I dislike Donald Trump

 I hate that this is my first post in a long while, but if you wait for the perfect post you may very well wait forever.

I really dislike Donald Trump. I hesitate to use the word hate, partly on general habit, but partly because hate is an intimate personal feeling, ultimately, my dislike is pointed at a political persona, and it is a persona that is neither unique geographically nor historically. So hate seems inappropriate. However, I strongly dislike Donald Trump's hyper-nationalist anti-instutionalist populist persona fiercely.

I am myself a passionate nationalist, I believe in America and I have a passionate love for my country. I do not mind hyper-nationalism by itself, I find it excessive but I can sympathize with the feelings behind it. But I dislike how Donald Trump focuses the nationalism of himself and his followers on an exclusionary vision of America, one that must hide itself from the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free, lest the troubles overseas infect us. I like to subscribe to a vision of America that welcomes the oppressed and takes the demons chasing them as challenges to be conquered rather to be appeased.

But that is a matter of ideals. In concrete terms, no one wants no immigration, very few are willing to realistically grapple with the challenges of open borders, everyone can admit that some people need asylum and that there are some people who will fake asylum and there are wide swaths of gray areas. Most disagreements in immigration come down to differences in degrees of policies, while adding and removing special cases from a system riddled with special cases. I dislike that Trump throws away the nuance of this in his rhetoric (although he is hardly unique in this, the degree and frequency to which he disregards nuance are exceptional, and degree and frequency matter), and is unwilling to wrestle with the full complexity of the situation in his policies.

I dislike Trump's disregard for the long term, his policies focused on short term goals while never asking how will these policies be followed by the other party when the other party inevitably comes to power in the future, because this is not the end of history. It irritates me in profound ways how Trump acts like this is the end of history, that the fixes in corruption and deep economic issues are something that can be fixed in four years without caring what the dismantling of walls between politics and the administration of government do to the long term. Again, Trump is not unique in this, but he does this more frequently and to a larger degree, and frequency and degree matter.

I dislike the emptiness of the winner takes all philosophy he pursues, when that does not look at the costs to the institutions of democracy, which while not perfect in this country, are priceless.

I could go on, but this is probably longer than most people like to read already. Donald Trump is not the devil, not every single thing he does is wrong or every single policy incorrect. In many ways, Donald Trump is the outgrowth of bad tendencies among politicians that have been growing for a long time here and overseas, however, his degree and frequency of those tendencies are exceptional and that matters.

History is long. Despite my nationalism I am not naive, one day the United States of America will become a fading memory. But just as I cherish the lives of my loved ones despite their inevitable return to the dust, I am concerned with the fate of America. Donald Trump did not ruin America in his first term and will not destroy America in his second, however, he may do lasting damage to the institutions and ideals of America that may set the stage for further damages down the line. I think he is bad for America, and that concerns me.

I could be wrong, and I really dislike how Trump rarely seems to consider the possibility, but I admit I cannot see into his head, nor can I predict the future. But I have my feelings and have stated them, and I will hope for the best, knowing the future will inevitably be different and stranger than I can imagine. In the end, all I can say is God bless America and I hope, whether I am right or wrong, America makes the right choice.

The politics of politicicking the politician

An old essay of mine examining the political mine, written in a time when I was a good deal more enthusiastic about politics and a considerable amount more Libertarian. Back in that long ago less than 5 years ago (this was almost certainly written some point in my college career).

On Economic and Civil Liberties
Politics is never a completely honest game. It is full of hypocrisy, back-stabbing, and corruption. Yet the actions that politicians take need some justification to the voter. For some the justification is that the politicians advance their interests. Yet most people cannot sleep at night thinking simply in those terms, and the more philosophical people, who are often the most influential in political thought, find this even more difficult. Many people want some reasoning behind the policies of their representatives, senators, and even president. Yet there is a common problem in developing a reasoning for the policies of mainstream politicians. In political thought, a large number of policy issues come down to matters of economic and civil liberties. Most American liberals say they favor limiting economic liberties and enhancing civil liberties; American conservatives, at least publicly, often favor limits on civil liberties, but not economic liberties. There seems to be a contradiction between favoring some liberties but not others. When one side wishes to attack another they often bring up this contradiction, ignoring the fact that they share it. This makes it an obstacle to real political discussion between the two. Yet this contradiction can be resolved in two ways.

First, the contradiction ceases to exist when civil liberties and economic liberties are looked at as fundamentally different. Civil liberties can be looked at as more abstract, since economic liberties affect everyday matters of buying and selling, while civil liberties affect those engaged in the public world of advocacy, politics, and media the most. Economic matters affect the pocket book, which is tangible, while civil liberties are based on less tangible matters like freedom of thought. Economic matters can be more immediately important, a change in the economy can bring a person to poverty or riches, but civil matters affect the culture of a society which takes time to change. Yet these distinctions are somewhat murky. The culture of society affected by civil liberties is a very large part of everyone's life, and sometimes censorship and other limits to civil liberties can have an immediate and direct effect, like the banning of a TV character. Also, economic matters can be seen as impersonal, with large forces of billions of people buying and selling determining the flow of the economy. And economic matters can take time to cause change, like taxes that change the competitiveness of an industry, causing it to slowly fall while another rises. Another problem is that economic matters affect civil life, a fall in the economy might make people more likely to protest, and civil matters affect economic life, such as a protest aimed against a company's civil rights abuses. But often a line is drawn between the work sphere, and the area of life that covers personal and community matters. If one draws this lines economic liberties and civil liberties are only alike in the word liberties.

There is another way the contradiction between favoring some liberties and not others can be resolved. If the conservative and liberal positions on these matters are looked at as part of an attempt to shape society, there is no contradiction. Conservatives have often represented their policies as an attempt to make society strong, self-reliant, with traditional values. Their policies on civil liberties reflect this, they favor spending money to promote marriages, many want to limit pornography which they see as an insult to Christian values, they want to punish those with alternative lifestyles, that are seen as undermining traditional life. For them strength and self-reliance are part of this traditional American way of life. Thus freedom of the economy is promoting American values. Economic freedom forces people to be self-reliant and strong or face the consequences. Economic freedom also leaves only the family and the community as safety nets, which are often filled with traditional values and can instill that in those that need their help. Liberals on the other hand choose to emphasize the virtues of tolerance, being yourself, and helping the poor. Civil freedom encourages this, because it puts the government as an example of tolerance and it gives freedom to be yourself in anyway you want to be. The economic limitations put government as an example for helping the poor. The government also gives people a safety net independent of family and community, encouraging them to break these traditional attachments and fallow their own path. Thus both civil and economic liberties become one more battlefield for the culture wars.

Many politicians undoubtedly think in both ways about civil and economic matters. Many will justify the matter with the direct effects of economic and civil policies. And likely some have not thought about or dealt with the contradiction. Another line of thought is to accept the contradiction and declare both liberals and conservatives wrong. That's my personal view. But it is important to think through the view of your opponents and assume that they have an intelligent reasoning behind their actions. This is because it is better to overestimate your opponents, and be more than ready in debating them, then to underestimate, and be caught speechless when they have thought through logic. Furthermore, this assumption that these people think and are thinking through their ideas adds to a better atmosphere for political debate. It creates an air of mutual respect, and in these partisan times, that is something that is badly needed.

And what will find the truth? Love, only Love

I like to think of myself is a tolerant man.

Definitions time!

(But before that, the song that I am alluding to in the title must be given due credit, U2 - Electrical Storm - so much awesomeness)

So often statements like the above are made without proper care to the definitions of the key terms. This can be problematic because even if the definitions of the speaker are only slightly different than the definitions of the listener, it can cause grave miscommunication. For example, if a soldier says "I am a man of peace", what he could mean is that I go to war to defend the future peace or a more profound peace than the present. A listener however could think that statement means is that the soldier is claiming to be a person who doesn't fight or who encourages non-violence, and thus the listener could label the soldier a liar or a hypocrite (or if the listener was a very bizarre person he could label the soldier a hippopotamus, but that assumption would probably be unrelated to what the soldier said). The miscommunication here is the definition, both denotative (as in what the literal meaning is) and connotative (as in what ideas and feelings are associated with that meaning), of the word "peace".

In fact, given the uniqueness of everyone's minds, and the immense power of feelings and unspoken ideas to shape our understandings, all meaningful communication contains a degree of miscommunication, especially since even in efforts to clarify the miscommunication we must invoke words/phrases/ideas which are just as likely to be misunderstood.

Yet by expressing ourselves fully (and clearly as well, though with my tendency for rambling that's not going to happen), we can misunderstand less. So before explaining what implications I draw from my sentence "I like to think of myself is a tolerant man.", let me clarify a little my definition of tolerance.

What I believe tolerance means is that you do not consider it a personal flaw to be wrong, and you do not let someone's wrong-ness in one aspect affect all aspects of your relationship. That may sound profoundly intolerant, but let me expand. People hold different views, and even if you can say everyone is entitled to their own opinion, if you are (more or less) certain that point A is right, and point B is opposed to point A, you must (implicitly or explicitly) hold that point B is wrong. Thus even if someone else is entitled to believe point B, if they hold point B, you must consider them wrong on the matter, or reduce the degree of your certainty to just a matter of being certain of point A in the limited ways it applies to you (that is if you think stealing is wrong, but you refuse to admit that this implies that those who feel stealing is okay are wrong, what you really are believing is not that stealing is wrong, but that you stealing is wrong, you just aren't admitting to yourself the real truth of what you believe).

