Jan 22, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From the New York Sun Thursday:
American officials said the deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, told his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Biran, in a meeting Tuesday that Washington has evidence that a Syrian cargo aircraft returned from Tehran in the first week of January with arms for Hezbollah....In an interview with Israel Radio, [Israeli president Moshe Katzav] said of [Syrian president] Assad, "he was also using the aircraft that were flying humanitarian aid to the Iranian earthquake victims to smuggle weapons for Hezbollah from Iran."... Mr. Biran presented Mr. Armitage with the Israeli evidence of the arms transfer and Mr. Armitage confirmed that the Israeli assessment matched the American government's.
"This was interesting because the Syrians usually do not use their own aircraft for these shipments," one American official said yesterday. This official said most of the small arms shipments for Hezbollah reached Damascus from Iran on Iranian Boeing 737 aircraft. But in recent months it has gotten much harder for Iran to ship arms to their proxies in southern Lebanon. While Saddam Hussein's government allowed the arms flights over its territory, Iraqi airspace is no longer accommodating to these flights. Also, the Turks have stopped allowing the flights to use their airspace for the shipments as well.
Jan 22, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Reports JNW:
Rayashi further broke the Western mold of what kind of person becomes a "suicide" bomber in that she was part of a very well-to-do family from an upscale neighborhood in Gaza City. Western observers and officials alike have repeatedly insisted that the economic despair the Palestinians live in as a result of Israel's "occupation" is what drives people to blow themselves up in order to murder men, women and children. This, clearly, was not the case for Reem Salah al-Rayashi - mother to two loving children and member of a wealthy family. ["Bomber was wealthy, mother of two"]
Comments an editor for JNW:
Economic despair only became rampant among the Palestinians of Judea, Samaria and Gaza following the introduction of Yasser Arafat's PLO into the area. Prior to 1993, the majority of Palestinian Arabs were enjoying increasingly high standards of living and most could travel freely to jobs in sovereign Israel.
Jan 22, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
Listen (mp3).Jan 21, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Israel's ambassador to Sweden vandalized a work of "art" approving of Palestinian terrorism, and while I do not agree with the form of his action, I agree with its spirit. Here's the best part of New York Sun columnist Hillel Halkin's column on the subject:
[The] "artistic installation" depict[ed] the young Palestinian woman who carried out the Maxim bombing, Hanadi Jaradat, as Snow White floating in a pool of blood-colored liquid beside a lyrical text....
Jaradat would have gladly murdered me too; the text, which concluded with the line "and the red [of the blood shed in the restaurant] looked beautiful upon the white [of Jaradat's clothing in the floating photograph of her]," made it clear that the artist... sympathized with what she did; and so the museum's exhibit, ironically meant to accompany an international conference on genocide set to open in Stockholm next week, was in effect approving of my and my family's murder.
... Nor did I, in my first reaction, give a damn for the Swedish government's declaration that it was "unacceptable" for him "to destroy art"--not when the art in question was proposing to destroy me. (The ambassador did not, by the way, destroy the installation, but rather disconnected the electricity illuminating it and tossed one of its spotlights into the liquid.)
... [I]t is nonsense to criticize the Israeli ambassador, as the Swedish government and press have done, for his contempt of "artistic freedom" or his disrespect for the boundaries between politics and art. The first to erase these boundaries have been artists such as Mr. Feiler.... Nor is there any such thing as a purely aesthetic response to [his work]. There is only a political response, which is precisely what Mr. Mazel's response was.
Perhaps this response should have been more subtle. Perhaps the ambassador should have thrown into the liquid not a spotlight but 21 photographs of the dead at Maxim's and let Mr. Feiler fish them out one by one. Alas, he is only a diplomat, not a conceptual artist.
Notwithstanding Mr. Halkin's argument, if the work in question doesn't fall within the legitimate legal boundaries of incitement, the law is bound to protect it and to forcibly prevent actions such as the ambassador's. But one wonders what the reaction would have been to an "artistic installation" that had a picture of Hanadi Jaradat immersed in a jar of urine, say...
