Afghanistan, Conservatives and Libertarians. Telling off the King.

There is an upsurge of hostility to the war in Afghanistan in conservative circles. Thus, the Independent Institute, an organization I have been supporting modestly but faithfully for years has a spate of statements against our anti-Taliban operations there. It’s understandable but disappointing.

Part of the reason for some conservative reserve is simply childish tit-for-tat: “You libs berated Bush about his war, in Iraq; the shoe is on the other foot and we will berate you about Obama’s war in Afghanistan.” It matters not to this mindset that it’s only Obama’s war in the trivial sense that he is not using his powers to withdraw.

The main cause of the upsurge of hostility comes from the strong libertarian component in our midst. Libertarians, by definition, dislike big government. They observe, correctly, that every war enlarges the importance and the power of government in relation to civil society, to society in general. They assert further that the taxation capability governments acquires in war time- largely with the help of the suspension of criticality occasioned by patriotism – is seldom rolled back. Thus, war means irreversible growth of the state and a corresponding shrinking of individual liberties. Hence, libertarians tend to be reflexively isolationists.

Of course, I think this is all true. However, this is only part of the story. It’s futile to ignore the concrete, short-term questions facing this country with respect to its involvement in Afghanistan. Here are three:

1 If we allow the Taliban, the same group that hosted Al Quaida and refused to turn Bin Laden over after 9/11, to seize again Afghanistan, do we think they will not do it again? I did not make up the assertion that they are the same group. If they were not, they would have taken the trouble to call themselves something else. By the way, the Taliban top leader then is still the top leader now. If we pick up and go home, isn’t it undeniable that it communicates to our enemies the following message: “Do whatever you want to us; we will not punish you, at least, not much.” I mean by “enemies” first those who have asserted loudly that they will continue killing us because of who we are. I mean, secondarily, those who don’t quite want to blow us off the face of the earth but would enjoy seeing us much diminished.

In one word: Isn’t it the case that leaving our declared enemies alone is plain dangerous? Ben Franklin said it best, “If we make ourselves into sheep, the wolves will eat us.”

2 No one doubts that the Taliban, both in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, and Islamists in general, want to implement barbaric policies and that they do implement them whenever they have a chance. (Remember, their harsh, extremist rule in parts of Iraq contributed to turning the Sunni population against them.) Among other rolling atrocities, the Taliban close, and often firebomb schools, overwhelmingly girls schools. They are overtly working on perpetuating obscurantism and the savage treatment of women that is undeniably common in much (but not all) of the Muslim world.

If you are a conservative, can your really read the short statement above, look at yourself in the mirror and say, “ I don’t care; none of my business”?

3 Is it not the case that a return to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan would boost the morale and improves the material means of extremists Islamists in Pakistan next door. Such a development would have two unpleasant consequences, one strategic, one moral. An Islamist accession to power, or even an increase in influence of extremist Islamists in Pakistan would greatly enlarge the arsenal at the disposal of terrorists everywhere, including with portable nuclear devices. The resources of a large modern state at the disposal of those who hate us greatly threatens our existence, our democracy, and our ability to restrict the encroachments of our own government. Israel’s continued inability to deal effectively with Hezbollah, armed and trained by Iran, gives us a pretty good idea of what would happen if Islamists gained control of the much larger Pakistan.

The second consequence is this: India, facing a nuclear-armed Pakistan that it beat three times in war previously would not let Islamist terrorists come close to taking over the nuclear sites. It would probably strike pre-emptively. Hundreds of thousands would die because of our lack of enthusiasm for continuing the Afghan operation.

It’s not obvious that this chain of events would unavoidably unfold but are we willing to take the risk instead of committing the resources needed to wipe out our declared enemies in Afghanistan?

I know, I know, we are not the policeman for the world. Yet, when there is no police, armed vigilance is necessary. Would anyone argue that this vigilance is best exercised on the beaches outside San Diego. or in New Jersey, or in Chicago?

