper of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, publishing a "straight news" "article" that is really just a free advertisement for leftwing propaganda.

This is not new. Grant Jones has described the phenomonen here, here, and here.

In addition, I wish to address a number of "straight news" articles that Ka Leo ran with questionable titles. The piece "Globalization Proves Bad for Environment" came from the Stanford Daily Staff, but Ka Leo is utlimately responsible for the headline that appears on its own pages.

Other interesting titles for "straight news" articles are "GMO [Genetically-Modified Organisms] Taint Isle's Papaya Crops" and "Afghan Women Suffer Due to U.S."

When I mentioned this bias to a hawkish, religious right-winger at UH-Manoa, he angrily denied any bias and assured me that it did not exist because he had conservative friends working on Ka Leo. This guy is now an important staff member, which makes the dubious nature of the "straight news" section of the paper even more of a bad sign.

It is certainly not proper for this person to steer the paper's content toward a conservative bent. That doesn't mean, however, that Ka Leo's readers should be grateful for the obvious leftwing proselytizing that goes on in "straight news" section instead of on the op-ed pages.

Ka Leo's latest "straight news" offering is an adulatory announcement that yet another leftwing advocacy club, No Koa Aina (Earth Warriors Club), has been created.

"News" usually refers to unusual occurrences. The formation of one more collectivist advocacy club at UH is a mundane activity. It already has the Refuse & Resist Club and the Revolution Books Club. And note that the official UH website classifies No Koa Aina as a "Leisure/Recreational" club instead of a "Political" one, making it unclear how many advocacy clubs there are that are simply not listed as "Political."

Since the formation of a conservative club on campus is much more unusual, I would find that just as newsworthy as the formation of No Koa Aina. And yet, if you go through Ka Leo's archives, you probably won't find any straight news articles about the founding of the UH-Manoa College Republicans.

Although they protested Ward Churchill's speech at UH-Manoa, the College Republicans aren't mentioned in the introductory advertisement -- uh; "announcement" -- about Churchill's arrival (see here). The College Republicans were first mentioned in Ka Leo because people got mad at them for their protest -- and this mention was relegated to a photo caption in the Opinions section.

Since 2001, only one straight news article in Ka Leo discussed, without derision or mockery, students who feel that UH fosters a political climate hostile toward views that are not leftwing.

Excuses can be made for every instance of bias listed in this post. One could say that the article about No Koa Aina appeared because there was no other news to be printed; one might say that the Manoa College Republicans could have made their presence better-known on campus before they protested Churchill.

Whatever the excuses, however, one can still see what the general trend in Ka Leo is as far as bias is concerned.

This post has been reproduced for Tali Satele's Critique of Hawaii's State Government.

Ludwig von Mises' New York Times Editorial Discovered

2005-09-30T10:48:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

In March 1941 von Mises penned an anonymous editorial for the New York Times in answer to Joseph Goebbels lies about 1940 Republican presidential candidate Wendell Willkie. Willkie had broadcast on the BBC a statement directed at Germany that Americans of German descent were opposed to the Nazi regime and its actions. Goebbels replied that Willkie's grandfather left Germany after being cheated by a Jew.

Ludwig von Mises, an eminent Austria economist, had just fled Europe with the Nazis right behind him. Von Mises lost all his property and arrived in America virtually penniless. Here is his editorial in which he provides the Nazis with a much needed history lesson:

Herr Goebbels recently attempted to cast doubt upon Mr. Willkie's statement that his grandfather left Germany because he could not stand the political oppression. According to the Goebbels version, Grandfather Willcke sailed from Hamburg on Aug. 14, 1860. This date alone seems in the eyes of the Nazi Minister to prove that the motives for the emigration could not have been political. Apparently Herr Goebbels believes that the political conditions in Prussia in those days were perfect, that the subjects of the King enjoyed every opportunity and that they had nothing to complain of.

The Nazis are poor historians, otherwise they would recall that the political outlook in Prussia in those days was quite dark — in any case, dark enough to make the friends of liberty despair of the future. The reigning King was hopelessly insane. Since Oct. 7, 1858, his brother and presumptive heir had ruled in his place as Regent. This Prince-Regent, later William I, was a strong opponent of democratic institutions.

In the revolution of 1848 he was the commander of the Royal Body Guard. Public opinion made him responsible for the bloodshed in Berlin of March 18, 1848, and gave him the nickname "Cartridge Prince." When the revolution went farther, he was forced to flee and spend some months as a refugee in England. With the turn of the tide he came back and commanded the Prussian forces that ruthlessly suppressed the democratic and republican movements in the Palatinate and in the Grand Duchy of Baden.

The situation in those years was very similar to that in England in the days when Charles I tried to restrict the powers of his Parliament. There were political persecutions, imprisonments, suppression of newspapers and books. Such were the conditions in Germany in the years when, according to Dr. Goebbels's version, Joseph Wilhelm Willcke emigrated. In any case, he did not emigrate from an earthly paradise or from a land of opportunity.

Hat tip: Stuart.

My Favorite Cephalopods

2005-09-29T15:19:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

I am very excited about the news that the first-ever photographs of a live giant squid have recently been released to the public. These photos, such as the one below, were taken in September 2004. For more information, see here.

I have always loved giant monsters, so this has really made my week.

Speaking of which, the photo reminds me of the pic below, which is from the movie Space Monster Dogora.

Thanks, Debbie

2005-09-28T13:58:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

Debbie Schlussel has added The 50th Star to her blogroll. It is an honor to be in such company, as you can see Debbie's blogroll contains the cream of "conservative" websites and blogs. We'll have to work overtime here on the Islands to keep up to that level.

Ka Leo Shills For Kleptocrat Julius Nyerere

2005-09-28T13:21:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

Nyerere was the socialist leader of Tanzania from 1961, when the country received its independence, until 1985. Like most socialist "reformers" Nyerere instituted agricultural and economic policies that quickly destroyed the nation's agriculture and turned Tanzania from an exporter into a importer of food products:

Tanzania had a booming and healthy agriculture sector. As Lofchie suggests (1988: 144) Tanzania had the highest rate of increase in domestic food production for the entire African continent during the decade of the 1960's. And according to Uma Lele (1984: 161) by the end of W.W.I, subsistence peasant agriculture sector began to commercialize, export oriented corps are not only tea and coffee, but also tobacco, cotton, pyrethrum, oilseeds etc. Those corps were grown by peasants mostly and the production raised by about 3.5% from 1930's to 6% until late 1960's. However, since the beginning of the 1970's Tanzania is consistently importing food in order to meet a persistent food gap.

However, since the beginning of the 1970's Tanzania is consistently importing food in order to meet a persistent food gap. As a matter of fact, between 1973 and 74, Tanzania imported Maize, Rice and Wheat for a total of 410,200 metric tons of grain, and have produced only 58,100 metric tons.

The failure of Tanzanian socialist is an obvious fact for all, but ironically, for Julius Nyerere who was the engineer, after he announced in 1985 that he would not run for the office again, his international reputation raised even higher!

Of course the failure of socialism is obvious to all but well-fed Western Leftists, such as the writers and editors at Ka Leo, the student paper of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Here is a typically ignorant editorial masquerading as a news article, which blames Tanzania's problems on too much capitalism and foreign trade, i.e. freedom:

Survival of the fittest is the concept behind "Darwin's Nightmare," a documentary by Austrian filmmaker Hubert Sauper. In a world increasingly driven by supply and demand, Sauper uses the idea of natural, and sometimes unnatural, selection to give viewers a look at the economic food chain created by globalization.

Set in Mwanza, Tanzania, "Darwin's Nightmare" seeks to document the effects that transpired in fishing communities along Africa's Lake Victoria after a predatorial fish species, known as the Nile Perch, was introduced into the lake.