Jan 21, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
An overly optimistic CNN report from yesterday further indicated the problem of allowing Islamic law into the new Afghanistan Constitution:A low point of the [constitutional] convention occurred when the chairman of the convention, Sibghatullah Mujaddedi -- who is considered a moderate -- reportedly told women delegates, "Don't try to put yourself on a level with men. Even God has not given you equal rights, because under his decision two women are counted as equal to one man." (Mujaddedi was referring to a contested provision of Islamic law that says that the testimony of two women is equivalent to that of one man in some cases.)
And despite President Bush's recent praise of the new Constitution for "providing fundamental rights to women," let's not forget this BBC report. Just days after the adoption of the new Constitution, the Afghanistan Supreme Court reacted to a woman singing on TV:"We are opposed to women singing and dancing as a whole," Judge Manawi told Reuters. "This is totally against the decisions of the Supreme Court and it has to be stopped."
Apparently Lady Liberty is not welcome in the new Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.Jan 20, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
The Washington Post reports: Women in Iraq Decry Decision To Curb Rights: Council Backs Islamic Law on Families.For the past four decades, Iraqi women have enjoyed some of the most modern legal protections in the Muslim world, under a civil code that prohibits marriage below the age of 18, arbitrary divorce and male favoritism in child custody and property inheritance disputes. Saddam Hussein's dictatorship did not touch those rights. But the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council has voted to wipe them out, ordering in late December that family laws shall be "canceled" and such issues placed under the jurisdiction of strict Islamic legal doctrine known as sharia. [...]
The order, narrowly approved by the 25-member council in a closed-door session Dec. 29, was reportedly sponsored by conservative Shiite members. The order is now being opposed by several liberal members as well as by senior women in the Iraqi government.
The council's decisions must be approved by L. Paul Bremer, the chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, and aides said unofficially that his imprimatur for this change was unlikely. But experts here said that once U.S. officials turn over political power to Iraqis at the end of June, conservative forces could press ahead with their agenda to make sharia the supreme law.
Hopefully this Islamist move by the council will be struck down by the U.S. But even if it is, there's still reason for concern considering that the new Afghanistan Constitution was allowed to be based on "sacred Islam."
Commenting on Afghanistan but with no less applicability to Iraq, David Holcberg of The Ayn Rand Institute was recently quoted at Capitalism Magazine:The United States should demand that the new Afghan constitution include an explicit separation of state and religion. It makes no sense to have gone to war to overthrow one tyrannical Islamic theocracy just to replace it with another one. But to do that would require the current administration to identify Islamic fundamentalism as our ideological enemy and to recognize that the separation of state and religion is a crucial requirement of freedom not only in Afghanistan, but also here in America.
This is not very likely with President Bush. Just this weekend he spoke approvingly of the Afghan constitution in his radio address, and last week he renewed his push for faith-based initiatives, federal programs that would subsidize religious charities with taxpayer money."My attitude is, the government should not fear faith-based programs -- we ought to welcome faith-based programs and we ought to fund faith-based programs. Faith-based programs are only effective because they do practice faith. It's important for our government to understand that," [Bush] said.
The point here is not that Bush will some day force American women to wear burqas. But if he can't see the importance of separating religion and state in America, why should we believe he can see it in Iraq and Afghanistan? For more on this topic, see Robert W. Tracinski's America: The Secular Republic.Jan 20, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
According to a New York Sun editorial, various court orders make illusory the claim that the mayor has won back control of the NYC schools:
[A court order commonly] referred to as Jose P. ... mandates the administrative and financial particulars of the city's special ed system, requiring among other things a team of three administrators to evaluate each pupil in the system and a host of special services at every school with special education students. While Jose P. began in 1980 as a slim 47-page document, it expanded to 515 pages of regulations by 1982 and has continued its gross growth since....
