Mar 24, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From David Holcberg of the Ayn Rand Institute:
As the U.S. Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance recited in public schools, a deeper, more fundamental question has not even been raised: Why are young children being pressured to make a pledge they lack the knowledge to understand and the maturity to commit themselves to?
Children do not give the Pledge careful consideration and decide, daily, to pledge allegiance to their country under God with liberty and justice for all. The Pledge is a political statement and--since 1954, when "God" was added--a religious statement. The only reason children recite the Pledge is that their educators expect them to.
The purpose of education should be to teach children the knowledge and thinking skills they need to succeed in life, not to train them in parroting political and religious ideas they can't possibly grasp.
Mar 23, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
CNN reported yesterday: Bush administration rejects Clarke charges.Top members of the Bush administration sharply rebuffed their former counterterrorism chief Monday, calling his assertions in a new book about the White House's handling of terrorism and Iraq "deeply irresponsible" and "flat-out wrong."
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said Richard Clarke had engaged in a "retrospective rewriting of the history."
In his book "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror," published Monday, Clarke accuses the Bush administration of ignoring repeated warnings about an al Qaeda threat in 2001 and looking for an excuse to attack Iraq at the expense of battling terrorism.
InstaPundit has a number of links regarding Richard Clarke and his accusations:
From Secular Blasphemy blog: Richard Clarke: Now who was obsessed with other threats?The truth is that from a public perspective at least, Dick Clarke did not run around before 9/11 warning everybody about Bin Laden bringing about a new Pearl Harbour. He warned that computer viruses or hackers would bring about a "digital Pearl Harbour!"
From Spokane 4 Bush blog: Clarke's claims don't hold waterQ: As far as international crimes go, what's the one largest threat to U.S. citizens right now?
MR. CLARKE: I think the largest threat is obviously posed by international narcotics smuggling, which costs a number of lives and costs an enormous amount of money.
From Stephen Hayes at The Weekly Standard: On Richard ClarkeClarke's testimonials are, in a word, bizarre. In his own world, Clarke was the hero who warned Bush administration officials about Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda ad nauseam. The Bush administration, in Clarke's world, just didn't care. In Clarke's world, eight months of Bush administration counterterrorism policy is more important than eight years of Clinton administration counterterrorism policy.
And Little Green Footballs noted this CNN American Morning transcript in which National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice defends herself and the Bush Administration against Clarke's allegations. She also notes:[W]hat's very interesting is that, of course, Dick Clarke was the counterterrorism czar in 1998 when the [African] embassies were bombed. He was the counterterrorism czar in 2000 when the Cole was bombed. He was the counterterrorism czar for a period of the '90s when al Qaeda was strengthening and when the plots that ended up in September 11 were being hatched. The fact is, we needed a new strategy, and that's what we asked Dick Clarke to give us.
Mar 23, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From David Holcberg of the Ayn Rand Institute:
Israel's targeted killing of Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin was as justified as would be America's targeted killing of Osama bin Laden. Yassin, the founder and "spiritual leader" of a terrorist organization responsible for the murder and maiming of hundreds of innocents, got what he deserved. That heads of state from London to Paris criticized Israel's action instead of applauding it reveals, once again, their utter moral bankruptcy--and their seemingly endless willingness to appease evil. But as logic suggests and history demonstrates, appeasing evil only emboldens it, and those who fail to learn this lesson invariably become targets of evil themselves.
Mar 22, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
CNN reports: Hamas founder killed in Israeli airstrike.Israel Defense Forces acknowledged that it intentionally targeted the Hamas leader, saying Yassin was responsible for planning and directing terrorist attacks. "This morning, in a security forces operation in the northern Gaza Strip, the IDF targeted a car carrying the head of the Hamas terror organization, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and his aides," an IDF statement said. "Yassin, responsible for numerous murderous terror attacks, resulting in the deaths of many civilians, both Israeli and foreign, was killed in the attack." Hamas, a Palestinian Islamic fundamentalist organization, has been labeled by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization. [...] Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon thanked the security forces who carried out the operation and said the "war on terror is not over."