These champions of socialism are uninterested in listening to anything actual Africans have to say if it conflicts with their economic illiteracy. When June Arunga, a law student from Kenya, gave a talk at UH Hilo two weeks ago a total of six people showed up, none of them faculty. June's message was that what Africa needs most are the political and social institutions that protect private property and foster trade along with access to Western markets and capital. This is a message the academic Left doesn't want to hear, so they simply ignore June's arguments, first-hand knowledge and experiences. June Arunga may be in Hawaii this December to give a series of talks. You can count on both Ka Leo and Ka Kalahea to ignore these events.

Hat tip: Stuart.

The Diary of Otto van Eck

2005-09-28T12:46:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

The recently discovered diary of a Dutch boy who died at seventeen-years of age in 1798 should be of great interest to European social historians:

Otto's diary was found only recently in the Van Eck family archive. It had been gathering dust for more than two centuries and it was only when this bundle of papers was analysed and edited that it was realised to be an exceptional find.

Two Dutch historians, Arianne Baggerman and Rudolph Dekker, both from Erasmus University in Rotterdam, have co-authored a book entitled 'Child of the Future, the Wonderful World of Otto van Eck'. It uses the diary to reconstruct Otto's milieu and the great social and political changes taking place in the latter half of the 18th century.

For the first time children's books were being published. Using a simple language, mostly moral tales were told. The impact was enormous. Until this point a child's education was composed of reading books meant for an adult readership. And just a few years later, at the beginning of the 19th century, children's clothes were being introduced. The first was the sailor's outfit for aristocratic boys. Otto just missed out on this change - his only known portrait shows him wearing the same style clothing as his father.

Peaceful Demonstration Update

2005-09-26T14:33:00.000-10:00

Washington D.C. recruiter's office after the peaceniks past by.

Remember not to question their patriotism and dare not call interferring with recuiting during wartime treason.

Hat tip: Michelle Malkin for more pictures.

Peaceful Religion Update

2005-09-26T12:58:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

The Jihad has arrived in full force in Thailand:

BANGKOK - Suspected Islamist insurgents avoided capture after torturing to death two Thai marines by beating and stabbing the bound-and-gagged victims behind a human shield of defiant Muslim women and children, horrifying the government and plunging southern Thailand into a fresh security crisis.
Throughout the stand-off, scores of shouting Muslim women dressed in traditional headscarves stood with children, blocking troops from gaining access to the hostages, and erecting banners that blamed the authorities, including one in Thai that read: "You are in fact the terrorists." [Did they get these signs from International Answer?]

This outrage in an example of the international nature of Islamic Jihad and the fact that is encourages treason. Legal scholar Henry Mark Holzer elaborates on the Constitutional definition of treason and its historic application:

That being so, it is important to understand something else very important about the crime of treason.

First, because treason is the only crime defined in the Constitution, conduct constituting that crime should be taken seriously—and other than by prosecuting, there is no other way to do that.

Second, it is very much the purpose and function of the law, in certain circumstances, to make moral statements, as do many of our statutes and common law doctrines. Criminal laws punishing everything from homicide to shoplifting come to mind, as do civil laws providing recompense for everything from breached contracts to intentional infliction of emotional distress. Indeed, underlying the award of punitive damages is the punishment of civil wrongdoers—certainly a moral statement.

Third, an important aspect of prosecuting (and, even better, convicting) someone, say Jane Fonda, for treason, is to provide vindication for those who have suffered from the treasonous acts. Although the purpose of the criminal law is often thought to vindicate “society,” that in reality is nothing more than lots of individuals. “Society” did not have its morale weakened by the broadcasts of Axis Sally and Tokyo Rose. “Society” did not endure the torture of the North Vietnam Communists. Individuals did—and it is they who must be vindicated. Indeed, even today countless veterans feel that their government let them down by never prosecuting Fonda and her cohorts who gave aid and comfort to the enemy during the Vietnam War. They suffered, and she walked—and prospered! And that is not right.

Hat tip: Steve.

Mark Steyn Gets It Wrong

2005-09-25T16:00:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

Steyn states in his latest column:

To be sure, they have many institutional advantages: If you watch the TV news, you'd still think Cindy Sheehan was an emblematic bereaved army mom, rather than a pitiful crackpot calling for Bush to pull his troops out of "occupied New Orleans." Her Million-Moan March washed up in Washington on Thursday to besiege the White House. As the Associated Press put it, "Sheehan, Supporters Descend On The Capital." There were 29 supporters. Can two-and-a-half dozen people "descend" on any capital city bigger than the South Sandwich Islands'? Surely her media boosters were cringing with embarrassment at their own impotence. Since its star columnist Maureen Dowd got the hots for Mrs. Sheehan's "moral authority," the New York Times has run some 70 stories on Cindy -- and every story they ran attracted another 0.4142857 of a supporter to her march on the capital.

I have to take exception to that remark. Even our peace-kooks here on the southernmost of the Sandwich Islands can get a bigger group together than Mother Sheehan.

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Revolution Books In Washington D.C.

2005-09-25T15:34:00.000-10:00

The Maoists from Revolution Books at the "anti-war" demonstration in Washington D.C.

Revolution Books is a favorite of the University of Hawaii at Manoa's English, Women Studies and Hawaiian Studies departments. I use sneer quotes for "anti-war" because if these genocide enablers have their way the killing fields of Kurdistan will be re-opened, but with new management.

Tom Campbell: Still Appeasing After All These Years

2005-09-25T12:29:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

Debbie Schlussel has spilled the beans about California Director of Finance, Republican Tom Campbell. Campbell had been invited to speak before the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) on Monday September 26th. Thanks to Schlussel’s efforts, Tom Campbell has now been uninvited. Why this dramatic act of disapproval of a Republican office holder by the RJC?

The answer is simple, Campbell’s long history of cozying up with the Jihadi enemies of Western Civilization, including the enemies of that beleaguered outpost of freedom in the Mid-East Israel:

But even though most of this was known--FBI, Customs, and INS raids produced documents of public record establishing this--Tom Campbell remained an outspoken supporter of Messrs. Al-Arian and Al-Najjar.

When Al-Arian was fired from the University of South Florida, from which he ran his terrorist network, Campbell wrote a letter of support praising Al-Arian and asking the University president to reconsider her decision. In the letter, Campbell noted that Al-Arian helped him raise money for his failed U.S. Senate bid. [Campbell was defeated by Sonny Bono. Heh.]

That raises questions regarding the sources of funds for Campbell's various runs for federal office. His donors have included Nihad Awad, executive director of the anti-Israel Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which was founded with laundered seed money from the personal bank account of HAMAS political director Moussa Abu Marzook (who is under indictment).

Suhail Khan held several key positions for Campbell, including Press Secretary and Policy Director.

But Khan is an Islamist who invited terror supporters and anti-Semites to the Bush White House (where he once worked) and whose father brought Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri into the United States to raise money for Al-Qaeda. His father, Mahboob Khan, late founder and head of the Santa Clara Mosque [In Campbell’s old congressional district], brought Zawahiri into the U.S. twice on a fake passport in the mid-'90s to raise money for Al-Qaeda.

None of this is any surprise to me. In the late 1980s and early 1990s I lived in Campbell’s congressional district of Santa Clara County. Even at the time it was obvious to me that Campbell was basing his entire academic and political career on the appeasement of the enemies of genuine liberalism.

With California business interests Campbell has carefully crafted a reputation as a free-market oriented economist from the University of Chicago. Here is an interesting piece by the San Francisco Gate on Campbell’s career:

Campbell is the son of a Democratic ally of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who was named a federal judge by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940. The son strayed across the party boundary line while a student at Chicago -- his mentor was Milton Friedman -- but his is a complex political weave: fiscally conservative but very much a friend of women, minorities and the environment.

This is far from the whole story on “Campbellesque” appeasement. Some of us can remember that the early 1990s was a period of much agitation to “fix” the American health care system. On 11 August 1990, I attended a “town meeting” hosted by Congressman Tom Campbell in Cupertino. The panel consisted of four members and was shamelessly loaded in favor of socialized medicine. Two of the panelists were health care practitioners who told the audience to eat their vegetables.