[B]ilingual education... is controlled by the court order stemming from 1974's Aspira of New York v. the Board of Education of the City of New York. The decision, which originally mandated that the city maintain bilingual education for Spanish-speaking students, now applies to languages including Chinese, Russian, and Haitian Creole....
Between the more than 135,000 students covered by Jose P. and the 125,000 whose academic experience is governed by Aspira, the city lacks educational and financial discretion over more than 25% of the children placed in its schools. And those more than a quarter of a million students consume a disproportionately large percentage of the system's spending.
Jan 20, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
FoxNews reported Analysts Debate Costs of Bush Space Vision.
Now, I love the idea of space exploration as much as the next nerd. But there are at least two problems with President Bush's proposal to put men on Mars. The most important is, as the cartoon suggests, that the government is already charged with a crucial mission: the War on Terrorism. Just think how far $1 billion would go toward equipment and weapons that make our soldiers safer and more effective. This is not just a matter of quibbling over who should get government largess. It's a matter of what is appropriate for the government to do, and protecting us from our enemies should be its only priority -- particularly after 9/11.
The second problem with Bush's plan is that it is a basically socialism for space companies. A mission to Mars should be a private venture. If there are enough investors for such an idea, then it will not need government handouts. Certainly a private initiative would be more efficient than a government one. For an examination of how a private, capitalistic Mars venture might work, see Ron Pisaturo's op-ed Mars: Who Should Own It.It has often been said, even by vocal proponents of free enterprise who claim to hate government subsidies, that while private citizens are good at settling or homesteading, the government is good at exploring. They argue that we have always needed the government to do the exploring, to pave the way for the private settlers. My reply is: Recognize private property for exploring, and you will see that private citizens make better explorers than do government employees. [...]
As a capitalist and a lover of technology, I judge the Nasa space program and a Nasa mission to Mars to be morally a far better government expenditure than welfare-state programs such as Medicare, public housing projects, etc. At least NASA is creating something of value that benefits all Americans, instead of just taking money from producers and giving it away to non-producers. And I idolize American astronauts and NASA engineers for their heroic achievements. But we will never know what these same heroic achievers would have accomplished if NASA had been a private company with a chance to own the moon -- and if all the money the government spent on NASA had remained in the hands of private citizens and had been invested in other equally heroic ventures that we will never know about; we will never know about these other ventures because they were not allowed to happen -- because the money needed to finance them was taken from their rightful owners.
Jan 20, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
John Edwards - He set out an American dichotomy, an America of producers and an America of second-handers (my words but his implications), and he supports the second-handers whole heartedly. Loot the productive Americans for everything they have and give it to the bums. My god his rhetoric is disturbing.
Howard Dean - You'd almost think that he'd won. This man's dimentia is unbelievable. He seems to believe that coming in third after being in first for such a long time is a good thing. He claims to want to take the country back for ordinary Americans yet I wonder how he explains the fact that most of the people who have donated to President Bush aren't millionaires but "ordinary" Americans.
Dick Gephardt - Good riddance to you. As to his speech, I wanted the fiddle to play the sad music and bring on the tears. How often does he plan to use the story of his son getting cancer? Ad misercordium fallacies really are crummy when they don't end sadly. Thanks to the labor unions? What an idiot, they already are getting artificially high wages, what more does he want, Lamborginis and mansions? Neither of his parents got through high school, he says this as something to be proud of. He's getting out of the race, Democrats are going to win, blah, blah, blah.
John Kerry - I like how Kerry doesn't stand for special interests, what are welfare recipients, people who want free healthcare, and has he ever heard of the "big dig"? He attributes victory to a four leaf clover? He quotes John Paul Jones for his dopey little political campaign, good comparison. More talk of powerful interests and fairness, does that mean he's going to steal more money from us? Oh no, he's got names of common folk, some baby factory who has a minimum wage job, so sad. He thinks someone who makes $28,000 a year with four kids is middle class? Universal healthcare to improve healthcare? Perhaps he should go to Canada, Britain, France, Scandanavia to see the long lines and fleeing doctors (fleeing to America). What an unadulterated communist this man is. And the dopey crowds lap it up.