Thus the only way a man of beliefs and ideals can be tolerant is to accept that others can be wrong. And this isn't really so hard, since yes, you too can be wrong. Admitting that you can be wrong isn't a contradiction to believing you are right. After all, if you go outside for a walk, you don't think you'll be mugged, but even in the safest neighborhood, you might get mugged. Moreover, maybe based on limited information, or a flawed thinking process, or maybe bad luck, you can miscalculate the chance of you getting mugged. So you can be wrong, I can be wrong, and that's okay.

But then again, why? Why is it okay? Well, here is something I believe, and as the center of all my beliefs, it is the thing I am most certain I am right on, in fact it is perhaps one thing I don't think I could be convinced that I am wrong on.

That above all else, Love is supreme.

Intertwined with this:

There is a loving God in charge of the universe.

Could I be convinced otherwise? I doubt it. I'm not going to say that I couldn't be wrong on this point, because I admit my mind is not infinite, perhaps there's some way I haven't thought of that I could be convinced otherwise. But this I believe.

Thus above all disagreements, Love must prevail, and thus I strive to be tolerant even when I believe in all earnestness that the other is wrong.

Now let me draw out the implications of "I like to think of myself as a tolerant man."

The implication is tolerance is cool. So don't be an intolerant bum, yeah I'm talking to you Raj Thackeray! (now this may seem like a contradiction, but idiotic bum-iness is the natural outgrowth of a lack of tolerance, as shown by Raj Thackeray, so while I do not hold that this inherently dehumanizes him or that this proves him wrong in other aspects of his person, he is an idiotic bum (actually I'm just kidding, he may very well be a smart man, and may very well be a hard-worker, however the idea of intolerance that he holds is idiotic, wrong and full of bum-iness, and while I believe in tolerance for people, I do not mind saying that some ideas (not people mind you, whether or not they support this idea), ought be given a savage beating for their extreme idiotic-ness (again NOT people, beating people due to politics is also a very idiotic idea)).

The inherent folly of internal isolationism

Casablanca is an awesome movie (as recognition of such, here's a link to a very nice fan page of said film). (The movie, though far from a comprehensive picture of the period, and far from an accurate picture of Morocco in the early 1940's, is all the cooler to parse from a historical perspective due to its omissions and selective inclusions) If you dare to question that I will have to smack you upside the top of your head. And as such, though from some angles it can seem down right pulpy, on many, many levels it speaks to the human condition.

Let me just pick one as if for random (or perhaps my mention of Casablanca was really a lead in to this topic, you'll never know! Actually the later case is the truth).

One theme in Casablanca I've always been fascinated by is the connect between emotional internationalism and political internationalism, or rather pragmatic apathy in personal relationships, like cheating a woman into sleeping with you, feeds into and onto political isolationism and apathy, like kow-towing to a viciously evil regime like the Nazis. In the same, "rank sentimentalism" feeds into and onto political idealism which allows one to give up a chance for love because of the larger causes of the world.

Thus Rick, who once ran guns for Ethiopia (wooo Ethiopia!), when a bitter romantic disappointment makes him turn callous in his personal relationships, becomes politically callous, at first dismissing the very idea that he help a man on the run from the Nazi's escape certain torture and death. And thus when he re-accepts the idea of personal love, he re-discovers his idealism, and is willing to let go because his love belongs somewhere else.

What a world... that Rick's love be so doomed by those circumstances... but the non-fictional world can be far more brutal... but then again it can offer even great beauties such as the film itself Casablanca.

I'm just saying...

So take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

Lest you think me always a fool

Once upon a time I dreamed of politics...

I once mentioned to a professor that I was interested in getting into politics. His words were “Why would you want to do that to yourself?” I was surprised by his response but his question was valid. Getting into the world of politics is hard work, it is often a messy business and you are forced to deal with difficult and complex choices. And yet politics has always appealed to me, even since my youth. One of my early memories was watching the TV as the electoral votes accumulated behind George Bush and Bill Clinton, while only a zero sat behind Ross Perot. Later as I advanced in my schooling, I learned about political scandals and heard of bitter debates which divided friends, and so I was tempted to expunge politics from my mind. But the effort was in vaind, politics was just too attractive for me to refuse it.

Part of my attraction is based on the idea that politics allows me a chance to make a difference. It's a cliché concept, but it is still appealing nonetheless. Being involved in politics, in the thoughts and debates over how the country should be run, even being involved in the government without any ideological component, gives me an opportunity to help improve the world, if only in a small way. Politics is influential and being part of it gives me an opportunity tobecome influential. Through increasing regulation or decreasing it, through steering the government conservatively or liberally, the actions of those involved in politics send vibrations throughout the wider world. Given the size and scope of the governemnt and the prestige and prominance it holds, those involved in politics can influence the world even without any desire to change policy. If those involved in politics are simply more efficient, then the government will be more efficient and all the business ventures, educational enterprises, and bureaucracies which are involved in, regulated by, or receive assistance from the government become more efficient. Getting involved in the government, or in politics, allows me to become a part of the impact that politics has on the nation. To be honest, though, politics is not the only way to make a difference. Art, charity, and a number of other fields also offer an opportunity to change the wolrd, although perhaps to a lesser degree than politics. And so while my desire to make a difference explains part of my attraction to politics, it is not the only reason.

Perhaps the most important factor in my desire to get involved in politics is simply that I find politics fascinating. Politics is the result of the votes, opinions, and actions of the entire population as well as the day-to-day interaction between politicians. There are a million stories in those thoughts and meetings, the stories of peaceful cultural movements that bring down racist demagogues, the stories of the quiet bureaucrats who manage the logistics wthat save the lives of our soldiers, the stories of men and women who resist corruption and the tragic stories of those who fall to it. These stories tickle the imagination and engross the analytical mind, and part of the reason I am so enchanted by politics. And yet there is more than that. Politics is also history unfolding. Thea citons of the government today set the stage for what will happen in thew world tommorow. Wise foreign policy decisions can promote peace, a faulty economic policy can provoke a recession, a well-informed educational policy can open opportunity to millions. And beyond policy, if the government earns the respect of the people and inspires them through its actions, then the cultural atmosphere of the nation will be lifted in spirit. The influence politics has on history has always been an irresistible lure for me, and has guaranteed that my attention remains with politics.

Politics is often a thankless field. Voters expect everything from politicians, and blame them for everything that goes wrong. Yet I still find politics immensely attractive. Part of it is my desire to make a difference, but a large part of it is that I just find politics immensely interesting. That is why I'd like to become part of the political world, even if in a role that does not involve my personal opinions. To simply become part of the political process would be a wonderful experience, it would engage my interest and offer me an opportunity to serve the people through the politics and perhaps make a difference that way. Politics is a pert of me, even if I tried to get rid of my interest in poltics, and I have tried, it would still be a part of me. And so, despite the fact that I know the political world is not necessarily a pretty one or a happy one, I still think that it is an honor to get involved in it.

Me, Eddy, and that Oriental-Looking Fellow

Here's another import from a now defunct side-blog, but this I feel fits very well at home here, for underneath these many personas is in the end the same man, but what is that man? What is any human being for that matter? We do not know, though we endevor to, just as Mr. Said did many years ago.

Me, Eddie and the Oriental Arts

It has been a little bit more than 30 years since Edward Said published a book called Orientalism and shook up the historical world like a firecracker in a paranoid cat factory. You get it, because cats are notoriously skittish, and if there was a firecracker they'd run and... well I guess they couldn't really shake the walls of a factory very much, but at least the cats themselves would be shaken up. I warn anyone reading this to not look too deeply into this allusion, it is in the end simply a bad joke. Don't take history so seriously, I admit it can be a life or death matter sometimes, but heck, people take life and death too seriously too.

I feel Edward Said took Orientalism a little too seriously. I should not speak too ill of the deceased, and Professor Said died about 4 years ago. Still I doubt he would want that fact to shield him from criticism and besides while I do believe Edward Said took Orientalism a little too seriously, I also think he had reason to. He was a Christian Palestinian who was forced from his home by war, his life was one of wandering, spending much of his adulthood in an America that could look at him as nothing but a foreigner. And a particular type of foreigner in fact, an Oriental.

I say this because Edward Said's book was all about the context in which history, literature, and scholarship is written. And he admits, to fairly assess him one must take an inventory of his context. Said also speaks much of political context and so let me give his political context, he's an advocate for the Palestinian cause, although he admits the legitimacy of the Israeli experience. It would be unfair to judge him as a stereotype political propagandist though, especially since his books about the stereotypes the West brings to the East and its politics. He's a man of great analytical skill, I'll give him that. His writings are still under copyright but there are some articles of his on the web, I point you to an article in Al-Ahram Weekly for starters, although it does not fully encapsulate the man.

So I have hinted, I have suggested, I have been circuitous. Let me now tell you what Orientalism is about. Orientalism is about the context of the East in the mind of the West. More particularly than the West he talks about Europe till WWII and US afterwards, and of the East, Said concentrates on the Middle East, but this is about the East in the mind of the West. The Orient, he explains, is not a matter of geography, it is not just the land past a certain meridian. It is a matter of imaginative construction. The Orient is an amorphous body of assumptions and ideas about the world outside Europe which has colored any thoughts, whether mundane or even abstractly scholarly, about the Middle East, India, China (although I'm not sure how much Said talks about China) and the rest due to its effects. This body of constructs then, often far removed from the reality, is the lens through which the politics of the West are decided, and just as importantly this body of constructs is shaped by politics and has become a justification for the exploitive actions of the West.

