Government Programs, Coffee and Bread

I have been vexed for years by a simple problem: How to explain to young people who were not taught anything of substance at school why free markets are desirable. You would expect this to not be much of a problem is this overall still capitalist country. When, I try, most of the time, I end up making their eyes glaze over although I am captivating speaker overflowing with charisma.

The difficulty is that the concept of market is counter-intuitive. In everybody’s personal experience, good things generally happen because someone makes them happen: Mom, Dad, the boss, God. The “invisible hand” of the free market is just that, invisible. To understand our economy takes an effort of imagination.

Lack of understanding of markets opens up people, especially young people, to the direct, unsophisticated emotional appeal of government intervention. In many minds again, especially in the young’s, government solves problems and when it does not, problems go unsolved. There is a good reason for this misapprehension of reality: The many good things that the market does, it does undramatically, almost imperceptibly. Its achievement tend to be taken for granted. By contrast, government interventions are nearly always thunderous, even and especially, if they turn out to be completely ineffective.

Below is a micro-essay question that illustrates this phenomenon. (No grade and no reward except the pleasure of discovery.)

Introduction

Thirty years ago, in America, coffee in public places came in two varieties, fresh and burnt. Today, there are dozens of kinds of coffee beverage and hundreds of varieties of coffee beans available. Even the coffee at McDonald is good. And it’s about the same price in terms of median wages as the bad, burnt coffee was thirty years ago.

Thirty years ago, two kinds of bread were available in America, soft and white and soft and off-white. Both were packaged and carried no good smell from the factory where they were made. I don’t want to exaggerate: There were at least one hundred bakeries, all on the East Coast and in San Francisco, that offered fresh-baked, reasonably crunchy “specialty” bread.

Today, every supermarket in Bakersfield, and in Kansas City, and in Cleveland offers at least twenty varieties of bread, many baked daily. In yuppie towns such as San Francisco, it’s forty varieties and there are dozens of specialized bakeries.

Questions

Name the federal or state government program or programs that account for this considerable improvement in the quality and variety of coffees available to the ordinary American consumer.

Or: same question for bread.

Use only one side of a single page, please.

Send me your answers as “Comments.”

Note: Yes, I am going to address the topic of why immigrants are superior. I am just taking a break. Stay tuned.

Gone to the beach!

Immigration: More on Conservative, Liberal Ignorance

I have heard conservative radio talk-show callers express indignation at immigrants who don’t “become American citizens,” as if it showed ill-will on the part of the immigrants, or lack of love for America.

These calls demonstrate a basic lack of understanding of our immigration laws. First, you have to become a legal immigrant (get the famous “green card”). Most foreigners cannot qualify for this in any way. The doors to this country are not wide open. (See below.) For those who are allowed to apply, it takes time and patience, unusually so, because the Immigration and Naturalization Service is one of the worst, least responsive of Federal bureaucracies. Then, once you are legal, you have to wait four to seven years to apply for citizenship. This arduous process leaves little room for ill-will. It’s exhausting and discouraging.

I have also heard many indignant liberals (liberals are almost constantly indignant or “appalled”) make statements implying that American immigration laws discriminate on the basis of race. They do, but not the way liberals think. In fact, it’s extraordinarily difficult for a European (most European are “white” in American classification) to emigrate to this country. There are reasons I don’t want to go into here though I will on demand. The numbers show unambiguously that people from Latin America or Asia are admitted legally in several times the numbers of Europeans. Of course, federal legislation considers almost all Latin Americans and all Asians in this country as “protected minorities.” This means that they deserve special treatment because they were historically oppressed by reason of their race.

Don’t blame me or conservatives in general for the stupidity of the relevant federal laws. They are entirely the handiwork of liberal opinion. Be it as it may, here is the summary: If you are “brown” or “yellow” your chances of coming here legally are slim. If you are “white,” your chances are practically nil.

If you find all this had to believe, please take a little trip to the Statistical Abstract of the United States. It’s readily available on-line and easy to read.

Much of our political debate in this country is wasted because people are ill-informed of the issues about which they feel strongly. There is no excuse for this situation. Obtaining info used to be arduous; it used to require specialized skills. Not anymore.

The Arizona Immigration Law and the National Tumult: Stereotypes and Bi-Partisan Silliness

Both sides of the political spectrum are mired in rigid stereotypes about immigration. Stereotypes impede clear thinking. They undermine reason. I have messages for Right and Left on immigration. Pay attention; you might feel better and you won’t act or react stupidly.

First, some disclosures:

1 I am an immigrant married to an immigrant (a so-called “woman of color” in the stupid parlance of political correctness). We are both American patriots. We believe in “American exceptionalism” although we are both well educated. (If you don’t believe it, check out my vita – linked to this blog – and die a little inside. Also, ask to view my wife’s paintings. They cry out” cultured person.”) We are both political conservatives, leaning strongly libertarian (small “l”).

2 I believe that recruiting immigrants de facto on the basis of their willingness to violate our laws, first thing, is a stupid policy. Immigration policy discussions have not even begun, not under this Democratic President with his Democratic majorities in both houses. They did not take place under a Republican President either. This absence suggests to me that illegal immigration is not high on this country’s political agenda, at least, not sustainably high. And I agree with this assessment.

3 As I write, crossing the US border illegally is a misdemeanor from a Federal standpoint. It’s like a traffic violation, or possession of a joint in most states. This tells me that there is no national political will to act resolutely on immigration, illegal or legal.

Conservative dufuses (dufi?): Immigrants do not come to the US to use welfare nor to rape and kill those you love. Those who cross the border illegally come here to work, to mow your lawns and clean your dishes. They want to improve their lives and especially those of their children. That’s the American way. The fact that they break the law to pursue the American dream does not make it any the less the American dream.