The other two panelists were Mary Ann O’Sullivan then executive director of Health Access which favored state control of the medical profession and Stanford University economist Alain Enthoven who was peddling his Rube Goldberg construct called “managed care.” Campbell was clearly in favor of Enthoven’s scheme of state management over the entire health care industry of the country, another name for this is fascism.

Campbell’s hostility to individual rights is also in evidence in the campaign donations he has received from the gun grabbers at Handgun Control, Inc. At another town meeting I remember Campbell joking about his support from the “NRA…the National Restaurateurs Association...chuckle…titter…titter….” Of course the likes of Campbell find the disarming of a free people as an opportunity for levity.

The reasons for Campbell’s position on these issues go beyond simply pandering for leftwing Bay Area votes. At the health care forum Enthoven was asked if the taxpayers owe expensive state-of-the-art medical care to those who refuse to take care of themselves and therefore ruin their health. Enthoven’s answer was very illuminating. He said “yes” you are your bother’s keeper and therefore the rest of us “owe” the wastrel our life, liberty and property.

If one needs yet further proof of the incompatibility of altruism and capitalism in the same system of thought or in “practical” politics, the lifetime of appeasement by Tom Campbell should be instructive.

The San Francisco Gate article on Campbell written two years ago when Campbell became dean of the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley reveals the moral underpinnings that animate a lifetime of appeasement.

That Campbells’s moral philosophy is in opposition to the foundation of capitalism which is individual rights, including property rights, seems beyond the country club Republican mentality to grasp:

In May, in a commencement address to Haas graduates in economics, Campbell read a long passage from John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath," which concludes, "And in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage."

"That's the most important thing I learned when I studied economics," Campbell said of the inequities in Steinbeck's world.

This quote from Campbell also alludes to another reason for his appeasement of socialism: his contempt for the people. Some of those who are to the manor born secretly fear the mob. If the “inequities” of capitalism are not dealt with by state coercion then the rabble may give in to their “growing wrath” and start burning and looting. It’s better to just pay them off with “health care” and bigger welfare checks (while taking away their guns) than to ever risk that.

Here is a statement by Campbell which clearly demonstrates that his personal philosophy is antithetical to a genuinely free society:

“We met some very remarkable people in Ethiopia, and they didn't have anything, materialistically," said Campbell. "They had a world view, however, that was refined and inspiring. The lesson from that is: take care of people who are in need. I wish I could do more. I wish I did do more. Recognize the worth of every person. Don't focus on wealth as measured in possessions."

With defenders such as this capitalism doesn’t need enemies. While denigrating the culture of Western capitalism as “materialistically,” Campbell champions the backward tribalism of Ethiopia and its results of mass poverty and death as “refined and inspiring.” The American system inspired by John Locke upholding the Rights of Man just don’t compare to a Bronze Age society where they allegedly “take care of people who are in need.” They will have lots to do in that regard, unless and until the Ethiopians adopt policies that will facilitate wealth creation, i.e. capitalism. But they won’t get that needed message from craven appeasers like Campbell who travel thousands of miles to third-world hellholes only to insult the culture that has made better alternatives possible.

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French Troops Support Overthrow of Pacific Island Monarch

2005-09-25T08:12:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

According to the Head Heeb, the small Pacific island kingdom of Wallis Island is schedule to crown a new king today, September 25th. The old king's supporters therefore took over the airport and French troops have been called in. There are no reports of the international Left screaming about French Imperialism:

Reports from Wallis island say French police have wrested back control of the international airport back from a group of militants who support the King.
The protesters had placed trucks and dumped earth on the airstrip at Hihifo, in an attempt to stop France from sending further riot squad reinforcements from New Caledonia.
The supporters of the King have been protesting against the decision by a group of local chiefs to crown a new monarch, tomorrow.
French police have negotiated the handover of the airport, but debris on the runway is yet to be cleared.

Hat tip: Patrick.

A Hawk Supports a U.S. Pullout from Iraq

2005-09-25T03:45:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

I disagree with what practically every political commentator -- from every position on the political spectrum -- has been saying about the situation in Iraq. The Republicans have made some good points in their assessments of the situation, but some bad ones, too. The same goes for Democrats. On this subject, I don't fully agree with the conservatives, the liberals, the moderates, or the libertarians.

I believe it is time that the United States military set forth plans to withdraw from Iraq, though I do not advocate this for the same reasons that the Left or the Libertarian Party do.

Furthermore, I want to emphasize that my opinion that the U.S. should withdraw from Iraq does not conflict with my earlier statement that there is nothing inherently evil about an all-volunteer army "forcing" a free, liberal-republican government system onto a foreign dictatorship even if the majority of the dictatorship's subjects disapprove of their new liberation and liberalism.

"Liberalism," in this context, does not refer to the "big-government" welfare state of Al Gore, but to the classical concept of a John Lockean government limited to protecting the life and private property from the initiation of physical force.

The argument for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq conventionally used by libertarians and the Radical Left is that it is evil for the "U.$. Empire" to unilaterally "force freedom" onto a substantially less-free country. Libertarian disciples of the late economist Murray N. Rothbard maintain that it is unconditionally evil for the United States government to ever wage war -- period.

Radical leftists often contend that a capitalist or mostly-capitalist liberal republican system isn't necessarily better than any other type of State, and for Americans to impose laws codifying private property onto Eastern peoples is itself an evil kind of subjugation.

Both the libertarian and leftwing argument take it for granted that, for the U.S. military to influence Iraq into adopting a government similar to America's, is to practice a sinister form of imperialism.

After hearing all of their qualms about such "imperialism," I remain glad that Abraham Lincoln "forced freedom" on the Confederate States of America. I am sorry that his army used conscripts; I'm not sorry that the denizens of the South eventually had to live under the freer Union whether they liked it or not.

And so my complaint about the Bush administration is not that it has foisted an Americanistic legal system upon Iraq, but that it really hasn't.

What has done more to establish freedom in America than suffrage among all of its adult citizens is the fact that the Bill of Rights limits the power of government to abrogate the rights of minorities -- even if the majority of voters want to run roughshod on a minority's rights. For example, if the majority of U.S. voters elected someone to office because he promised to pass a law against being a Hindu, then the First Amendment prevents that. The message the Bill of Rights sends to the majority is, Majority of approval of some law is not sufficient grounds for such a law existing. As long as an individual is not initiating force on the life or private property of anyone else while partaking in some form of speech or religious worship, government officials and voting majorities have no legal authority to stop him.

The Iraqi Constitution doesn't make it all that clear that individual rights -- such as the rights to free expression, free thought, private property, rule of law, and due process -- will be protecting from government officials who have either be elected or appointed by those who have been elected.

For example, the Iraqi constitution says,

Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation: (a) No law can be passed that contradicts the fixed principles of Islam;...

According to Rudolph J. Rummel,

There is a Supreme Federal Court that is an "independent judicial body, financially and administratively, [and] its work and its duties will be defined by law." It will consist of "judges and experts in Sharia (Islamic Law) and law, whose number and manner of selection will be defined by a law that should be passed by two-thirds of the parliament members" [emphasis added].

Yet Iraq's Constitution also says,

Article (14): Iraqis are equal before the law without discrimination because of sex, ethnicity, nationality, origin, color, religion, sect, belief, opinion or social or economic status [emphasis added --S.H.]

[Article (35)] 2nd -- The state is committed to protecting the individual from coercion in thought, religion or politics, and no one may be imprisoned on these bases.

What is this supposed to mean? It's self-contradictory. If no one should be discriminated against on the basis of religion, then why is Islam the official religion and why is it unconstitutional for a law to contradict Islam? And this raises another question, "What and whose interpretation of Islam are we talking about here?" The very existence of the new Iraqi government contradicts Osama bin Laden's interpretation of Islam; it also contradicts Islam in the minds of hordes of street protestors in Pakistan, Indonesia, and the Arab street.

The U.S. Constitution establishes no official national religion, and that doesn't stop the majority of citizens from declaring themselves Christian. That the Iraqi Constitution both stipulates that no Iraqi law may conflict with Islam and that the government may not discriminate against non-Muslims will cause problems for the country down the road. A potential political degernation into theocracy would find less encouragement within the Iraqi system if there were no state-endorsed creed.