Now that's just my basic imagination of what he's saying. This is from his introduction mind you, but he says the rest of the book is just an illustration of his case. His language is thick and confusing though so I might have gotten some of his thoughts wrong. More notably, his language is thick in the manner of the English department, the Poli. Sci. department and the Philosophy Department. What is I think subtly annoying about Said to most historians, and what actually weakens his argument at times, is that he is not a historian but rather as he calls it a "humanities" professor. But then again, his point is that philosophy, politics, literature, and history all interact and in the case of the Eastern world for Europe, they distort the reality.

You can compare my analysis of Said's work with Wikipedia's summary if you so choose.

But since the book is readily available, and summaries of it are a dime a dozen on the web, I'm going to lay off of that. Besides, as I've said, I only read the introduction. But the introduction, in addition to the main point, has a particular few lines that I hope the heirs of Edward Said's estate will not begrudge me to quote.

"My two fears are distortion and inaccuracy, or rather the kind of inaccuracy produced by too dogmatic a generality and too positivistic a localized focus ... I have been discussing, difficulties, that might force one ... into writing a coarse polemic on so unacceptably general a level of description as not to be worth the effort."

I hope you will trust me when I say that I am indeed presenting this quote accurately. Basically he fears he will be too broad and general. He is also afraid of being too specific, and as far as I can tell his solution is to make a broad statement in the introduction and then back it up through specific examples in his book. At least that's my sense of things. But I think in the end, even using specific examples does not stop him from becoming so over-general that he becomes distortive and inaccurate. He is after all condemning an entire discipline and its history, without, as he admits, offering any alternative means for the West to study the East. It is to his credit he tried to resist the urge towards "distortion and inaccuracy" but the ambition to revolutionize the interconnected fields of Western politics, literature, and history in regards to the Eastern world made that impossible.

Edward Said makes some good points. He rightfully points out that the historical and political situation of the individuals writing about the Eastern world inevitably leave their fingerprints. Moreover, he rightfully points out that even those removed from that political and historical situation are informed by the tradition formed from then. Yet Said goes as far to suggest that this makes them fundamentally unreliable, and that the entire tradition of Eastern studies must now be discarded as sullied. There is my disagreement with him. There is our debating ground.

You have to check for biases. You have to look for them even in insidious places like analysis of economies. When Marx in the Communist Manifesto talks about Europeans opening China to commerce as the march of capitalism and industrialization, pause for a moment. Well, it's true in terms of factories and steam power China was behind England and France. But was it behind Germany or Russia? Moreover, in terms of roadwork and administrative sophistication, China was certainly as modern as most of Europe. I mean Britian was certainly more capitalistic than China, but be careful in assuming, as I believe Marx does that Europe as a whole is.

Even in literature this imaginative construct of Orientalism forms a lens over reality. Kipling lived in India. He knew what it was like. Yet in Kim he presents a wandering Tibetan monk who has no knowledge of worldly things. Let's think for a moment. A monk who traveled to India would likely spend some time in Indian spiritual circles, which in the 19th century were filled with ultra-sophisticated intellectuals who were intimately connected with the worlds of science, finance, and European-Indian relations. Sure, it is a story, and a highly unlikely one by that, but just remember that this too is one of those unlikely details.

Fine, fine to all that. I agree with Said that there is this imaginative construct of Orientalism that taints Western accounts. But IT DOES NOT DISCREDIT THE TRADITION. When English translators translated Arabic works they interpreted through their impressions of the Muslim world, but those translations still often convey the core of the meaning of those works especially when one takes them with a grain of salt. The travelers accounts contain their own views but they often contain very valuable historical material. Marco Polo's accounts of Kublai Khan were influenced by the eternal European search for a counterweight to the Muslim world, but the details of his travel are immensely valuable, sometimes recording things that might never have been noted even by the people who lived in those lands.

And then we have the full complexity of Orientalism. It wasn't just the tradition that justified imperialism. It was also the tradition that often protested most vigorously against imperialism. Take late 18th c. England. While the British East Indian company justified their conquests in India by India's primitive non-capitalism, shown by their ancient though opulent unchanging traditions. Yet the myth of eternal perfect luxury of India also convinced many that India was a great beacon of civilization. Adam Smith for example, when hearing of the East India Company's actions was horrified.

And then we have modern Orientalism. Said is correct that modern Eastern studies inherit a tainted legacy from old Orientalism. But that doesn't discredit the work of modern Eastern studies. Many have tackled highly effectively the biases of their past and been able to remove some. And some they have not been able to remove. And they have added some new biases.

In the end, the reason why Said can't suggest a way to look at people without some imaginative construct blocking them. Our biases are inevitable, and everything we write is infected in it, but we can still strive to get better. And despite the highly developed nature of a construct like Orientalism it is still better to chip away at it through refining the tradition than labeling all the old Eastern studies more about Orientalism the construct than those lands East and South of Europe themselves.

Especially since starting with a blank slate is impossible. Beyond the fact the materials of the past do not lend themselves to remaking from a fresh thought, seeking so hard to erase Orientalism from the Western mind instead creates an Anti-Orientalism which I feel many of Edward Said's disciples, and perhaps the man himself, practice. This sees the Orient as something unknowable by the West and the West as aggressive fools. This sees revolution as the natural course of things to cleanse the burdens of colonialism, but demands an impossible purity to whatever is begotten from the revolution. Well, I could complain more about this. But let me put aside my complaints, because they are more or less just my political opinions.

But the Anti-Orientalist perspective is something very real I think. It tends to taint the vision of the counterculture in its review of the East. It is hard to describe its exact dimensions without going on a political tangent, especially since as a body is amorphous. But it is a knee-jerk revolt against the orthodoxy, it is an idealization of radical anti-colonial intellectuals without a critical perspective. And it is a demonization of any attempt by Western intellectuals outside the Anti-Orientalist circle to claim knowledge to allow them to sympathize with a foreign cause. It is mixed with other anti-traditionalist creeds such as neo-Marxism, primitivism, anarchism. And while I could simply mock it, my political differences withe perspective are not the point. It is a distorting view, often just as much so as Orientalism.

I'd like to draw a parallel. In Said's book, he claims that Orientalism prevents any American intellectual from sympathizing with an Arab cause without being accused of a sinister interest. He points out the State Department Arabists who were then accused of being dishonest due to vague oil connections. Yet what about now? Any intellectual or politician who believes in democracy in the Middle East is usually tarred, at least by certain intellectual circles who subscribe to Anti-Orientalism, as a stooge of big corporations, or secret ultra-nationalist, or just as a buffoon.

So do I say that Said's book is useless? No, it was an important watershed in historical thought. It forced Eastern studies to confront its historic biases. Yet it also had an unfortunate bi-product in the form of Anti-Orientalism which was due to how broad a stroke with which he condemned Western thought on the land once known as the Orient.

But still, I tip my hat off to you, Professor Said, wherever you are. You showed without a doubt the importance of context on human thoughts. And so since these are thoughts, I think in Said's honor, I might, as he did, compile an inventory of significant facts that undoubtedly influences my analysis. I am a young man, only of 21 years. I study at Rutgers University and grew up in the shadow of Princeton. It should be noted that I revolted against the dominant culture of my youth, which was culture of Princeton, which in many ways matched the counter-culture of the rest of the country. I have old bitternesses towards the counter-culture which I have attempted to cleanse, but old bitternesses die hard. I am a devout Catholic and I believe in the importance of tradition. I am a die-hard capitalist and a believer in the essentialness of human rights.

And I, too, bear skin that should mark me as an Oriental. It is a nice shade of Dravidian brown, but it is rather different than most in America. Yet unlike Professor Said, my experiences have not been too harsh in that regard. Instead, my life has given me a great love of the United States, and that is why I call myself an American without question, although I am proud of my Indian heritage. I am not sure what Said would say about that. He wrote an autobiography Out of Place, and I think he meant most especially in America. Yet that has not been my experience, and perhaps that is in some small part due to Professor Said's book Orientalism. There is still shades of Orientalism in America mind you, and there are still biases in its academia, but perhaps the United States has become a little kinder in the 30 years since Said's book. If so, I do thank Professor Said, and hope where he is now, he is finally in a place he feels is home.

And are thee an equivocator?

It's easy for me to overstate my intelligence. I've done well in school, but not that well. I'm well read, but again not that well read. I'm a jack of all trades but certainly a master of none and indeed, there are some trades I haven't jacked quite yet. And while at times I feel dispassionate and analytical, how I feel about myself is by no means an objective metric of how I'm looking at an issue. So let me throw all those cautions out there before I proceed (I should make this a standard disclaimer).

Now The House Next Door is an excellent source for some excellent reads about film, tv and culture (somewhat less so since the departure of the irreplaceable Matt Zoller Seitz stepped down as editor, no insult to the current editor but note the irreplaceable adjective), however, there are some authors I like more and some I like less. One I like in a middling sort of way is Lauren Wissot. She writes with decent skill but is undermined by over-the-top political exclamations (actually, all and all, she makes a number of over-the-top generalizing exclamations in many fields, but the political ones are the most egregious and common). It helps that she is often on the right side of the issue, if very extremist on that side, but such extremism weakens the prose of her reviews and often blurs the reality of complex issues.

My disclaimer was not for my analysis of Lauren Wissot, I am fairly confident that I am correct in my assessment of her and I think, with the partial exception of that last clause, agree with the assessment. My disclaimer takes effect now though, since I am wading into one of the issues that I feel Ms. Wissot oversimplified.

The issue comes up in a film Ms. Wissot glowingly reviewed from the Human Rights Film Festival (human rights are always a good cause and often are shown in excellent and tragic ways in film, so even if you don't check out this film festival, I suggest you still check out human rights films) called USA vs. Al-Arian.