This may be hard to believe but the last time I looked, immigrants in general were slightly less likely than the native-born to use welfare or to be in jail for serious offenses. I don’t know of much credible info about illegal immigrants specifically. I am open-minded. Show me good data, collected and analyzed according to scientific methods and I will turn on a dime. I will do it publicly and loudly, on this blog, in my radio program ( “Fact Matter,” on KSCO 1080 AM Santa Cruz, Sundays 11am-1pm), and in the coffee shop. The fact that I have issued this challenge before and that the data keep not coming makes me suspicious that they don’t exist.

Stop paying attention to La Raza‘s insane harangues. (“La Raza”= “The Race.”) It’s an extremist, racist organization that represents no one. If its membership had blue eyes, they would be called a dangerous armed “militia.” Instead, if you know someone who knows Spanish, have him help you ask Luis why he is here. (Luis is the quiet, polite guy who buses tables at your local restaurant.)

If you want to know more, read my co-authored article linked to this blog: If Mexicans and Americans Could Cross the Border Freely

Lefty mush-heads, here is for you: Stop thinking immigrants are “exploited.” First, the word has no objective meaning: I felt “exploited” when I was teaching university. Yet, you would scream in anguished envy if you knew how much I was earning per hour.

What kind of exploitation is it that large numbers of people seek at great risk to their safety and at great expenses, both monetary and emotional? Once more, your leaders are using words to confuse you

Immigrants, legal and illegal, come to this country because it’s a better country in some important respects than where they come from. For many, it’s just the opportunity to earn more money. This immigrant thinks, speculates, that the underlying reason why immigrants from everywhere come here goes like this: Until now, this is the country where a person’s success depends most on his efforts, his talents, his balls (women too, of course). This may soon change and the flow of immigrants will decrease.

Get used to it: There are scores of shitty countries in the world and only a handful that are better than this one, usually in some fairly narrow respect. (Yes, it’s true, French trains are faster!) Millions do come here from those shitty countries and many would like to come from the good countries. There has to be a reason.

As for American racism, again, don’t be absurd; face the facts instead. There is always discrimination from some quarter or other against those who appear different. It often takes unexpected forms. Excuse the recourse to personal experience: I had a neighbor who hated me first time she heard me, because of my French accent. It turned out she had known another, one, French immigrant who was an unpleasant person. Many, many more, all liberals, envy me because of the same accent. Envy makes them hostile. (You would not believe the numbers of upper-middle class liberals who hate themselves for not being French! But, I digress, as usual.) Below is a fact you have to deal with if you want to say anything about the relationship between immigration and American racism.

Only about half of the people living in the US who have any African blood also have a slave ancestor. All the others are immigrants and children of immigrants. (Tech note: I don’t have the reference at hand so, feel free to believe it’s 20% rather than 50%; it does not affect my point much.) Think about the implication: A country that had almost two hundred years of African slavery; a country where racial segregation was enforced in may parts until forty years ago, such a country attracts immigrants of African appearance by the millions. As is true for other immigrants, their move is costly in every way possible. How much vestigial racism can they possibly confront if they keep coming? Think! Force yourself to answer this simple question.

Yes, people vote with their feet whenever they can.

Ruben, Mike, any Hispanic who is reading this: Pay attention. I am speaking to you.

Yes, as I said recently, the new Arizona law will lead to racial profiling. It’s not motivated by racism though. It turns out, apparent manifestations of racism increases in periods of high unemployment and they wane with full employment. Do you really believe that Americans are “racist” one day and not racist one year later?

The liberal media’s accusations of racism against the state of Arizona are both disgusting and pathetic. They are are the death-cry of institutions that realize they are losing their ability to manipulate the befuddled and the compliant. Of course, no surprise, many immigrants are befuddled and compliant.

Here is my prediction: The new Arizona law will be destroyed by court action or it will be enforced only for a brief period and in desultory manner. I am glad it exists though. It’s a warning to the Federal Government to get its act together on illegal immigration. I am glad it’s there for this reason alone.

And yes, what little enforcement will take place will irritate and inconvenience some people. Those will include Hispanics in Arizona for 300 years, Navajos there for 5,000, and even a few “Indians” from Mumbai because not every cop has a doctorate in Anthropology! Their prospective suffering does not move me all that much. Thousands want to murder my daughter, and their daughters, because they sometimes show their belly-button, and a determined group is taking apart the economic foundations of this great country. “Suck it up,” I say.

Next: Why immigrants are superior.

Illegal Immigration, Racial Profiling and the New Arizona Law

Don’t kid yourselves. The new Arizona law demands that law enforcement officers inquire about immigration status in many situations. It will result in racial profiling for sure unless law enforcement agencies are willing to employ a costly and ridiculous stratagem: They could make it an informal rule that whenever an officer raises the issue of the immigration status of one Hispanic-looking person, he must quickly raise similar questions with two whites or, more ridiculously with a combination of whites and Native Americans (numerous in Arizona).  The non-Hispanic inquiries must be twice as numerous as the Hispanic ones. That’s because there is one Hispanic for two non—– in the state of Arizona. According to my understanding of the profiling issue, if the numbers match, there is no profiling, legally speaking. Of course, nearly all of the illegal immigrants in Arizona must come from Mexico and Central America.

I will write more on immigration in the near future. In the meantime, you might want to take a look at my article with Sergey Nikiforov in last summer’s issue of the Independent Review, linked to this blog. It’s about what to do with respect to illegal immigration from Mexico, specifically. You will be surprised.

Cutting the Three Lifelines in Full Daylight; Boy Rape from Unexpected Quarters

I would never have thought that one can become bored with emergencies. It sounds like a contradiction in terms. Yet, here I am. I am bored with the procession of disasters that hit us every other day as a result of Obama administration actions or pronouncements. Also, I am not man enough to pay as much attention as I did a year ago. I have indignation fatigue. I should be energized by the thought of the unfairness of the crushing burden the Obama spending is placing on young people. I don’t feel it much because the young voted overwhelmingly from Obama and it seems they are the most obdurate about waking up from the dream. The ungenerous thought that they made their bed and they should lie in it dominates my reactions.