There are other problematic sections:

Article (17):1st -- Each person has the right to personal privacy as long as it does not violate the rights of others or general morality. [ . . . ]

Article (36): The state guarantees, as long as it does not violate public order and morality: 1st -- the freedom of expressing opinion by all means. 2nd -- the freedom of press, publishing, media and distribution. 3rd -- freedom of assembly and peaceful protest will be organized by law. [ . . . ]

According to the Iraqi Constitution, an Iraqi only has the right to privacy or free speech if it does not contradict the "general morality" -- an incredibly vague term.

Before American conservatives laud this any more, there should be some clarification of what is meant by "general morality." Does "general morality" refer to irreligious behaviors that do not necessarily inflict force on nonconsenting parties? For example, would usury be considered a violation of the "general morality" and therefore subject to legal penalties? What about sexual acts between lesbians? What about usury, which is considered a sin in Islam and which is a practice publicly denounced by Osama bin Laden himself?

Now, despite all of the flaws in this constitution, the government Iraq has today quite obviously has a record of humane governing far superior to that of the "butcher of Bagdhad," Saddam Hussein. However, after all the Iraqis have been through, they really a deserve a constitution that better safeguards civil liberties. This constitution will create a Third-World theocracy at worst and something of a mediocre, illiberal democracy with a low GDP at best.

It is not that the Bush administration has made too much of an effort to shove its legal system down the throat of Iraq, but that it has done too little. It sat idly by as some needlessly illiberal planks were inserted into the country's most signficant legal document.

If the Bush administration were interested in keeping U.S. officials in Iraq for the purpose of steering the elected Iraqi officials into drafting a highly liberal Constitution similar to that of America's -- which is what Gen. Douglas MacArthur did in Japan following World War Two -- then I could see some reason for a continued U.S. presence in Iraq. But since the Bush administration is not doing that, I don't see much benefit in having the U.S. troops stay there.

Saddam Hussein has already been arrested, the U.S. troops have already recaptured Fallujah from the insurgents, and the Iraqi election already commenced. Much of what needed to be done has already been done.

It is often said that if the U.S. military pulls out of Iraq, then that will give the insurgents an opportunity to rise up again. But, to me, that is actually an argument for scheduling a timeline for U.S. withdrawal.

The fact of the matter is that there will always be a threat of a violent uprising in that country (in almost any country, really). It does not follow that, because an uprising could always form in Iraq, that the U.S. military must always be there. Instead, the U.S. should give the Iraqi government a firm timeline of gradual U.S. withdrawal. That way, the Iraqi government will have time to prepare for an eventual U.S. withdrawal and it will schedule its own affairs accordingly. By the day that most of the U.S. troops pull out of the country, the Iraqi military should already be fully-trained and self-sufficient After the U.S. pulls out, putting down any new insurgencies that develop should be the responsibility of the Iraqi government.

If, on the other hand, the U.S. provides no timeline for withdrawal from Iraq, then that gives the Iraqi government less of an incentive to hurry up and develop its own army and police forces. The less definite the date of U.S. withdrawal is, the more the Iraqis are led to believe that the United States will be always be there to bail them out. A timeline for U.S. withdrawal still allows U.S. forces to assist the Iraqis, but it also pushes the Iraqi government to work on developing self-sufficiency so that it can eventually defeat insurgents on its own.

And, for the record, my primary reason for supporting a declaration of war by the United States against Saddam Hussein in the first place was that I believed that Hussein had a nuclear weapons program in development. I don't find anything wrong with volunteer soldiers "forcing freedom" upon tyrannies by overthrowing their rulers, but I am not a "Wilsonian" who believes it is the duty of the United States to sacrifice its own soldiers by going around liberating countries without regard to whether their despots pose a national security threat to America.

The U.S. military's sole purpose is to defend the homeland from foreign attack; it has a right to employ volunters in overthrowing dictators, but not a duty to. Thus, the U.S. Army is not obligated to fix up Iraq; less of its resources should be directed toward rebuilding Iraq and more should be put toward building a defense against other rogue states, like Iran.

I have explained why I do favor a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. At a future date, I may wish to rebut a popular criticism that conservatives like Lawrence Auster have made of the entire U.S. effort in Iraq.

Jodie Foster Defends Nazi Film-Maker Leni Riefenstahl

2005-09-23T10:17:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

Isn't this special, Jodie Foster is pressing ahead with her biopic of Leni Rienfenstahl, the Nazi propagandist most famous for her film The Triumph of the Will, which glorified Hitler and Nazism. This film was the blockbuster of 1934, just look at the all-star cast--the gang's all here.

Credited cast:

Adolf Hitler.... Himself (lauded by Hess, Physical Labour speech to RAD, Behind Us Comes Germany speech to HJ, We Created Our State speech, Black Shadow speech to SA, reviews parade, Two Principles speech to Party)

rest of cast listed alphabetically:

Martin Bormann.... Himself (sits on Hitler's left, at HJ rally, enters hall behind Hess, sits behind Streicher)

Sepp Dietrich.... Himself (Commander of the SS-Leibstandarten)

Hans Frank....Himself (speech)

Josef Goebbels....Himself (arrives by plane with Hitler, Bright Flame speech, at HJ rally, views RAD parade, listens to Hitler)

Hermann Göring....Himself (listens to Hess, reviews Army, parades in SA uniform then joins Hitler, listens to Hitler, stands and nods agreement)

Rudolf Hess.... Himself (opens Congress, You Are Germany speech, at HJ rally, reviews parade, sits on Hitler's right, introduces Hitler, listens to Hitler, Hitler Is Germany speech)

Reinhard Heydrich.... Himself (views SS parade with other officers by Hitler's car)

Heinrich Himmler.... Himself (walks to flame with Hitler and Lutze, leads SS at SA rally, leads SS parade then joins Hitler, sits beside Lutze, listens to Hitler)

Robert Ley.... Himself (reviews DAF with Hitler, Single Thought speech, salutes SA parade, listens to Hitler with Schwarz)

Erich Raeder.... Himself (listens to Hess, salutes SA parade when Göring sighted)

Alfred Rosenberg....Himself (Unshakeable Belief speech)

Julius Streicher....Himself (stands with Hitler, Purity Of Race speech, sits on Hitler's left near podium, nods in agreement with Hitler)

Gerd von Rundstedt.... Himself (behind Raeder as he salutes, views Army parade with officers) (unconfirmed)

The Hollywood Left is able to locate Nazis under every Republican bed, however when it comes to the real thing the trendy America-Haters lose their moral outrage. As Foster states:

In an interview in the latest issue of Premiere magazine (September 2005), Ms. Foster was asked: "For years, you've been planning a biopic about Leni Riefenstahl, who directed the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will and who died two years ago. Are you still going to make it?"

Foster replied: "Yeah, we're still working on the script, and I'm still going to play her. I met her a couple of times...She wrote a biography that's almost all lies, but it's interesting. I wanted her archives, but I didn't want her involvement (in the film) -- and that's something she really wanted, because she'd been libeled so many times. She was not a member of the Nazi Party, and she was not Hitler's girlfriend--that's just stupid. But she's a complex morality tale."

The Institute of Holocaust Studies doesn't think there is much "complexity" involved in shilling for Hitler:

A leading Holocaust research institute has criticized actress Jodie Foster for her comments defending Nazi propaganda filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, whom Foster intends to play in an upcoming film.

Foster said in a just-released interview that Riefenstahl has been "libeled so many times" by people accusing her of membership in the Nazi Party or of having a romance with Adolf Hitler.

But according to Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies: "It's irrelevant if Leni Riefenstahl wasn't a member of the Nazi Party or wasn't Hitler's girlfriend. She was the leading artist making propaganda for the most evil regime in human history. Instead of defending Riefenstahl as an alleged victim of 'libel', Jodie Foster should frankly confront the reality that Riefenstahl is an example of how art can be perverted to promote fascism, racism, and genocide. Sadly, it appears from Ms. Foster's statements that her intention is to defend Riefenstahl."

