Ignorant or Malicious

I think the organizers are mostly the latter, and the attendees are mostly the former.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/28/us/politics/28beck.html?_r=1&hp

 

It is funny though that many conservatives are saying that Muslims should not build a mosque anywhere near ground zero out of sensitivity for the victims of 9/11 families.  There is an obvious parallel to this rally in the pre-civil rights oppression of African Americans, incidentally by a cohort of Americans then that is remarkably similar to the average tea party protester today.

Nero fiddled while Rome burned.

I love Ron Paul.  His recent rant about the demagogery surrounding the NYC mosque is a classic piece.

 

http://www.ronpaul.com/2010-08-20/ron-paul-sunshine-patriots-stop-your-demagogy-about-the-nyc-mosque/

 

Money quotes: 

 

"The justification to ban the mosque is no more rational than banning a soccer field in the same place because all the suicide bombers loved to play soccer."

 

"Conservatives are once again, unfortunately, failing to defend private property rights, a policy we claim to cherish. In addition conservatives missed a chance to challenge the hypocrisy of the left which now claims they defend property rights of Muslims, yet rarely if ever, the property rights of American private businesses."

 

"It is repeatedly said that 64% of the people, after listening to the political demagogues, don't want the mosque to be built. What would we do if 75% of the people insist that no more Catholic churches be built in New York City? The point being is that majorities can become oppressors of minority rights as well as individual dictators. Statistics of support is irrelevant when it comes to the purpose of government in a free society—protecting liberty."

 

Ron Paul was and is the only true conservative of the Republican Party.  All of these other fools...Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Mitch McConnell and the like, are frauds.

Super interesting article about a Chinese Lt General

Democracy is the most powerful weapon:

 

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htlead/articles/20100819.aspx

 

I personally think China will surely democratize smoothly in the next few decades.  There really won't be a defining moment; it will be a gradual process.  The Chinese authoritarian state is/will gradually morph(ing) into a one-party state with increasingly full civil liberties.  Eventually it will look like Japan for the last 40 years, where the dominant political party held control but politicians competed for control of that party.  Opposition parties may compete, but will generally do poorly.  Finally one day, an opposition party will win an election, but hardly anyone will notice, as happened in Japan last year.

On the mosque "at ground zero"

Sam Harris is not OK with the mosque because he believes that Islam is unlike other religions and that previous Western liberal tolerance towards Islam betrayed weakness.

I disagree with him on several counts. The first is the issue of Islam being a violent religion in passage. That, it undeniably is. There are quotes in the Koran that invoke violence. But at the end of the day - what does that prove? Nothing, really. There are violent sections of the Christian bible. And furthermore, people do not need religion to make them evil - they can do that on their own. They also don't necessarily become evil because of religion. In other words, even though Islam does advocate violent action in certain parts, it does not follow that Muslims are destined to become violent. No doubt someday they will mostly come to ignore their religious tenants just like we have here in the West.

The most important point of disagreement is the context of our tolerance. There is a fundamental difference between European tolerance and American tolerance of Islam. Europeans were tolerant from a position of Muslims on that continent not being well integrated into the society at all, an extremely anemic European growth rate, and a very robust Muslim birth rate from a relatively high starting base population. In other words, Europeans are tolerant of Islam out of weakness.

In the United States, we can be tolerant of Islam for different reasons - we can be tolerant because of our strength. We do not have to fear Islam because we know that it poses no threat to America. Why? Well for starters, American Muslims are far more integrated than European ones. This is a testament to our melting pot society, which has an almost limitless capacity to absorb and welcome newcomers. Muslims succeed in America, and they feel welcome in America. Furthermore, they represent a very tiny proportion of the population, barely 1%.

Americans should not worry about the mosque near ground zero because we are strong enough such that we don't need to. Allowing the mosque reflects our confidence and strength, even though a similar situation in Europe might have reflected weakness. This partially explains the European tendency lately to overreact in bits of anti-Islamic hysteria (the Swiss, the French); they are compensating! Nobody in the world will question that our allowing the mosque is from a position of strength - except maybe all of the unpatriotic Americans who are expressing their vote of no confidence in their country by whining about this issue.

Bombing Iran

"Netanyahu’s belief is that Iran is not Israel’s problem alone; it is the world’s problem, and the world, led by the United States, is duty-bound to grapple with it."

This is a quote from Jeffery Goldberg's recent comment in The Atlantic. I will admit that the Iranian Republic of seven years ago is different from the one of today. Then, there was a widespread distribution of power among clergy, the religious assembly, the Supreme Leader, Ahmadinejad, and the Revolutionary Guards. Now the more moderate clergy has been sidelined, and the more extremist Revolutionary Guards and their leader Ahmadinejad have consolidated power.