About indignation fatigue: The powers may have planned it that way. If a boxer gets punched fifty times in three minutes, he does not feel the pain as clearly as when the blows come every thirty seconds. Be it as it may, the new dispensation forces me to be more selective in what I expose myself to. Also, in what I write and what I talk about on the radio (“Facts Matter” KSCO radio Santa Cruz, Sundays 11am to 1pm, available on-line in real time.)

The recipes for sabotaging a modern, advanced capitalist economy such as this one are similar to the formulas to control it. I say, “such as this one” because I think that what I am saying below would apply equally to Germany, or to Japan, or to Finland. It would be the same play-book. This short essay is not about American exceptionalism, a political and a moral concept. It’s about the nuts and bolts of the only economic system that has brought prosperity to huge numbers, capitalism.

I am sometimes vacillate in my reading of events. I a sometimes befuddled in my judgment of what’s going on by demonstrations of the monumental incompetence of the Obama administration. How can one be a sinister plotter and spectacularly clumsy at the same time? Here may be the answer: You plot various take-overs although you don’t always know how. If you succeed, you get the political credit for being a reformist. If you fail, you are heartened by the idea that you failures contribute to the impoverishment of some segments of the population. Poverty makes for docility and dependency. You can’t really lose.

Anyway, it seems to me the three main lifelines of a contemporary market economy are energy, finance and capabilities for dense and fast communications. I have been around long enough to remember the days when businesses communicated by slow telephone only, by telex (no time to explain this prehistorical tool. Look it up) and, short distance, by pneumatic tube. (Look this up to; you won’t believe it. My home town of Paris had city-wide system of compressed air communication operating from post-offices. It was the envy of the world!)

I don’t remember expensive energy because I have lived all my life under the blessings of cheap petroleum. As a matter of fact, gasoline at the pump costs about the same today in real dollars as it did when I was twenty. Finance has changed in ways I don’t necessarily understand. I could however perceive the beneficial effects of the increasing sophistication of credit throughout my life. It’s obvious that sophisticated credit improved enormously the lives of ordinary people both directly and indirectly. It’s good to be able to buy your son a pair of shoes when his break down in the middle of winter rather than have to wait till you have saved enough money. (This is a bibliographical allusion.) Indirectly, access to credit has under-girthed the tripling or probably, the quadrupling in the standard of living regular people have achieved in my life time. What I mean by standard of living is such things as more education, more books, more and better entertainment, more choice in all the above, healthier food, better medical care with the corresponding alleviation of pain, and longer lives with the possibility of enjoying grand-children, and even great-grand-children. Yes, easy credit entails risks, personal or societal. To my mind, however, the balance is obviously positive. Would I rather go back to the lifestyle of 1955? No! Would many people enjoy it? No! (Conducting mental experiments is a healthy habit. It takes care of many quandaries.)

As for energy, the same verdict keeps coming: When honest, serious, thorough. green-inclined organizations such as National Geographic tackle the issue of how to replace hydrocarbons (petroleum and natural gas) wholesale, they invariably conclude that the solutions are “for now” too expensive and out of reach. You have to read very carefully to get the message though.

Personal disclosure: I am not in the pay of oil companies. Sometimes, I wish I were, but none has offered to bribe me. I am completely charmed by the scientific and engineering ingenuity of those who devise alternative energy sources and uses. My personal local heroes are the long-haired small entrepreneurs with vehicles redolent of French fries. I keep informed in hope that solar devices will soon become cheap enough for me to get off the grid.

President Obama and the congressional majorities are promising us “cap-an-trade” legislation. Don’ worry about the unknown details (unknown until after the fact even of those who will vote). What it means is that they want to tax petroleum products. If it’s merely a tax and it’s applied dispassionately across the board, it will have inflationary effects. It will reduce our economic growth to European levels or worse while reducing our freedom of movement. (That’s the freedom to escape repugnant conditions.) More likely, it will be worse; there will be complex rules and exceptions to the rules, and exceptions to the exceptions. That’s how you create space for the bureaucracy and for the executive branch to exercise despotic and arbitrary powers. I mean powers not granted by the Constitution. That form of take-over of our society is under way unless the Dems are swept out next November.

The administration is setting the first trap to ensnare finance, credit, as I write. It is being done intelligently, by exploiting the public’s distaste for the abstraction “Wall Street,” and the vulgar weakness for explanations of complex events centered on conspiracies. The Obama administration is not trying to “regulate” more tightly the financial industry as it claims. It’s attempting to construct a legal environment where the executive branch can pick and chose winners among financial groups. It’s creating the conditions for crony capitalism in the manner of fascist dictators Franco of Spain, Salazar of Portugal, and Peron of Argentina In this context, the loud attack on Obama- friendly Goldman-Sachs demonstrates almost strategic genius: “See, finance and banking are so thoroughly corrupt even our best friends are corrupt. This proves we need more government oversight.”

Personal disclosure: I believe the big individual players in finance have been giving themselves obscenely over-sized bonuses. It’s a problem that can be solved without complex new regulations, just a small number of simple rules about transparency. The little guy like me is not helped by government intervention; he is harmed by it. He needs freer markets and a severe warning that he is on his own.

I am awaiting the assault one the third of a our lifelines: communications, in the broadest sense. I think this assault will be launched in two years, giving the Obama administration time to implement the first two.

As I speculated in a previous essay (“Blueprint for a Communist Take-Over.”) You don’t need guns to destroy freedom just occasional deftness on one side, ignorance and passivity o the other, and media that are at once lazy and complicit.