PS (9/1609)   Our NATO allies are letting us down: Germany, Canada, and soon the UK. The Canadians paid their price, as usual. The Europeans, beginning with the Germans, lack courage. Theirs are aging and decaying societies, undermined by thirty years of social democracy. Social democracy German style is Obama’s model, I believe, not Soviet communism. Peoples pay a psychological and and cultural price not often discussed for living in a nanny-state. (Perhaps the topic of another posting.)

NATO binds us, the Europeans and others, in a mutual defense pact. The effeminate western Europeans pretend to have forgotten the US protected them from barbarism for forty years. Among the “others” in NATO, are the Turks. They are the ones we need in Afghanistan: very tough, uncomplaining, not wussy, and mostly Muslim. Why are they not there in large numbers?

Libertarians keep avoiding this sort of debate. They tend to respond to the kind of arguments  about the necessity for extended defense I make above with straight statements of dogma. That’s one of the reasons the Libertarian Party does so badly in national elections, I will bet. There are many more libertarians outside the Libertarian Party than inside.

The liberals keep showing their childishness by keeping alive the pseudo-arguments of racism in connection with Congressman’s Wilson’s vituperation during the President’s nth health care reform speech.

Here is their logic: I yelled at a woman who allowed her dog to crap on my lawn and made no move to pick up. “You must hate women,” she asserted.You call, a black criminal a criminal, you must be a racist. You call a liar a liar, there must be some other agenda, one impossible to defend.

Congressman Wilson accused the President aloud of lying. Fact is, the President made several statements inconsistent with the truth, according to the Congressional Budget Office, among others. Whether the President lies habitually or whether he is indifferent to hard facts is a matter of debate. The first is certainly a logical possibility.

The underlying outrage concerns some imaginary “disrespect” for the President. Of course it’s disrespectful to call any man a liar to his face, and in public. Since when is there an obligation to respect the President? He is not a king by divine right. He is a politician who won because about 1% of all Americans gave him their vote which they denied to his competitor. That’s not exactly God’s mandate! Incidentally, I am not questioning the results of the elections, in spite of the support the President received from the ACORN gangsters.

In a democracy, disrespect for the President should be considered a morally mandatory attitude among citizens. The English started western democracy by beheading a king in 1688. The French followed through a hundred years later (and made a better spectacle of it, as you might expect.) Let’s remember that those were the cultural and psychological antecedents to popular sovereignty.

Yes, there are people tenuously in touch with reality on the conservative side, and extremists. Of course, such people don’t exist on the left side of the spectrum. Here is a rare exception culled from Facebook. (I will not publish the author’s name but I will give the proper references for purposes of verification to almost anyone who asks.)

“I know XXXXX. I was like finally! Go Rocky! Fight, fight! Stop trusting those fools. Hell will freeze over before they do something good fro this country. Enough is enough man. Damn. They all need to be euthanized or shot in my opinion. Something radical ”

Note: Nothing edited except the name of the addressee which I removed. JD.

A Real Town Meeting in the People’s Green Republic of Santa Cruz.

Tuesday night, I took in, in person, two and a half hours of town hall meeting with the same congressman, Sam Farr, in my own town of Santa Cruz, this time. Now, it’s important to understand that Santa Cruz is, overall, a seventies throwback, left-liberal to communist anti-American. To give you an idea, on my long street, downtown, there are only three American flags, two of which belong to me. When I make conservative noises in public, in spite of my considerable expressive talents, people think I am kidding.

I went to the meeting with my wife, under my own power. The only prompt I got is that one local radio station gave the time and place of the meeting on the air. It did so several times. It’s seen as a conservative station. (Full disclosure: I have a talk-show program on that station, KSCO 1080 AM, every Sunday 11AM-1PM.) Rush Limbaugh did not send me. The local Republican Party was pathetically absent in every respect. If there was any conservative or right-wing organization present, it escaped my attention and I was looking for one. There were no right-wing thugs in sight, with the possible exception of myself, and especially, my wife, Krishna. My wife is in very good shape indeed but, she is slight of built. She has never really divulged her age too me but her hair is all white. The only humans she has ever physically threatened were our children, when they were teen-agers, and me, of course. I can’t tell you why she threatened my because I don’t like to brag.

