Cook on Jihad

Over at Jewish World Review, Daniel Pipes gives a favorable review of a new book by David Cook of Rice University, Understanding Jihad. (Yes. That David Cook! Apparently, he may not be such a big fan of women blowing themselves up after all.) Considering the fact that we are closing in on the fourth anniversary of the mass murders committed on September 11 of 2001, this is a worthwhile subject to revisit. The war against Islamofascism has, despite having been waged timidly, has gone well in many respects. The popularity of freedom and a desire for what is loosely called "democracy" is evident in the Middle East.

With peace breaking out all over the place, many might ask whether the Islamic conception of jihad is really as warlike as that of the terrorists. Furthermore, some followers of Islam are claiming to disagree with that conception of jihad.

What is the prevailing conception of jihad? This is a valid and important question. It is also a question that Americans, being a nation at war, must approach with open eyes. We cannot afford to allow the hope for peace, or an overly benevolent projection of our own values onto Moslems as a whole blind us to historical fact. Judging by Pipe's review, we regard jihad as anything less than warfare at our own peril.

Cook dismisses as "bathetic and laughable" John Esposito's contention that jihad refers to "the effort to lead a good life." Throughout history and at present, Cook definitively establishes, the term primarily means "warfare with spiritual significance."

His achievement lies in tracing the evolution of jihad from Muhammad to Osama, following how the concept has changed through fourteen centuries.

The bulk of the review summarizes the historical evolution of the concept of jihad and then ends on this note.

Cook's erudite and timely study has many implications, including these:

* The current understanding of jihad is more extreme than at any prior time in Islamic history.

* This extremism suggests that the Muslim world is going through a phase, one that must be endured and overcome, comparable to analogously horrid periods in Germany, Russia, and China.

* Jihad having evolved steadily until now, doubtless will continue to do so in the future.

* The excessive form of jihad currently practiced by Al-Qaeda and others could, Cook semi-predicts, lead to its "decisive rejection" by a majority of Muslims [emphasis mine]. Jihad then could turn into a non-violent concept.

The great challenge for moderate Muslims (and their non-Muslim allies) is to make that rejection come about, and with due haste.

In short, we are, in fact, confronted with a world religion whose adherents in the main regard offensive religious warfare as an important part of their religion. While the appearance (HT: TIA Daily) of a Moslem "Martin Luther" would be welcome, we must necessarily view even such self-proclaimed reformers with a high degree of suspicion given the historical context of jihad.

But historical fact is not the only reason that professed Moslem moderates and reformers have to be viewed with suspicion by Westerners. Aside from the historical context of Moslem interpretations of their religion, another context is also important. For example, the views of one moderate, on the subject of whether the Koran commands the murder of nonbelievers, for example, are summarized thus:

The submission in Islam means placing much in Allah’s hands and letting Allah decide the fate of non-believers. Allah is all-powerful and all-knowing; Allah will handle it.

I am not a Muslim, but I’ve read the Qur’an, and even I can see that context is important, just as it is for the Bible’s Old Testament, when it comes to the subjects of waging war and dealing with unbelievers.

I fully agree. Context is important. Whatever the Koran says about slaying nonbelievers, it is couched in the context of centuries of religious law (some based on what Mohammed supposedly said and did) and various pronouncements by Moslem clerics. And even more important, the whole lot exists within a broader epistemological context: faith.

To accept something as knowledge on faith is to attempt to pretend that sensory data and reason are not necessary at some point. The question quickly becomes, "At what point?" as Sam Harris once pointed out with regard to fundamentalism:

[W]e must decide what it means to be a religious "moderate" in the twenty-first century. Moderates in every faith are obliged to loosely interpret (or simply ignore) much of their canons in the interests of living in the modern world. ... [T]he moderate's retreat from scriptural literalism ... draws its inspiration not from scripture but from cultural developments that have rendered many of God's utterances difficult to accept as written. In America, religious moderation is further enforced by the fact that most Christians and Jews do not read the Bible in its entirety and consequently have no idea just how vigorously ... God ... wants heresy expunged. (pp. 17-18)

One might protest that in supplying this quote, I miss the point of the previous quote. But do I? If one accepts everything a book says as literally true, on what basis does one do so? (And if not, see above.) That God spoke through its author(s)? Then why can God not speak through someone else later on? And if the Koran, an inanimate object, can be inerrantly true, might some others (like that Imam over there who wants you to blow yourself up) be better at interpreting it than you are? How do you know? And how do you know that your holy book is the inspired word of God in the first place?

I will not address the issue of the epistemological validity of faith here, except to say that I agree with Ayn Rand's position that it is not a means of acquiring knowledge. What I am pointing out here is this: The fact that someone bases his belief system ultimately on faith turns the process of predicting his future actions into guesswork to a greater or lesser extent. There is no telling what arbitary moral dictum such a person will believe and act upon. In particular, it makes it basically impossible in today's context, for a non-Moslem to give the benefit of the doubt to a Moslem.

Having once been Christian myself, living in a culture strongly influenced by Christianity, and being fairly conversant with it, I know that Christians overwhelmingly reject the idea of killing nonbelievers. I also realize that most Christians do not hold their faith in an the all-encompassing way that many or even most Moslems do. They compartmentalize, accepting certain things on faith and reasoning about others. I usually have a fair idea about which areas are which. Thus on the basis of long experience, I feel comfortable around the vast majority of Christians.