I don't disagree with her central point (or at least her central descriptive point, her central thematic point about the American Dream being a shame I thoroughly disagree with) that what happened to Mr. Al-Arian is a clear violation of the spirit of the law (if perhaps not the letter) and human rights, is a shame upon our country and never should have happened.

Granted.

But besides the demonizing of the Bush administration, her review in general seems to ignore the complexities of the issue, even if some of the less-flattering points she makes about the Bush administration and US gov. in general still stand.

Let me step back for a moment, from the chasm I am about to leap into, by explaining why I felt I needed the disclaimer before. Now for you, my dear readers, it is probably unnecessary, since your razor-sharp minds and ability to spot the many "may"s and "probably"s would likely show that I am a bit uncertain here on matter of fact. But the real reason for my earlier disclaimer is because I am morally uncertain here. Am I just trying to lessen the situation to weaken the shame I feel for my government and my country? Am I just trying to shoehorn this into my "they're wrong but not necessarily evil" vision of the Bush administration?

Or even worse, have I become an equivocator who can brush off any moral failing by saying "You're not looking at the full complexity"?

I hope and overall think that my fears are misplaced. This was indeed a great moral failing, even once complexity is given, and this is a moral failing worse than that of ordinary men and even most extra-ordinary men. The treatment of Mr. Al-Arian is a true sin, an act that moves the actor further away from God. What happened (and is happening (despite my cautions, I advise you to read the review and watch the movie (which I myself ought to do) to get a sense of things) was wrong, that is simple.

The depth of the wrongness and how it came to be, however, are matters for complexity.

Let me finally lay out the gist of what happened to Mr. Al-Arian (more of the gist is in the review and the full account of things can be found elsewhere or in the movie). He was a Palestinian rights activist, a rather famous one, in fact, and after 9/11 he was swept up in the arrest sweeps of "suspected" terrorist sympathizers on nebulous charges (if any) that plagued the country in the fall and winter of 2001 (in truth these things did not begin in 2001, or did they end after 2001, but they were not as bad before, and while still somewhat troubling now, are not that bad currently. But in 2001, these terrorist sweeps were truly tragic). Treated badly and publicly humiliated, the eventual case against him was typical of the weakest of the cases. He was charged with contributing to a terrorist organization through a charity.

The weakness of the charge is amplified by the maddening amount of wire taps that were taken against him over the last 9 years! (seeing as they never got more than this charge, how could they justify this? I am sure there may be some technical ground, but if the spirit of the law is at all adhered to?) (as I said things didn't start with 2001 or Bush even, 9 years before 2001 is well before Bush)

Here is a perhaps important, perhaps incorrect legal aside. The charges that came from contributing to charities linked to terrorist groups (linked and then banned in a vague manner, but in one that is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to overturn) veer very close to ex-post facto laws, that is laws made after the alleged crime was committed. There are ways that at any time giving money to these charities might have been regarded as criminal, since these charities often minorly or majorly support groups that are inter-linked with terrorist organizations. However, that is because some terrorist organizations, especially those claiming to be alternative governments, often do also try to support the community. This is not necessarily an Islamic thing, often anti-colonial governments or US political radical groups also had charitable sides (for example PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, is linked, in an indirect way, with ELF, the Earth Liberation Front, a designated terrorist organization).

So there might have been an indirect degree of truth to the claim that Al-Arian was supporting terrorism, but if so it was in a way that had rarely before been labeled a crime, since the link is so incredibly indirect. As Ms. Wissot points out, it was admitted that the prosecution wasn't alleging a direct link to murder, but there likely was a credible case for an indirect link, but this was so indirect, and so overlooked in the past!

Yet this was 9/11, we had been attacked by terrorists who essentially declared war on us. Some might say that if we leave groups like Al-Quaeda alone, they'll leave us alone. I don't believe that. I've studied Al-Quaeda, and their ideology is so total and destructive that it is clear to me that that they want a world revolution, and they see the United States as the main stumbling block to that goal (as has been said before (hence where I got it from) by many experts in the field, Al-Quaeda doesn't resemble anti-colonial terrorist groups who their apologists cite, rather it resembles the more hard-core communist groups, who fight on until they're too tired or too drained of men to fight any more).

After 9/11, no link was too indirect, after all, all's fair in war, right?

But did we not say that "All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights"?

Isn't that the founding principle of the United States of America, right?

But apparently, it was deemed that rights were not the question here, any link to terrorism, even if the link by the spirit of the law should have been ignored, should certainly not have been publicly broadcast, and should never have been taken to trial, any link to terrorism was enough by the standards set forth by the government at that time.

And so Mr. Al-Arian went to trial.

A note here, Ms. Wissot makes a big deal about the sight of suicide bombings being shown and not the Palestinian side. It is questionable to show the suicide bombings because of the prejudicial nature of such sights, but in a trial about whether or not someone supported the murder of a group of people, the question cannot be "Well, did they deserve it?" Evidence to that point therefore cannot be shown. That's like showing photos of a girl who was raped and asking "Doesn't she look trampy?" The only way that could factor in if the case was being made for self-defense. But suicide bombings target mostly civilian targets, the only way you could argue self-defense was alleging that the whole of the people was attacking yours and you had to respond by attacking all of them. Such group-rights defenses are morally flimsy and open to endless interpretations, I could go into that more, but I am digressing a lot.

A more telling counter-point however, would have been to show Hamas' social services and such, and say that's where I was sending money to (I've been assuming Mr. Al-Arian innocent, it is possible he was giving via means that less distinctly allocated things, but I doubt it), anything else was like the 0.00001 cents that goes toward the spread of Christianity when you give to Catholic Relief Services.

But again, I am digressing.

Overall, the jury in Mr. Al-Arian's case saw through the fear and found him not guilty.

The exactitudes of what happened afterward likely are only known to internal government records. But Mr. Al-Arian was kept in jail, charged again, and eventually fell into a deportation sentence, which was then shifted to prison time, in a maze of legal abuses.

Let me play devil's advocate for a moment. The reason why you might deport someone who was found not guilty is because "beyond a reasonable doubt" means that the person was 90+% guilty, which may be under your tolerance level for a person who might, just might be a potential terrorist.

Hey, he was giving to groups that have a tenuous tie to terrorism.

Hey, he was advocating for a case that is associated with terrorism.

Hey, now that we started this thing, we can't look weak, maybe we're just frustrated with how stupid people are being, maybe...

I'm tired of playing the devil's advocate.

There are mitigating factors here to what happened, but that doesn't mean what happened to Mr. Al-Arian isn't a massive abuse of the law.

I'm willing to admit to complexities here, but this is not a case where all sides are right. I will not equivocate a clear human rights violation, even if it does bring shame on the country I love.

And there has been so much to be shameful of in America's past, so much to be proud of too, but...

And yet we strive on, boats against the current...

The American Dream I always believed was more about fighting the current than actually getting somewhere, and so despite America's failings, I still believe in her. After all, I believe patriotism is about love, and I love the United States of America.

Anyways, take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight. And God Bless.

It's time to come down

So it seems fears of a Venezuelan-Columbian-Ecuadoran War have come to naught.

This article from the AP summarizes the rather vague details of a deal made between the countries leaders. The core of the dispute, the ideological and possibly material support to FARC by left-wing governments, and the US-backed war against FARC rebels by Colombia, has not been settled, but prospects of war are for right now little.

That's damn good in my book.

But after the talk of war, it is difficult for me to make a post about anything else really. What can compare in terms of gravitas? What can make a good transition to a post of less gravitas?

So instead of transitioning from this talk of war to a logically and atmospherically connected subject, I am going to share with you one of the worst puns EVER!!!

Now at some point in middle school I heard this from a friend, so I can say for certain I didn't think about it myself, but here it goes...

What did Tonya Harding bring to the 1994 Olympics in Norway?

A little hammer.

You get it? Because the 1994 Olympics were in Lillehammer, Norway and because Tonya Harding was involved in a conspiracy to attack a competitor with a blunt object.

Get it?

Not only is pun lame, it is also excessively topical and in generally poor taste.

It is in fact THE WORST PUN EVER!!!

Let's pray for peace

First let me get you up to speed with the particular could be war situation I'm talking about:

Colombia bombed a FARC camp a few miles within the territory of Ecuador. Initially, Ecuador's response was calm, but Venezuela saw this as an affront to Ecuador's territory and part of a US-backed plan to dominate the region. Ecuador then agreed and now both countries have moved their armies to Colombia's borders. Colombia has held its army back but has said that documents it recovered from the FARC camp (which also indicates there was a brief ground mission into Ecuador) show links between Ecuador's government and FARC and more substantial links between Chavez and FARC.

In short, it's a tense situation.

Here's some articles:

Here's the basic situation
Here's an AP News Analyst saying war is unlikely
Time.com puts the raid into the context of the US-backed war against FARC
The Colombian raid killed an important FARC leader, which Colombia is saying is the #2 rebel in FARC.
Ecuador is claiming that the Colombian raid blocked a hostage release.

There's a lot more out there, but be cautious. There are definite biases when dealing with Colombia and FARC. More right-leaning people tend to be pro-Colombian government, anti-FARC. More left-leaning people tend to be anti-Colombian government, but anti-FARC as well. Strongly left-leaning people (mostly Communist sympathizers) tend to be anti-Colombian government, pro-FARC. I personally tend to be pro-Colombian government, with some reservations, and anti-FARC, with a few reservations.

Now for me.