I insist on the unorganized nature of the event in a spirit of helpfulness. The main problem most Democrats, including Congressman Farr and including the President face, is that they cannot conceive of a genuine grass-root movement of revulsion. George Beck, the Fox News-appointed liberal, of all things, said on television that he does not believe that the opposition to Obamacare is “spontaneous.” He is not a dumb man. He is associated in some fashion with George Washington University. I have heard him before and never caught him even in a white lie. Those people can’t conceive of spontaneous political action because it seldom happens on their side. Instead, they rely on tax-subsidized ACORN, and on a variety of radical front organizations.

The Obama supporters seemed only a little more organized than the opponents. They had better signs and many seemed to know each other. They occupied most of the first three rows but I suspect there was no ploy involved. I could have sat in the second row if I had wanted to. One woman standing at the door was handing out three-page leaflets in support. She was careful to say she was not representing anything, that the document only expressed her own views. She tried to scrutinize my face before handing me a leaflet, no doubt to figure which side I am on. I gave her a big marble smile providing no information at all. I had also been careful to dress in a non-revelatory way. I don’t mean revelatory of my enviable physique, but of my political leanings. I was attempting stealth, the better to observe.

Naturally, I didn’t wear my brown shirt and I left my swastika at home. I did it to confuse Nancy Pelosi , a woman who becomes easily confused, it’s true.

The woman’s brochure had a lot of facts and it seemed carefully referenced. However, a number of the websites to which she referred the reader were clearly partisan. Overall, her argumentation was coherent. Yet it stood zero chance of persuading anyone not already in support of Obamacare. She made no effort to address the abundantly expressed concerns of opponents. (More on this later.) I think she was trying, ineffectually, to hand out ammunition to the weaklings on her side before the meeting. There were a variety of signs in the audience, fewer than fifty in all. The anti (conservative) signs were all hand-made. The pro signs were a mixture of hand-made and carefully printed slogans.

I estimated there were 500 people at the beginning of the meeting plus 200 in an overflow space. 700 is a large number in Santa Cruz for anything other than a movie. (There might be as many people at a religious service. I wouldn’t know. ) The main venue, in a church, was half-full an hour before the announced beginning of the meeting. It was packed when the Congressman arrived, pretty much on time.

He was introduced by one of the pastors, a woman with politically signaletic short hair. Then, the Mayor of Santa Cruz briefly took over. She is a leftie, of course, but rather well-liked by all. I felt that we were in mildly inimical territory. The Congressman is a jovial man with a sense of humor. He is also brave and hard-working.

Representative Farr began in Santa Cruz with the same rehearsed speech he had given the night before in Monterey. I felt he was on the wrong track from the beginning: not helpful to his side, the pro-Obamacare side, and startlingly incapable of addressing the views of the people opposed to Obama care.

Then people, about one hundred of them, lined up to deliver their two minute- speech and/or question. There is not much reason to repeat any of the audience’s addresses but I want to report on the tenor of the meeting. Only about 4/5 got to the mike. The queuing process was orderly and fair.

There was no intimidation on either side. There were catcalls and loud boos, from conservatives mostly. One, who was sitting next to me, was very loud indeed. I believe though not one sound was an attempt to drown out the Congressman, as we see regularly on college campuses, for example. It never even came close to that. There were also many rather effeminate hisses coming from pro partisans and directed at conservative speakers.

Conservatives, the con camp, and liberal/progressives, the pro Obamacare crowd, differ significantly both in appearance and in the content of their speech. Liberals are more flashy and they look better overall. The only speaker with a hat (a white straw hat) over his long hair, gave a little pro-Obamacare address and concluded that the overall solution to any health care crisis was to legalize and tax marijuana. (Disclosure: I agree that it’s a good idea. I don’t think it would make a dent, nationally.) Conservatives dress in a less interesting manner. Many are energetic sharp-spoken middle-aged women. The young among them tend to dress simply and soberly. More of the conservatives are seniors than are on the other side. This is interesting because you would assume Medicare beneficiaries did not have much of a dog in that fight. There were two black men in the audience. One did not get to speak; the other gave one of the best, most coherent anti-Obamacare arguments.