The nation looks more like a police state / dictatorship than it did seven years ago. I absolutely hate WW2 analogies, but I actually think it is appropriate here: Iran now looks like Germany in 1932, where the brownshirts and the SS were on the brink of a major consolidation of power within the nation. So too may the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Ahmadinejad be poised.

Any time power gets more concentrated, it is unstable, and more dangerous - especially when the people in whose hands it is concentrated have apocalyptic religious beliefs, and thus are likely irrational and hard to deter. So before having finished the article, I will say that the thought of a military solution to this problem does not turn me off nearly as much as it did previously.

If I was Obama, what would I do? I would tell the Israelis flat out that settlements in the West Bank stop TODAY if they want our military / diplomatic support in a year from now if things get a bit hazy. If we have to go to war, we have to go to war. The world has to know that we at least did everything possible to prevent that eventuality, which Obama has virtually done, save successfully restrain Israeli provocation in the West Bank.

The chicken or the egg?

Actually, I am pretty sure that scientists recently figured out which came first.  Anyway, I sometimes wonder:  are Americans short sighted, gullible, and stupid because this is the dismal state of our national media?  Or is our vapid and useless media just catering to a hopeless audience?  I mean, Fox News for example certainly did not invent stupid, it just profits from it.

Chinese docs and patients

I did a month long surgery rotation in China in April.  When I came back, I told people (friends, family, docs) that American surgeons have it lucky:  if the patient does not do well, the worst that could happen is we get sued.  In China, you get sued and you get beat up by the patient's family.

 

I don't think people believed me when I told them this, or maybe thought I was exaggerating.  I'd tell them that if a patient had a bad outcome, the docs in some places would wear a helmet to work the next day.  And I'd get this look like "Nick, you're full of it."

 

Quote from a recent NYT article.  "In 2006, patients or their relatives attacked more than 5,500 medical workers, reflecting wide discontent with China's public health care system."

 

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/world/index.html

 

See?  I wasn't exaggerating.  American doctors have it great.  Our patients generally respect us.  They only sue us 5% of the times when they could.  And, they don't beat us up when things don't go well.

quote of the month

"There's still this notion that we should build big roads everywhere because the car represents personal freedom. Well, that's bullshit. The truth is that most people are prisoners of their cars."

 

This comes from a great article about traffic and road congestion, and the future of American urban planning.

 

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.html?pg=1&topic=traffic&topic_set=

Barack Obama is a better man than I

Apparently he has initiated regular face-to-face meetings with senate minority leader Mitch McConnell.

It would have been really difficult for me to do this sort of thing given the extremely low opinion I have of McConnell in particular. But this sort of action is really the thing that Obama promised for his presidency. "Change" was never about being liberal or moving the country to the left. That had been done before. It was about consensus seeking and bipartisanship. Just because the Republicans have downright refused to play government thus far does not make Obama a less bipartisan politician.

Gay marriage

Many people agree:  government is too big, it shouldn't be involved in private affairs, and individuals should be free to live as they wish so long as it doesn't harm others.

Many of those same people would however disagree that the government shouldnt be involved in private affairs vis a vis marriage.

I guess they think gay marriage will harm others?  Id be interested to hear an argument for that position that couldn't be extended to outlaw all sorts of "amoral" behavior, thus destroying the separation of church and state and turning America into a theocracy.

And then of course many of these same advocates of private freedom of government intervention might also oppose homosexual military service, again because I somehow should believe that gay military service harms others.  Even though every other western nation allows it, including Israel.

Everyone likes big government when it suits them, I guess.

Wikileaks

My rule of thumb is that more access to more information by more people is always a good thing. And even in the case of Wikileaks, it is a good thing. If the war in Afghanistan is going so poorly that we have to lie to the American people about it, maybe we should reconsider how or whether to fight it. Anyway, I think that nation-building in Afghanistan is, while perhaps an exercise in futility, not a grave threat to world peace. I would think Wikileaks could really do a much better job at promoting world peace if it figured out a way to get information to citizens in countries like North Korea, Iran, and other places with tons of censorship. More information to more people = better, after all, and Americans already know Afghanistan is not going well.

A government bail-out that you won't see the Tea Party complain about

Continued federal subsidies to farmers. So much for the whole "free market, small government" capitalism thing that they're always talking about.

Obama and BP

One thing I'd like to point out in light of all of the GOP attacks on the way Obama treated BP. Republicans have asserted that the 20 billion dollar escrow fund is a "shakedown" and that it is unlawful. Granted, they all backed off because they realized that it was politically a bad position to be in - but was there any merit to their position? I would argue no.

I agree that it would be illegal if Obama was trying to force BP into putting 20 billion into escrow, since damages claims should go through the tort system. But from what I know, Obama simply asked BP to do it, and BP complied instead. This is a subtle difference, but a relevant one.