I'm by no means a fan of war. I'm by no means a pacifist either. During the run-up to the Iraq War I did a lot of thinking about when war was justified, overall I vacillated back and forth over whether the Iraq War was justified in particular, but I'm the kind of man who takes a particular circumstance and uses it for some general thinking.

After all, at the time there was very little I could do about the war if it happened. I suppose if I was solidly against it or for it, I could protest. But even if I was that solid in my opinions about the war at the time, which I wasn't, events were moving too fast. For real wars, events always tend to move to fast. I suppose that's why I doubt we'll go to war with Iran, even in tense moments like several tense naval encounters last year, things have moved slowly. With the current Latin American situation however, things are moving fast.

My ultimate conclusion was thus: Governments can be justified in going to war for self-defense or defense of an ally. Pre-emptive war is unjustified. Humanitarian war... is an iffy concept.

But to get back to this particular situation.

I think Colombia made a mistake. Its war with FARC is perfectly legitimate in my mind since FARC is a rebel army that regularly employs terroristic tactics (like massive kidnapping), on the other hand previous Colombian gov. paramilitary backing was massively bad, since those paramilitaries tended to commit many atrocities (while many of the current gov. have alleged links to paramilitaries, I think that these links are not a fatal infection, and this current gov. is one of the first to take concrete action against the paramilitaries). Now FARC has been crossing borders, and Venezuela and Ecuador, who have ideological sympathies with FARC are likely providing the group at least protection (but I'm unsure if the reports of active and significant monetary and military support are true), so Colombia striking within Ecuador's borders (especially since the original reports said Colombia informed Ecuador about the strike, although Ecuador said it was misinformed) is not I think completely outside Colombia's rights. But it's a bad move. If it does not violate international law, it violates international rules of decorum. Colombia was inviting raised tensions with a strike like this.

However raised tensions are one thing. Moving troops to the border and cutting off trade is another. And that's what Ecuador and Venezuela are doing. And that really is unacceptably pushing near war. Again, this isn't beyond international law, but it's beyond international common sense. This is a bad situation.

So let's pray for peace.

Economic growth and terrorism

Ok, I made a massive comment at the Becker-Posner Webpost and since it was session sized and I haven't talked of politics for a while, here's the comment.

It's based on a post by the Becker-Posner Webpost:

Here's the Becker part (it was the original post)

Here's the Posner part

I agree that grievances (not poverty) are at the core of terrorism, but the relationship between grievances and economic growth I think is complex and contradictory, ultimately I think economic growth and political freedom undermines terrorist impulses in the long term, but in the short term the effects are uncertain.

Take for example on result of economic growth that Becker noted, the reduction of the extended family. The reduction of the extended family is actually greater than Posner suggested because economic growth tends to increase migration as the ability to become mobile arises before a local job market capable of satisfying the population growth of local youth becomes possible (if it ever becomes possible as some areas are good for raising populations but bad for jobs (for example suburbs and cities)). When the young move away, extended families become weaker, they tend not to disappear as they did with migrants of earlier eras since the mobility allows people to go both ways, but still there's never the same grip to extended families as there were in previous years.

But the effect of the reduction of extended families is uncertain on terrorism. Families often provide the recruitment network for terrorists and supply safe grounds (notice the interplay of tribe loyalties and terrorist networks in Iraq). Family deaths also provide for motivations for terrorism and motivation for the support of terrorism or at least for the apathy to anti-terrorist efforts. Strong family ties also reduce individualism and increase the chances of someone taking up collective grievances.

But on the other hand, the lack of a strong family grip reduces the in-built ideologies of a society and opens the grounds for radical ideologies. Take for example Muslim youths in Britan who tend to be more radical than their immigrant parents. The reduction of family ties also sends youth searching out for authority figures and thus more likely to be taken by charismatic radicals.

Thus there is a mixed picture.

However, other effects of economic growth further complicate the picture. Economic growth tends to progress unevenly, either in terms of pure money or in terms of the power acquired by the government and its officials through economic growth. This tends to breed grievances based on people realizing how much better life could be and perceptions of unfairness.

However lack of economic growth also helps terrorism. To manage in the modern world, every country requires an intellectual class, and without sufficient economic growth this intellectual class is often idle or their partially educated children are idle and likely somewhat unemployed, and thus ripe for radicalism. Also, lack of economic growth tends to support the idea that the nation has fallen behind as a great power. People always like to feel like their part of a great power and economic growth makes people feel like if they are not part of a great power they are becoming part of one. Much of the discontent in the Muslim world is from the idea that the Muslim world has fallen behind the West and thus it must become a great power by any means necessarily.

However, ultimately, I think economic growth and political freedom tend to undermine the radical grievances that spawn terrorism by providing avenues for moderate grievances to be satisfied (unsatisfied moderate grievances have a tendency to breed radicalism, for example, the demands of early 19th century Russian radicals were largely moderate liberal ideas, but left unsatisfied they either reversed themselves into radical conservatism or they concluded that change required society overthrow so they turned to radicalism). Furthermore, economic growth tends to A. keep people busy by giving more jobs and more stuff to do, and B. allow more materialism to spread (materialism can spawn terrorism if unsatisfied, take for example gangs, but in an environment where society allows material improvement, materialists support stability because it protects their economic opportunity, take for example many businessmen in coastal China).

I could go on more, but I think it's not that economic growth has no effect on terrorism, but rather it has mixed effects, although ultimately it undermines terrorism. It's hard to prove such a claim though, since long term can be 100+ years, and historical examples may have key differences from the modern world, but if I were to try to prove it I would probably trace the historical amount of terrorism in currently rich countries in comparison to their historical economic growth (as a case study (which is not a conclusive proof by any means) take the United States, the US only achieved massively widespread economic growth in the '50's, the radical change in society and new intellectual class which often lacked opportunities or sense of belonging (especially amoung minorities) took to arms in the 60's achieving some minor support among lower classes, however over time this amount of terrorism died down, although there still are terrorists most of their demands are society related rather than economic related (cultural reform, inequality rather than poverty, ultra-nationalism, non-economic political issues (such as abortion))).

Sorry for the long comment, I got carried away.

Y'all stop your fussing and feuding

Greetings y'all! I'm using y'all I lot. I never did it before I took Ms. Lewis' Latin classes, but there she used y'all as a way to demonstrate the 2nd person plural which English normally just lumps into you with the 2nd person singular. And maybe I've hung around too many Southern people, although I don't think I know that many, but anyways, greeting y'all. I'm planning to start saying just random thoughts in between long sessions. I've tried this before and got discouraged as I felt that the random thoughts were replacing the real sessions, which might happen occasionally due to busyness, but I think if I make sure to do real sessions as much as I can IN ADDITION to random thoughts, the whole quality of the webpost will up itself to the MAX.

Anyways, something I think sometimes is just a wondering about the massive amounts of money spent on political advocacy groups. It seems like such a waste, especially since it often gets lost among the million other advocacy group's pouring money. And it seems like sometimes that the money could actually be used to address the problem instead of lobbying about it. Schools are bad, well instead of spending money lobbying about it, spend money improving things. But that's just frustration I suppose. Successful lobbying can often get more money than it costs and if your lobbying doesn't match your ideological opponent's lobbying you might find the government actively opposing your cause. But the current level of lobbying, and I'm not just talking about corporate lobbying, although that's too large as well, is a bit heavy by the way I see it. It would be nice if we spent less time trying to get the government to solve problems and more time trying to solve them ourselves. But the world is busy, brutal, and filled with competing visions that clash terribly. So even if we try our all, who knows whether we will succeed? Only God.

A contrite heart

I read the obituary on Kurt Waldheim struck me particuarly. It discussed a man who they accused, and probably rightly so, of being in denial of his guilt at being part of the Nazi war machine. While not a key part of it, he was an efficient cog, and while he most likely did not commit war crimes, he knew about them and did his work very well (according to his Wikipedia article he received an honor for his work) only miles away from the concentration camps. He hid this fact, misrepresented his past, and denied all guilt aggressively. As the Economist pointed out his position mimicked that of his home country of Austria.

People involved in the horrors of WWII like him in a side manner cannot be condemned for life for their association. But they can be sorry, they can ask for forgiveness. He did not, saying he was in no position to do anything about it. He said in his autobiography

"When death comes to you, all the distinctions in life disappear. Good and bad, dark and light, merits and mistakes, stand now in front of a judge who knows the truth. I can go there with trust, because I know His justice and His mercy."

but the mercy of God is not given without conditions. One must admit his guilt and repent. And this is not because God is obsessed with forcing painful admissions from people, but rather because the hidden guilt is a barrier that keeps a soul from God, and while God does I think expose this guilt to the soul after death, the soul must still accept its guilt if it is to be forgiven and the soul is to receive mercy. I hope Mr.Waldheim might accept his guilt after death, even if it seems (although I could never really know, not seeing inside his head) that he did not in life.

The sorrow of the world

A friend once told me that he doesn't keep track of world events because they're so depressing sometimes. Yeah, I know how that feels. The recent news about Burma.
A couple days ago I was heralding a new dawn for democracy in Burma (Myanmar), but now... Now we're seeing the repression in its purest form. And it looks like it will be successful. I'm hoping something will break. I'm hoping maybe one of the military rulers of the country will look into his conscience and see how wrong this is. I'm hoping for a miracle. And I'm praying.
But I'm also carrying sorrow, because as things are looking now, it will be a good while before Burma is free.

Covertibility! Convertibility! I'll convertibility your face!

Evening, all! It's been a while since I said hi to my adoring audience, so, well then hi! Well, now to the meat of the matter, that is to say the center of the matter, well, damn I'm hungry, but I probably will be going for food within 20 min., even if it does mean I might have to interrupt my session for a moment, but that just means you're a jerk. Understand? Do you understand?