PS America has gone crazy: A woman in her forties was just sentenced to life imprisonment in Colorado. Her crime? She persuaded a thirteen-year old boy to touch her breasts. Granted, she looks quite ugly. All the same, the boy was almost certainly not durably traumatized. (Nor did the prosecution allege that he was.) In the meantime, murderers get ten, sometimes five years. The brutal persecution of women with misplaced sexual leanings is one of the most vicious fallouts of political correctness. Are we really obligated to treat female offenders and male offenders in superficially, idiotically identical manner? Sorry, I am old fashioned, I think penetration matters, especially violent penetration. Having felt an ugly breast, however ill-shaped or mushy in consistence does not rise to the same level.

It would be terrifying if I were the only voice of reason left.

I would never have thought that one can become bored with emergencies. It sounds like a contradiction in terms. Yet, here I am. I am bored with the procession of disasters that hit us every other day as a result of Obama administration actions or pronouncements. Also, I am not man enough to pay as much attention as I did a year ago. I have indignation fatigue. I should be energized by the thought of the unfairness of the crushing burden the Obama spending is placing on young people. I don’t feel it much because the young voted overwhelmingly from Obama and it seems they are the most obdurate about waking up from the dream. The ungenerous thought that they made their bed and they should lie in it dominates my reactions.

About indignation fatigue: The powers may have planned it that way. If a boxer gets punched fifty times in three minutes, he does not feel the pain as clearly as when the blows come every thirty seconds. Be it as it may, the new dispensation forces me to be more selective in what I expose myself to. Also, in what I write and what I talk about on the radio (“Facts Matter” KSCO radio Santa Cruz, Sundays 11am to 1pm, available on-line in real time.)

The recipes for sabotaging a modern, advanced capitalist economy such as this one are similar to the formulas to control it. I say, “such as this one” because I think that what I am saying below would apply equally to Germany, or to Japan, or to Finland. It would be the same play-book. This short essay is not about American exceptionalism, a political and a moral concept. It’s about the nuts and bolts of the only economic system that has brought prosperity to huge numbers, capitalism.

I sometimes vacillate in my reading of events. I am sometimes befuddled in my judgment of what’s going on by demonstrations of the monumental incompetence of the Obama administration. How can one be a sinister plotter and spectacularly clumsy at the same time? Here may be the answer: You plot various take-overs although you don’t always know how. If you succeed, you get the political credit for being a reformist. If you fail, you are heartened by the idea that you failures contribute to the impoverishment of some segments of the population. Poverty makes for docility and dependency. You can’t really lose.

Anyway, it seems to me the three main lifelines of a contemporary market economy are energy, finance and capabilities for dense and fast communications. I have been around long enough to remember the days when businesses communicated by slow telephone only, by telex (no time to explain this prehistorical tool. Look it up) and, short distance, by pneumatic tube. (Look this up to; you won’t believe it. My home town of Paris had city-wide system of compressed air communication accessed from post-offices. It was the envy of the world!)

I don’t remember expensive energy because I have lived all my life under the blessings of cheap petroleum. As a matter of fact, gasoline at the pump costs about the same today in real dollars as it did when I was twenty. Finance has changed in ways I don’t necessarily understand. I could however perceive the beneficial effects of the increasing sophistication of credit throughout my life. It’s obvious that sophisticated credit improved enormously the lives of ordinary people both directly and indirectly. It’s good to be able to buy your son a pair of shoes when his break down in the middle of winter rather than have to wait till you have saved enough money. (This is a bibliographical allusion.) Indirectly, access to credit has under-girthed the tripling or probably, the quadrupling in the standard of living regular people have achieved in my life time. What I mean by standard of living is such things as more education, more books, more and better entertainment, more choice in all the above, healthier food, better medical care with the corresponding alleviation of pain, and longer lives with the possibility of enjoying grand-children, and even great-grand-children. Yes, easy credit entails risks, personal or societal. To my mind, however, the balance is obviously positive. Would I rather go back to the lifestyle of 1955? No! Would many people enjoy it? No! (Conducting mental experiments is a healthy habit. It takes care of many quandaries.)

As for energy, the verdict keeps coming: When honest, serious, thorough. green-inclined organizations such as National Geographic tackle the issue of how to replace hydrocarbons (petroleum and natural gas) wholesale, they invariably conclude that the solutions are “for now” too expensive and out of reach. You have to read very carefully to get the message though.

Personal disclosure: I am not in the pay of oil companies. Sometimes, I wish I were, but none has offered to bribe me. I am completely charmed by the scientific and engineering ingenuity of those who devise alternative energy sources and uses. My personal local heroes are the long-haired small entrepreneurs with vehicles redolent of French fries. I keep informed in hope that solar devices will soon become cheap enough for me to get off the grid.

President Obama and the congressional majorities are promising us “cap-an-trade” legislation. Don’ worry about the unknown details (unknown until after the fact even of those who will vote). What it means is that they want to tax petroleum products. If it’s merely a tax and it’s applied dispassionately across the board, it will have inflationary effects. It will reduce our economic growth to European levels or worse while reducing our freedom of movement. (That’s the freedom to escape repugnant conditions.) More likely, it will be worse; there will be complex rules and exceptions to the rules, and exceptions to the exceptions. That’s how you create space for the bureaucracy and for the executive branch to exercise despotic and arbitrary powers. I mean powers not granted by the Constitution. That form of take-over of our society is under way unless the Dems are swept out next November.