Question: When is a Nazi not a Nazi? A: When he/she is a great film director, such as Ingmar Berman. This article was not news for many of us who follow film news and film history:

Legendary Swedish director Ingmar Bergman has revealed that he was a great admirer of Adolf Hitler, only losing his enthusiasm for Nazism after the horrors of the concentration camps were uncovered.

The young Bergman was on an exchange trip to Germany in 1936, staying with a Nazi family when he saw Hitler speak.

"Hitler was unbelievably charismatic. He electrified the crowd," said the Oscar-nominated film-maker. Bergman describes his father as being ultra right-wing and his politics rubbed off on the whole family. "The Nazism I had seen seemed fun and youthful," he admitted to the author. "The big threat were the Bolsheviks, who were hated."

Of course, Bergman is being disingenuous here. Both his father and uncle were leaders of the Swedish Nazi Party. Also, by some accounts, it wasn't until the 1950s that Berman came to the conclusion that Hitler may not have been a very nice person.

Hat tip: Debbie Schlussel.

Update, 9/24: Jodie Foster also starred in the 1997 snooze-fest Contact, based on the novel by Carl Sagan. The movie says much more about Hollywood’s view of America than the human condition. In the America of Contact, the American people are portrayed as a bunch of illiterate buffoons or religious fanatics. This movie features a suicide bomber intent on blowing up the alien transport thingy. Needless to say, this terrorist is a Christian. The U.S. government fairs no better in this flick; the Clinton administration is made up of paranoid fools (No, Janet Waco does not have an appearance). Fortunately for America, there is a small band of self-described “truth-seekers” who do understand the benign intent of the aliens (Jodie’s dad as it turns out). In other words, this movie is a heavy handed, and philosophically shallow, attempt to deal the issue of reason versus faith.

I won’t go into detail on why this movie is bad science fiction, but it is.

Will Wonders Ever Cease?

2005-09-21T18:10:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

After all the ink that has been spilled over the Hawaii Gas Cap our local media has discovered that the University of Hawaii employs economists. In the articles on the Gas Cap by the local media which I have read, the newshawks have managed to interview everybody but economists. For example, today the UH Manoa paper posted this article which quotes two students and the governor. The editors of Ke Leo dare not talk to the economists on campus as those who are professionally competent will be some variety of the "neo-classic" school.

Imagine my surprise when I read the front page article in today's Hilo Tribune-Herald which actually quotes someone with a clue. This someone being David Hammes of the UH Hilo economics department:

"I just think it's not a very good idea," said David Hammes, a University of Hawaii at Hilo economics professor, of the gas cap. Consumers might come out ahead one week and oil companies the next, but in the long run nobody benefits, Hammes said. "In economics, we've got a concept, which is called a deadweight loss, and even if there will be some winners -- and it's hard to say who it would be -- society as a whole will be losers," he said.

Big Island drivers are learning what happens when the state Legislature interferes with the free market, in which the prices are set by varying factors of supply and demand, he said.

While at the bank Tuesday, Hammes overheard the situation with the Shell and Tesoro stations, and he expected a few of the gas stations to run out of fuel by the end of the week. Hammes predicted that during weeks of lowered prices, people might even begin filling containers and 55-gallon barrels with gasoline, and storing them in their homes until the Public Utilities Commission raises the gas cap.

Hammes agreed with the Legislature's intent [then he is too kind regarding the state's ruling kleptocrats], but not its result. He wondered whether lawmakers would next put a price cap on a journalist's wages, or an economist's salary.

UH Manoa's Poly Sci Department Has New Requirements for its Grad Students

2005-09-19T13:15:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

An interesting e-mail from the UHM Poly Sci department regarding grad students:

Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2005 08:54:04 -1000 (HST)

From: That Would Be Telling

Subject: New graduate program expectations (fwd)

To: polisci-l@HAWAII.EDU

From: Nevzat Soguk, Graduate Chair; Jon Goldberg-Hiller, Chair

Second, all graduate students will now be asked to write an annual self-evaluation of progress. These statements will contribute to the evaluations of graduate students made by the faculty early in 2006. Students should prepare and submit to Nevi a 1200-1800 word self-evaluation byJanuary 15, 2006.

I wasn't aware that "self-criticism" was still in vogue amongst the Comrades.

Jova's Coming

2005-09-19T09:40:00.000-10:00

I live on the triangular shaped island at 20 degrees north, and on the east coast too. Fortunately the Island of Hawaii is a high island with two mountains, actually somewhat dormant volcanoes, which reach nearly fourteen thousand feet above sea level. These tall mountains are excellent hurricane repellent. But, I'm going to do some extra reading anyways.

Details on Jova are here.

.

Making the Grade in a Politically Correct University

2005-09-18T15:49:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

This was sent to me anonymously. I think it was written by someone associated with the University of Hawaii at Hilo in some way:

1) Never write the word “American” unless followed by the word “imperialism” or “genocide”. For extra credit spell it with a “k”.

2) The word “Iraq” must always be followed by “disaster” or “quagmire.” Try to remember--when al-Qaeda bombs Iraqi children it is an act of liberation. When a handful of American soldiers make terrorists pose for sex pics at Abu Ghraib it is an unspeakable atrocity. Avoid discussing the 8 million Iraqis who voted on January 30 and the millions more voting on October 15. And especially don’t say that our troops are the ones who are trying to stop the bombing of Iraq. That could cost you an entire grade point. Also don’t wear your Club Gitmo shirt to class.

3) Bush lied, but Clinton told the truth, even though they both said Saddam had WMDs

4) Racism is bad, unless it is against Jews.

5) It helps to describe anyone to the right of Stuart Smalley as a racist, a sexist or a homophobe for no particular reason. (Extra points for all three.)

6) Always say America was founded on slavery. Never mention that it was the Democrat Party which led the way.

7) Remember--“stare decisis” matters on Roe v Wade but is irrelevant to gay marriage and the Pledge of Allegiance.

8) Nobody is responsible for anything except George Bush-- he is responsible for everything.

9) Always talk about the creationist conspiracy to take over the schools. Lefties see creationists under every bed.

10) Genetically modified plants are bad. Genetically modified humans are good.

11) Corporations are destroying the world. Extra points if you write this on your Apple laptop, email it using Microsoft Outlook, give a class presentation on it using Power Point, wearing Nikes and Levis.

12) Socialism will work this time for sure. Remember to avoid mentioning the 100 million people killed by socialist governments since 1917.

13) Bush is a fascist and the USA is a police state. Ignore the fact that you are saying this openly in the “fascist police state USA” without being arrested and hauled off to a concentration camp.

14) The public schools are a disaster, but they can be fixed if only we give more money to the folks who created the disaster.

15) Alternative energy is wonderful--unless it is geothermal in Puna or windmills anywhere they can be seen by rich liberals. For an entire grade point show your Prof a photo of you carrying a sign reading, “Dump no CO2” at an anti-nuclear power demonstration. Remember this is not ironic humor.

16) Republicans are dangerous war mongers, pretend that Reagan didn’t end the Soviet Union without starting WW3. [Be careful: your Marxist professor is probably still very upset about the "noble experiment's" demise.]

17) Rich white men are the enemy--except John Kerry, Ted Turner, George Soros, and Michael Moore.

18) Its not the Fonda News Network.

19) Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy are feminists; even if you wouldn’t let your daughter go anywhere near either one of them.

20) Liberals are standing up for the little guy. If the average Joe wasn’t so stupid he could see that.

21) Say “sustainable” and “holistic” a lot even though nobody knows what they mean.

22) Avoid these phrases: “America is the greatest force for human progress in the world today” or “American pacifism is the most violent ideology in the entire history of the human race.”

23) When in doubt copy this handy text which will add points to any paper:

“Multicultural education is a progressive approach for transforming education that holistically critiques and addresses current shortcomings, failings and discriminatory practices in education. In today’s classrooms, you can expect diversity. To maximize successful learning, we need to understand each individual student and we must be sensitive to the cultural, community and family values that can have an impact on a student’s educational experience. Different types of diversity exist within classroom settings. It is important to recognize and celebrate each one. The best way to deal with diversity is to accept it and provide the best experience possible to all students. I hope this has given insight and thought about the importance of multicultural education in our schools.”