As usual, what did not happen matters most. Contrary to stupid, lazy press reports, the meeting did not look at all like a battle between well-dressed conservatives on the one side and the hard-working poor in work boots on the other side. Although Santa Cruz County is probably one third Hispanic, with Hispanics doing most of the ill-paid work, I observed no Hispanic presence at all. There were several large, white-on-white families I would classify, with my unusual sociological acumen, as “Oakies” here (“hillbillies” elsewhere in America). They were obviously there to a protest against Obama care. The town hall meeting in Santa Cruz was a solidly middle-class affair. All the people present could have mixed, matched, and possibly mated, at a neighborhood barbecue.

The spectacle rejoiced my heart because it was in the very best tradition of American democracy in action. Yet, I think the meeting was useless for its announced purpose. The two sides spent two hours speaking past each other. I don’t attribute the responsibility for this equally to both sides. (The truth is never in the middle.) The Congressman and supporters of Obamacare came wholly unprepared to address either the economic arguments of their opponents, nor even less, their constitutional concerns. The conservatives gave better speeches because they actually gave speeches while the liberals wasted a lot of time whining, as usual.

Striking ignorance of basic facts was evident on both sides. Ignorance has multiple causes. Mistrust is one of them. Congress could dissipate 90% of the mistrust on the conservative side with a single sentence: Members of Congress will have exactly the same access to health care as every other American.

The disjunction between the two discourses became clear within the first half-hour. The pro camp argued for the human necessity of government-directed, and in some case of single-payer, health care, shored up by horror stories. Many liberal speakers only gave horror stories, often about their own needs and the injustice of their destiny. The old stereotype was confirmed to an astounding degree: Liberals think of Government as an infinitely wise milch cow with teats that never dry up. They resist discussing the cost of good things, of any good things. Many have a singular talent for irrelevancy: By the end of the meeting, there were catcalls offering “no war” as the best solution to the alleged health care crisis health. Liberals are overwhelmingly childish.

Liberals and progressives came ready to counter only the crudest conservative slogans, such as the accusation of “socialism.” They painted their opponents in primitive colors, again, like children. I think they only know slogans and their slogans are mostly boring.

Obamacare opponents included only a small number of anti-abortion speakers. There was no hysteria about government-ordered euthanasia though concerns were expressed about the possibility government rationing might lead there. Conservative arguments were comparatively sophisticated and free of heart-wrenching personal narratives. They focused on disbelief regarding the announced costs of Obamacare. (They were thus joining he Congressional Budget Office, currently directed by a Democrat), and on constitutionality. Libertarian sentiment dominated. The financial consequences of Obama care were the tying principle as you would expect from people worried about economics and equally from people who dislike government growth.

Congressman Farr – a man easy to like, as I said – inspired pity. He came equipped with simplistic bullet-points and was confronted by a barrage of sophisticated questions and arguments. I believe he did not honestly understand most of them. I think he is out of his depth defending health care reform Obama-style. In part it’s because he is ill-informed, superficial, and living in a liberal intellectual ghetto. In part it’s because he, his party, and the President, did not come close to expecting the strong opposition that emerged quickly. They seem to believe their own gross propaganda describing opponents of Obamacare as a handful of ignorant thugs paid by insurance companies and teleguided by Rush Limbaugh.

Missing in the congressman’s handling of his opposition:

The crucial distinction between health insurance and health care. (He pointed out repeatedly that obligatory health insurance would be just like obligatory car insurance. Of course, I am unlikely to have a car accident and I am a hundred per cent likely to become sick.)

A grasp on the real nature of the “40 million uninsured” he kept using a a final argument that should close the matter for good. (They are largely a myth, though the figure is real, in a superficial sense.)

Any mature comprehension at all of the constitutional and historical fears expressed by opponents of Obamacare. (Listening to him was like listening to a French politician who would not know who Thomas Jefferson was and who would have never read the Declaration of Independence.)

Practical, personal familiarity with conservative rank-and-file, with conservatives who are not politicians or figments of left-wing journalists imagination. (I suspect he would be astounded, in full disbelief, if I talked to him freely over a beer.)