But even though I know perfectly well that there are some Moslem moderates who condemn terrorism, I am also aware that overall, that there is anything but a consensus that I, as a nonbeliever shouldn't be made to submit to other Moslems or be put to death. The Moslem concepts of jihad and taqiyya (lying in self-defense, whatever self-defense might mean) futher complicate matters, given how they have been famously and repeatedly construed by some very, shall we say, active practicioners of Islam.

This is a serious problem not just for me and any other non-Moslem reading this, but for moderate and reformist Moslems. It is, however, an understandable problem. It is also a problem that will go away only with genuine reform of Islam (i.e., practically every Moslem agrees that killing a nonbeliever is wrong) and a long track record of Moslems not killing unbelievers. For this reason, it is in the self-interest of such Moslems to do whatever they can to put an end to terrorism.

Until the vast majority of Moslems themselves actively oppose terrorism, neither I nor the rest of the world has a solid basis for trusting them not to kill us. There is, on our part, no viable choice but to take the fight against terrorism into our own hands and insist on nothing short of radical reform in the Islamic world (not that these are actually happening).

-- CAV

PS: This post touches on many issues pertinent to fighting Islamofascism and the interests of Moslems and the Western world in reforming Islam. I've focused here on how the martial interpretation of jihad necessarily makes non-Moslems suspicious of Moslems. In discussing this, I concentrated on why I, personally, do not fear violence from Christians despite the basis of their belief system on faith.

My views, however, are atypical in regarding faith as a dangerous basis for morality yet most other Westerners share my suspicions of Islam. Why? Their shared apprehension would come from a mainly inductive evaluation of the behavior of Moslems when compared with that of adherents to other faiths, as discussed in this article. In short, "Yes, Islam is disrespected. That will only change when throngs of passionate Muslims show up for rallies against terrorism, and when rabble-rousers trying to gin up a riot over a defiled Koran can't get the time of day."

Updates

6-1-05: Corrected typos and added a PS.

May 31, 2005 Announcements

I'm back, and I'm tanned burnt, rested, and ready! Great trip! Only two things were less-than-ideal. First, I apparently confused God knows what (It might as well have been cooking oil!) with sunblocker. (I never needed or used that sh--tuff when I was a kid, but I guess my brown days are over....) Second, the holiday came to an abrupt end Monday afternoon when, at the 1.50 beer mark, I received a phone summons to rescue my stranded in-laws from a car breakdown.

But hey! I'm not complaining about the rescue mission! That otherwise was to have been the car I drove back to the Crescent City to catch the plane back! And the mechanics still haven't figured out why it just "up and died," as they might put it at the Onion. Good luck in the form of an early breakdown came disguised as a wasted half-pint of Blue Moon. (This light, citrusy wheat beer was perfect for the heat.)

Here are a few announcements.

Reason Roundup

Last Sunday's Reason Roundup appears at the Charlotte Capitalist.

Welcome to The Reason Roundup! Spicy hamburgers. Hot "Chocolat". Orange...feathers. Say what? Soapy cars. Cool "Sahara". Killing individualism. Celebrating Memorial Day. Aristotle and John Locke.

Blogger Contest

The staff of the Undercurrent will be hosting its second blogging contest, this time asking that contestants take the South Central Bildungsroman, Friday, and its sequels as a point of departure.

Now that I have your attention, the real topic is Star Wars. The contest announcement email (with some added formatting) is transcribed below.

Dear Objectivist blogger,

The Undercurrent (www.the-undercurrent.com) is pleased to announce its second Blogger Contest, which invites blog owners to write an article for the newsletter. The winner's article will be published in Issue 3—both in the print and online editions—along with the name and URL of the winner's blog. To give you an idea of the publication's scope, 9500 copies of issue 2 of The Undercurrent were distributed in twelve cities across eleven states. 14 universities received copies of the newsletter.

The article topic for this contest is: Star Wars, either the entire series or the most recent movie. This leaves open a wide range of topics for you, but please keep in mind—this kind of article is not an esthetic review. The article should analyze a philosophical/cultural issue raised by Star Wars or by its cultural reception, such as selfishness vs. selflessness, reason vs. mysticism, moral absolutes vs. compromise ("Only the Sith use absolutes!"), evil as powerful vs. evil as impotent, etc. But it should not constitute an esthetic evaluation of the film(s).

For those new to The Undercurrent or the blogger contest, please be aware that our target audience consists of college students who are unfamiliar with Ayn Rand and Objectivism. Thus, any Objectivist principles cited or reached in your analysis should be adequately explained, keeping the context of a general audience in mind.

The deadline for submissions is June 10th. Articles should be approximately 750-1000 words in length, but do not panic if you run over; should you win, we will work with you in editing the article for publication. Whether or not you win the contest, you are welcome to post the article to your blog at any time.

Also, regardless of whether you submit an entry to the contest, please feel free to post this announcement to your blog, or link to it here: http://www.the-undercurrent.com/index.php?b=/000027.html. And, as always, we are also accepting contributions on all topics.