If political correctness is causing you stress, distribute this to your
classmates so you can look at each other and secretly laugh at your Prof.

The Kaos Guy Provides Needed Relief

2005-09-18T08:57:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

At Kaoticism there is posted a first-class rant directed at singer and celebrity airhead Celine Dion. Dion has been spewing some extra-stupid nonsense about Katrina rescue efforts and is therefore an excellent foil representing all celebrity fools. Kaoticism takes her, and by extension the others, to the woodshed. Kaoticism even uses big words that the Hollywood crowd is unfamiliar with such as "logistics," ouch. Warning: Salty language.

.

The Akaka Bill: Perpetuating an Inglorious History

2005-09-16T16:31:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

This article from The Economist on the Akaka Bill quotes Rubellite Kawena Kinney Johnson:

Would this sort of thing foster harmony between native and non-native Hawaiians, as the bill's sponsors suggest? “The opposite is more likely,” says Rubellite Kawena Kinney Johnson, a local academic and prominent native opponent of the bill. “Different laws for different races” is a system with an inglorious history.

Thanks to Stuart.

OHA's Welfare Empire

2005-09-14T08:42:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

Andrew Walden has a must read article at Hawaii Reporter. Andrew discusses how the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) keeps many Hawaiians in a state of poverty and dependence:

OHA stands at the head of dependency-creating social programs which underminine Hawaiian culture and the Hawaiian people while speaking in their name. These programs do not alleviate poverty -- they maintain it.

Moreover OHA's Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. is at the core of assaults on property rights ranging from the PASH decision to the Hokulia fight to attempts at extorting royalties from biotech researchers and astronomers. These threaten to undermine the prosperity of all Hawaii residents.

Andrew also notes one action that could instantly lift many Hawaiians from poverty and serfdom. Therefore, this is the one policy OHA will never, ever pursue:

It would also require that Hawaiian Homelands lands be distributed fee simple to Hawaiians so that they may prosper from the increasing value of their real assets. That alone would make millionaires of many Hawaiians. Such a step would seem like an obvious solution to poverty on Hawaiian Homelands.

Instead the state of Hawaii is increasing OHA's power by expanding their feudal empire:

Hawai'i's last large intact rain forest, a 25,856-acre forest in Puna valued by Native Hawaiians for its ecological and cultural significance, soon could be in the possession of the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs and protected from development.

The purchase would mark the end of a decades-old dispute involving Campbell, the state and Native Hawaiian groups, a dispute that led to protests and arrests in the late 1980s, when the rain forest was being eyed for development of geothermal energy. The tract is about three miles southeast of Pahoa High School on the Big Island.

Of course, OHA and its minions consider development and private property the enemy. Remember that next time an OHA Trustee starts ranting about poverty. OHA's methods and motives are made clear in the Honolulu Advertiser's article:

In 1996, a state Circuit Court issued a landmark ruling — in favor of the Pele Defense Fund and against Campbell — that said Native Hawaiians can establish traditional rights of access to private property for traditional hunting, plant-gathering and subsistence purposes.
Wells drilled at Wao Kele are expected to be plugged. According to a DLNR staff report, the DLNR and OHA will share management responsibilities initially but OHA would eventually have sole responsibility. OHA intends to transfer the site to a federally recognized Hawaiian entity at some point.

Hilo College Republicans Have A Great Speaker Scheduled

2005-09-13T17:00:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

June Arunga will be speaking by videoconference Thursday 9-15 at 1pm in room 350 of the UHH Library.

June is from Kenya and has witnessed firsthand the effects of corruption and socialism. She is a dynamic speaker who you will not forget:

Growing up in the Kenyan middle class, I watched as the standard of living in my household and that of my friends drastically declined in the span of 20 years even though my mother (the bread winner in the family) invested in two houses, was promoted at work and got raises in her salary.
Who is going to be the voice of freedom, which will introduce and promote and defend the role of free markets to high school and University students in Kenya? I hope to create an organization for young Kenyans that will help them understand the power that freedom has to improve opportunities for all Kenyans.

Ka Leo's "Liberal" View of Free Speech

2005-09-13T09:04:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

The University of Hawaii at Manoa's student paper, Ka Leo, has reprinted this editorial from the Daily Forty-Niner of Cal State Long Beach. The editorial defends the firing of Michael Graham by WMAL radio for his comments about Islam. Graham said on air: “Sadly, Islam has become a terrorist organization ... Moderate Muslims are those who only want to kill Jews.” Immediately after the airing of these views on air, the thought police of the "public's" airwaves sprung into action:

Luckily, groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations work to insure that people like Graham are not given a forum to create more hate and prejudice.

What the writer neglects to mention is CAIRs extremist views. The writer is correct in stating that as a private business the station is within its rights to fire Graham. What is interesting is the writer's, and Ka Leo's, very narrow definition of what is acceptable "dissent." While criminal trespass by an angry minority to enforce its political views on campus, and disrupt national security, is OK, "offensive" speech is not. As the editorial states the limits of dissent from the "right:"

People abuse freedom of speech, using it as a license to speak offensively or behave in ways that infringe upon other peoples’ rights. For example, take conservative talk show host Michael Graham’s statements last month...

Graham’s association of all Muslims with terrorists would be as erroneous as associating all Christians with the beliefs and practices of Quakers or Mormons...[Quakers and Mormons are terrorists?]

Graham should have known that making such extreme and blatantly false statements would have major repercussions. ["False" statements according to some should not be publicly debated.]

If he were allowed to continue, his ignorant statements might have influenced those who listen to his radio station.

Of course, the editorial includes the obligatory "Religion of Peace" mantra:

The Quran preaches the importance being kind and generous to others. People have interpreted the Quran to make it coincide with their own beliefs.

Some of the passages in the Koran being interpreted, can be found here:

2:191, And slay them wherever ye catch them.

4:84, Then fight in Allah’s cause.

4:141, And never will Allah grant to the unbelievers a way (to triumph) over the believers.

5:33, The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter.

8:12, I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them.

One must be in deep denial to dispute the fact that the world is experiencing a large upsurge of Moslem fundamentalism and therefore, Jihad.

Another strange view put forth in the editorial is that belief systems have "rights" which require the rest of us to refrain from making "offensive" statements. Of course, in this regard some beliefs are more equal than others.

Hat tip: Andrew Walden

Lincoln, Bush, Torture and Special Pleading In History

2005-09-12T11:30:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

James Ross's article "Bush, Torture and Lincoln's Legacy" published in the August issue of America Magazine has been making the rounds on the internet. Human Rights Watch has reposted it, along with BBS News and Amnesty International's blog links to it. So I must assume that Ross's essay is of some significance within "human rights" circles.

This essay is about the Bush administration's alleged abandonment of the Geneva Convention and the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. With references to the "torture memos" and "unlawful practices," there is not much new here. What is of interest to me is that Ross invokes Abraham Lincoln as a contrast to the Bush Administration's treatment of prisoners:

Surprisingly little attention has been paid to President Bush's -- and everyone else's -- most admired president, Abraham Lincoln, on the laws of war. Despite the grave threat the Civil War posed to the nation, Lincoln recognized the value of broadly recognized rules of war that promote restraint and humanistic principles.

Ross notes that in order to codify the legal issues resulting from the Civil War, and the large number of Union prisoners both Confederate military and civilians from North and South, Lincoln turned to legal Scholar Francis Lieber of Columbia College. The result of Lieber's work was Lincoln's promulgation of General Orders 100, "Instructions for the Government of the Armies of the United States in the Field" on April 24, 1863. Ross quotes Article 16 of what became called the Lieber Code:

Military necessity does not admit of cruelty--that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions.