I'm a history major, but overall to say fully, I'm more of an amateur in most everything a little bit. With history it's just more than a little bit, perhaps a lot, but I'm not really an expert, at least not in any particular field of history. With history, I know a bit of everything, but I'm never as good as the experts. It's often the case that I'm able to discuss matters with my professor but ultimately I'm generally outclassed by them. However, every now and then I'll outfox them a little in fields outside their specialty. When people ask, I tell them my specialty is World History. I know some about China, I know a good deal about India, I know a bunch about the US, a little about Mexico, some about Poland, a little about Ireland, and some about overall political history. It's never enough too blow somebody away in an argument, but I can hold my own in casual conversation. However, when faced with someone who prepared an argument, I often falter. They generally have researched some expert info in the field they're talking about and that usually crunches me.

It occurs to me often that I ought to simply pick a field and specialize, but usually the dilemma is I lack the patience in a single field and I have a curiosity that demands I indulge a little in all fields. This is true for general knowledge as much as it is for history. So I'm a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none.

It's not a bad life, but when I deal with old fields of knowledge, ones that have been well developed and such, I find that I can't follow the latest research. And while I might be somewhat interested in the latest research, it's not say more so that I am in any other field. So while I might not understand all the abstractions in economics, I'm not more interested in that than I am in say all the abstractions of political science or philosophy. It would be bad policy to then say because I can't choose look at nothing, so I picked history. Within history, perhaps I have picked nothing, but that's because there's still enough in the lower levels of different regional histories and different aspects of world history to keep me occupied and engaged. But I must wonder. When it comes to making decisions on big items like climate change, globalization, different issues of morality, etc., what I do if I can't follow those great abstractions in the fields?

One course, is an ad hoc approach, which is to study very narrowly a small issue when it comes up. If you've got an amateur knowledge in a field to begin with, it is usually possible to at least get enough of a sense of a narrow issue to make a choice. But when you get to bigger issues with deeper complexities, things become harder. Sometimes the only way to understand an issue is to become an expert in the subject, but to do that would require far more effort than you can give. What to do then?

My reaction then, and this is my recommendation to others as well, is to find a trusted source, based on your basic knowledge of the field, who seems to know what they're talking about and seems to be honest and trust him. And lacking that, perhaps it is best just to go with consensus.

However, the recent times have brought a new depth to this dilemma. Nowadays fields meet and intersect. A political decision might involve economics, physics, philosophy, and a dozen other fields. And the experts within these fields, even when there is a consensus with the fields, often passionately disagree. Part of the problem is that while an expert in one field might be the master of it, another field which has implications for his field might be a complete mystery to him. This unknown field however might have experts who know nothing about his field even though it has implications for their field. Now many people might assume that if you're an expert in one field, if another field has implications for yours, you can easily pick up the basics of that other field and understand the implications. But that often isn't the case. High level sociology concepts that require years of study to understand might have implications in economics but might have a basis completely different than the rules of economics which an economist might be familiar with. Thus the economist might be as mystified by this sociology concept as the lay person but on the other hand the sociologist might be mystified by general economics.

Furthering the dilemma is the fact that most fields usually insist on the predominance of their own field in any dispute. This makes deciding matters difficult, and at times a matter of uneven guesswork. The only hope for resolving this I think, is creating covertability. That is making it easier for concepts to be transfered from one field to another. A good example of this is new work in psychology and economics, which gives psychological factors economic value allowing them to be translated into economics. Similar work must ultimately take place in all fields, until there is finally a fluidity between all research.

I suppose this all amounts to advocating for a general field theorem (a physics concept where all energy (and since energy and matter are convertable all matter) is united as the manifestation of a single force), for all knowledge. Given the difficulty of coming up with a general field theorem for physics, I cannot imagine one for all knowledge will be any easier.

So we are left with guesswork. With no definite rules for convertability we are left with figuring out as much as we can and then seeing what "seems" like the best choice, where "seems" means relying on that black box (a mechanism sealed up so that you cannot see how it works but which produces some outputs from inputs) which is our unconscious. Our unconscious is an immensely powerful black box mind you, but it is one that usually lacks consistency as it tends to often conflate tangentially related matters as if at random (although there probably is some logic to it, if we can ever figure out what it is). And since we use tools that lack consistency it is not hard to imagine different people, trying with all good will to reason their way through problems coming to different answers. Even if they're both educated, even if they are both experts in parts of an issue, or know many different experts on many sides of an important issue, there will be disagreement.

This is of course assuming that experts within a given field agree on a matter, which is an utterly false assumption no matter what the field. But my point is that with complex issues that stretch across multiple fields, even if there is a consensus, even a well-accepted, and understood consensus in each of those fields regarding the issues, that does not mean that the issue will be resolved, even if every party tries all in good faith.

So we are left with inevitable disagreement. And whenever the possibility of passionate disagreement arises we are left with the specter of conflict. And so we must live with that.

Anyways, take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

Let Freedom ring!

It's rare these days that I have hope for quick rises in democracy. In the 90's there was the sense that we were on the verge of a democratic world, but now, now I hold to the principle that if a government is smart enough, powerful enough (relatively_, and ruthless enough it can squash its democracy movements. And that makes me sad because I love freedom dearly, and I believe that liberty is not something given, not something earned, but a fundamental right of mankind, which you are born with.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

That's why it makes me so happy to see this, a chance for democratic change in Burma (Myanmar). My admiration and prayers go out to those brave monks and all those who join them in their fight (although as this protest march shows, fighting doesn't necessarily mean violence and is often more effective without it) for freedom as well as to Aung San Suu Kyi and all those who have been fighting the good fight for years. I truly hope they can make it.

My principle still stands, but I think the military regime in Burma isn't ruthless enough towards the monks to stop them, nor perhaps, is it strong enough compared to the monks' spiritual authority among the people of Burma.

It is a hope, and for the proud people of Burma and their rich civilization, I will pray.

The fire of the spirit inevitably causes some burns

I think one of the great difficulties of advocating democracies is living with the consequences. Perhaps one of Bush's great failings in his advocacy for democracy, he is never able to accept when things did not end up as he expected. Hamas is the greatest example of this. He immediately isolated it without trying to work out a livable agreement. Now for a general rule this would be forgivable, but Bush was supposed to be the champion of democracy, and an elected government at least deserves a chance if you believe that elections are a right. But perhaps I'm being too harsh, at the time I was only ambivalent about the sanctions, I see now that they were a mistake, but then...

The truth is that democracy is an unstable gamble. Even in success stories like the Estonia, where democracy has taken root and led to stability and growth, there have been some harsh consequences like the terrible treatment and subsequent radicalization of the Russian minority population. Even in the best of circumstances, democratization has been tough, and usually violent. We forget that even ours was pretty violent and had some bad consequences. The Revolutionary War was not a cake-walk and there were plenty of casualties but perhaps even worse was the treatment of loyalists after the war. By some estimates 1/3 of the British loyalists in the US fled the country after the war (that was actually an important factor in the populating of Canada). Afterward the revolution things weren't easy either. We had the several years under the Articles of Confederation where the United States was in a perpetual state of barely organized chaos. Revolt broke out (Shay's rebellion), foreign affairs was a mess (our treaties with the British had several matters unresolved, and our treaties with the Native American nations, many of whom at that time posed a serious threat to the US, were also a mess), in fact just like Iraq there were serious dangers of foreign influence (Spain had serious influence on the Mississippi region and there was danger of it being turned into their zone of influence). We forget all that, because it doesn't fit with the nice image of an organic democracy rising easily and naturally out of our society. That illusion was a great comfort for us and allowed us to justify our fears of other people's democratizing troubles, and justified our intervention to squash their attempts at democracy. It also gave us a false confidence that we need not fear for the health of our democracy, a very dangerous false confidence.

In fact, although without a doubt, non-violent democratizing efforts are generally better than violent ones (Freedom House, an organization dedicated to the ideals of democracy, has done a study showing that nonviolent democratizing makes for more enduring democracies (a great example of this is India's anti-colonial movement, the fact that it was founded on the ideals of nonviolence helped to breed a generation of nonviolent protesters who helped to keep India democratic (for example, many of them helped bring down Indria Gandhi's Emergency, the most dangerous period for India's democracy)), most of the older democracies in the world were founded on violence (the newer ones tend to have learned a little from the past). Take Europe for example, France's stumbling, off-and-on progression to democracy included the brutal reign of terror. Democracy was imported via costly war to Eastern Europe and Germany. Italy's democratizing is such a confusing process that I'm not going to get into it, but it involved some terrible violence including the institution of Fascism and its fall. Greece had to deal with a civil war. Spain and Portugal, eventually became democratic through non-violence, but they are relatively new democracies (1976 and 1974) and their record includes several spectacularly failed and spectacularly violent (especially in the case of Spain) previous tries at democracy. Ireland only got democracy after a long history of oppression and a combination of violent and non-violent efforts. Even England the big show case for gradual democracy only adopted gradual democracy after a Civil War so violent that it caused many philosophers like Hobbes to assume human nature was essentially violent (granted that Civil War led to a Restoration and it was actually only after that you had the Glorious Revolution and the beginnings of democratization, but that was a process started by the English Civil War).