Questions? Write to us at mail@the-undercurrent.com.

We look forward to hearing from you.

—The Undercurrent staff

Anger Management May Be Back

For some time, I have contemplated posting a series of brief reviews of some of my favorite "ex-blogs." Time constraints and more urgent subject matter have precluded this so far. My favorite Objectivist ex-blog was to have been Anger Management. However, rumors of the death of this blog may have been greatly exaggerated (HT: The General).

... I'm back. And I have lots to say. Stay tuned.

To echo the sentiment of one of the commenters: "Well then, spit it out, man!" (This should be said in the manner of J. Peterman of Seinfeld fame.)

This is one blog among several I'd like to see back, or at least posting more frequently.

Reclaim Your Brain

Meanwhile, Sarah Beth has encountered difficulties with her move and has been posting intermittently at her blog. (Lots of posts today, though.) Stop by and say "Hi!" if you haven't in awhile.

Pajamas Media

Martin Lindeskog over at Ego mentioned to me today a blog network he has recently joined called "Pajamas Media." See his post for more info.

-- CAV

Updates

6-1-05: Fixed a typo.

Happy Memorial Day

I will probably be unable to post or check email until next Tuesday since my wife and I will be visiting with my mother, her parents, and some of their friends at her parents' condo in the Florida panhandle. We'll have a computer, but she's writing her dissertation, which means: "No blogging for you, Gus!"

A Short Break from Blogging

This will be my first hiatus from my normal posting schedule since last Christmas. So what'll I be doing? Enjoying the sun and sand, the company of my family, more beer than usual, and perhaps doing a bit of barbecue under adverse conditions (i.e., using a gas grill. Heh!).

And reading! I've not gotten to do much reading lately. I get to do some catching up this weekend. So yesterday, I moseyed over to the bookstore with some ancient gift cards and loaded the hopper with some really good stuff to go with my recently-arrived copy of the combined set of TIA from back in the Peter Schwartz days. I left Barnes & Noble with Thomas Sowell's Black Rednecks and White Liberals, Levitt and Dubner's Freakonomics, and Steven Raichlen's How to Grill: The Complete Illustrated Book of Barbecue Techniques. I've started Sowell already and it looks like it will be superb. I'll take Freakonomics with me in case I finish Sowell, which is entirely possible. Raichlen, a comprehensive reference, I determined to be a must-have after good friend (and former gas-griller) Raymund astounded my wife and me one weekend with a damned good brisket.

And if I get my hands on a computer? We all need a break from time to time, but the writer in me may scream loud enough to get me to blog. Who knows? I'm leaving the option open, but am not obligating myself.

The Meaning of the Holiday

In the meantime, I recommend that we all enjoy ourselves on this holiday, the more the better. Our ability to do this at all comes from the fact that we live in a free country, and that countless patriots have fought to keep it that way. They preferred to die rather than live as slaves, and many, unfortunately, did die.

It may at first sound trite to say that we owe it to these brave men and women to enjoy ourselves this weekend, but I am saying it and I mean it. If we pause from the daily grind and stop to smell the flowers, we can recall the infinite beauty and promise that a life lived free has to offer. We can appreciate on more than just an abstract level what the patriots of the past and the present have fought for. We can see why they fought for the cause of liberty.

Let's enjoy ourselves, but with a purpose: To honor those who appreciated freedom enough to risk their lives for it. By enjoying our own lives, we are commemorating theirs. To remember our veterans, I recommend the following links.

First, I recommend reading/re-reading my favorite editorial on Memorial Day, written by Robert Tracinski for the first Memorial Day after the atrocities of September 11, 2001.

In the sloppy terminology so typical of today, it is common to attribute the courage of our soldiers to "self-sacrifice." But this misses the enormous difference between our soldiers and the malevolent fanatics on the other side, who declare that they want to die because they "love death." American soldiers do not go into battle because they love death. They go into battle because they love freedom. They love the liberties we enjoy and the prosperous and benevolent society that these liberties make possible. And they realize that someone has to fight to defend all of this.

And then, on a more concrete level, I recommend stopping by Willy Shake's digs at Unconsidered Trifles for two nice photo essays on Fleet Week New York. As the Virtual Bard says, "To all present or former members of our nation's military: THANK YOU!"

Have a happy Memorial Day. Our fallen would have done so, and they would wish the same for you.

-- CAV

"Koran Abuse" vs. Free Speech

In today's TIA Daily, Robert Tracinski makes some interesting observations and follows them with what he hopes is a rhetorical question.

The blockbuster facts unveiled in [the] article ["Inmates Alleged Koran Abuse"] include a dozen allegations that the Koran was kicked, thrown to the floor, or withheld as punishment." But as with the original Newsweek story, the most important issue is not whether this reporting is accurate or whether interrogators are actually employing these tactics. The first question that should pop into your mind when you read this piece is: "Koran abuse"?!?

Since when did it become a crime to mistreat a book?

Good point, but if John Conyers gets his way, it just might soon be a crime to mistreat a book! (HT: American Thinker)

Now, for the eye-popper of the week: U.S. Representative John Conyers (D-Michigan) has submitted a House resolution to protect religion, most specifically Islam, from "disrespect."