This does not mean, of course, that these Articles where followed either in the field, in Union prisons or in areas experiencing guerrilla warfare such as Missouri. For example, the famous response to William Quantrill's murderous raid upon Lawrence, Kansas was General Order 11 issued on August 25, 1863. This order was the most extreme example of "total war" during the Civil War:

Issued August 25, 1863, by Brigadier General Thomas Ewing, Jr., commander of the District of the Border, with headquarters at Kansas City, Order No. 11 required all the inhabitants of the Western Missouri counties of Jackson, Cass, and Bates not living within one mile of specified military posts to vacate their homes by September 9. Those who by that date established their loyalty to the United States government with the commanding officer of the military station nearest their place of residence would be permitted to remove to any military station in the District of the Border or to any part of Kansas except the counties on the eastern border of that state. Persons failing to establish their loyalty were to move out of the district completely or be subject to military punishment.

In a letter to General John Schofield commanding in Missouri, Lincoln wrote "I am not now interfering, but am leaving to your own discretion." As has been noted, Abraham Lincoln was not a constitutional scholar. In cases of military, political or practical necessity he could be quite ruthless in suppressing the rebellion.

On the relative conditions of present day prisons at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and those in Afghanistan compared to Union prisons such as Elmira, I don't think much elaboration is required.

Last year when the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal erupted, endlessly, on the front pages several leftists chimed in by invoking Lincoln. Michael Berube titled an entry on his blog "Once the party of Lincoln, now the party of torture." A Nation Magazine article ended "Kim Scheppele, a University of Pennsylvania law professor, argues that the Bush Administration has turned Abraham Lincoln on his head."

In the context of Lincoln, the Lieber Code and Abu Ghraib Ross writes:

George W. Bush has a long way to go before he can claim Abraham Lincoln's legacy to a humane articulation of the laws of war. It is a legacy that has long served the interests of the United States and for which Americans can genuinely be proud. It is a legacy that with each feckless Pentagon investigation and half-hearted war crimes prosecution becomes forever imperiled. [Emphasis added]

There is a difference between articulating a policy and carrying it out. Ross uses this strange qualifier because, unlike the Nation and Michael Berube, he has actually studied this subject.

In 1991 Mark E. Neely published his landmark work The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties. In it there is an interesting section titled "Torture," Neely recounts what appears to be a widespread practice in Union prisons:

Handcuffs and hanging by wrists were rare, but in the summer of 1863 [after General Orders 100 was promulgated], the army had developed a water torture that came to be used routinely...

As Neely relates when this practice was discovered:

No one exploded in indignation or horror. No one issued a special order demanding that such practices cease. No one requested investigation or study. No one asked whether other prisoners than the one Lyons [British foreign minister] inquired aboutreceivedd such treatment. No one, except Lord Lyons, asked what law governed such cases. No one expressed any personal outrage or personal feeling at all, including Lincoln's secretary of state. [Pg. 109-112]

No one, except for fringe kooks, compares Lincoln to Hitler or calls him a fascist. Although, that the Bush administration's treatment of prisoners is far superior to that of the Lincoln administration's is a matter of historical record.

I should add at this point that I take a backseat to nobody in my admiration of Lincoln. However, I do not let that blind me to his faults or pretend that he was a plaster saint. For example, while Ross mentions Lincoln's most famous Proclamation, he neglects to note that Lincoln believed its success required another one, which he issued two days later.

The Proclamation Suspending the Writ of Habeas Corpus reads in part:

Now, therefore, be it ordered, first, that during the existing insurrection and as a necessary measure for suppressing the same, all Rebels and Insurgents, their aiders and abettors within the United States, and all persons discouraging volunteer enlistments, resisting militia drafts, or guilty of any disloyal practice, affording aid and comfort to Rebels against the authority of United States, shall be subject to martial law and liable to trial and punishment by Courts Martial or Military Commission...

Lincoln ably defends his resort to such measures, largely designed to prevent agitation against the draft, in his letter to Erastus Corning. This letter is a must read as a summation of Lincoln's views of the constitutional issues involved.Characteristically, Lincoln also makes his argument from the perspective of necessity:

I understand the meeting, whose resolutions I am considering, to be in favor of suppressing the rebellion by military force by armies. Long experience has shown that armies can not be maintained unless desertion shall be punished by the severe penalty of death. The case requires, and the law and the constitution, sanction this punishment. Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wiley agitator who induces him to desert?

Like many of his contemporaries, Lincoln over estimated the size of the Copperhead element in the North. In the letter he explains his reasons for supported the arrest of the North's most famous traitor:

Mr. Vallandigham avows his hostility to the war on the part of the Union; and his arrest was made because he was laboring, with some effect, to prevent the raising of troops, to encourage desertions from the army, and to leave the rebellion without an adequate military force to suppress it. He was not arrested because he was damaging the political prospects of the administration, or the personal interests of the commanding general; but because he was damaging the army, upon the existence, and vigor of which, the life of the nation depends.

This is the "other" Lincoln who should not be forgotten. Lincoln was facing a very different war than the one the United States is waging today. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that Lincoln would qualify war far harsher than George Bush.

Update: Ahistoricality has commented on this post here.

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It Has Been Four Years Now; Has America Learned?

2005-09-11T02:48:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

Michael J. Hurd, a psychologist I greatly admire, wrote in 2001 that 9/11 was the day on which America finally grew up.

When I first read those words, I believed them to be true. Indeed, how could they be anything else? Had not Americans been able to fully comprehend the enormity of what had occurred?

Looking back on this, I have asked myself: Were Dr. Hurd and I right to conclude that this marked the end of American complacency?

Sadly, I believe that the answer is most honestly provided by this recent Cox & Forkum illustration.

UPDATE: For September, 11, 2005, Dr. Hurd has provided some additional thoughts.

UH Professors Recommend Marxist Bookstore

2005-09-09T09:51:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

An article in the University of Hawaii at Manoa student paper Ka Leo about the high cost of textbooks has this interesting admission:

According to some teachers, it’s common for professors to refer their students to Revolution Books on King Street for cheaper textbooks.

“Almost every teacher in the English department recommends their students to purchase the textbooks at Revolution. They are often cheaper and they give the professors free copies,” Professor Jonathan Morse said. [In the capitalist world, that's called a "kickback." Emphasis added]
According to Joy, a volunteer staff member at Revolution Books, textbooks are 10 percent cheaper at Revolution Books then the textbooks found in the UH bookstore. They also buy books back for about half the price students bought them for.

Student worker Ashley at the UHM bookstore says the problem is that Revolution Books does not always carry the same textbooks that the UHM bookstore does.

“We have the same English, women studies, and Hawaiian studies books as the UH bookstore, we take teachers suggestions, and we buy what we think helps the students,” Joy said. [Emphasis added]

A whole 10% off, that's the way to fight the Power Comrades. When I was attending the University of Hawaii at Hilo, I purchased most of my books online. By doing so I saved 50% or more on every book. Of course, by doing so I was supporting a regular business and not the Revolution.

It should be no surprise that many students can find required texts at the Commie bookstore. As the Comrades describe their merchandise:

Books on: Mexico • Philippines • Hawaii • Political Prisoners • Women's Liberation • Novels • History • Philosophy • People's Wars • African-American • Indigenous • Publications from the Revolutionary Communist Party USA and the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, and the Liberating Theory of Marxiam [sic] -Leninism-Maoism! [Emphasis in original]

I'm sure in UH's English, Hawaiian Studies and women studies departments students will "learn" all about "the Liberating Theory of Marxism - Leninism - Maoism!" The exclamation point is a nice touch.

That there are sick bastards in the world supporting ideologies responsible for the death of at least 100 million human beings in the last century doesn't surprise me. It is reprehensible that there are alleged "educators" with Ph.Ds who concur with the haters of human life. They are not limited to the three above named departments. The political science department contains several warmed over Marxists, for example.

Here are the fruits of such "education:"

The Save UH/Stop UARC group is demanding that the University of Hawai‘i reject the UARC proposal. The group is also demanding full disclosure of all past and present military programs at UH, according to the group’s Web site....