So am I justifying violence here. Well, maybe in certain cases, but generally I think non-violent resistance is far superior, especially in these days when governments are powerful enough to quash most violent efforts, except guerilla efforts, which usually disintegrate into terror efforts against civilians and often fizzle out. What I am saying, in a very long fashion, is that we shouldn't be surprised that democratizing can have ill consequences or even violent ones. That doesn't mean, at least I believe it doesn't mean that people should stop trying for democracy. Democracy is a right. I don't like it when people talk about whether people should be given democracy or earn it, it is not something that is achieved or given, it is something people are born with. No, scratch that, they are not born with democracy, but rather something even more fundamental, something more essential and something that is rarely found without democracy, but is sometimes not found in a democracy, people are born with the right to be free. When people "earn" democracy they are simply taking back what is rightfully theirs.

Then what does it all mean? When I recite these things, I can say this is that and that is this, but what does it all mean? I suppose it means that even through violence people should press on. They should keep believing in freedom and strive to achieve it. I suppose this is a note of hope for the people of Iraq, but also the sad recognition that cases like Iraq, perhaps not as bad usually, but still violent and savage, will come in the future as other countries democratize. Yes, the violence can and should be avoided, primarily by using nonviolent protest techniques and avoiding alienating people by excessive nationalistic rhetoric, but still even in the best of cases, sometimes violence will happen, and we can try to prevent it, but it still might happen. Democracy is a crapshoot. Heck, life is a crapshoot. But we still press on.

So anyways, take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

A is A, and in any universe Luthor is Luthor

Just a little Justice League quote there. Doesn't really have to do much with anything, but it's a nice one, even if it actually wrong (the second part, not the first part which is the central basis of all actual logic) as is demonstrated in numerous alternate universe adventures in the Justice League and Superman comics, and to some extent in the one alternate universe adventure of the Justice League show.

But I just wanted to gripe a little, hopefully not just a wah-wah gripe, but something a little bit more significant. I remember Marget Cho once commented on the reaction to the Dixie Chicks disliking Bush controversy by saying that something along the lines of "yeah, sure, artists aren't supposed to comment on society." I see her point, artists are often very important commentators on society, but I think she misses some of the point of the Dixie Chicks controversy and the more general controversy over actors and musicians making political statements.

The thing is, most actors and musicians who make political statements have not established themselves with any legitimacy in the political sphere, so when they talk it's just like any normal guy making a statement, it's forgettable, and when they make a big deal about their political statements, it seems like a normal guy statement loudly, which can be annoying. An artist or actor or musician usually has some insight into his craft, he can be said to be an expert on that; often artists dwell especially on a subject matter, and if their work on that subject matter is high quality, they can be said to be an expert on that; but on all other subjects, I have to say I have no reason to believe the artist is an expert on those subjects and unless he's bringing some evidence to the table I have no reason to believe him.

That's why an actor or actress or musician known largely for personal material that has little to do with politics except in the most indirect sense has no special credentials to be talking about politics. But to be fair, and it is generally a good idea to be fair, some artists are personally well informed about politics even if their art doesn't show it. Part of the negative reaction to non-political artists speaking politically is the belief that the artist is essentially the sum of his or her art, and if that body of work does not include political pieces that person couldn't possibly know politics. But even non-political artists can know politics. They can know politics, but they might not on the other hand. They have about as much of a chance as any other person of knowing politics. But hey, people not famous in the political sphere sometimes come up with amazing political insights, so we shouldn't rule people out just because they have no political credentials, but we should look carefully at the evidence they bring to the table, and those people should not expect otherwise (of course, even with people with credentials we should examine the evidence they bring to the table, but if we don't have time to follow all their analysis, or don't understand the issues very well, but based on their other work in politics we trust the person to be an expert in politics, ie they have some credentials, we might be willing to be a little easier on their positions).

The same goes for other people who might be highly educated in one field, but don't have any credentials about politics. Like scientists for example. When a scientist says this congressman is bad or good and has not made known any political credentials or any good evidence, his opinion is only about as good as the next guy on the street. Just because you might be an expert on physics doesn't mean that you're an expert on politics. However, you might be, if say politics was a hoppy of yours that you indulged a lot. But then don't expect anyone to give you any slack because you're a scientist, show you know your stuff and support your point. I've known a lot of people who know a whole lot about science or math or computers, etc. but don't know anything about politics.

If I seem a bit harsh, perhaps it is because I'd like to be listen to a little more about politics, but I think my point stands pretty well. After all I am Rand, and that gives me credentials on all subjects including the subject of credentials. Because I'm just that awesome.

So anyways, take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And they left bloody footprints in the snow

A writer who wrote a book called the Three Georges or something like that, compared the current Iraqi insurgency to George Washington's forces. That is an analogy that is superficial on many, many levels. Sunni insurgents at the very least cannot be termed freedom fighters, even if US occupation is regarded as a lack of independence, since they aren't simply aiming at removing US troops, rather they want complete removal of any Shi'ite led government, which given the fact that Shi'ites are a majority in Iraq and the fact that Sunnis no longer have the establishment or establishment-backed advantage, would require an external push.

The Shi'ite militias might fit the comparison somewhat better, but again their vision is more focused on establishing a strongly Islamist, more certainly Shi'ite state, than simply getting US troops out. George Washington's focus during the Revolutionary War was simple, get the British out. It was only after several years of the weak government of the Articles of Confederation did he try to influence the ultimate political outcome, and even there he did not really dictate the facts.

But these comparisons are largely irrelevant. If you pick and choose characteristics a lot of things can seem similiar. What they do encourage though is thought, and while a sloppy comparison such as this one, I might try to pick it apart further but I'd rather not waste time on it, does encourage sloppy thought, it occassionally brings to the surface some interesting thoughts.

Such as a memory of a fact read long ago, of when in the deep winter George Washington's forces were forced to march down long cold roads, and his poorly stocked army often had bad or even no footware, so they left bloody footprints in the snow.

Not that this image has much to do with anything, it is just an interesting one, perhaps thought-provoking (hopefully not but possibly sloppy thought provoking), and it minces nicely with the image of troops or rebels moving, even when the rebels are on the side of forces I would never endorse.

The news shows now that Iraqi insurgents are on the move, or at least that's what the statistics show, moving to areas outside of Anbar province and Bagdhad to escape in the first case the changing political environment and in the second case the US troop surge. Overall violence, has not gone down this year however. That is not to say that violence since the troop surge has not gone down, I don't know the statistics for that, but violence for Jan. to Aug. 2007 compared to the entire year of 2006 has gone up significantly.

There are reasons for why this could have happened. A large degree of the increase in violence I think has to do with the fact the insurgents moved from areas that had gotten used to them to areas largely spared, also in the case of Anbar province they've gone from an area where they largely concentrated on US troops to one where they now find civilians as targets, and civilians are easier to kill. Overall the focus has gone from US troop and Iraqi police and army targeting to targeting civilians. I hesitate to say this is desperation, it could be, but it might simply be that bombings on civilians are easier and get higher body counts. Thus the change in focus might also explain the higher death toll as well.

It could also be that the insurgency is getting better at its end, for internal or external reasons, or it could be that the US and Iraqi army are getting worse on their end, again for internal or external reason. Maybe the insurgency is getting larger, or maybe more civilians are supporting it (although that is questionable since they lost a lot of local support in Anbar province). It could simply be that matters are getting much, much worse.

Even if we use reasons that lessen the significance of the increase in violence, it makes it hard to see progress in Iraq. But the fact that insurgents are moving away from Bagdhad and the Anbar province are I think, in the long term good, even if that might be the reason for this spike in violence, which has been so monsterously deadly.

Insurgents rely on civilian support, it is one of the most important equalizing factors for insurgents who are unequal in terms of weaponry and troop numbers, it allows them to blend into the population, live off the land, establish secret logistic chains, etc. And for the Sunni insurgents this has largely been Sunni Arab support. It could have been different, if the targets had been focused on US and Iraqi army and Iraqi infrastructure, the Sunni insurgents might have been able to make an easy alliance with those who were focused on anti-Americanism in the Shi'ite community. But because of the horrific civilian bombings and especially the attacks on the Shi'ite religious community, alliance with Shi'ites is probably rare among the Sunni insurgents. So they rely on Sunni Arab civilian support. But the two largest concentrations of this have been Anbar and Bagdhad. If the insurgents are leaving those areas they are leaving the base of their strength and moving into territory less sympathetic to them, more likely to reveal their presence, less likely to give them supplies, etc.

So the Sunni insurgents have moved into areas with more targets but less support. It is possible that this could strongly weaken the long-term viability of the Sunni insurgency. However, steps must be taken to help this along. Security measures must be improved elsewhere in Iraq, that would be less difficult given a population in the Kurdish areas less antagonistic to the US, and in the Shi'ite areas less antagonistic to the Iraqi army. However, it might leave Baghdad open for the insurgents to come back. Chasing them out did disrupt their bases but unless more civilians in Bagdhad are won over to the Iraqi government, which is possible if the lull in violence is used to improve infrastructure, the insurgent bases could be re-established. So that's a tough one. It should also be made sure that the civilians in the North and the South remain with the Iraqi government. Efforts should be made to reach out to Turkamen and Assyrians in the North, and Shi'ites in the south must be charmed as well, perhaps by offering federalism but supporting non-Sadr parties.

All this said, matters are still more complex. Insurgents don't get defeated they die down slowly with spurts of blood, and Sadr still remains as a threat to his country. Most of all, even if things might get better in the long term, they are still horrible in the short term. They are very, very bloody. And that's just horrible, and I don't know if anything can be done to stop it immediately, I don't think a sudden stop is possible. So blood will come, and it will be awful. And so utterly sad.