The administration is setting the first trap to ensnare finance, credit, as I write. It is being done intelligently, by exploiting the public’s distaste for the abstraction “Wall Street,” and the vulgar weakness for explanations of complex events centered on alledged conspiracies. The Obama administration is not trying to “regulate” more tightly the financial industry as it claims. It’s attempting to construct a legal environment where the executive branch can pick and chose winners among financial groups. It’s creating the conditions for crony capitalism in the manner of fascist dictators Franco of Spain, Salazar of Portugal, and Peron of Argentina In this context, the loud attack on Obama-friendly Goldman-Sachs demonstrates  strategic near genius: “See, finance and banking are so thoroughly corrupt even our best friends are corrupt. This proves we need more government oversight.”

Personal disclosure: I believe the big individual players in finance have been giving themselves obscenely over-sized bonuses. It’s a problem that can be solved without complex new regulations, just a small number of simple rules about transparency. The little guy like me is not helped by government intervention; he is harmed by it. He needs freer markets and a severe warning that he is on his own.

I am awaiting the assault one the third of a our lifelines: communications, in the broadest sense. I think this assault will be launched in two years, giving the Obama administration time to implement the first two.

As I speculated in a previous essay (“Blueprint for a Communist Take-Over.”) You don’t need guns to destroy freedom, just occasional deftness on one side, ignorance and passivity on the other, and media that are at once lazy and complicit.

PS America has gone crazy: A woman in her forties was just sentenced to life imprisonment in Colorado. Her crime? She persuaded a thirteen-year old boy to touch her breasts. Granted, she looks quite ugly. All the same, the boy was almost certainly not durably traumatized. (Nor did the prosecution allege that he was.) In the meantime, murderers get ten, sometimes five years. The brutal persecution of women with misplaced sexual leanings is one of the most vicious fallouts of political correctness. Are we really obligated to treat female offenders and male offenders in superficially, idiotically identical manner? Sorry, I am old fashioned, I think penetration matters, especially violent penetration. Having felt an ugly breast, however ill-shaped or mushy in consistence does not rise to the same level.

It would be terrifying if I were the only voice of reason left.

The French Got It Right

Once in a while, the French do something right besides cooking and maintaining their beautiful countryside. The French President announced recently that he is sure he will be able soon to have a law prohibiting the wearing of the burqa anywhere on French territory. The burqa is any long garment covering the whole body including the face. It is worn by a small minority of Muslim women worldwide and occasionally by male terrorists (as in Pakistan, last week).

The French President went about it intelligently. First, very importantly, he consulted at length diverse Muslim religious authorities in France. A consensus soon emerged that covering was not prescribed by Islam. The Koran itself seems to recommend “modesty,” in general terms. Having thus insured that the measure did not violate freedom of religion – guaranteed by the French constitution – the President inquired whether a prohibition would create problems of adjustment for Muslim immigrants. It was discovered, to almost everyone’s surprise, that most burqa wearers are French-born. The President decided to strike hard and decisively. He ignored the opinion (only an opinion) of the French constitutional council and took the first steps toward total prohibition, with education, followed by big fines. The fines imposed on men who force their womenfolk to wear the burqa are deliberately higher.

This measure has broad support, from the President’s own center-right party to many Communist municipal governments. (The French Communist Party if finished on the national level. It’s still important at the municipal level, especially in working-class areas where most Muslims probably live.) As far as one can tell, a slim majority of French Muslims seems to support the measure. The French Socialist Party, the equivalent of our Democrat Party in my judgment, is wishy-washy on the issue: On the one hand, on the other hand, on the third hand, etc.

The law would affect only about 2,000 women in all of France, according to the daily Le Figaro (which I read every day). There used to be only 200. There is widespread belief that the contagion is spreading like a disease.

President Sarkozy’s administration has squarely stated that the reasons for this law have to do with the treatment of women. Almost everybody in France, Muslims included, believes that the same women who wear full veil are the same women most likely to be beaten, raped by their male relatives, married by force, kept ignorant, and abandoned. French liberals don’t want to admit this openly. As usual, they play intellectual games, asking for something like hard proof of such associations. In my opinion, a reversible act of government taken after broad and proper consultation and entailing no jail penalties requires no formal proof.

Sarkozy is braver than I would have been in this case. I would simply have stated that the burqa must be prohibited because of the security risks it poses in connection with violent jihadist terrorism, which it does.

One expression of self-doubt and one thought about the philosophical implications of my support:

I have taught many female Muslim students. A large number displayed cleavage with the same enthusiasm as their Christian sisters (and rivals). One Muslim MBA student who sticks to my mind though wore full Islamic attire except that her face was exposed. She was of Egyptian origin. She was one of the hardest working, energetic, and clear-headed students I have ever had. She made a lasting impression on me, not an easy achievement since I had taught thousands in my career. She told me that she was going to Pakistan with her husband for spring break. That was surely one of the oddest, least attractive spring break destination ever. I never heard from her and never saw her on campus after that.

I know that my approval of the strong repressive actions of the French government relative to the burqa is in contradiction with my usual libertarian (small “l”) positions. The same contradictions exist with respect to my belief in strong, generously funded national defense. I care less and less about ideological coherence. My observation of the relevant websites and my few discussions with Libertarian (big “L”) pundits have half convinced me that ideology is a cover for ignorance of facts and unreason. A small number of moral principles learned in kindergarten are pretty much enough to guide me.

How about you?

Immigrants – A Story Pregnant with Deep Meaning.

They are a pretty young couple. He is a thin, blond Dutchman in his early thirties. Yasmina, his younger wife, is a honey-skinned beauty, and all curves. The day I met them, she was wearing a short, tight silky dress over a black push-up bra that was doing its job quite well, indeed. She is Pakistani by way of Toronto. They have come to seek their fortune in California.

Peter, the Dutchman, is working for a local software company. He is a language specialist in a generic sense, if there is such a thing. He began an advanced degree in Sanskrit, at Oxford. He did not finish because he could not “raise” the 35,000 pounds ($50,000) required. He spent a couple of years in India studying Sanskrit with a guru. When I asked him why he had not sought admission to an American doctoral program that would have supported him, one way or another, as is the custom, he gave me an answer I did not quite understand. It was something about changing priorities and about the infernal American demand for scholarly publications. Peter and Yasmina met at Oxford, where she completed an undergraduate degree. Or maybe not.