From the resolution:

Whereas the Quran is the holy book for Muslims who recite passages from it in prayer and learn valuable lessons about peace, humanity and spirituality;

Whereas it should never be official policy of the United States Government to disparage the Quran, Islam, or any religion in any way, shape, or form;

Whereas mistreatment of prisoners and disrespect toward the holy book of any religion is unacceptable and against civilized humanity;

...

[The House of Representatives] recognizes that the Quran, the holy book of Islam, as any other holy book of any religion, should be treated with dignity and respect[.]

Read it all. This is just the tip of the P.C. iceberg. While this is just a resolution, the very fact that something like this is being brought up in Congress at all is alarming.

Just as Tracinski observes later, the allegedly secular left, with its creed of sacrificing Western culture to any and all others, is in some respects a greater danger of placing us on the fast track to theocracy than the religious right.

The chief demand of Islamists--a reflection of their own spiritual inferiority complex--is to have dominance over others, to enforce "respect" for Islam, tolerating Christians and Jews only in the second-class status of "dhimmitude," in which they must constantly show their deference to Islam. Combine this new hysteria over "Koran abuse" with the Italian court case seeking to prosecute Oriana Fallaci for "defaming" Islam ... and what is the pattern that emerges? The doctrines of the left are attempting to deliver us into dhimmitude without a fight, through our own self-imposed obedience to Islamic "sensitivities."

This is how the left's altruism trumps its secularism. They don't mind delivering the West over to theocracy--so long as it is not our own theocracy, but the theocracy of others.

I would add that, at least with the open attempts at achieving theocracy on the part of the religious right, ordinary people will oppose them. However, with the leftist news media in a tizzy over "Koran abuse" and loony lefties like Conyers attempting to place a higher priority on reverence for the Koran than on freedom of speech, we stand more likely to be hoodwinked into taking the critical first steps down the road to theocracy, goaded by our own sense of goodwill.

-- CAV

Crossposted to the Egosphere

Timeless Advice from a Master

One of my purposes in blogging is to keep myself in the habit of paying attention to and writing about current events with the ultimate goal of becoming a syndicated columnist. I regard this effort as successful on many levels, but blogging also has some pitfalls for someone with my goal because it is a much less disciplined format, at least as I have been practicing it, than editorial writing.

A hazard for someone like me inherent in the format being less-disciplined is that, unless one either makes each entry much more like an editorial or otherwise explicitly keeps in mind the difference between, say, a good fisking and a good editorial rebuttal, one's editorial writing will suffer.

Why do I bring this up? Earlier in the week, I wrote on a topic very important to me and didn't make this distinction. I sent the fisking (i.e., a point-for point rebuttal -- which several people have let me know is good for what it is) in as a rebuttal. The first thing the editor sent me in reply started off with, basically, "I'd like to use this, but it's too long." I wrangled with it a bit and have almost wrung a decent editorial out of it, but I am fairly certain it will not get used. Bummer. No one piece will make or break a writer, but I would have been thrilled to have gotten this into shape and published.

If my first mistake was fisking (rather than writing an editorial), my second one was not taking a look at a few guest columns before I sent my piece in. This alone might have forced me to cut down the length of the article to something an editor could realistically see being shortened and polished into a good editorial. Nevertheless, had I encountered the following, what I wrote would have been immeasurably superior, and I wouldn't be kicking myself now.

At the "Dollars and Crosses" blog over at Capitalism Magazine is a link to a superb piece by Robert Tracinski on the subject of writing effective editorials. If you are an aspiring editorial writer -- and I know that at least several of my readers are -- read it thoroughly and come back to it from time to time. I have written good editorials in the past, but I have never seen the principles laid out explicitly this effectively before.

The blog quotes from the article, in case the phrase "superb piece by Robert Tracinski on the subject of writing effective editorials" isn't enough to have made you blow this joint by now:

The single greatest error made by beginning writers is that they try to say too much [fisking, for example -- ed]. This error comes from the belief that, in order to be convincing, an argument must be utterly comprehensive, addressing every possible issue that relates to it. But no argument is effective unless it can be absorbed and remembered by the reader. An effective editorial must be essentialized, focusing only on the most important issues and integrating them into one graspable whole.

[...]

The primary goal of one's writing is to be clear: to convey one's conclusion and the evidence for it in a manner that the reader can easily understand. Eloquent phrases, vivid images, and humorous examples are only valuable if they advance that goal.

Yeah, that's a coughing sound you're hearing from my direction! The principles Tracinski discusses are:

1. Focus on a central theme.
2. Know the viewpoint you have to refute.
3. Make inductive arguments.
4. Base moral evaluations on the facts.
5. Rely on the reader's implicit knowledge and values.
6. It is more important to be clear than to be eloquent.
7. End on a call to action.
8. Good writing comes from exhaustive editing.

So, fellow aspiring writers (And you know who you are.) ... Read. And read again. And practice. I'm still mulling over my piece and the larger question of how I can make my blog serve my goal more effectively. The extreme ends are: (1) Write only finished pieces; and (2) Keep blogging merrily along. I suspect some middle course is best. Lest you think I am flaying myself for fisking, I think that doing so can be (and was) a useful exercise in that it provides an opportunity to examine in detail what someone else has said. It can also suggest alternative strategies for writing a rebutting piece. But one thing it isn't: It is not the act of writing an effective editorial aimed at a general audience.

The blog is an interesting medium, for it blends the private activities of a writer -- such as note-taking, practicing, thinking out loud, and experimentation -- with the public aspects of writing that come from interacting with an audience. If much of the above was note-taking and thinking aloud, some was also interacting with my audience.

Many of my readers have complimented me for my writing and have offered helpful advice. Such encouragement means a lot to me, especially from my fellow aspiring writers. It would be remiss of me not to make sure you see what someone far better than I am has to say.

-- CAV

Chinamerica Threat Roundup 6

Welcome to the latest Chinamerica Roundup! This is a collection of news, analysis, and blogging pertaining to China as an emerging military threat with growing influence in a socialist Latin America.

The index to all related posts is here. Links to individual sections can be created by adding "#N" to the permalink for this page, where N is the section number (e.g., "...-roundup-6.html#2").

Is Venezuela about to get nukes? What are the Gulags of North Korea like? What's China doing in Zimbabwe, Cuba, and Uzbekistan?

The Chinese have failed to get the North Koreans to the six-party talks in a year, but at least they've put a stop to the un-communist practice of eating sushi off the bodies of unclad women! Meanwhile, are some bloggers are getting past the censors?

Read about all this and more in this week's roundup!

(1) China's (Actual) Internal Affairs

Because both nations are huge and becoming more powerful, it is common for observers to compare China and India. The Acorn presents an interesting contrast between the two countries with respect to how their governments react to the phenomenon of blogging.

[The Indian government is] considering providing official accreditation to bloggers and other ‘internet journalists’. ... [This] present[s] an opportunity for interested bloggers to lurk around the corridors of power and ask uncomfortable questions at official government media conferences. With some luck, Indian diplomatic missions around the world too will extend accreditation to bloggers living abroad.

In sharp contrast, China’s reaction to "internet journalism" has been along predictable lines. Blogspot and Blogger are locked out behind the Great Firewall of China.

A very interesting report on blogging in China, "Death by a Thousand Blogs," occurs in the New York Times (via enravanche):

When I caught up with Mr. Li [Xinde, basically a blogger], he was investigating the mysterious death of a businessman who got in a financial dispute with a policeman and ended up arrested and then dead.

All this underscores how the Internet is beginning to play the watchdog role in China that the press plays in the West. The Internet is also eroding the leadership's monopoly on information and is complicating the traditional policy of "nei jin wai song" - cracking down at home while pretending to foreigners to be wide open.

My old friends in the Chinese news media and the Communist Party are mostly aghast at President Hu Jintao's revival of ideological slogans, praise for North Korea's political system and crackdown on the media. The former leaders Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji are also said to be appalled.

A little detour is in order for a moment. Consider this quote from the above: "President Hu Jintao's ... praise for North Korea's political system." And consider this absurd fact: We are counting China as an "ally" in the effort to have a "nuke-free" Korean peninsula.

But back to the blogging scene, such as it is, in China. The article has two interesting vignettes that shed light on how pervasive internet censorship is over there. First, consider what Li has to do to post.

Li travels around China with an I.B.M. laptop and a digital camera, investigating cases of official wrongdoing. Then he writes about them on his Web site and skips town before the local authorities can arrest him.

I can't resist pointing out a silver lining for Mr. Li: He need not fear getting fired for blogging at work!

On internet censorship, which has come up a couple of times in this series, we get to see a demonstration of it at work.

I tried my own experiment, posting comments on Internet chat rooms. In a Chinese-language chat room on Sohu.com, I called for multiparty elections and said, "If Chinese on the other side of the Taiwan Strait can choose their leaders, why can't we choose our leaders?" That went on the site automatically, like all other messages. But after 10 minutes, the censor spotted it and removed it.

Then I toned it down: "Under the Communist Party's great leadership, China has changed tremendously. I wonder if in 20 years the party will introduce competing parties, because that could benefit us greatly." That stayed up for all to see, even though any Chinese would read it as an implicit call for a multiparty system.

Might this last be complicity, or at least moral uncertainty on the part of the censors, like the defection of the Russian military from the hardliner coup against Gorbachev in the last days of Soviet Russia? Maybe. Maybe not.

In any case, I hope the following is an accurate assessment.

I think the Internet is hastening China along the same path that South Korea, Chile and especially Taiwan pioneered. In each place, a booming economy nurtured a middle class, rising education, increased international contact and a growing squeamishness about torturing dissidents.

China, and the rest of the world, could stand for that.

On the lighter side, I have a couple of interesting cultural looks at China, and the indications are mixed! Via Matt Drudge and TIA Daily, I have learned that Western-style consumer culture is catching on in China in the form of enormous shopping malls.

On the other hand, the Gaijin Biker quotes this interesting bit from Kyodo News.

China's State Administration of Industry and Commerce issued a notice this weekend banning meals served on naked bodies, officially canceling the service offered by a Japanese restaurant in southwestern China that served sushi on unclothed female university students, a Beijing newspaper reported Sunday.

The Saturday pronouncement forbids the service because it "insults people's moral quality," according to the Beijing Times. Serving food on women's bodies also "spreads commercial activity with poor culture," the paper said, citing the administration's notice

If China is becoming more Westernized in one respect, it seems about to become more more puritanical in another.

(2) North Korea

The San Diego Union-Tribune has a shocking feature on the gulags of North Korea. Two aspects of this brutal system in particular exemplify the total lack of regard for individual rights on the part of the communist regime there. First, leaving aside the question of whether some of the individual prisoners actually deserve to be sent prison at all, the policy of collective guilt ensures that most of the prisoners aren't even criminals. (And then, in case you were wondering about the question I set aside....)

The most striking feature of the gulag system is the philosophy of "guilt by familial association" or "collective responsibility" whereby whole families within three generations are imprisoned. This policy has been practiced since 1972 when Kim Il Sung, the founder of communist North Korea, stated "Factionalists or enemies of class, whoever they are, their seed must be eliminated through three generations."

Another characteristic of this oppressive policy is that those arrested are not detained, charged or tried in any sort of judicial procedure. The victim, along with his immediate family, is shipped off in the early hours of the morning to an interrogation facility. He is only permitted to bring the clothes on his back. The presumed offender is then tortured in order to make him "confess" before being sent to the political penal-labor colony. On arrival at the camp, the victim is issued a pick and shovel, simple cooking utensils and a used army blanket. All contact with the outside world is blocked: he is now a non-person; no question will be asked about him by friends or relatives.

Second, the conditions there are positively inhuman.

Prisoners are provided just enough food to be kept perpetually on the verge of starvation. They are compelled by their hunger to eat, if they can get away with it, the food of the labor-camp farm animals, as well as plants, grasses, bark, rats, snakes and anything remotely edible. In committing such desperate acts driven by acute hunger the prisoners simultaneously incur the extreme risk of being detected by an angry security guard and subjected to a brutal, on-the-spot execution.

And the ACLU is mad about the "gulag" at Gitmo?

Meanwhile, as the regime seeks to expand its ability to brutalize human beings -- with nuclear weaponry -- to the world beyond its borders, our officials have caved in to North Korea's desire to hold "bilateral talks" -- in order to tell them that they must resume the dubious six-party talks to continue getting the same concession.

The United States on Wednesday promised expanded bilateral engagement with North Korea if the communist state returns to the long-stalled six-party talks and pledges to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

"All North Korea has to do is commit to resuming the six-party process and we could have as many bilaterals as they want within that process," said Joseph DeTrani, U.S. envoy to the talks.

Yeah! They're quaking in their boots now!

(3) Cuba

Before commenting on recent events in Cuba, I note an interesting item from the Miami Herald, always an excellent source for news on Latin America in general and Cuba in particular. The paper recently printed excerpts from a speech Rafael Di­az-Balart delivered to Cuba's congress in 1955 against granting Fidel Castro amnesty for attacking the Moncada army barracks. Too bad no one apparently listened to him.

Fidel Castro and his group want only one thing: power, and total power at that. And they want to achieve it by means of violence, so that total power may allow them to thoroughly destroy every vestige of the Constitution and the law in Cuba, to install the most cruel, most barbaric tyranny; a tyranny that would teach the people the true meaning of tyranny, a totalitarian, unscrupulous, thieving and murderous regime that would be very difficult to overthrow for at least 20 years.

Fidel Castro is nothing but a fascist psychopath who, in power, would make pacts only with the forces of international communism, because fascism already was defeated in World War II, and only communism would give Fidel the pseudo-ideological garb to murder, rob, violate all rights with impunity and destroy outright the entire spiritual, historic, moral and judicial heritage of our republic.

Di­az-Balart died recently, with Cuba still ruled by the tyrant he opposed.

News Concerning Cuba has been mixed as of late. On the one hand, I blogged about a dissident meeting held in Cuba, which resulted in a ten-point plan for democratic reform. While this might indicate a weakening of Castro's grip on power, two other developments indicate that at least two nations I've focused on in this series, China and Venezuela [Link may be bad.], are more than willing to help prop him up.

(4) Taiwan

Did the recent visits to the mainland by Taiwanese political leaders affect the recent Taiwanese election? Apparently not.

[The]Taiwanese in the end seem largely unmoved. The polls for the National Assembly showed no significant discernible shift in the political balance within Taiwan itself. If anything, the visits may have increased adherence to the extremes of pro-and anti-unification forces, and reduced the middle ground occupied by a majority of Taiwanese.

Nevertheless, within some of the preelection commentary, there were some interesting tidbits. For example:

One after the other, Lien and Soong paraded through China like provincial governors of old [italics mine], visiting historic sites and ancestral homes before arriving in Beijing where they performed symbolic kowtows [italics mine] before the Dragon Throne, this time bearing the trappings of the Chinese Communist Party.

Hmmm. And I thought I was just lampooning Lien at the end of this post!

There's more.

[Lien and Soong] were feted and applauded at every turn, Lien telling reporters that "we have been warmly received by the central committee of the Communist Party."

The Chinese even offered Lien two pandas to take home.

While the government-controlled press in China acclaimed the visits as a "historic moment bringing springtime" and polls in Taiwan were generally favorable, not everyone in Taipei was happy. Protesters asserted that Lien and Soong were traitors who had sold out to Beijing. President Chen accused Soong of breaking an agreement calling for self-determination for Taiwan.

The president, seeking a counter, invited Chinese President Hu Jintao to visit Taiwan "to see for himself whether Taiwan is a sovereign, independent country and what our 23 million people have in mind."

At one point, I thought Chen had gone wobbly, but I apparently misinterpreted his invitation to Hu to visit Taiwan.

(5) USA and China

The biggest story over the past couple of weeks concerning relations between the United States and China concerns China's practice of pegging its fiat currency to ours. I had hoped by now to do a bit more reading on this matter, but time has been anything but on my side lately.

I'll offer my $0.02 anyway and invite comments.

Reason 1,261,439 to have a gold standard: Our economy might be at the mercy of China's currency policy.

My initial gut reaction to China's practice of pegging their fiat currency to ours is, "So what?" I recall our old "trade deficit" with Japan as being an over-hyped nonissue, with Japan reinvesting its "surplus" into our economy. This is not quite the same for two reasons. First, Japan was, as I recall, allowing the Yen to trade freely against the dollar, and was actually buying assets in America. China is, primarily I think, buying our fiat currency and keeping theirs "weak" by comparison. In this respect, we're benefitting from their very low production costs every time we go to Wal-Mart and so their dollar purchases are keeping our cost of living lower over here. (See also note on inflation below.) I think the mechanisms are slightly different, but result in the same effect: a transfer of capital back into our economy from the trading partner. Second, China is not necessarily an ally. Japan depends on us to provide it protection from China. (A Chinese coworker of mine who'd been to China during the recent riots told me that he thought there'd be war with Japan were it not for America.) So Japan didn't have any compelling reason to toss a monkey wrench into the works unexpectedly. But the fact is that China is not our ally. She obviously has designs on some of our Asian allies and is competing with us for natural resources in the third world. A sudden change in her monetary policy could conceivably wreak considerable havoc with our economy. That might be a useful threat to hang over our heads at some point. Beyond that impression, I am not clear on exactly how suddenly "unpegging" the Yuan would hurt our economy. Had we a worldwide gold standard, though, such manipulations (and the threats they pose) would be impossible. But we have fiat currency instead and so now find ourselves at China's mercy -- I think.

Congress's idea of how to "solve" the "problem" presented by cheap imports is to impose tariffs. Bush's idea is to somehow cajole China into letting its currency float. I dislike both ideas.

The administration has come under increasing pressure as America's trade deficit with China has soared to record levels, hitting $162 billion last year, the biggest deficit ever recorded with any country.

Until recently, the administration had insisted its efforts at financial diplomacy were working to get China to allow its currency's value to be set by currency markets rather than controlled by the government.

However, last month, the Senate by a lopsided 67-33 vote cleared a procedural hurdle that sets the stage for a vote on legislation that would impose across-the-board 27.5 percent penalty tariffs on all Chinese imports into the country unless China changes its currency system.

Fearing the erection of protectionist barriers, the administration then began taking a tougher approach in its public comments.

On the currency issue, Paul Krugman seems to think that China's policy is essentially functioning as a source of low-interest loans to the U.S. Government, insulating us from the effects of our increasing federal budget deficits.

Dollar purchases by China and other foreign governments have temporarily insulated the U.S. economy from the effects of huge budget deficits. This money flowing in from abroad has kept U.S. interest rates low despite the enormous government borrowing required to cover the budget deficit.

If our government is covering the debt by printing more money, we are perhaps being protected from inflation by China's dollar purchases. (Krugman does not say this.) Inflation, as Ayn Rand pointed out, is a means of government confiscation of savings: The creation of more money makes each unit worth less. But perhaps China is sucking up a lot of this money via dollar purchases.

I suspect I'm on the right track here, but I must reiterate that I haven't gotten to think this through as much as I'd like. (Not that I'd necessariy figure it out even then.) Your thoughts are more than welcome on this. At least Krugman agrees that this is confusing: "Stories about the new Treasury report condemning China's currency policy probably had most readers going, 'Huh?' Frankly, this is an issue that confuses professional economists, too."

(6) Venezuela

There has been a lot of news concerning Venezuela over the past couple of weeks, ranging from the comical through the curious to the very bad.

First comes the comical news: Chavez hopes to give the United States a political black eye by seeking extradition, on Cuba's behalf, of a recently-arrested airline bomber according to the Houston Chronicle. I blogged about this last week. Dick Morris discussed a proposal for an exchange of terrorists with Cuba while I said we should send him to Gitmo. This would satisfy Castro's desire to have him returned to the island while we keep him from performing any more acts of terrorism.

A curious news appeared in the American Thinker about the growing influence of El Loco in France. Yes. France! Here's an excerpt.

It's incredible that a fully Westernized country - a benchmark Western country like France, with a highly centralized educational structure, could so allow the teaching of this Chavista intellectual debris. Venezuela's oil despot looks like he's trying to make France an ideological colony. And it's not just textbooks. The talk of Paris is that Le Monde Diplomatique, a French newspaper facing the same tough pressures as other newspapers, has suddenly come into a lot of money to buy a huge building in Paris and some think it could be Venezuelan money.

If it's not true, it's a sign of the mood in Paris.