Elementary comprehension of economic objections to Obamacare. (After the meeting, I would have bet he did not understand even the summary of the Congressional Budget Office’s report on the topic.)

The defining moment of the town meeting occurred when a conservative asked him a pointed but simple question about the projected final cost of the proposed national health program. Congressman Farr, always the honest man, replied:

“I don’t know.”

The local newspaper, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, gave a fair report of the event the next morning with a breath-takingly dishonest heading. Perhaps it was torn between fair and factual reporting and trying to align itself on the rest of the liberal press representation of such town meetings as being taking over by thugs.

For the record: I believe we need health care reform. This, for several reasons. Our costs are twice higher than those of the French and we don’t live as long. It’s intolerable that Americans should be forced to keep a job they hate because they cannot afford to lose the health care that’s tied to it. The propensity of insurance companies to turn down people with pre-existing conditions is a real problem so long as we are in an insurance regime.

I also think health insurance is a terrible idea. I place less confidence in our government to administer any complicated, national-level plan than I would in most West-European governments. I fear creeping, soft fascism, using nationalized health care as its main vehicle.

PS  Mr President: If you didn’t plant the alarming story about white extremist militia, don’t worry about them. They include only 37 middle-age guys spread over ten states. They have trouble finding their size in camouflage fatigues. They have to walk up hills in the forest because they smoke two packs a day.

Incidentally, tell your whiny Democrat Congressmen who complain about imaginary militias that its’ “supremacist,” no “supremist.”

Mr President: Worry instead about a massive tax revolt that will peacefully paralyze government. That’s the American way, didn’t you know?

Rush Limbaugh; Tropical Drinks; Iran and Rumors of War

Update on Iranian election, 6/16/09:   I have not changed my mind. Some conservatives, including John McCain, are blaming the President for not intervening more clearly in the Iranians struggle for democracy.We can’t have it both ways, folks: You may not blame Obama for playing God and then decry that he is not acting like God in an issue dear to your hearts. It’s not the US President’s business to decide who won the election. It’s clear to White House does not have an inside source on this that is not also partisan, anyway.

It was before the election that, once more, President Obama wasted an opportunity to keep his mouth shut.

I don’t think hundreds of thousands of  likable young people risking their lives at the hands of the crude Iranian Islamist regime means that they should have their way. I did not think their counterparts should have their way in this country when they demonstrated in equally large numbers against the liberation of Iraq.

Repressive, blood-thirsty, intolerant governments win elections all the time. If you wanted to be effective, you        would have to come out and say: Iranian elections are a sham from day one. Th Iranian government is illegitimate. We will do it as much harm as we can.

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I listen to Rush Limbaugh nearly every morning. His staff  keeps him well informed; he has great powers of reasoning and a gift for clarity. That’s why liberals hate him.

Limbaugh was wrong on something recently, though. He criticized the Obama administration for releasing in Bermuda four Uighurs from Guantanamo. Those are men who have been categorically cleared by the Pentagon. There was no reason to hold then except the belief that China, the country of which they are citizens, would kill them if we sent them back. Having been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time should not merit a death sentence, I believe, as a conservative.

Limbaugh also derided some pictures that show the freed Uighurs pleasantly bathing in the warm Atlantic. He said sarcastically that all they were missing were pinas coladas. You are dead wrong, Rush. That would be just fine. In fact, I can’t think of a better way to kill terrorism in the egg than tropical bathing and long drinks with little colorful umbrellas. I wish we could try it. Liberals would call it torture, no doubt. I think they would be right, in a way. Just ignore them.

Some people are puzzled about events in Iran. It’s a tyranny yet, it holds hotly disputed elections.

Here is how it works. There is a council of religious elders, ayatollahs. They are a little like Methodist bishops, except that they will execute you at a nod. They are co-opted into the council. However, it’s not easy to become an ayatollah. You have to have a following. You pretty much have to be popular during a lifetime. This fact matters. (See my recent posting on fascism.)