If someone was to rear end me on the road, I could ask them to give me a few hundred dollars in cash. It would be convenient for both of us, after all. That way, I wouldn't have to deal with the courts, I wouldn't have to call the police. The person who hits be benefits as well, since their insurance won't find out and they end up paying less in the long run. That being said, if the person who hit me refused to give me a few hundred bucks cash, theres no way I could force them to do it. Instead, I would have to use the court system, and would probably try to get more than just a few hundred bucks in damages for my inconvenience.

Obama wanted BP to put 20 billion in escrow because it will result in very rapid payments to people who are injured financially by this oil spill. Obama benefits from this because it is going to be good politics - people will see that he made action on the issue, that people are going to get paid, and that BP is punished. Yet, BP stands to gain as well and I have no doubt that this is one of the reasons they complied with Obama's request. BP knows that using the tort system, they would have had to paid out huge sums of money anyways. Furthermore, not being seen by the American people, investors, the world as cooperating would probably injure their long-term bottom line by damaging their reputation.

Besides Obama and BP, I think the people on the gulf coast are going to benefit from this as well. It took decades for the Exxon Valdez oil spill damages to get paid out to some of the claimants. The tort system is a slow and cumbersome beast. It obviously is the judicator of last resort, but there is nothing illegal about avoiding the tort system if all parties agree.

Strategic Default

Former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. on strategic defaults: "Any homeowner who can afford his mortgage payment but chooses to walk away from an underwater property is simply a speculator — and one who is not honoring his obligation.”

When I read that quote, I thought it was one of the most audacious things I had ever read. The entire world banking system was on the verge of collapse two years ago until it was rescued by the Obama administration. And the reason it almost happened was because bankers on Wall St. were recklessly speculating with the savings of American citizens. Who wasn't honoring an obligation? Regular citizens are held to a higher standard than banks?

Meanwhile, here are the Republicans going after strategic defaulters. Again, these are the regular citizens who have made a business decision that their home is no longer a smart investment. These citizens decide to cut their losses and walk away - and suffer the consequences in the contract, which state that they must surrender the property.

There may be an economic explanation for widespread strategic defaults should be discouraged, although I don't really see it at the moment. It is certainly bad for the housing market *now* but it wouldn't be bad for a housing market *in general*, since the threat of strategic default would serve as a powerful incentive for banks to not feed housing bubbles or try to profit off of them. At any rate, its pretty heinous to see the Republicans go gung-ho about pursuing regular Americans and forcing them to stick with bad business decisions when Mitch McConnell and the Republicans have been defending Wall Street from any regulation whatsoever.

If anyone remembers, Jim Cramer (of Mad Money) went on the Daily Show a couple years ago and got a beat down by Jon Stewart that was so complete that it was actually awkward to watch the show and Cramer looked like he was going to cry. Well the reason that Cramer caught Stewart's attention in the first place is that on Mad Money, Cramer referred to Americans who were walking away from their mortgages as "losers".

I'm just trying to figure out how in our culture, corporations and banks who f*ck up beyond belief deserve to be preserved, bailed out, and protected from any regulation. But average Americans, who don't do finance for a living, when they decide that they can no longer afford a mortgage and walk...what are they? They're "losers", who "aren't honoring their obligations". It is just too ironic that the only reason many of these citizen defaulters were in those mortgages in the first place is because banks were giving home loans people with bad credit for zero money down.

The Oil

I think one important point that keeps getting lost on impatient Americans is why BP was drilling in the first place.  They were drilling because Americans refuse to use less oil.   BP had to drill because our energy policy for the last decade has been "drill baby, drill" when especially after 9/11 it should have been "conserve baby, conserve".  We didn't want nuclear power or mass transit.  We wanted SUVs and strip malls.  We went to war for it.  Now the gulf is paying for it.

The saddest thing is through all the whining and bitching about this oil spill, nobody is talking about how we reduce our dependence on oil.  We need a gas tax, nuclear power, and public transit - and soon.  Until we decide to make a sacrifice I seriously am sick of the whining about BP, who did the job we paid them to do, with risks that were clearly not part of the fee but that should have been (this is why we need an oil tax).

Welcome to the 21st century

Pakistan blocks facebook because some Westerners were having a Muhammad cartoon drawing contest.

In a single generation, people in many underdeveloped nations around the world have been catapulted from traditional local society into modern globalized societies. It has been an extremely difficult transition for many people, most visibly for people in many Muslim-majority nations. Americans take it for granted that in the United States, our modernization took place over more than a century. We had time for social movements to gradually challenge societal norms.

For example, In the 1920s-30s we experimented with prohibition, and then decided that drinking alcohol is OK. We came to accept political involvement of women early in the century as well with women's suffrage. Civil rights for minorities and women's liberation developed over the next few decades and culminated in the 60's. Acceptance of homosexuality has been a gradual process over the decades as well, and look how far we still have to go. Maintaining the separation of church and state, as the Founding Fathers intended, has been a constant battle - but it has been an important one, to keep religion out of politics.