"The ideological essence of this man was one -- the murder and killing of Jews wherever they are and the destruction of the state of Israel," Sharon said.
Mar 22, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Edwin A. Locke of the Ayn Rand Institute:
The Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, which increases the fines for the broadcast of "obscene, indecent, and profane language," is itself an indecent obscenity.
The FCC's power to regulate any speech is a violation of the right to free speech. The First Amendment clearly states: "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." Such freedom requires that the airwaves, like the printing press, be used in complete freedom--any way their owners wish (short of libel, fraud and the like). Just as each individual should determine what he sees or hears, so each media company should determine what it broadcasts.
Parents--not media professionals or government bureaucrats--are the ones who have the responsibility for supervising what their children see and hear in the media. If people find a program objectionable, they are free to turn it off. It is as simple as that.
Mar 17, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
Last week, presumptive Democrat presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry defended his labeling of GOP critics as a 'crooked, lying group'.
This week he's defending his claim of support by unnamed world leaders. CNN reported yesterday: Bush challenges Kerry comments.White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan on Monday urged Kerry to "be straightforward" with American voters and disclose which international leaders told him they support him. If he won't, McClellan said, "then the only alternative is that he is making it up to attack the president of the United States.
InstaPundit has lots of links on this latter issue here and here.
Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee and other prominent Democrats are trying to to raise $10 million for Kerry in 10 days, which will no doubt be used to further obscure what Kerry is really for and against.
George W. Bush Blog is keeping tabs on the latest of Kerry's "for and against" positions, this time concerning Cuba and troop funding: Kerry Tries to Have It Both Ways on Issue After Issue.What Kerry is doing here is playing a Washington game that enables him to be on both sides of virtually every issue. [...] The bottom line is this: when it really mattered, on final passage, Kerry voted against funding for our troops in Iraq. He's now trying to say he voted the other way.
Included in the post is a link to Slate's Whooper of the Week awarded to Kerry. Timothy Noah comments:Kerry aides told [The Miami Herald's Peter] Wallsten that Kerry voted against the final bill because he disagreed with some technicalities added at the last minute, but that he voted for an earlier version of the bill. But every piece of legislation that comes before the Senate is subjected to a succession of votes, many of them tactical in nature. The only vote that counts is final passage. If it were otherwise, any legislator could claim to have voted for or against almost any bill, depending on the audience, and there would be no accountability at all.
Mar 17, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From David Holcberg of the Ayn Rand Institute:
The widespread condemnation of American companies for outsourcing their operations has no legitimate moral basis. American companies have the moral right to cut their costs and maximize their profits by doing business with anyone anywhere on earth (excluding, of course, people or businesses in countries that threaten or are at war with America).
The claim that outsourcing jobs hurts Americans misses the big picture. If companies that need to outsource to be competitive won't do it, they won't remain in business for long, and thus won't be able to offer Americans any jobs. Moreover, while true that Americans who would have taken the outsourced jobs will have to look for work elsewhere, the fact is that all American consumers benefit from the lower production costs and prices that result from outsourcing.
Just as Americans are right to shop for the best deals, American companies are right to shop for the best hires. And just as Americans have no moral obligation to buy American goods, American companies have no moral obligation to employ American workers.
Mar 16, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
CNN reports: Bombs 'to split Spain from allies'.The strategy spelled out in the document, posted last December on the Internet, calls for using terrorist attacks to drive Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's Partido Popular from power and replace it with the Socialists. [...]
"We think the Spanish government will not stand more than two blows, or three at the most, before it will be forced to withdraw because of the public pressure on it," the al Qaeda document says.
"If its forces remain after these blows, the victory of the Socialist Party will be almost guaranteed -- and the withdrawal of Spanish forces will be on its campaign manifesto."
That prediction came to fruition in elections Sunday, with the Socialists unseating the Popular Party three days after near-simultaneous bombings of four trains killed 200 and shocked the nation.