The Faculty Senate is expected to pass a resolution concerning the UARC at their next meeting on Sept. 21. The findings of the Ad Hoc Committee, as well as other materials, can be found at www.hawaii.edu/uhmfs.

Thanks to Stuart for bringing this to my attention.

Update: Andrew Walden has reposted this entry at Moonbat Central.

A Thousand Words

2005-09-08T09:13:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

A cartoon that says it all, well most of it, by Pritchett, via VoteHawaii. Peter Kay is back and has updated with posts from Scott Crawford's Hawaii Independence Blog (Sort of the anti-Fiftieth Star), state representative Jon Riki Karamatsu and yours truly.

Some Gifts for David Souter

2005-09-07T17:24:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

Some folks have been leaving gifts for Supreme Court Justice David Souter on the mailbox of his old New Hampshire home.

Souter should really take a break and do some reading. However, I'm sure he just wouldn't "get" Atlas Shrugged.

Hat tip: Objectivist Center

Bad Title, Good Message

2005-09-07T00:15:00.000-10:00

Stuart K. Hayashi

Edward Hudgins, currently with the Objectivist Center and formerly with the Cato Institute, has come out with a very good op-ed about the Akaka bill.

I cringe when I tell you the title: "Fascism in a Lei." That title will immediately turn off a lot of Hawaii residents, not only because "fascism" is such a strong word, but because of the "lei" part. When someone on the mainland makes that kind of allusion to "Hawaiian exotica," it can come across as condescending to life-long Hawaii residents such as myself. It's like writing an op-ed about Alaska and naming it "Fascism in an Igloo."

And it would be too bad if Hawaii's residents rejected the op-ed according to the title alone, because its central point is spot-on:

When native Hawaiians -- or anyone else -- look in a mirror, what they ought to see, first and foremost, is not a native Hawaiian, not a citizen of that state and not even an American. They ought to see an individual, what they have made of themselves.

This world would be in a lot better shape if everyone -- from Hawaiians to Texans to Swedes to Cambodians -- understood Mr. Hudgins's observation.

UPDATE: The op-ed has been republished in Hawaii Reporter -- troublesome title and all.

Welfare State Debacle

2005-09-06T08:40:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

The usual suspects are blaming the complete breakdown of civility in New Orleans on everything except the anti-social types committing the rapes, murders and looting. The L.A. Times resident Stalinist, Robert Sheer, blames the "culture of greed." A National Public Radio interviewer keeps asking a guest leading questions about "race and class" as the causes of this disaster. Ralph Luker, never to be out done in moral hysteria, blames "self-righteous white jerks."

One question the above persons don't ask is why the horror stories in the media seem to be limited to New Orleans. Katrina cut a much wider swath through the Gulf Coast. Here is a list of Mississippi towns and cities that have been extensively damage. I have not read any reports of the complete breakdown of society as a result of Katrina outside of New Orleans.

As some writers have noted, the savagery at the Superdome is a microcosm of Life at the Bottom. Four years ago Theodore Dalrymple published a book titled Life at the Bottom: the Worldview That Makes the Underclass. Dalrymple is a physician and psychiatrist who spent many years working with England's "underclass" of long-term welfare recipients. He dramatical demonstrates that the breakdown of civility we witnessed in New Orleans has roots dating back decades:

Here is a searing account—probably the best yet published—of life in the underclass and why it persists as it does. Theodore Dalrymple, a British psychiatrist who treats the poor in a slum hospital and a prison in Engalnd, has seemingly seen it all. Yet in listening to and in observing his patients, he is continually astonished by the latest twist of depravity that exceeds even his own considerable experience. Dalrymple’s key insight in Life at the Bottom is that long-term poverty is caused not by economics but by a dysfunctional set of values, one that is continually reinforced by an elite culture searching for victims. This culture persuades those at the bottom that they have no responsibility for their actions and are not the molders of their own lives. Drawn from the pages of the cutting-edge political and cultural quarterly City Journal, Dalrymple’s book draws upon scores of eye-opening, true-life vignettes that are by turns hilariously funny, chillingly horrifying, and all too revealing—sometimes all at once. And Dalrymple writes in prose that transcends journalism and achieves the quality of literature.

Another English writer, Mark Steyn, also notes the connection between wallowing in self-pity and victimhood and the inability to function in normal human society:

On 9/11, the federal government failed the people; last week, local and state government failed the people. On 9/11, they stuck to the 30-year-old plan; last week, they didn't bother implementing the state-of-the-art 21st-century plan. Why argue about which level of bureaucracy you prefer to be let down by?

My mistake was to think that the citizenry of the Big Easy would rise to the great rallying cry of Todd Beamer: "Are you ready, guys? Let's roll!" Instead, the spirit of the week was summed up by a gentleman called Mike Franklin, taking time out of his hectic schedule of looting to speak to the Associated Press: "People who are oppressed all their lives, man, it's an opportunity to get back at society."

Unlike 9/11, when the cult of victimhood was temporarily suspended in honour of the many real, actual victims under the rubble, in New Orleans everyone claimed the mantle of victim, from the incompetent mayor to the "oppressed" guys wading through the water with new DVD players under each arm.

Welfare culture is bad not just because, as in Europe, it's bankrupting the state, but because it enfeebles the citizenry, it erodes self-reliance and resourcefulness.

The real author of the moral abyss that New Orleans became is the welfare state and the cult of passivity, irresponsibility and victimhood that it both creates and needs to sustain itself.

Eagle Forum: Say No To Race-Based Governments

2005-09-03T18:55:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

Eagle Forum has issued an Action Item providing information on which Senators to contact to defeat the Akaka Bill:

Capitol Switchboard: (202)-224-3121

TARGET MEMBERS: Alexander, Allen, Bennett, Bingaman, Bunning, Burns, Burr, Coleman, Craig, Domenici, Frist, Graham, Grassley, Harkin, Hatch, Martinez, McCain, McConnell, Murkowski, Smith, Talent, Thomas, Warner

"Peace:" Code for the Destruction of Israel

2005-09-03T09:37:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

Edward Cline has an essay posted at Capitalism Magazine on "Peace" as a stalking horse used to attack Israel:

Stalking-horse: A horse trained to conceal the hunter while stalking; something used to cover one’s true purpose; decoy. (American Heritage Dictionary)

That, in a nutshell, is how one may characterize the concern of Arab states for the plight and misery of Palestinians. The hunter is Islam. The prey is Israel. The stalking-horse plodding along the torturous “road map to peace” is international and Arab concern about the plight of the Palestinians. It is a decoy. The first altruist-pragmatist to reach for it will be annihilated.

Syria, Iran and probably Jordan are committed to nothing but recruiting and sending terrorists to aid the Palestinian Authority in its campaign against Israel, as well as funding and funneling terrorists to kill Americans and Iraqis in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Arabs welcomed Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, and spat in Israel’s face in gratitude. Ultimately, what they want is for Israel to withdraw from existence. Since Israel cannot be defeated militarily by the Arab states, the Gaza phenomenon is but an overture to that self-immolation. They know it. Israel doesn’t. Nor does the U.S.

The West holds pragmatism and accommodation in high esteem, as the sole means of ending “violence” and establishing “peace.” But all the peace initiatives of the past have not ended the violence.

After Katrina the Maggots Feast

2005-09-03T09:26:00.000-10:00

Grant Jones

Mick Hume at Spike Online has this essay on the response to Katrina by some of the chattering classes:

The sea of effluent running through the streets of New Orleans this week has been accompanied by some equally putrid propaganda from those who try to seize on any disaster as proof of the rotten state of humanity - and of its American branch in particular.

No matter how many precautions we take, it is neither possible nor desirable entirely to eliminate risk from life even in the richest nation on Earth. That New Orleans has stood and thrived for so long as 'an inevitable city on an impossible site' is testimony to the strength of human resilience and determination to get on with life come what may. That spirit will be needed again now as America sets about rebuilding and repairing the damage. The cause will not be helped by those who seem determined to wash away our defences in a deluge of misanthropic doom-mongering.

Arthur Chrenkoff has quotes from the opportunistic parasites that thrive on human suffering.