Things sometimes are as they are

It is an odd world with borders and all. I feel like many nation-states have been searching for "organic" borders but truly that rarely exists. Most states are the result of empires which forcefully included several ethnicities or are the result of colonial administrative units which did the same. The exceptions are largely in Europe and the Americas, but even there there is massive controversy in many cases. Usually the only areas where controversy over borders is week is where borders have existed in their current form for a hundred or so years. This is pretty rare however when you think globally, so people are bound to be upset by borders and claim that this land was ours historically, or this land has a demographic for us now, or this land had a demographic for us 80 years ago. The truth is demographics change, sometimes forcefully, sometimes non-forcefully, but they always change, and in the end we have to just get used to it. Ultimately the only way to have borders fit populations is to have some world body draw up new borders across the world (because like I said most countries don't have borders that fit with their national demographics), expel all the minorities (usually a process that involves much carnage and heartbreak), and then repeat every so often to account for changing borders. Or we could live with the borders we have, maybe making an exception for massive human rights violations in an area where most of the population favors independence (not just where most of the population is a certain ethnicity). Just a thought.

The Good, the Bad, and the Absolutely Horrible

In much of the debate about the war in Iraq many commentators have said that going to Iraq was either a good or bad choice. Because of the nature of conversation this is perfectly natural and perfectly acceptable, but it does hide a bit of the reality of international, national, and heck all politics really, but especially international. International politics is rarely a matter of unqualified good and unqualified bad decisions, it is a matter of better decisions, worse decisions, and the constant possibility of monumentally horrible consequences even from the right choices. In the debate about Iraq we should always remember that the choice for invading Iraq was never as simple as whether to go or not, it was whether to leave Saddam in power and let his rule play out to its fulfillment or end, or to invade. Ultimately I think the choice made was wrong, but in considering the matter we must look carefully at the alternatives.

In retrospect, Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction, he likely would have cooperated with terrorists if the opportunity raised itself but it was unlikely he would have become much of a leader for him given his crippled economy and weak military. He did not pose a short or medium term threat to us, only in the possibilities of the longer term did the chance of a threat arise. Given the alternative of leaving him in power, he would rail against the US, he would give support to Palestian suicide bombers and likely some other terrorist groups but not in a major way, he might attempt to rebuild his military but with a crippled economy and continuing sanctions and endemic corruption this would be very difficult, especially given his own mismangement of his military. Geopolitically he would remain a minor source of destabilizing but not a major one.

Looking between the two choices, from a threat assessment point of view leaving him in power was the better alternative given that there is an inherint risk of destabilizing a country in the democratizing process even in the best of situations (let us remember that even in the US after the Revolutionary War (a fairly bloody affair despite claims to the contrary), we had a mass exodus of loyalists and several years of pretty unstable government under the Articles of Confederation which sparked a sizable revolt, and we were in danger of subversion from several foreign powers including Spain and Britian). Especially given what we know now.

But let us look at the moral perspective. The current situation is pretty disasterous, much violence, much chaos. But like I said, it isn't a matter of good or bad but better or worse. Leaving Saddam in power wasn't good either from a moral perspective. Saddam had attempted genocide before, against the Kurds he had used chemical weapons and done a mass killing campaign which decimated the population especially the male population and especially coupled with refugees fleeing the country. But leaving him in power would he have done it again? If he could, most likely yes, especially given the pro-American bent of many of the Kurds and his need to rally Arab nationalism to secure his position within his country and internationally. He was sponsoring a highly murderous group in the Kurdistan region of Iraq that was destabilizing the area. But could he have attempted genocide again? No. In truth, our no-fly zone and support of the Kurdish parties in Iraqi Kurdistan had made it highly difficult to enforce his will there even if he was to be incredibly ruthless about it. In truth he would not be able to attempt genocide against the Shi'ites either because there are simply too many Shiite Iraqis.

But that doesn't mean his rule would not be horrible. He would continue torturing, continue terrorizing, continue his tryanny for the forseeable future. Even though his country was weak, it was stronger than the power of its people (this isn't meant as an insult to the Iraqis but rather an assessment of Saddam's highly effective efforts to paralyze non-governmental organizations, keep his people divided and paranoid (this was actually a large cause of much of the sectarianism we are seeing today, it is possible, although this is a debatable point, if during the somewhat lighter rule and more prosperous times of the pre-First Gulf War era might have been less prone to this sectarianism and perhaps had we freed the Iraqis (and it is a matter of freeing them instead of granting them liberty, liberty is a natural right that was taken away from them, not something to be given) during the First Gulf War, perhaps the current situation could have been avoided), and maintain a strong internal security structure. He was a monsterous tyrant, one of the worst in the world (although probably in terms of monstrocity of the tryant (although perhaps not severity of the situation), North Korea has it worse off), and it seems to me, although this is a debatable point, that given his lack of care for his own population, no international pressure short of military intervention could really change matters. And so he would remain. Given that dictators who can live very luxuriously when they don't have serious opposition, this could mean another 30 or so years of tyranny. Of course then there's succession. If a dictator does not have a clear successor, a less ruthless, weaker, or less capable ruler might arise and that might lead to a collapse of the dictatorial system. However, Saddam did have two clear candidates for succession and had clearly established one as his favorite, his sons. This suggests that there would most likely not be a huge struggle for leadership after Saddam's death and even if one of his sons died, the other could still take his place.

By most accounts, one of his sons, the older one, was somewhat unstable, and might, might have been destabilizing to the government, but given the weak state of the anti-governmental forces outside Iraqi Kurdistan, even this would not have led to the end of tryanny and given the cruelty of his unstable character, things would not get better and could very well get worse. His other son, the one most likely to be next in line, was more stable, but just as if not more ruthless. His reign would be just as brutal, and he would care just as little about his people giving him a cushion against international pressure. This could lead most likely to another 30 or 40 years of tryanny, during which a rebuild of Iraq would be possible, however, matters this far in the future are conjectures for futurists must always remember that crystal balls always have a bit of haze to them.

The end result would be most likely another 50 or so years of absolute tryanny. But again 50 years is a long time things could change, however given that Saddam and his sons are for the most part, ruthless, smart and internally powerful, all the components for an indefinite tryanny are there. A possible objection to this perdiciton is that most tryannies don't last this long, but my answer to that is, most tryannies lack to some extent ruthlessness (most tryants to some degree, somewhere in their hearts care about their people and this often leads to their downfalls because then they respond to needs for economic growth or mercy), intelligence (although there are various kinds of intelligence, many tyrants while they might possess the intelligence to rise to power, they lack the intelligence to maintain it for long periods of time), or internal power (during the Cold War and immediate aftermath this was especially true since either the US or the Soviet Union almost always picked some anti-governmental force to support)). Then there must be the consideration of what would the democratization of Iraq be like after Saddam. If a good ruler emerged things might be alright. But sectarianism was not decreasing during Saddam's time it was increasing, and it would have kept increasing if Saddam remained in power, the democratization of Iraq might have ended up more brutal than even now, althoug here we must remind ourselves that this is a matter of extreme conjecture. That is the sad alternative.

Is the current situation better? In the short term and possibly medium term (depending on how long the chaos lasts), no. The current chaos is worse than Saddam's reign for many, if not most, people. In the long term, probably, the nation is not so divided that it would altogether collapse and it has a clear ethnic majority that currently and for the forseeable future has more power than the minority and so matters will eventually settle down. Will there be genocide though? It is possible, but given that there are sizable areas with Sunni majorities, and the Sunnis while weaker than the Shi'ites are still considerably powerful, furthermore divisions exist between the Shi'ite, while not numerous enough to create indefinite chaos in Iraq, although numerous to create short and possibly medium term chaos in Iraq, it is enough to make Shi'ite politicians interested in courting Sunni leaders for political support. Genocide is still possible, but highly unlikely in my view, although this is debatable.

However, countries should not invade each other simply because they believe that it is better for the people of that country, even if they are right. Especially given the considerable ideological component of the word "better" (some people say it is better to be poor and free, some people say it is better to be rich and oppressed, some people say it is better to be poor and oppressed but have cultural integrity, the first group is right by my book, and that's the only book that counts, but my point is that people disagree about the word), it is generally not a good idea, although this is a debatable point and I do admire the idealism of those who disagree with me on it (if you don't catch it here I'm arguing against the Cold War as well as any potential new Cold Wars). The problem is that this causes considerable international chaos by essentially creating a global war fought potentially everywhere (although some places will be "hotter" than others). Every government will have to look over its back for a potential revolt. Paranoia will spread and this will encourage even those defending liberty to resort to measures that undermine freedom. Among those less fond of liberty reprisals for even whiffs of revolt can be brutal and at times, genocidal. Military intervention, or considerable support for rebels everywhere where people are seen as oppressed, while perhaps in the long term good (after the Cold War ended freedom and even economic growth has spread immensely), in the short and medium term, a short and medium term that could last even 70 years (the approximate length of the Cold War), things can be in some cases be absolutely horrible (see the Khmer Rouge where approximately 1/3 of the population of Cambodia was slaughtered, and yet during different times the regime was supported by the US and the USSR).

So overall, the invasion of Iraq was not the right choice. Countries should only be invaded if there is an imminent danger or perhaps an imminent threat of genocide. But things would not have been good for Iraqi people by any stretch of the word if Saddam remained in power, or if a similiar tyrant takes hold. And yet things are not good now. Leaving Saddam in power was more likely the better alternative, but it was not a good one. It is still a sad one. That is the nature of so much of international politics, when even the most ethical and even correct of people must make choices involving trade-offs that cost thousands of lives or leave a people oppressed for decades. It is sad, very sad. But this world is often not kind to those who dwell in it.