FoxNews reports: New Spanish Leader Vows Iraq Pullout."It's a terrible message to send. It's very divisive," David Gergen, former communications adviser to several U.S. presidents, told Fox News. "This weakens U.S. policy in trying to bring unity to the West as we try and fight terrorism."
Mar 15, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From a BBC News report that "Spain may withdraw Iraq troops" (the BBC link to the piece is labeled "Spain 'to withdraw Iraq troops'"):
Spain has more than 1,300 troops in Iraq Spain's Socialist Party prime minister-elect says he will pull troops out of Iraq - unless the UN takes charge.
This is because the U.N.--led by the French and Germans--has done such an excellent job in Rwanda, Bosnia, and the rest of the world.
Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said: "The war in Iraq was a disaster, the occupation of Iraq is a disaster."
If Saddam had won apparently it would have been a "success"? Since Iraq has not been turned over to the theocratic mobsters it is a disaster?
He called for a grand international alliance against terror and an end to "unilateral wars."
Yes we need Zimbabwe, North Korea, and the French to take part.
The Socialists won a shock poll victory after voters appeared to turn on the government over its handling of the Madrid bombings that killed 200 people. Spain, with more than 1,300 troops in Iraq, supported the US-led war on Iraq despite much domestic opposition. He made clear that he would withdraw Spanish troops in Iraq if the United Nations did not take charge of running the country...
Because the U.N. worked their damn hardest to protect Saddam and undermine the freeing of the Iraqi people from the Middle East's Adolph Hitler?
Observe how the Germans and the French absolutely love the Iraqi dictator Saddam (Saddam enslaved people like the German dictator Hitler) in comparison to the American President Bush (Bush freed people from the Iraqi Hitler Saddam) judging by their vitriol against Bush. You'd think after starting two world wars "Old Europe" would have learned that the appeasement of dictators--and their terrorist brethren--only further emboldens the terrorist (a dictator without government powers).
He said the soldiers would be pulled out if there was no change in Iraq by the 30 June deadline for transfer of sovereignty.
Sovereignty to whom? Saddam's remaining loyalists? The Shites operating under instructions from Tehran? How will such sovereignty be maintained?
On the face of it, the Spainairds comments are a real French way to weasel out, because as "[BBC] Our world affairs correspondent, Paul Reynolds, says that the situation in Iraq may well have changed by 30 June....". Continuing,
"Wars such as those which have occurred in Iraq only allow hatred, violence and terror to proliferate," Mr Zapatero said earlier on Monday.
Is this because Mr. Zapatero thinks that Saddam was a man of love, peace, and charity before America's George W. Bush attacked him? What of the millions of Iraqi mothers who had their sons and daughters tortured, raped, and slaughtered?
...the US and UK hope that the Security Council will have given UN approval to the handover plan.
That is, since the US and the UK are on the Security Council, they (the US and UK) are hoping their diplomats have kissed enough French and German-behinds.
...the late swing to the Socialists raises one disturbing thought - if al-Qaeda was responsible for Thursday's attacks, it appears to have had significant influence in changing the government of a leading Western democracy.
What is disturbing is not the influence of al-Qaeda which is powerless against the West, but the Western intellectuals who disarm and undermine al-Qaeda's estern pro-freedom opponents.
...A videotaped claim of responsibility by a man identifying himself as al-Qaeda's military spokesman in Europe forced the government to change its stance on the most likely suspects. The tape -- claiming revenge for Spain's "collaboration with the criminals Bush and his allies" -- was found in a litter bin on Saturday following a tip-off to a TV station.
Observe that the bulk of the vitriol for the bombings is against the U.S. and not the terrorists. 'Old Europe' lives.***
Observe the comments posted on the BBC site by those who live in Europe, as compared to those comments posted by those who live in the Middle East:
It doesn't surprise me at all, in Spain like the UK there was a lot of anti-war feeling. I just hope that the terrorists who planted the bombs last week see this as a victory - Spain pulling it troops out, but that Bush and Blair see it as a warning. One down two to go.