A Muslim by birth, Yasmina drinks wine with gusto, a sure sign of aristocratic upbringing. She speaks English perfectly and very fast. Peter discusses wines with much competence. His parents own a winery and vineyard in the heart of Burgundy, where land prices rival the cost of San Francisco real estate. Yasmina does volunteer work for a peace group while she awaits her work visa. (I did not try to elucidate the visa issue.) They both like the money Peter is making but they deplore Silicone Valley’s lack of talent for leisure. Peter is longing for European six-week vacations and extended weekends. When he has made his little hole here, he is determined to establish a European lifestyle. Yasmina can’t hide her annoyance, nor does she try, at the lack of a national health system, like they have, up north, in Canada. She did not actually say so, but I am guessing she thinks it outrageous that there is no dole to support an educated married young woman while she awaits a visa. She should at least get some pocket money, she thinks. (Being a feminist, she resents having to depend on her husband, of course.)

Peter and Yasmina are both dripping with contempt for President Bush. When she talks about the President, Yasmina loses her good manners. She hates him as if she knew him. And his policies, and his vitality, and his folksy manner, and his simplicity. She and her husband have made their choice: They would rather hear a devious speech with impeccable grammar than straight talk with occasional lapses of syntax. If someone created a council of sophisticated cosmopolitans to depose the President, their names would be among the first on the list. You know that, beneath the surface, they are on a mission. Since fate and economic necessity, and the economic sluggishness of Canada and Europe, have deposited them on our shores, they might as well have a go at civilizing America. They will teach us to become more refined, more complex, more attuned to nuances.

Yasmina, born in the terrorist cesspool of Pakistan and reared in a country that pretends to defend an area the size of the US with armed forces of 55,000, would gladly advise the next administration on national defense. (The current administration is hopeless, of course.) Peter would help her, naturally. It’s tempting to dismiss Holland as a charming old whore, except that weakness corrupts. Who can forget the (unionized) Dutch soldiers under UN command who turned over thousands of Bosnian Muslim men and boys to be slaughtered by Serbian butchers in Srebrenica? Peter has an additional project in America; he would simply like to show Americans how to really live. He is from Amsterdam, where 17^th century architectural jewels lining up the canals are occupied by prostitutes’ shops because there is no other economic use better able to pay the rent.

As Yasmina and Peter explain to me their plan to improve America, they are interrupted by a loud noise outside. Jesús is using his leaf blower to clean the neighbor’s yard, although today is a holiday. Yard maintenance is his second or third job. During the week, Jesús works at a hardware and construction supplies business. He raised himself to the skilled position of door framer and installer. This is not a slim achievement because the work requires precision and a visual sense of dimensions. Jesús left school in Mexico after the third grade. American non-metric measurements still give him trouble. (As they do me.) How he learned them at all is a mystery because he sure as hell does not read English. He can barely read Spanish.

Jesús’ wife works the night shift in a cannery. They raised their two children by taking turns so there would always be a parent at home. They recently adopted a third child, a little girl who is a distant relative. Jesús has many private customers who have told him they would gladly invest in any business he started. He does not say no, but he wants to keep his medical benefits as long as he has a child at home. He is doing fine, anyway. He and his wife own two houses. They used to have three but the county forced them to take down one, that they rented, because it violated some code or other. He is a good friend of mine so, I offered him a loan to tie him over. He thanked me affectionately but declined. “We are prepared,” he said.

Jesús and his wife have plenty enough money to move back to Mexico and live there forever without lifting a finger. They are not even thinking about it. He loves this country. He wants his children to be 100% American; he wants American grandchildren. The family speaks Spanish at home and attends a Catholic church in Spanish. They eat Mexican food every day. (But so do my children and every other Anglo kid in California.) They listen to corridos and rancheras on the radio. Yet, they are American to the core. This country made them, or they made themselves in this country. California is the best place to be Mexican, Jesús says, besides, here, you don’t have to choose one or the other.

Every one of Jesús’ customers gives Jesús a gift without knowing it. Everywhere he goes, he asks questions, in Spanish if possible, in English otherwise. In this fashion, he is quickly getting himself a first-rate political education. He never misses a chance to do someone a good turn. In a couple of years, when his first two children are out of the house for good, Jesús will work less and he will have time to run for local office. He laughs a lot; he has exquisite manners; he is a very good-looking man with smiling black eyes. Many women will vote for him just because of this. All the men who know him, and many who have only heard of him, will also vote for him because he is a good and strong man, and a perfect American.

Peter and Yasmina will most likely not have a chance to vote for Jesús. They will probably have floated back to Canada, or to Europe, where the gentle-born don’t have to work so hard. If, by some miracle, they are still here and have American citizenship, they will still not vote for Jesús: With his experience of the real world, the son of a bitch will probably come out a Republican!

© Jacques Delacroix 2003-2010

A Rigorous Education and Prudish Cant

Here is a part of a letter a third-grade teacher from Maple Shade, New Jersey sent to her pupils’ parents. I copied it from an AP piece published in my local newspaper on April 15^th 2010. It was under the by-line of a Geoff Mulvihill, apparently an old-style journalist who does not know what’s good for him. (Remember his name; he might need support soon.) I have changed nothing in the letter except that the boldings are mine.

“If your child is a young man he does not have to wear a dress or skirt, as there are many time periods where women wore jeans, pants and trousers. However, each child must be able to express what time period their outfit is from. Most of all, your child should have fun creating their outfit and learning about how women’s clothing has changed.”

The AP piece specifies that the principal had canceled the “fashion show.”