Imagine if the USA of 1900 was thrust into 2010 in a matter of a couple of decades. America in 1900 afforded women and minorities few rights. Homosexual behavior was unthinkable, at least in public. People were far more religious and would have tolerated religious assaults far less than Americans do today. Alcohol would soon be made illegal. This is a world not hugely different than the one seen in many Muslim countries today.

Muslims around the world need to develop thicker skin. I believe the freedom of speech is the most important right that Americans have, and that means I have the right to draw a picture of Muhammad without being threatened for it. Liberal apologists of Islam in particular need to remember that - it is the fanatics who are threatening violence, and not the people who are drawing pictures of Muhammad, that are the problem here. That being said, the visceral reaction we see to something so innocuous, such as in the case of cartoons of Muhammad causing Muslims to flip out, is the result of basically a massive culture shock experienced in those Muslim nations.

Americans wouldn't have behaved any differently in 1900 if people in some other country were mocking Jesus Christ or desecrating Bibles. We would have thrown a temper tantrum, too.

Double standards

I think this article brings up a good point.

Case 1: Harvard University bans military recruiters from campus because the US Military discriminates against homosexuals.

Case 2: Harvard University accepts the donations of princes from Saudi Arabia, which executes homosexuals, discriminates against women and religious minorities, et cetera.

I can accept case 1 or case 2 but not both.

The death of conservatism

The problem: online social media (twitter, facebook) is too liberal. The conservative solution? I bring you Ricochet:

"The distinguishing feature of Ricochet will be its unique format, which promises to look unlike any other site on the net. "It will not be a news aggregator, or a megachat like Daily Kos, but instead will be a feed like Facebook or Twitter or Tumbler," says James Poulos, Ricochet's managing editor. Approximately 40 contributors will have an online conversation that is akin to a conservative cocktail party."

The name of this new network is actually spot on. "Ricochet"; as in an idea bouncing around a closed room with hard walls. I cannot think of a more perfect analogy for the conservative mindset of today. Actually employing superior arguments than liberals is apparently not an option anymore. Conservatives just want to sit in a 40-person echo chamber and repeat their mantras:

No more taxes
No more debt
No cutting spending
No Mexican people
No black presidents non-American citizen presidents
No ending wars
No alternative energy
No regulating banks
No regulating oil companies

Sounds like a pretty effective strategy to me.

A job for the Tea Party Movement?

That is, if they are serious about protecting our liberty, and stopping the inexorable rise of a bureaucratic monstrosity of a government which tramples on the Constitution. From Greenwald:

"A bipartisan group from Congress sponsors legislation to strip Americans of their citizenship based on Terrorism accusations. Barack Obama claims the right to assassinate Americans far from any battlefield and with no due process of any kind. The Obama administration begins covertly abandoning long-standing Miranda protections for American suspects by vastly expanding what had long been a very narrow “public safety” exception, and now Eric Holder explicitly advocates legislation to codify that erosion. John McCain and Joe Lieberman introduce legislation to bar all terrorism suspects, including Americans arrested on U.S. soil, from being tried in civilian courts, and former Bush officials Bill Burck and Dana Perino — while noting (correctly) that Holder’s Miranda proposal constitutes a concession to the right-wing claim that Miranda is too restrictive — today demand that U.S. citizens accused of terrorism and arrested on U.S. soil be treated as enemy combatants and thus denied even the most basic legal protections (including the right to be charged and have access to a lawyer)."

And for what danger are we prepared to surrender some of our most precious rights?

You are 13 times more likely to die in a railway accident than from a terrorist attack
You are 12,571 times more likely to die from cancer than from a terrorist attack
You are six times more likely to die from hot weather than from a terrorist attack
You are eight times more likely to die from accidental electrocution than from a terrorist attack
You are 11,000 times more likely to die in an airplane accident than from a terrorist plot involving an airplane
You are 87 times more likely to drown than die in a terrorist attack
You are 404 times more likely to die in a fall than from a terrorist attack
You are 17,600 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack
You are 1048 times more likely to die from a car accident than from a terrorist attack
You are 12 times more likely to die from accidental suffocation in bed than from a terrorist attack
You are nine times more likely to choke to death on your own vomit than die in a terrorist attack
You are eight times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist

Americans are a bunch of excitable little children. The Founding Fathers would be embarrassed that we are their legacy.

Addendum: a picture is worth 1000 words...

Laura Bush: hippie?

I didn't see this coming. The former first lady believes that women should have abortion rights, and that homosexual should have the right to marry. In fact, she urged her husband to not make gay marriage a major political issue in the 2004 campaign.