From Cox and Forkum:
Jan 19, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Harry Binswanger has an excellent article criticizing David Frum and Richard Perle for their claim that foreign policy "hard-liners" are realists and pragmatists, while the "soft-liners" are ideologues:
Pragmatism is an anti-philosophy. It is the philosophic position that philosophy is hot air. It is concrete-boundedness, posing as philosophy.
Pragmatism holds--and has to hold, given its metaphysics and epistemology--that what was true yesterday may not be true today or tomorrow....
Pragmatism is not realism. Pragmatism is, in fact, inconsistent with realism. Realism (in the positive sense of that term) means acting in accordance with the facts of reality. To do that, one has to accept that facts are facts and to maintain a long-range, conceptual awareness of reality. That's the level of awareness that man requires if he is to act successfully in reality. It is only a grasp of principles, which Pragmatism scorns, that makes it possible to understand how and why "negotiating" with and "dialoguing" with dictatorships is doomed to failure.
The authors are right that the soft-liners evade the historical evidence of the failure of their approach. But that is not because the soft-liners are "ideologues," but because they are pragmatists.
Put it this way: the soft-liners are ideologues of pragmatism. They hold as their only absolute that there are no absolutes. They are rigidly fixated on the idea that everything is fluid and flexible.
They are dogmatically certain that there is no certainty.
I have always found it hard to understand why people would think that principles are impractical just because they hold that what's true is what works in reality. But recently I came across a greeting card that expresses the pragmatist's credo perfectly:
"No one can possibly know what is about to happen. It is happening each time, for the first time, for the only time."--James Baldwin
How does the pragmatist get from "what's true is what works" to "what's true today may not be true tomorrow"? Pragmatism is a doctrine that arose after philosophers rejected the law of causality and the validity of induction. For them, reality can only be a chaotic flux, because there is no basis in reality for making generalizations.
What justifies abstract ideas, then? Pragmatism holds that theoretical knowledge is true when it works "in practice"--which means: If your theory or principle leads to certain predictions, and those predictions turn out to be true in reality, then your theory is true.
But this is just the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent, or, as Dr. Binswanger puts it, the reversal of cause and effect. If your theory says P, and P implies Q, then just because you learn that Q is true doesn't mean that P is true--there could be many other reasons why Q is true.
That's why the pragmatist thinks that a theory is only "tentatively" true, and what's true today may not be true tomorrow. If one rejects the law of causality and the validity of induction, there is no way one can affirm the absolutism of principles.Jan 18, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Andrew Sullivan quotes Al Sharpton at the recent Democrats' debate:
"Oh, in the Federal Reserve Board, I would be looking for someone that would set standards in this country, in terms of our banking, our--in how government regulates the Federal Reserve as we see it under Greenspan, that we would not be protecting the big businesses; we would not be protecting banking interests in a way that would not, in my judgment, lead toward mass employment, mass development and mass production." - Revd. Al Sharpton , Democratic candidate for president, at the New Hampshire debate. Please send in any new incoherent, uninformed, ill-phrased nonsense from a man the Democrats keep pretending to take seriously.
Jan 17, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
A heart wrenching article "Girls for Sale" at the NYTimes discusses the lives of two prostitute slaves in Cambodia:
One thinks of slavery as an evil confined to musty sepia photographs. But there are 21st-century versions of slaves as well, girls like Srey Neth. I met Srey Neth, a lovely, giggly wisp of a teenager, here in the wild smuggling town of Poipet in northwestern Cambodia. Girls here are bought and sold, but there is an important difference compared with the 19th century: many of these modern slaves will be dead of AIDS by their 20's.
...Srey Neth claimed to be 18 but looked several years younger. She insisted at first (through my Khmer interpreter) that she was free and not controlled by the guesthouse. But soon she told her real story: a female cousin had arranged her sale and taken her to the guesthouse. Now she was sharing a room with three other prostitutes, and they were all pimped to guests.
...Why not try to escape at night? "They would get me back, and something bad would happen. Maybe a beating. I heard that when a group of girls tried to escape, they locked them in the rooms and beat them up." "What about the police?" I asked. "Couldn't you call out to the police for help?" "The police wouldn't help me because they get bribes from the brothel owners," Srey Neth said, adding that senior police officials had come to the guesthouse for sex with her.
I asked Srey Neth how much it would cost to buy her freedom. She named an amount equivalent to $150. "Do you really want to leave?" I asked. "Are you sure you wouldn't come back to this?" She had been watching TV and listlessly answering my questions. Now she turned abruptly and snorted. "This is a hell," she said sharply, speaking with passion for the first time. "You think I want to do this?"
Read the full article here.Jan 16, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Writes David Holcberg of the Ayn Rand Institute:
The United States should demand that the new Afghan constitution include an explicit separation of state and religion. It makes no sense to have gone to war to overthrow one tyrannical Islamic theocracy just to replace it with another one. But to do that would require the current administration to identify Islamic fundamentalism as our ideological enemy and to recognize that the separation of state and religion is a crucial requirement of freedom not only in Afghanistan, but also here in America.
Recommended Reading:Jan 16, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
The New York Sun's editorial asks the sensible question: "What is the city government doing regulating the number of taxis in the city?" ["Medallion Madness," January 2, 2004]. Limiting the number of cabs was probably intended to protect cabbies' incomes from competition -- so now a large proportion of fares instead goes toward paying off mortgages on medallions.
This is progress?
And why should someone who wants to drive a cab be forbidden from doing so just to fatten someone else's wallet? True, ending restrictions on cabs might crowd city streets -- but the appropriate response would be to remove restrictions on private vans and buses as well. Then we could avoid wasting billions on the Second Avenue Subway sinkhole.Jan 16, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Comments Yaron Brook, Executive Director, Ayn Rand Institute:
Is President Bush's proposal to expand the space program a good idea?
A major reason why Americans value the space program is that the sight of human achievement--especially as embodied in the technological prowess of space exploration--inspires them to realize their own dreams here on earth. But by proposing a massive new government program that threatens increased taxes, greater deficits and inflation, Bush is robbing American taxpayers of their ability to realize their earthly ambitions. If Bush wants to encourage achievement, he should concentrate on eliminating the plethora of government regulations, taxes and bureaucracies that are strangling American producers.
If Americans were once again free to keep more of what is rightfully theirs and to invest more in their own ambitions, there is no telling how many would be inspired to achieve their dreams here on earth.
Recommended Reading:Jan 16, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
FoxNews reports: Dems Debate Minority Issues as Race Tightens."You keep talking about race," the former street activist [Al Sharpton] chided Dean when he had a turn to ask a question. He said that not one "black or brown held a senior position, not one...It seems as though you've discovered blacks and browns in this campaign," he said. Dean bristled at that and said it was untrue. He said he had had "senior members" of his staff who were minorities, but Sharpton cut him off and said he was asking about his Cabinet, which has fewer members. "No, we did not," conceded Dean, whose state has a population that is nearly 98 percent white.
Jan 16, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
This Guardian article is typical of the major media's take on this issue Reformists scent victory in Iranian parliament row:Reformists in Iran's parliament said yesterday that they were encouraged by "positive" signs from the theocracy's supreme leader [Ali Khamenei], but would continue their daily sit-ins in the parliament building until a sweeping ban on moderate electoral candidates was lifted. [...] Adopting a more subdued tone after several days of angry speeches, the [reformist Members of Parliament] are waiting to see how the conservative Guardian Council carries out the supreme leader's orders.
But is it really some kind of epic battle of democracy between moderate "reformists" and extremist "conservatives"? Amir Taheri, writing in the National Post, says that it isn't: Iran: A "Sort" of Democracy.[W]hat are the key points of difference between the two sides? The short answer is: not much. For purposes of simplification, the Western media refer to the two sides in Iran as "reformists," supposedly led by President Mohammad Khatami, and "conservatives" whose leader is identified as another mullah, Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Republic's "Supreme Guide." The terms "reformist" and "conservative," however, mean little, if anything, in the current context of Iranian politics.
The supposedly "reformist" bloc has controlled the presidency for the past six years and the parliament for the past four years. And yet, it has implemented absolutely no reforms of any significance. Nor has it even proposed such reform. For its part the "conservative" faction bases its ideology not on the need to conserve anything, but on the necessity of exporting the Khomeinist revolution first to other Muslim countries, and then to the entire world. [...]
What is happening in Iran today is a power struggle between two factions within the same Khomeinist establishment. The so-called "reformist" faction is not objecting to the principle of vetoing candidacies by the "guardian angels" [i.e., the Council of the Guardians of the Constitution, which is a 12-man, mullah-dominated organ appointed by the "Supreme Guide" and answerable to him.] It is objecting to the fact that its own members are vetoed.
A Wall Street Journal editorial identified Iran's Real Reformers:Beyond this scrum between competing factions, it's worth noting that the ground under the feet of Iran's ruling mullahs appears increasingly unstable. In June they faced student demonstrations demanding reforms to separate mosque and state, and in November the world discovered the mullahs had been lying about their nuclear program for 18 years. Last month the Bam earthquake took thousands of lives, and left the country's backwardness and the slowness of relief exposed for all to see. Iran's under-30-year-olds -- who comprise a majority of the population -- have been leading the calls for a more liberal Muslim society. These are Iran's real reformers. But there is as yet no sign that their voices are being heard.
If we want to protect ourselves from futre 9/11s, the U.S. should at least help the dissidents render harmless the world's worst sponsor of terrorism.Jan 15, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
FoxNews reported yesterday: Homicide Bomber-Mom Kills Four at Gaza Border:A Palestinian homicide bomber -- and mother of two -- blew herself up Wednesday at the main crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, killing four people and injuring seven, emergency officials said.
Authorities believe this was the first mother to act as a homicide or suicide bomber. She was identified as Hamas member Reem Al-Reyashi, 22, of Gaza. Family members said she had a 3-year-old boy and 1-year-old girl. [...]
The Islamic militant group Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, issued a joint claim of responsibility, according to Lebanon's Al-Manar satellite television station.
The two groups said they worked together to carry out this attack.
Hamas said it sent a woman for the first time because of growing Israeli security "obstacles" facing its male bombers, Reuters reported. Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin said the use of a female bomber was unique, but added that holy war "is an obligation of all Muslims, men and women."
UPDATE: I forgot to pull these two quotes from the story above:Smiling at times in a videotape that showed her cradling a rifle, Al-Reyashi said she had dreamed since she was 13 of "becoming a martyr" and dying for her people.
"It was always my wish to turn my body into deadly shrapnel against the Zionists and to knock on the doors of heaven with the skulls of Zionists," said Reyashi, wearing combat fatigues with a Hamas sash across her chest.
This quote and the woman's actions illustrate the ultimate ends of altruism. As Ayn Rand explained in Philosophy: Who Needs It:What is the moral code of altruism? The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value.
Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice -- which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction -- which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of good.
Then there's this quote from the Palestinian Authority leadership:Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia declined to condemn the bombing, saying continued Israeli attacks and restrictions on the Palestinians are leading "to more escalation on both sides."
Qureia, Arafat and their ilk need the self-sacrifice of Palestinians to achieve their political ends. That's why they do not condemn such terrorism. That's why they systematically preach self-sacrifice to children, so that as 13-year-olds they dream of becoming human shrapnel for the Palestinian people. In For The New Intellectual, Ayn Rand wrote:It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.