One little girl complained that the cancellation meant that she could not wear her “can-can” dress to school. That’s as in “French can-can,” I assume. According to Toulouse-Lautrec, who knew what he was painting, the can-can outfit involves black stocking with garters and abundantly frilly underwear. Third graders are, what 9, 10, 11?

I am confused, and not only by the teacher’s grammar.

Stupid Infiltrators and an Abysmally Under-Informed Smart Student

I told you so! I did on 3/31/10 (in “A Fucking Liar?”) I said that the next tea party would include infiltrators that would work to make the movement look like the stereotype promulgated by the biased, lazy press. Here it goes, from Associated Press, not usually considered an organ of the crazy right wing:

“Opponents of the fiscally conservative tea party movement say they plan to infiltrate and dismantle the political group to make its members appear to be racist, homophobe and moronic.

Jason Levin, creator of www.crashteaparty.org, said Monday the group has 65 leaders in major cities across the country….”

I am only a little bit worried. First, there is an excellent chance the announcement is a hoax or a simple publicity stunt. (AP rarely checks out its facts.) Second, Left-radical activists are not very smart. They don’t know much beyond breaking McDonald’s windows. They are also grossly under-informed because they rely on one far-out source of information only, if any. So, if they ever get there, the infiltrators will probably do something really stupid. They will shout “Down with the nigger!” or “Kill Obama!” in the middle of a crowd of respectable middle-class ladies, or carry a misspelled sign denouncing “fagots.” They will promptly be shouted down and thrown out. I say I am a little worried because it’s not that difficult to arrange to have a cameraman ready to capture the split-second moment for the benefit of the New York Times and MSNBC (that both believe that some stories are too good to check).

Note: Dear FBI and Dear Secret Service: I am describing here what I speculate infiltrators of the tea party movement will do. I am not advocating (NOT) the assassination of the President. For one thing, it would be a long-lasting catastrophe for the conservative movement if there were any attempt on the President’s life.

All the same, the tea party movement ought to be implacable in chasing away anyone pursuing anything but its own narrow, well-defined goals.

As always, I am concerned about the people in the middle who decide in fact the results of elections. And I stay in touch with young liberals. (I tell old liberals I have nothing to say to them, that they are not worth the effort because they will soon be dead.) I spend a long time talking with a left-leaning young man recently and learned a lot, or remembered important things that had slipped my mind.

First, let me describe it lest I am accused of setting up a straw man. He is a 22-year old college student at a reasonably good university. He gets very good grades, an item of information I am not inclined to ignore because I am a former professor. (Briefly, I believe that some students who received bad grades are smart people and I also believe that students who earn high grades regularly are always at least reasonably intelligent and that they have character.) The young man is also a hard worker; I know this for a fact. Finally, he possesses an intelligence well above average and he is intellectually serious. (He does not play games when he discusses an issue; he prizes his credibility.) This young paragon of virtues also voted for Obama and pretty well supports anything Obama does or says. He is a perfect foil for me.

My conversation left me impressed with what he did not know. Two things stick to my mind:

1 He seemed to be under the impression that the CEO of a publicly held company is the guy who owns the most stock. He seemed surprised and incredulous when I told him that there is no rule that any CEO should own any stock in the company he manages.

This young man knows little about the workings of capitalism. He seems to be informing himself on his own, in part by taking the trouble to talk to people like me. Yet, at this point, there is no way to count on him to way the pros-and-cons of government control of the economy.

2 He was skeptical also when I informed him of the idea that the US Constitution limits the power of the Federal Government to what it explicitly mentions. He does not know we have a deliberately negative constitution. He was further astonished when I tried to point out to him that the Constitution intends for the federal Government and the individual states to be different entities with separate powers and separate jurisdictions. My friend did not seem to know any more in this respect than many Frenchmen of my acquaintance who believe that the President of the United States appoints the governors of each state.

I am just reporting a conversation that’s still fresh in my mind. The report is not about a young man I subjectively judge better than average but about our educational system and about our media. The conversation helped me understand better the air of unreality I often catch in the commentaries of Obama supporter, as if they were aliens. Some or many are.

Next: I like this young man. I am going to blackmail or bribe him into reading our very short constitution. I am also thinking of persuading him to sue his high-school for fraud.

A Blueprint for a Communist Take-Over

I spend much time on my blog and on the air (“Facts Matter” Sundays, 11 am-1pm on KSCO Santa Cruz 1080 AM) debunking conspiracy so-called “theories.” (They are never real “theories.”) My main point is that any 26-year old upstart with a blog, any graduate of a third-rate college, even any alert janitor, can earn fame an fortune by revealing any half-way serious conspiracy. But, but, as I have noted before, there are tacit conspiracies. They are not really conspiracies in the usual sense but shared cultural understandings of how the world world and specific shared goals. To put it another way, four horses don’t have to confer to pull together. Somehow, this reminds me of communism.

A reminder: Communist parties and authoritarian Marxist movements under various other names have generally taken power guns in hand or thanks to the guns of others. There are two exceptions: the Czechoslovak Communist Party between 1945 and 1948 and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in 1979-1980. I leave the latter example mostly aside for the time being although it’s well worth reading about it. 1948 Czechoslovakia was the most literate, the most developed and the most industrialized of all the countries that fell to communism. Please, make a mental note of this.

The story of the Communist take-over of Czechoslovakia is interesting as a non-military scenario. I am completely sure that no American communists under any name, will take over the US through a military putsch. This country’s armed forces comprise people who have taken an oath to defend the Constitution, not any particular President or any particular Congress. There are only reasons to believe that they take their oath seriously. Unlike the case in military coup-type countries, the US rank-and-file are neither hapless draftees nor the sons of starving peasants who can be trained like fierce attack dogs. Instead, they are better educated, mentally healthier, and more religious than the general population.