This council of elders has veto power over everything and it directs foreign policy. The council also decides who is allowed to run for office. It’s a narrow fraction of Iranian public opinion. Anyone who says Iran should be a secular republic, like Turkey for example, is not allowed to run.

The council also decides who really won the elections.

Within these limits, elections and platforms are real and the press is very active.

Ahmedinejad was elected, I believe. Yes, there was cheating. That would include an interruption of electronic communications between opponents by the relevant Ministry, and the mere fact that the Ministry of the Interior was in charge of counting votes. None of this would be acceptable in a normal democracy. (My info is from the WSJ, a respectable source.)

Yes, the same ministry jumped the gun and announced a lopsided victory (65%), too early on to be honest.

None of this means that Ahmedinejad did not obtain the largest number of votes. I suspect, it’s like the last presidential election in this country: ACORN cheated massively for Obama and he would have won, with or without ACORN.

Western public opinion was not prepared. We thought there would be good news, for two reasons. First since Pres. Obama had announced his divine intervention in the Iranian election, the silly press wanted to believe him, the way it believes anything he says. So, journalists predicted the opposition would win. We are silly too to listen, still.

Second, journalists were lazy, as usual. I keep telling you this. They went for the low-hanging fruits. They interviewed English-speaking young Iranians in the ritzy districts of Tehran. That’s exactly the kind of people you would expect to be fed up with the Islamist regime.

Hardly any member of the former Third Estate took the trouble to go with a good interpreter and interview in the rural areas, or even in the slums of Tehran. That’s where Ahmedinejad’s supporters live. They care nothing about freedom. He makes them gifts of potatoes. They have no idea what life in prosperous democratic countries is like. Again, he makes them gifts of potatoes. They think that’s what improving one’s life is: more potatoes.

There is no conspiracy in the mis-reporting either folks. There is a press that’s culturally in tune with the Obama crowd, his brethren. Most come from the same mold as he. And there is laziness that’s hard to believe, sometimes.

Iran is a typical case of fascism, of successful fascism.

By the way, none of the other candidates including the leading one, Mussavi, is a democrat; none demands real democracy; none demands an end to the elders’ supervision; none envisages much more freedom for women than head-scarves that allow a little bit of hair to show. Mussavi was a cold-blooded executioner in the early stage of the Islamic Republic. Ooops, nobody is perfect!

By the way also, none of the competing parties had said they would stop nuclear arming if they won. That’s not allowed. It does not depend on who is President. What might have changed is the willingness to talk to the West.

One big way I might turn out wrong: The council of elders wields so much power that it might decide that youths demonstrating in the streets is a bad idea. It might even decide to annul the election and send old Ahmed back to his dog house and tell his electors to stuff it. Democracy!

If you want to worry about something, worry about what Israel will do. The Israeli Prime Minister is facing a country demographically ten times large than his own whose re-elected president has said repeatedly that Israel has not right to exist. That country is making fast progress toward a nuclear bomb. It already has the means to deliver it.

His traditional ally, the US, has let him down publicly, in no uncertain terms.

Ask yourself : What would you do if you were responsible for the safety of seven million Israelis (including more than two million Israeli Arabs, incidentally)?

The recent speech by Netanyahu offering two states, except… was pure cover-my-ass and perhaps, cover Obama’s ass. There was no reason to believe any Palestinian leader would court instant assassination by whispering anything signifying any sliver of assent. The Israeli Prime Minister was just saying: “Don’t blame me; I tried.” That’s classical preparation for aggressive action.

Here is a scenario: Israel bombs the Iranian nuclear sites without helps. Its planes overfly Iraq. The Israeli Prime Minister dares the US military there to shoot them down. He also warns the Iranians that if there is any retaliation, his airforce will firebomb downtown Tehran. Everyone knows he has nuclear bombs in reserve.

Peaceful Iranians, people I would gladly have a beer with (of the alcohol-free variety possibly because I am a sensitive SOB), some of the same people now demonstrating, are liable to die. Netanyahu probably thinks it’s better than the other way around.

Weakness does not make peace. It makes war. If the US had bombed two Japanese ports in 1940, there would never have been a Pearl Harbor. That would have saved hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives.