ZenPundit
Monday, October 22, 2007
CHILDREN OF LIGHT, CHILDREN OF DARKNESS
Reinhold Niebuhr
The Atlantic Monthly has a sometimes thoughtful, at times irritating, article by Paul Elie on the late theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, and the political struggle being waged by the Left, Middle and Right over his intellectual legacy. An excerpt:
"The biblical sense of history can make Niebuhr seem like something other than a liberal. In the '60's, his religiosity made him suspect on the New Left, and in the years after his death, his work resonated with the thinkers who were turning against that era's liberal reforms"
It wasn't Niebuhr's religiosity that made him suspect with the New Left but his anti-totalitarianism, something that a movement deeply afflicted with an authoritarian certitude and spasmodic nihilism could ill abide; indeed, they still seem to despise Niebuhr for his unwillingness to equivocate about Leftist tyranny. Elie is correct though, that the original Neoconservatives (the ones who actually made an intellectual journey from Left to Right) such as Norman Podhoretz had high regard for Niebuhr's writings. I myself first heard of Niebuhr from reading David Stockman's bitter memoir The Triumph of Politics. Stockman may have repudiated Ronald Reagan but he remained true, almost adulatory, to Niebuhr:
"The scales fell from my eyes as I turned those pages [ of Children of Light, Children of Darkness - ZP] Niebuhr was a withering critic of utopianism in every form. Man is incapable of perfection, he argued, because his estate as a free agent permits-indeed ensures -both good and evil...Through Niebuhr I dimly glimpsed the ultimate triumph of politics" ( Stockman,24).
I do not profess to be an expert on Reinhold Niebuhr or his philosophy, having read only one of his books, but the polemical war over Niebuhr that Elie critiques has, in my view, an air of ahistoricality to it. Perhaps with not the completely unhinged lunacy of the similar debate over Leo Strauss, but like Strauss, Niebuhr has been lifted by both sides out of the mid-20th century intellectual context that illuminated his ideas, in order to serve as a barricade for the political battle over Iraq and the Bush administration.
My gut reaction is that Niebuhr, were he alive today, would be writing things that would not sit well with some of his would-be reinterpreters and with more nuance and wisdom than for which his contemporary critics give him credit.
ADDENDUM:
Peter Beinart, who comes in for much criticism from Elie for the following link, on Reinhold Niebuhr.
Reinhold Niebuhr
The Atlantic Monthly has a sometimes thoughtful, at times irritating, article by Paul Elie on the late theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, and the political struggle being waged by the Left, Middle and Right over his intellectual legacy. An excerpt:
"The biblical sense of history can make Niebuhr seem like something other than a liberal. In the '60's, his religiosity made him suspect on the New Left, and in the years after his death, his work resonated with the thinkers who were turning against that era's liberal reforms"
It wasn't Niebuhr's religiosity that made him suspect with the New Left but his anti-totalitarianism, something that a movement deeply afflicted with an authoritarian certitude and spasmodic nihilism could ill abide; indeed, they still seem to despise Niebuhr for his unwillingness to equivocate about Leftist tyranny. Elie is correct though, that the original Neoconservatives (the ones who actually made an intellectual journey from Left to Right) such as Norman Podhoretz had high regard for Niebuhr's writings. I myself first heard of Niebuhr from reading David Stockman's bitter memoir The Triumph of Politics. Stockman may have repudiated Ronald Reagan but he remained true, almost adulatory, to Niebuhr:
"The scales fell from my eyes as I turned those pages [ of Children of Light, Children of Darkness - ZP] Niebuhr was a withering critic of utopianism in every form. Man is incapable of perfection, he argued, because his estate as a free agent permits-indeed ensures -both good and evil...Through Niebuhr I dimly glimpsed the ultimate triumph of politics" ( Stockman,24).
I do not profess to be an expert on Reinhold Niebuhr or his philosophy, having read only one of his books, but the polemical war over Niebuhr that Elie critiques has, in my view, an air of ahistoricality to it. Perhaps with not the completely unhinged lunacy of the similar debate over Leo Strauss, but like Strauss, Niebuhr has been lifted by both sides out of the mid-20th century intellectual context that illuminated his ideas, in order to serve as a barricade for the political battle over Iraq and the Bush administration.
My gut reaction is that Niebuhr, were he alive today, would be writing things that would not sit well with some of his would-be reinterpreters and with more nuance and wisdom than for which his contemporary critics give him credit.
ADDENDUM:
Peter Beinart, who comes in for much criticism from Elie for the following link, on Reinhold Niebuhr.
Labels: christianity, history, intellectuals, neoconservatism, philosophy, politics, reinhold niebhur, the atlantic, totalitarianism, war
¶ 6:21 PM 0 comments
Friday, October 12, 2007
AL GORE'S DEFINING MOMENT
Generally, I avoid commenting on primarily political stories but this one merits an exception.
Former Vice-President Al Gore was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, in conjunction with UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Regardless of what one thinks about Mr. Gore as a politician or of his heavily propagandistic but Oscar award winning film, the Nobel Prize represents the capstone of one of the most remarkable political comebacks in American politics since Richard Nixon.
It is true that Al Gore did not self-destruct after his razor-thin defeat in 2000 ( yes, give it up, he lost) quite the way Nixon did when he lost the California Governorship in 1962 back to back with the presidency in 1960 but neither did " the New Nixon" of 1968 reach such illustrious heights. Americans with Nobels are rare; Americans with Peace Prizes are the most exclusive circle of all. Many conservatives are quite upset at this development and are venting, some of their complaints have my sympathy but their sense of timing does not. They are spitting into the wind right now and to the extent that anyone outside the movement conservative choir is paying any attention, bitter anti- Gore jeremiads only serve to alienate moderates.
For once, I can say the Bush administration struck the right political note with a simple gesture of congratulation to a former adversary enjoying a moment in the sun, without getting too excited about it. If anything, given recent decisions by the Nobel Committee to honor Communist frauds and terrorist kleptocrats, we should be relieved that the Peace Prize this year went to Al Gore and not, say, Kim Jong Il or Robert Mugabe. I'm the first not to confuse Mr. Gore with Andrei Sakharov or Aung San Suu Kyi but even I must concede he is a qualitative moral improvement over Yasser Arafat by many orders of magnitude.
Much speculation (i.e. wishful thinking) exists as to whether Gore will now jump into the race for the Democratic nomination for president. That would be fun to watch but I doubt that will happen as it would require that Gore extricate himself from around $ 100 million dollars of VC enterprises that he is deeply involved in, so as to compete at a complete organizational and financial disadvantage with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Why accept those headaches and fritter away his newfound political capital when as the Democratic Party's star elder statesman and counterweight to the Clintons, Gore is a " must-have" insider for a new Democratic administration ? That's a lot of clout to throw away on a last-minute vanity campaign.
Mr. Gore is enjoying his moment but in all probability, this episode represents his peak.
Generally, I avoid commenting on primarily political stories but this one merits an exception.
Former Vice-President Al Gore was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, in conjunction with UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Regardless of what one thinks about Mr. Gore as a politician or of his heavily propagandistic but Oscar award winning film, the Nobel Prize represents the capstone of one of the most remarkable political comebacks in American politics since Richard Nixon.
It is true that Al Gore did not self-destruct after his razor-thin defeat in 2000 ( yes, give it up, he lost) quite the way Nixon did when he lost the California Governorship in 1962 back to back with the presidency in 1960 but neither did " the New Nixon" of 1968 reach such illustrious heights. Americans with Nobels are rare; Americans with Peace Prizes are the most exclusive circle of all. Many conservatives are quite upset at this development and are venting, some of their complaints have my sympathy but their sense of timing does not. They are spitting into the wind right now and to the extent that anyone outside the movement conservative choir is paying any attention, bitter anti- Gore jeremiads only serve to alienate moderates.
For once, I can say the Bush administration struck the right political note with a simple gesture of congratulation to a former adversary enjoying a moment in the sun, without getting too excited about it. If anything, given recent decisions by the Nobel Committee to honor Communist frauds and terrorist kleptocrats, we should be relieved that the Peace Prize this year went to Al Gore and not, say, Kim Jong Il or Robert Mugabe. I'm the first not to confuse Mr. Gore with Andrei Sakharov or Aung San Suu Kyi but even I must concede he is a qualitative moral improvement over Yasser Arafat by many orders of magnitude.
Much speculation (i.e. wishful thinking) exists as to whether Gore will now jump into the race for the Democratic nomination for president. That would be fun to watch but I doubt that will happen as it would require that Gore extricate himself from around $ 100 million dollars of VC enterprises that he is deeply involved in, so as to compete at a complete organizational and financial disadvantage with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Why accept those headaches and fritter away his newfound political capital when as the Democratic Party's star elder statesman and counterweight to the Clintons, Gore is a " must-have" insider for a new Democratic administration ? That's a lot of clout to throw away on a last-minute vanity campaign.
Mr. Gore is enjoying his moment but in all probability, this episode represents his peak.
Labels: 2008, al gore, politics
¶ 8:24 PM 3 comments
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
TRYING TO REOPEN A QUESTION SETTLED IN 1865
American political extremists try to bridge an ideological gulf to hammer out an agenda for secession:
"Tired of foreign wars and what they consider right-wing courts, the Middlebury Institute wants liberal states like Vermont to be able to secede peacefully.
That sounds just fine to the League of the South, a conservative group that refuses to give up on Southern independence.
"We believe that an independent South, or Hawaii, Alaska, or Vermont would be better able to serve the interest of everybody, regardless of race or ethnicity," said Michael Hill of Killen, Ala., president of the League of the South.
Separated by hundreds of miles and divergent political philosophies, the Middlebury Institute and the League of the South are hosting a two-day Secessionist Convention starting Wednesday in Chattanooga.
They expect to attract supporters from California, Alaska and Hawaii, inviting anyone who wants to dissolve the Union so states can save themselves from an overbearing federal government"
One of the major barriers to gaining momentum toward serious consideration of secession is the inherent lack of political attractiveness of the two groups pushing the idea. They wish a regional audience where their implicit political agenda is less marginalized than the current national one where their philosophy and motives are suspect as...well...tin-foil hat wearing wingnuts.
That being said, most separatist movements probably start that way - with groups trying to leverage relatively greater local acceptance as a wedge to accrue legitimacy vs. the state. For example, the wacky, chauvinistic, quasi-fascist, Pamyat parlayed minor grievances of the Russian majority population into a Russian nationalist wave against the USSR ( and Jews various other ethnic minorities)in the late 1980's.
Pebbles and avalanches.
American political extremists try to bridge an ideological gulf to hammer out an agenda for secession:
"Tired of foreign wars and what they consider right-wing courts, the Middlebury Institute wants liberal states like Vermont to be able to secede peacefully.
That sounds just fine to the League of the South, a conservative group that refuses to give up on Southern independence.
"We believe that an independent South, or Hawaii, Alaska, or Vermont would be better able to serve the interest of everybody, regardless of race or ethnicity," said Michael Hill of Killen, Ala., president of the League of the South.
Separated by hundreds of miles and divergent political philosophies, the Middlebury Institute and the League of the South are hosting a two-day Secessionist Convention starting Wednesday in Chattanooga.
They expect to attract supporters from California, Alaska and Hawaii, inviting anyone who wants to dissolve the Union so states can save themselves from an overbearing federal government"
One of the major barriers to gaining momentum toward serious consideration of secession is the inherent lack of political attractiveness of the two groups pushing the idea. They wish a regional audience where their implicit political agenda is less marginalized than the current national one where their philosophy and motives are suspect as...well...tin-foil hat wearing wingnuts.
That being said, most separatist movements probably start that way - with groups trying to leverage relatively greater local acceptance as a wedge to accrue legitimacy vs. the state. For example, the wacky, chauvinistic, quasi-fascist, Pamyat parlayed minor grievances of the Russian majority population into a Russian nationalist wave against the USSR ( and Jews various other ethnic minorities)in the late 1980's.
Pebbles and avalanches.
Labels: 4GW, America, extremists, legitimacy, politics, secession, state failure
¶ 10:10 AM 3 comments
Monday, September 24, 2007
THE NIXON ROUNDTABLE
H-Diplo released a roundtable discussion (PDF) on the recent books about Richard Nixon by the following scholars:
Robert Dallek - Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power
Margaret MacMillan - Nixon and Mao: The Week that Changed the World
H-Diplo released a roundtable discussion (PDF) on the recent books about Richard Nixon by the following scholars:
Robert Dallek - Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power
Margaret MacMillan - Nixon and Mao: The Week that Changed the World
Labels: America, biography, diplomatic history, foreign policy, h-diplo, historians, historiography, history, nixon, politics
¶ 9:37 AM 0 comments
Sunday, September 09, 2007
TWO DEMOCRATS WHO REALLY SUPPORT TERRORISTS
Steve Guerra, convicted FALN supporter, top Illinois state government official and protege of Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-Il).
Hyperbolic charges are thrown with great regularity and unfairness in American politics. Character assassination is a form of art and negative campaigning is the norm. Most of the time, it's a useful rule of thumb to take whatever perjoratives are commonly used with a grain of salt. And then there are the exceptions that are so absurd as to make the usual slander an understatement.
Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich - who hired Steve Guerra as his $ 120,000 a year deputy
The Chicago Sun-Times on Saturday ran a front page expose on Steve Guerra, a top official in the administration of Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich, who was hired despite having gone to prison for refusing to testify before a Federal grand jury about what he knew regarding a terror bombing campaign carried out by the Puerto Rican terrorist group, the FALN. The revelation has caused an uproar among the family members of the victims of the FALN terrorists and only slightly less outrage among Illinois Democrats and Republicans in the legislature who were already unhappy with Gov. Blagojevich.
Why would Governor Blagojevich, currently floundering even among his own Democratic supporters, take a risk and hire a sinister figure like Guerra, a felon who obstructed a murder investigation of one of the FALN's victims with his refusal to testify ? Two reasons:
First, Illinois politics is replete with shadowy tough guys, mobbed-up businessmen and fixers with criminal pasts who cracked a few skulls here and there in their youth. Such folks, who like Mr. Guerra, often appear to lack a neck, are not rare here. From, Taylor Street in Chicago to Cicero to Rosemont to small towns in the collar counties, you have lots of people in both political parties involved in retail politics who are "connected". Granted, they usually mean to men nicknamed "Big Tuna" or " the Clown", and not to Marxist terror groups, but chances were that if Guerra had kept a low profile, no one living in a glass house themselves was going to be seen pitching stones any time soon.
Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-Il) - a history of pulling strings for convicted FALN terrorists
Secondly, Guerra is a close, personal, friend of far-left but Daley machine-backed, Congressman Luis Gutierrez of Chicago. Representative Gutierrez has made constituent services to imprisoned FALN members something of a minor hobby during his years in Congress. It was also Gutierrez who helped persuade President Clinton to grant clemency to FALN terrorists convicted of bombmaking, sedition, robbery, conspiracy and other lesser charges. By hiring Guerra, the struggling Governor Blagojevich was reinforcing a political connection to an influential figure in the Daley machine and Chicago's Puerto Rican community.
The remarkable aspect of this episode is not that in this day and age, an American politician would knowingly hire or assist an individual with strong ties to a terrorist group but that the moral state of politics in Illinois is so low, that hiring Guerra raised no eyebrows among party insiders in Springfield.
At least until the story hit page one.
Steve Guerra, convicted FALN supporter, top Illinois state government official and protege of Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-Il).
Hyperbolic charges are thrown with great regularity and unfairness in American politics. Character assassination is a form of art and negative campaigning is the norm. Most of the time, it's a useful rule of thumb to take whatever perjoratives are commonly used with a grain of salt. And then there are the exceptions that are so absurd as to make the usual slander an understatement.
Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich - who hired Steve Guerra as his $ 120,000 a year deputy
The Chicago Sun-Times on Saturday ran a front page expose on Steve Guerra, a top official in the administration of Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich, who was hired despite having gone to prison for refusing to testify before a Federal grand jury about what he knew regarding a terror bombing campaign carried out by the Puerto Rican terrorist group, the FALN. The revelation has caused an uproar among the family members of the victims of the FALN terrorists and only slightly less outrage among Illinois Democrats and Republicans in the legislature who were already unhappy with Gov. Blagojevich.
Why would Governor Blagojevich, currently floundering even among his own Democratic supporters, take a risk and hire a sinister figure like Guerra, a felon who obstructed a murder investigation of one of the FALN's victims with his refusal to testify ? Two reasons:
First, Illinois politics is replete with shadowy tough guys, mobbed-up businessmen and fixers with criminal pasts who cracked a few skulls here and there in their youth. Such folks, who like Mr. Guerra, often appear to lack a neck, are not rare here. From, Taylor Street in Chicago to Cicero to Rosemont to small towns in the collar counties, you have lots of people in both political parties involved in retail politics who are "connected". Granted, they usually mean to men nicknamed "Big Tuna" or " the Clown", and not to Marxist terror groups, but chances were that if Guerra had kept a low profile, no one living in a glass house themselves was going to be seen pitching stones any time soon.
Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-Il) - a history of pulling strings for convicted FALN terrorists
Secondly, Guerra is a close, personal, friend of far-left but Daley machine-backed, Congressman Luis Gutierrez of Chicago. Representative Gutierrez has made constituent services to imprisoned FALN members something of a minor hobby during his years in Congress. It was also Gutierrez who helped persuade President Clinton to grant clemency to FALN terrorists convicted of bombmaking, sedition, robbery, conspiracy and other lesser charges. By hiring Guerra, the struggling Governor Blagojevich was reinforcing a political connection to an influential figure in the Daley machine and Chicago's Puerto Rican community.
The remarkable aspect of this episode is not that in this day and age, an American politician would knowingly hire or assist an individual with strong ties to a terrorist group but that the moral state of politics in Illinois is so low, that hiring Guerra raised no eyebrows among party insiders in Springfield.
At least until the story hit page one.
Labels: chicago, politics, terrorism
¶ 2:45 PM 5 comments
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
CARVILLE ON ROVE
I generally eschew writing about pure partisan politics. Mainly this is because that subject was something that interested me deeply in my teens and early twenties, a time before the last drop of spontaneity and authenticity had been wrung out out of American politics. Today, any well informed person can script the talking points that will come over the TV on the Sunday morning talking head shows, so sterile and homogenized, yet polarized, has public discourse become.
Nevertheless, I found James Carville's FT.com piece on Karl Rove interesting. The number of living folks who have run a presidential campaign would not fill even a small room but it is a room that would contain both Karl Rove and James Carville. Carville is spinning hard but prior to driving home his selected memes, he does offer up a tribute of sorts to one of the few men who counts as a peer of James Carville:
"Nationally he has pulled off some of the most unexpected and impressive victories of modern political history. (I will not be debating the 2000 election for the purposes of this article, but I also will not be crediting him with it, so let us just move on to the next cycle.)
Mr Rove picked up seats in what was an almost historically impossible context in 2002. Then in 2004, he engineered one of the most remarkable feats in American politics. He got Americans to re-elect a president who they really did not want to re-elect. Even the Republican defeat in 2006 was predictable and well within the range of historical norms so, by this sport’s standard of winning and losing, there is still no black mark on Rove’s record.
If we concluded our analysis in 2007 and confined our judgment merely to Mr Rove’s immediate electoral record, we would have no choice but to judge him a spectacular success. There is no doubt that Mr Rove won elections. He has perhaps one of the most remarkable win-percentages in modern American politics."
I've never been in awe of Karl Rove who took on a mythic (if demonic) and quasi -lightning rod quality in the Left blogosphere and was an understated presence on the Right ( perhaps because he had occasional meetings with top ranking conservative bloggers who were therefore loathe to annoy him). His sense of history always struck me as badly strained and Rove's ability as a political image-maker and message strategist paled next to that of Reagan consultants like Roger Ailes, Lyn Nofziger, Michael Deaver, Ed Rollins and David Gergen.
But the man knows how to win elections.
I generally eschew writing about pure partisan politics. Mainly this is because that subject was something that interested me deeply in my teens and early twenties, a time before the last drop of spontaneity and authenticity had been wrung out out of American politics. Today, any well informed person can script the talking points that will come over the TV on the Sunday morning talking head shows, so sterile and homogenized, yet polarized, has public discourse become.
Nevertheless, I found James Carville's FT.com piece on Karl Rove interesting. The number of living folks who have run a presidential campaign would not fill even a small room but it is a room that would contain both Karl Rove and James Carville. Carville is spinning hard but prior to driving home his selected memes, he does offer up a tribute of sorts to one of the few men who counts as a peer of James Carville:
"Nationally he has pulled off some of the most unexpected and impressive victories of modern political history. (I will not be debating the 2000 election for the purposes of this article, but I also will not be crediting him with it, so let us just move on to the next cycle.)
Mr Rove picked up seats in what was an almost historically impossible context in 2002. Then in 2004, he engineered one of the most remarkable feats in American politics. He got Americans to re-elect a president who they really did not want to re-elect. Even the Republican defeat in 2006 was predictable and well within the range of historical norms so, by this sport’s standard of winning and losing, there is still no black mark on Rove’s record.
If we concluded our analysis in 2007 and confined our judgment merely to Mr Rove’s immediate electoral record, we would have no choice but to judge him a spectacular success. There is no doubt that Mr Rove won elections. He has perhaps one of the most remarkable win-percentages in modern American politics."
I've never been in awe of Karl Rove who took on a mythic (if demonic) and quasi -lightning rod quality in the Left blogosphere and was an understated presence on the Right ( perhaps because he had occasional meetings with top ranking conservative bloggers who were therefore loathe to annoy him). His sense of history always struck me as badly strained and Rove's ability as a political image-maker and message strategist paled next to that of Reagan consultants like Roger Ailes, Lyn Nofziger, Michael Deaver, Ed Rollins and David Gergen.
But the man knows how to win elections.
Labels: FT.com, james carville, politics, republican party
¶ 7:57 PM 8 comments
Sunday, July 01, 2007
A VOICE OF REASON ON IMMIGRATION
One of my older blogospheric associates, TM Lutas had some sage observations on immigration:
"Assimilation is the process of "clearing the job queue". The immigrants of today are tomorrows' citizens most capable and most inclined to help out with assimilation because they've gone through the process. It's not something you can really demand because this sort of thing is true charity work. Few people are actually paid to help others learn english, find a job, navigate the political, economic, and social system that is the USA. Most of the people who do it do so part time, often unconsciously.
The common sense outline of the solution for immigration is not too hard to figure out. You need to determine what the inflection points are, set immigration numbers that are above all the "too low" inflection points and below all the "too high" inflection points and make sure that your assimilation machinery works well so that you end up clearing the queue quickly and allow the next round in.
Now is anybody talking like this? I haven't found any and thus my disgust with the present debate. I haven't found anybody who's properly defined assimilation in all its political, economic, and social glory in a way that everybody can agree on. I haven't found anybody doing the hard work to identify all the relevant inflection points so that we can identify a safe range of immigration where we can set numbers without getting this country into trouble.
Instead, what I find are posturing and falsity up and down the entire range of mainstream debate. Restrictionists don't want to look to closely at our ability to absorb new immigrants because they're afraid that the numbers are going to be higher than they'd like to satisfy their interests. The free borders crowd doesn't want to look at assimilation either. The multiculturalists don't believe in assimilation at all while others in that camp are too afraid that the numbers will come out as being too low to further their interests."
Check out the questions that should be asked.
Dan of tdaxp emphatically agrees.
One of my older blogospheric associates, TM Lutas had some sage observations on immigration:
"Assimilation is the process of "clearing the job queue". The immigrants of today are tomorrows' citizens most capable and most inclined to help out with assimilation because they've gone through the process. It's not something you can really demand because this sort of thing is true charity work. Few people are actually paid to help others learn english, find a job, navigate the political, economic, and social system that is the USA. Most of the people who do it do so part time, often unconsciously.
The common sense outline of the solution for immigration is not too hard to figure out. You need to determine what the inflection points are, set immigration numbers that are above all the "too low" inflection points and below all the "too high" inflection points and make sure that your assimilation machinery works well so that you end up clearing the queue quickly and allow the next round in.
Now is anybody talking like this? I haven't found any and thus my disgust with the present debate. I haven't found anybody who's properly defined assimilation in all its political, economic, and social glory in a way that everybody can agree on. I haven't found anybody doing the hard work to identify all the relevant inflection points so that we can identify a safe range of immigration where we can set numbers without getting this country into trouble.
Instead, what I find are posturing and falsity up and down the entire range of mainstream debate. Restrictionists don't want to look to closely at our ability to absorb new immigrants because they're afraid that the numbers are going to be higher than they'd like to satisfy their interests. The free borders crowd doesn't want to look at assimilation either. The multiculturalists don't believe in assimilation at all while others in that camp are too afraid that the numbers will come out as being too low to further their interests."
Check out the questions that should be asked.
Dan of tdaxp emphatically agrees.
Labels: immigration, politics, tdaxp, tm lutas
¶ 9:46 PM 2 comments
Monday, May 28, 2007
WHERE ARE THE GREAT MEN (OR WOMEN)?
When I was a teen-ager and in my early twenties I was an avid partisan. In the pre-internet and pre-Talk radio era, I devoured newspapers, TIME, US News, Newsweek and the slick political magazines ( National Review, TNR). I followed all the nuances of issues like Contra aid or the 1986 tax reform. While I was thoroughly Reaganite in my convictions and found liberal hacks like Senator Pat Leahy to be odious fools, I could also look across the aisle to find figures of decency, civility and conviction like Senator Paul Simon and see people whom I could respect.
And now ?
I find it incredibly disillusioning that in what passes for political "debate" these days that a majority of the Republican presidential candidates, Senator McCain excepted, are endorsing torture (!) while most of their Democratic counterparts are enthusiasists for surrender. Except for Senator Edwards who, while being strongly in favor of retreat has one-upped the rest and declared that the war on terror does not even exist ( he's a fantasist).
This is not the country I grew up in. The nation deserves better.
This is one reason why I very seldom venture into discussing political news here. I find it difficult to believe that much of what scripted sound bites are being uttered represent core beliefs of the candidate rather than artificial nonsense lines designed to pander to splinter special interests divined through exhaustive focus grouping. My fear is that the American political class have reached the point of degeneration that these noxious superficialities do indeed reflect what some of the candidates think.
First rate minds have always been rare in politics, historically speaking, but America has always mustered enough for the tasks at hand. Our revolution benefitted from an unusual abundance of great men precisely because the British imperial system of the Hanoverian monarchs so completely shut out American talent from their system. The early Republic saw giants like John Marshall, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and John Calhoun, to say nothing of Abraham Lincoln who strides across American history like a titan.
The twentieth century boasted no shortage of sage statesmen either, starting with Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson to FDR and his successors who were " present at the creation" to the peaceful closing of the Cold War with Ronald Reagan and the father of the current president. America was rich in leadership. We had severe trials but seldom were we to be found wanting because our leaders, at least some of them, were authentic. You could disagree with Ronald Reagan or Hubert Humphrey but you were disagreeing with a person who thoroughly represented important and substantive values. Values worth debating.
While I have no empirical basis for this to stand upon I suspect that the last few decades have seen fewer and fewer individuals of this caliber enter politics. The nastiness of the political process, the invasiveness, obtuse stupidity and lack of respect by the media coupled by the greater rewards of private life have kept them away. It reminds me of the climate, if not the form, of the later 19th century which was dominated by corrupt machines and party bosses like Mark Hanna, William Marcy Tweed and George Washington Plunkitt. As a result, we get people running for office or currying favor for appointment who see their opportunities and take them.
The good news is that the raw talent and creativity is out there. There are 21st century equivalents to George Marshall or Henry Kissinger or John F. Kennedy. She may be an Asian-American CFO at a software company or a midwestern entrepreneur in Kansas City or a 21 year old infantryman, a child of immigrants, on patrol right now in Iraq. You may know someone who would make a great city councilman or school board member, state legislator or simply a voice for the community, if only someone will encourage them to speak.
When I was a teen-ager and in my early twenties I was an avid partisan. In the pre-internet and pre-Talk radio era, I devoured newspapers, TIME, US News, Newsweek and the slick political magazines ( National Review, TNR). I followed all the nuances of issues like Contra aid or the 1986 tax reform. While I was thoroughly Reaganite in my convictions and found liberal hacks like Senator Pat Leahy to be odious fools, I could also look across the aisle to find figures of decency, civility and conviction like Senator Paul Simon and see people whom I could respect.
And now ?
I find it incredibly disillusioning that in what passes for political "debate" these days that a majority of the Republican presidential candidates, Senator McCain excepted, are endorsing torture (!) while most of their Democratic counterparts are enthusiasists for surrender. Except for Senator Edwards who, while being strongly in favor of retreat has one-upped the rest and declared that the war on terror does not even exist ( he's a fantasist).
This is not the country I grew up in. The nation deserves better.
This is one reason why I very seldom venture into discussing political news here. I find it difficult to believe that much of what scripted sound bites are being uttered represent core beliefs of the candidate rather than artificial nonsense lines designed to pander to splinter special interests divined through exhaustive focus grouping. My fear is that the American political class have reached the point of degeneration that these noxious superficialities do indeed reflect what some of the candidates think.
First rate minds have always been rare in politics, historically speaking, but America has always mustered enough for the tasks at hand. Our revolution benefitted from an unusual abundance of great men precisely because the British imperial system of the Hanoverian monarchs so completely shut out American talent from their system. The early Republic saw giants like John Marshall, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and John Calhoun, to say nothing of Abraham Lincoln who strides across American history like a titan.
The twentieth century boasted no shortage of sage statesmen either, starting with Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson to FDR and his successors who were " present at the creation" to the peaceful closing of the Cold War with Ronald Reagan and the father of the current president. America was rich in leadership. We had severe trials but seldom were we to be found wanting because our leaders, at least some of them, were authentic. You could disagree with Ronald Reagan or Hubert Humphrey but you were disagreeing with a person who thoroughly represented important and substantive values. Values worth debating.
While I have no empirical basis for this to stand upon I suspect that the last few decades have seen fewer and fewer individuals of this caliber enter politics. The nastiness of the political process, the invasiveness, obtuse stupidity and lack of respect by the media coupled by the greater rewards of private life have kept them away. It reminds me of the climate, if not the form, of the later 19th century which was dominated by corrupt machines and party bosses like Mark Hanna, William Marcy Tweed and George Washington Plunkitt. As a result, we get people running for office or currying favor for appointment who see their opportunities and take them.
The good news is that the raw talent and creativity is out there. There are 21st century equivalents to George Marshall or Henry Kissinger or John F. Kennedy. She may be an Asian-American CFO at a software company or a midwestern entrepreneur in Kansas City or a 21 year old infantryman, a child of immigrants, on patrol right now in Iraq. You may know someone who would make a great city councilman or school board member, state legislator or simply a voice for the community, if only someone will encourage them to speak.
Labels: 2008, 21st century, America, history, politics
¶ 8:53 PM 26 comments
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
"CALLLING ALL CZARS"
Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan: November 16, 1581 by Il'ia Efimovich Repin . Probably not the kind of czar everyone has in mind.
Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan: November 16, 1581 by Il'ia Efimovich Repin . Probably not the kind of czar everyone has in mind.
The blogosphere is abuzz with the inability of the Bush administration to find an impressive figure to become "the War Czar" having suffered four rejections from high ranking retired military officers (this mirrors an inability to fill key posts in the intelligence community). There are strong reactions from Left, Right and Center, generally negative. I will ask a different question, however:
Why are Americans in love with the "Czar"metaphor?
First, we are a liberty-loving democracy without an autocratic tradition. We like inefficient government with lots of checks and balances, staggered electoral terms, judicial review and leaks to the media. Secondly, it is not as if the"Czars" ( henceforth spelled correctly as "Tsar") have an impressive track record that we should be following, just read the Marquis de Custine sometime.
Tsar Paul was mad and several others were feebleminded; Catherine the Great was an usurper and poseur French intellectual-wannabe; Tsar Nicholas I and Alexander III were iron-fisted tyrants; and the last Tsar, Nicholas II " the Unlucky" was a complete incompetent who ended up being slaughtered in a basement by third-rate Bolshevik revolutionaries who threw the body of Russia's last Autocrat down a mineshaft. Because of Nicholas, Russians suffered seventy years of Communist totalitarianism, terror, famine and poverty. Hoo-boy! I want him running the war in Iraq! He did such a great job on the Eastern Front!
Even the "good Tsars" were no great shakes. Peter the Great was a far-seeing modernizer but his namesake capital, St. Petersburg rests upon unnumbered bones of the serfs who toiled in the swampy mire to build it. Russia's equivalent to Abraham Lincoln, Alexander II "the Tsar-Liberator" freed the serfs but left them landless and impoverished, ended his life being blown up by an anarchist's bomb. These two top the Tsar-list; it goes downhill from there.
And then of course, there is Ivan Grozny or "Ivan the Terrible", the terrifying medieval Tsar whom Stalin idolized as a role model. It was Ivan who drove away the ferocious Tatar hordes, unleashed Russia's first secret police, the Oprichnina, had his nobles torn apart by dogs and even killed his own son in a fit of blind rage. Tsar Ivan was feared by all of Russia's neighbors and none dared stand against him.
Hmmm....maybe that's exactly the kind of "czar" we need after all.
Labels: bush, cold war, czar, diplomatic history, politics, russia, satire
¶ 9:12 PM 8 comments
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
ON THE POLITICS OF NATIONAL SECURITY, "IT IS WHAT IT IS"
Courtesy of Michael Tanji of Haft of the Spear, a piece of Congressional semantic idiocy that is symbolic of a larger problem:
"The House Armed Services Committee is banishing the global war on terror from the 2008 defense budget.
This is not because the war has been won, lost or even called off, but because the committee’s Democratic leadership doesn’t like the phrase.
A memo for the committee staff, circulated March 27, says the 2008 bill and its accompanying explanatory report that will set defense policy should be specific about military operations and “avoid using colloquialisms.”
The “global war on terror,” a phrase first used by President Bush shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., should not be used, according to the memo. Also banned is the phrase the “long war,” which military officials began using last year as a way of acknowledging that military operations against terrorist states and organizations would not be wrapped up in a few years.
Committee staff members are told in the memo to use specific references to specific operations instead of the Bush administration’s catch phrases. The memo, written by Staff Director Erin Conaton, provides examples of acceptable phrases, such as “the war in Iraq,” the “war in Afghanistan, “operations in the Horn of Africa” or “ongoing military operations throughout the world.”
Because of course, prohibiting discussion of the strategic context of current military operations against Islamist terror networks itching to topple regional governments or kill thousands of Americans in 9/11 style attacks will make that threat go away. Political correctness for terrorism analysis!
Well, not really. What it is intended to do, I infer, is allow the new House majority to deprioritize, over time, the importance of fighting al Qaida type groups so as to make it politically easier to allocate legistative time and resources to those domestic issues that excite the liberal activist base. If you are a House chairman or Democratic presidential candidate, looking toward 2008, ideological spin is fun, substantive foreign policy, by contrast, is a major headache. Being the most hawkish Democrat on al Qaida is about as about as rewarding, in terms of winning influence within the party, as heading the Republicans for Choice Caucus would be within the GOP. It won't kill you politically, per se but being out of step with your party is more anchor than sail.
Now, I realize there are many Democrats and liberals who are passionate about America having sound and strong defense, foreign and national security policies. A number of them are on my blogroll because I respect and read their views. At the end of the day, however, a Democratic majority will reflect not their minority views or priorities but those of the Boomer activist Left whose formative experience was the Vietnam antiwar movement, the radicalized phase of Civil Rights protest and the Women's movement. It is they who dominate the Democratic Party, not the DLC or the "liberal hawks". Except when you have an overriding political concern from the public, or a Democratic president of Clintonian influence who can temporarily pull his party toward the center, you can expect the Democrats to govern like Democrats, not like Republicans Lite.
The same goes for the Republicans. Callimachus had an excellent essay about the nature of the Bush administration:
"Let's say it up front: GWB and co. are a bad lot; arrogant and embodying the most resistant strains of cultural conservatism and capitalism in American society. Blame it on Texas, if you need an explanation, as the historical magnet for the most exaggerated and aggressive characters of the old South.
They have a predatory mentality, a game-winning mentality. The executive branch is their team base, and they go out every day in eye black to compete with Congress, the Democrats, the courts, the media, and they play to win. Whatever tactics serve them against you, they will use, however shamelessly hypocritical it is of them. If they can slip one past you, they will. It's up to you to catch them.
None of which is illegal. None of which is cheating. It's football; it's courtroom, it's stock exchange, it's boardroom, all the places all these people came from. If you expect your federal government to be collegial, more concerned with process than results, don't elect these guys. And if you do elect them, expect the game to change. A chess match can degenerate into a brawl, but a chess match never breaks out during a brawl. "
George W. Bush and his administration are not liberals or bipartisan figures. They are not Jack Kemp style free-marketeers, Reaganesque small government types or even old Right, neo-isolationist paleocons like Pat Buchanan. Instead, they are basically the last Nixonians - centralizing, more partisan than conservative, hierarchical, national security oriented, big government Republicans, who aligned themselves primarily with moderate big business, the religious right and neoconservative intellectuals. Seldom have they reached beyond this base and, if anything, the Bush White House has retreated to ever more narrowly circled political wagons. They will govern from this precarious perch until their last days in office.
We are in a long war against a global insurgency of Islamist fanatics whether our generals are permitted to say that or not. The country needs a stronger, more vocal, middle ground...at least when we look beyond the edge of our shores.
Courtesy of Michael Tanji of Haft of the Spear, a piece of Congressional semantic idiocy that is symbolic of a larger problem:
"The House Armed Services Committee is banishing the global war on terror from the 2008 defense budget.
This is not because the war has been won, lost or even called off, but because the committee’s Democratic leadership doesn’t like the phrase.
A memo for the committee staff, circulated March 27, says the 2008 bill and its accompanying explanatory report that will set defense policy should be specific about military operations and “avoid using colloquialisms.”
The “global war on terror,” a phrase first used by President Bush shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., should not be used, according to the memo. Also banned is the phrase the “long war,” which military officials began using last year as a way of acknowledging that military operations against terrorist states and organizations would not be wrapped up in a few years.
Committee staff members are told in the memo to use specific references to specific operations instead of the Bush administration’s catch phrases. The memo, written by Staff Director Erin Conaton, provides examples of acceptable phrases, such as “the war in Iraq,” the “war in Afghanistan, “operations in the Horn of Africa” or “ongoing military operations throughout the world.”
Because of course, prohibiting discussion of the strategic context of current military operations against Islamist terror networks itching to topple regional governments or kill thousands of Americans in 9/11 style attacks will make that threat go away. Political correctness for terrorism analysis!
Well, not really. What it is intended to do, I infer, is allow the new House majority to deprioritize, over time, the importance of fighting al Qaida type groups so as to make it politically easier to allocate legistative time and resources to those domestic issues that excite the liberal activist base. If you are a House chairman or Democratic presidential candidate, looking toward 2008, ideological spin is fun, substantive foreign policy, by contrast, is a major headache. Being the most hawkish Democrat on al Qaida is about as about as rewarding, in terms of winning influence within the party, as heading the Republicans for Choice Caucus would be within the GOP. It won't kill you politically, per se but being out of step with your party is more anchor than sail.
Now, I realize there are many Democrats and liberals who are passionate about America having sound and strong defense, foreign and national security policies. A number of them are on my blogroll because I respect and read their views. At the end of the day, however, a Democratic majority will reflect not their minority views or priorities but those of the Boomer activist Left whose formative experience was the Vietnam antiwar movement, the radicalized phase of Civil Rights protest and the Women's movement. It is they who dominate the Democratic Party, not the DLC or the "liberal hawks". Except when you have an overriding political concern from the public, or a Democratic president of Clintonian influence who can temporarily pull his party toward the center, you can expect the Democrats to govern like Democrats, not like Republicans Lite.
The same goes for the Republicans. Callimachus had an excellent essay about the nature of the Bush administration:
"Let's say it up front: GWB and co. are a bad lot; arrogant and embodying the most resistant strains of cultural conservatism and capitalism in American society. Blame it on Texas, if you need an explanation, as the historical magnet for the most exaggerated and aggressive characters of the old South.
They have a predatory mentality, a game-winning mentality. The executive branch is their team base, and they go out every day in eye black to compete with Congress, the Democrats, the courts, the media, and they play to win. Whatever tactics serve them against you, they will use, however shamelessly hypocritical it is of them. If they can slip one past you, they will. It's up to you to catch them.
None of which is illegal. None of which is cheating. It's football; it's courtroom, it's stock exchange, it's boardroom, all the places all these people came from. If you expect your federal government to be collegial, more concerned with process than results, don't elect these guys. And if you do elect them, expect the game to change. A chess match can degenerate into a brawl, but a chess match never breaks out during a brawl. "
George W. Bush and his administration are not liberals or bipartisan figures. They are not Jack Kemp style free-marketeers, Reaganesque small government types or even old Right, neo-isolationist paleocons like Pat Buchanan. Instead, they are basically the last Nixonians - centralizing, more partisan than conservative, hierarchical, national security oriented, big government Republicans, who aligned themselves primarily with moderate big business, the religious right and neoconservative intellectuals. Seldom have they reached beyond this base and, if anything, the Bush White House has retreated to ever more narrowly circled political wagons. They will govern from this precarious perch until their last days in office.
We are in a long war against a global insurgency of Islamist fanatics whether our generals are permitted to say that or not. The country needs a stronger, more vocal, middle ground...at least when we look beyond the edge of our shores.
Labels: bush, cold war, democratic party, foreign policy, military, politics, republican party
¶ 9:09 PM 8 comments
Saturday, March 10, 2007
THE GLOVES ARE COMING OFF IN THE DEMOCRATIC RACE....4GW STYLE
People send me many things. Too much in fact, for me to ever post them all unless blogging becomes a paying gig but I do look at and read everything you send to me. This was just em,ailed and it's hilarious - as well as an indicator of where 2008 is going and possibly a harbinger of the role Web 2.0 apps may play in the presidential race. ( Hat Tip: to Fabius Maximus).
This was posted by "Parkridge47" as if it was by a contemporary of Hillary from her High School days at Maine South. Perhaps it is. Some folks have long memories for slights or insults. But if I was to hazard a guess, I'd say the subtle stiletto of David Axelrod (Senator Barack Obama's "political brain") was behind this 4GW move to hit Hillary with some negative advertising in the youth demographic that leaves no forwarding address.
I'd take pride in saying that Republicans were behind this but I can't see the Bush administration pulling off something quite this smart. Or even being aware of Youtube.
And if you think this was something, wait until they engage the social networking platforms.
People send me many things. Too much in fact, for me to ever post them all unless blogging becomes a paying gig but I do look at and read everything you send to me. This was just em,ailed and it's hilarious - as well as an indicator of where 2008 is going and possibly a harbinger of the role Web 2.0 apps may play in the presidential race. ( Hat Tip: to Fabius Maximus).
This was posted by "Parkridge47" as if it was by a contemporary of Hillary from her High School days at Maine South. Perhaps it is. Some folks have long memories for slights or insults. But if I was to hazard a guess, I'd say the subtle stiletto of David Axelrod (Senator Barack Obama's "political brain") was behind this 4GW move to hit Hillary with some negative advertising in the youth demographic that leaves no forwarding address.
I'd take pride in saying that Republicans were behind this but I can't see the Bush administration pulling off something quite this smart. Or even being aware of Youtube.
And if you think this was something, wait until they engage the social networking platforms.
Labels: 2008, axelrod, democratic party, hillary clinton, obama, politics
¶ 6:33 PM 1 comments