So, the relevant intellectual exercise is this: How would a small, radical group with a collective ideology go about implementing a Czechoslovak kind of take-over of this country? I mean by using the conventional political process, including formally valid elections.

Here are some of the things such a small group of revolutionaries would do:

First of all a small group of dedicated revolutionaries would have to practice “entrisme” successfully. This French word refers to the practice of softly entering into a variety of non-political organizations in order to take control of their levers of command. Trotskyst groups everywhere have been using this strategy to gain an influence extremely disproportional to their tiny numbers. (A French Prime Minster for several years was a “former” Trotkyst. Similar infiltrations took place in Germany.)

Leftist entristes are opportunistic. They will grab anything they can, even the Little League if need be. In this country, you would expect their chief targets to be: labor unions, quasi-religious mass movements with ill-defined beliefs and goals (such as many environmentalist groups); some churches, and voluntary associations intended to relieve various forms of human misfortune. The latter constitute especially attractive targets because they are chronically short of funds to do all the good they sincerely wish to do. They can thus be bought with small government largess and at the cost of few pangs of conscience.

It would use legal means and nearly-legal means to erode popular attachment to constitutional government. It would do so by means of myriads of small breaches that would generate tolerance much the way one can develop a tolerance for bee venom and other poisons. It would do so also by bribing a fraction of the population with arguments of the following form: Whether it is completely constitutional or not, many people, including yourself, find themselves immediately better off thanks to this government measure.

It would use, annex and exploit the existing national culture. It would produce, groom. construct a savior resembling something in the culture. If this took place in India, the providential leader would seem like the avatar of a beloved and familiar Hindu god. If it took place in Russia (again), the providential leader would remind one of Peter the Great, a somewhat brutal but effective ruler. If it happened in a genuinely Christian country such as the US….

It would exploit the national culture in another, more refined way. It would use indubitably shameful aspects of the national history to mute the criticality of many in the educated classes, beginning with academics. A fraction of the upper strata (which have generally more formal education than the rest) would thus support the radical group out of a sense historical shame.

It would develop and apply quickly economic policies designed to turn large numbers into government dependents. Government social services in general achieve this end. Services the provision of which induce mass impoverishment do it faster. Creating a large new entitlement that the country cannot afford generates masses of government-dependent people in three ways. Directly: what the government gives it can take away. Indirectly because shrinking real incomes make people feel vulnerable and more desirous of government help. Directly again: In a poor economy offering little opportunity for personal success, government jobs look more appealing than they do in a booming capitalist economy.

It would intimidate economic groupings and associations that oppose the take-over with threats of precisely directed tax hikes and massive fines.

It would prepare the general population to tolerate large-scale, extra- judicial repression by trumpeting the small deeds and alleged seditious intentions of tiny and insignificant fringe groups, armed groups if possible. It would actively infiltrate such fringe groups. In some cases, it would create them. (In every society, there are small numbers of excitable individuals who can be incited fairly easily.)

Finally, if the target country were a superpower as the US is, the leadership would do its best to ensure that it’s less feared and less respected internationally.

Here are more government actions typical of attempts to socialize an economy not limited to communist coups:nationalizing segments of the production apparatus and gaining control over banks and other financial institutions.The GMtake-0ver does not amount to much economically but it opens the way for the crucial idea of government-owned industries.Bailing out failing banks plays the same role.

This program for dictatorship would be the all the more successful if the revolutionaries had media support. I means media as in newspapers, conventional television networks. and the movie industry.

Do I suggest that President Obama is the leader of a communist revolution? I am less and less willing to say categorically “No.” That’s in part because he seems to have come from nowhere, as if he had been invented by central casting. There are important parts of his biography that don’t ad up. As a retired university professor, I am especially perplexed by his unwillingness to divulge his undergraduate grades. What if he had a C- GPA at 22, like both Pres. Bush and Senator Kerry? Would anyone really care? For how long would it be news? Those who are inclined to think so already know he is an affirmative action wonder. What is the real reason for this stubborn dissimulation of presumably trivial facts? I can’t stop wondering.

Yet, the President does not appear intelligent enough or well educated enough to play the part of a Lenin. (The leader of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution was both very intelligent and very cultured.) But he might just be a fairly moderate figurehead manipulated by a small group of well financed extremists with a well understood agenda. Lenin called people like Obama “useful idiots.” Large numbers of mild liberals would follow stupidly because their power of analysis and their mental habits do not incline them to criticality. Also, many are cowards. When the Red Army put the German communist party in power in East Germany, the local social democrats followed like sheep. (German Social Democrats in 1950 were pretty much like the core of the current Democratic Party in this country today.)

Note: The claim that President Obama is not very cultured is not a gratuitous insult in the mold of  the old Bush Insanity Disorder on the left. I reached this evaluation after listening to many of the President’s speeches (too many). It’s obvious that he often stumbles on ordinary words, like someone who never read beyond the assigned reading. On a recent occasion, I heard him repeatedly refer to Navy “corpsemen, ” as if the Navy had personnel specializing somehow in corpses, in cadavers. The fact that it happened several times, that he never caught himself, also does not speak well of his intelligence.

Paradoxically, the scenario above makes sense in Marxist terms. (Like nearly anyone who has read Karl Marx beyond the few easy pages of the Communist Manifesto, I am not quick to dismiss Marxism as a mode of analysis.) Marx never anticipated that a communist revolution would first explode in backward countries like Russia and China. He was thinking more in terms of Germany, and even of Great Britain, the USA of their time. It’s notable that the few Marxist analysts of the failure of communism everywhere argue precisely that it was never intended for poor and backward countries. Face-to-face, at scholarly meetings for example, they will tell you that communism has not failed because it has never been tried. It’s a program for an advanced, rich country, they claim.