Scott Herbert, Leicester
The Terrorists, whoever they are, must be delighted that their actions have had such a successful impact on the democratic process. They will no doubt be encouraged and continue with this strategy.
Ian Leake, Dubai, UAE
Very surprised. This is a victory for terrorism. The Arab Islamic terrorists will be encouraged that their strategy for world domination and subjugation works. More bombings will follow in Europe and elsewhere.
Jamil Baroody, Saudi Arabia
Mar 12, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
This cartoon was inspired by a The Boston Globe op-ed by Jeff Jacoby: John Kerry's shifting stands.Where Kerry will ultimately come down on this issue is anybody's guess. But it's safe to say that wherever you come down, he'll be able to claim he was there all along.
Mar 9, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Writes Jonathan Hoenig:
The big conflict in the world today isn't between Democrats and Republicans, or even the West and the Middle East. It's between the individual and the collective. For it's the individual who believes rights to be unalienable, while it's the collective that seems to consider them subject to majority rule. It is the individual who sees his own happiness as a worthwhile goal, while the collective believes we're grist for the mill of the "public good." It's the individual who sees man as an end unto himself, while the collective sees him as a means to an end for others. And it's the individual who understands that capitalism protects our liberties, even as the collective tries to obliterate them. [SmartMoney]
Mar 9, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Roy Disney neatly upbraids those who think that marketing is the be-all and end-all of business:
"As I've said on other occasions, branding is something you do to cows. It makes sense if you're a rancher since cows tend to look alike," Mr. Disney said. He added that branding is useful for things like detergent or shoes. "Branding is what you do when there is nothing original about your product." [NYSun]
Mar 8, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
A reminder of how different things are today from the times when religion came first:
Today, more than a century after Darwin and Nietzsche, 70% of Americans believe that Jesus was the Son of God. But... like every successful product, Jesus has been tailored to the demands of the market. Every denomination, every region, every class, every generation in American history has asked for a Jesus made in its own image. That appetite has been met by an army of priests, preachers, theologians, reformers, and even novelists.
If the omnipresence of Jesus in our ostensibly secular country is troubling, his malleability is reassuring: Americans seem less eager to do Jesus's bidding than to have him do theirs....
Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, Americans found Biblical grounds for enlisting Jesus on both sides of every debate. The abolitionist Angelina Grimke used Matthew 23:4--where Jesus attacks the Pharisees who "tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others"--to rebuke slave owners. Southern apologists, on the other hand, noted that Jesus never explicitly condemned the widespread Roman practice of slavery.
Half a century later, the socialist Eugene Debs proclaimed that "The revolutionary Savior always and everywhere stood with and for the poor," while the advertising man Bruce Barton declared, in the bestselling "The Man Nobody Knows," that Jesus "thought of his life as business." Jefferson and Emerson, Marcus Garvey and Martin Luther King, Jane Addams and Aimee Semple MacPherson: From the sublime to the ridiculous, they all laid claim to Jesus.
Mar 7, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Lest anyone get too euphoric about the item "Communists for Capitalism?", here's Ellen Bork reporting on how China is following in the recent footsteps of the mullahs of Iran:
Beijing is fearful that pro-democracy candidates will do well enough in the next legislature, in which 30 of 60 seats will be elected democratically, to upset its control of the government. To reverse its fortunes, Beijing has threatened the dissolution of the next legislature if too many people Beijing doesn't like win seats. For good measure it has launched an intimidation campaign, smearing democratic politicians and activists as "unpatriotic,"which can be code for subversion or a threat to national security....
This is what "one country, two systems" means. That attractive-sounding formula, first devised to entice Taiwan into joining the mainland, is a fiction that has allowed the international democratic community to imagine that Beijing will tolerate Hong Kong's autonomy, and democratic expansion in Hong Kong. [NYSun]
Mar 7, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
The Democrats would be more believable as deficit hawks if they weren't so determined to spend as much money as possible. The New York Sun editorializes about Sen. Kerry's claim that he is running to "bring fiscal sanity back to Washington":
Mr. Kerry would outspend Mr. Bush on health care, education, and obviously veterans benefits. He would spend $20 billion more on homeland security,and $50 billion more on aid to states. He would spend an additional $14 billion on energy and environmental programs and expand paid volunteer programs with more federal money. According to the Washington Post, which analyzed his plans this week, Mr. Kerry has proposed spending $165 billion more on new programs during his first term than he could save by raising taxes through a repeal of some of the Bush tax cuts and shutting down corporate loopholes.
(Someone should point out to the *Sun,* though, that raising taxes is not the same as saving money.) Here's Democrat Mickey Kaus on why he thinks Kerry would be ineffectual (which might actually be a good reason to vote for him). And here, from parody site Scrapple Face, is a preview of how the Republicans will go after Kerry:
With John Edwards expected to announce his withdrawal from the presidential race today, the contest for the Democrat nomination narrows to two men--Sen. John Forbes Kerry, D-MA, and Sen. John Forbes Kerry, D-MA.
"I think we're going to see them go at it hammer and tong until the convention," said Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democrat National Committee. "We couldn't hope for two men who offer more contrast; the war hero vs. the peace protestor, the wealthy husband of an heiress vs. the assailant of the privileged class. One backed the attack on Iraq, the other opposed it. One voted for the USA Patriot Act, the other denounces it. One supported the president's 'No Child Left Behind' education plan, the other is harshly critical of it."
Mr. McAuliffe said his main job as party chairman over the next six months is to "keep the two John Kerrys focused on attacking President Bush, rather than sniping at each other over character issues."
Mar 6, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Here's how dead the actual ideology of Communism is in China:
Communist China is changing its constitution to embrace the most basic tenet of capitalism, protecting private property rights for the first time since the 1949 revolution....It signals a kind of a victory for people who believe that the state should give more respect to private property. Legally speaking, I don't think it'll change much," said Donald C. Clarke, a professor at the University of Washington's School of Law in Seattle. [Yahoo News]
Mar 6, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Longtime Haiti watcher Raymond Joseph lays the blame with President Clinton:
Reading the lead editorial of the New York Times yesterday, one is left with the impression that Mr. Bush is to blame for the mess in Haiti and for "whisking its democratically elected president" off to Africa.... "After intervening to restore Mr. Aristide, the first democratically elected president in Haitian history, to office in 1994," wrote the Times, "Washington failed to do enough to help develop strong institutions, like an independent police force and judiciary, to sustain democratic rule."
I have the distinct impression that it was President Clinton, egged on by the Black Congressional Caucus, who deployed some 23,000 troops in September 1994 to prepare the way for the return of Mr. Aristide on October 15. For the next six years, Mr. Clinton coddled Mr. Aristide....
It is disingenuous for the Times to pin the failure of the Haitian "democratic experiment" on Mr. Bush. In our editorials in the Haiti-Observateur, we warned Mr. Clinton about the awful signals he was sending to freedom-loving Haitians who became targets of harassment, intimidation, and even assassination by the "restored democrat" Aristide. [NYSun]
Mar 5, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Will the Israelis be the ones to save us from another nuclear program in the Middle East? David Twersky reports:
Tensions with Israel are rising, as Iran fears an Israeli preemptive strike against the facilities it may be hiding from International Atomic Energy Agency inspection. That fear was based not only on the historical record--Israel took out Iraq's reactor at Osirak in 1984--but on a statement by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz. (The Israeli minister said that in preparing an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, "steps will be taken so that Iranian citizens will not be harmed.") Mr. Mofaz's tough talk followed a public sermon last December in Tehran by the still-powerful former president, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani.
"If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession," Mr. Rafsanjani said, "the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world." In other words, in Iranian eyes, the purpose of an Islamic bomb is to eliminate the deterrent effect of the Israeli bombs. One big Islamic bomb would destroy Israel, while many Israeli bombs, while hurtful, would only put a dent in the Islamic world. No wonder Mr. Mofaz suggests that an attack is being planned.