The bad news is that Chavez has, according to Douglas MacKinnon, been talking with Iran about acquiring nuclear weapons!

To the minute number of people who understand the threat Chavez poses to the United States, his recent hosting in Caracas of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami was disturbing enough. But a high-ranking official for a Latin American government has disclosed to me details about that visit that should send shock waves throughout our government.

During a private meeting between Chavez and Khatami, I was told, Chavez made it known to the Iranian leader that he would like to "introduce nuclear elements into Venezuela." My contact said "nuclear elements" meant "nuclear weapons."

It will be easy for many to dismiss such talk as false or the fantasies of a madman, but that would be a critical mistake. I have no doubt that Chavez is mentally disturbed, and I also have no doubt that his hatred of the United States and President Bush in particular is dictating his erratic behavior. High oil prices have made Chavez an antagonist to be reckoned with, and we ignore such a menace at our peril.

Time to get tough with Venezuela and Iran, Mr. Bush!

Aside from this latest reach for nuclear weapons, I have already noted that Chavez has been engaged in a buildup of conventional arms and attempting to spread his brand of statism to neighboring Latin American states. He is already allied with Fidel Castro and Mexico may align with him if Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wins its upcoming presidential race. According to Glenn Reynolds, he may also be contributing to the current chaos in Bolivia.

This is in our own back yard, Mr. President.

(7) China and Japan

Apparently, tensions between China and Japan are heating up again.

(8) China's Zombie Empire

As reported previously, China is interested in establishing its presence in Africa to obtain access to its natural resources. In particular, it seems that Zimbabwe, after kicking out its white minority (which has refused a request to return), needs propping up by China (via TIA Daily):

One local academic joked that Mugabe had "yellow fever" since he can only see allies in Asia, which he knows will not criticize his oppressive policies. But the academic also raised a more serious point: Mugabe is throwing his own political cronies off tobacco growing land and oppressing street hawkers in towns to make way for the Chinese; and he is selling out his country to the Chinese in order to cling to power. So far, the West has done nothing to stem the tide of human rights abuse in Zimbabwe and has steadfastly refused to push for a UN resolution or any military solution. But what of Chinese influence in a destabilized region, is that a possible national security threat? Perhaps it's time the State Department took another look at Zimbabwe's new colonialists.

Ummm. Yeah.

Meanwhile, Glenn Reynolds points out that the authoritarian regime in Uzbekistan is cozying up to China: "Karimov is cozying up to China, whose leaders are understandably disturbed by the spread of democracy in the region, and untroubled by Karimov's Tiananmen-like massacre."

-- CAV

Updates

6-5-05: Fixed a typo, HT Adrian Hester.

DOA: School Vouchers

Sorry -- and not just to you, dear reader, but to me -- about the string of shortish posts. I've unexpectedly gotten what will either prove to be a great opportunity or merely an excruciating writing exercise. Will fill you in when I know which it is.

Anyway, either the Texas legislature has been particularly vindictive against the cause of freedom this year or I am merely much more hip to its usual machinations than I used to be. Neither prospect offers me any comfort. Today, I learned via the Houston Chronicle of its latest assault on individual rights. An already feeble attempt to start the ball rolling on educational reform, via school vouchers, was ignominiously castrated and then killed on the floor of the Texas House today.

A plan to make Texas one of the first states with a large-scale voucher program died Monday night after a raucous debate and a series of close votes in the House.

After the bill was gutted to make vouchers available only for public and not private schools, Speaker Tom Craddick sustained a parliamentary challenge that killed the issue for this session.

"I woke up this morning thinking this may be the day we made history in Texas," said Rep. Kent Grusendorf, sponsor of the proposal. "I'm disappointed."

It was the first time in eight years that the House debated the volatile issue of giving students public funding to attend private and parochial schools. In 1997, the effort failed on a tie vote and Monday's debate delivered similar drama.

As I keep saying, "Whew! Good thing the Republicans are in charge!"

Just to recap a few previously-blogged highlights....

A bill was introduced this session to impose what would be, in effect, an income tax on Texans. This is something the Democrats failed to do even with 120 consecutive years of power! (Hmmm! I'd better keep tabs on this one....)

Rep. Al Edwards, D-Houston (who, sadly, is my representative, as I recently learned), has been trying to use government force to impose Christian mores on cheerleading squads.

Most recently, the legislature has okayed a popular vote to amend the state constitution to prohibit gay marriages and civil unions.

So, in recognition that Texans come from all walks of life, the legislature has something to offer for everyone this year. (Wasn't it Mike Royko who said something like, "Please don't help me no more?" Whatever it was and whoever said it, that's all I ask of the boys in Austin.)

-- CAV

Two Exploding Cigars for Castro

I direct your attention to two interesting items concerning Cuba that I encountered today, either or both of which might explode in Fidel Castro's face.

First, Dick Morris (via Jewish World Review) discusses a proposal about how we should dispose of Luis Posada Carriles, an airline bomber Castro and his ally, Hugo "El Loco" Chavez would have us extradite to Cuba. Though not as funny as my proposal, it would have among its merits the fact that it might show the world what a hypocrite Castro really is concerning terrorism.

From Rick Hahn, a former FBI agent who is working on a book about the FALN (the Hispanic terrorist group) comes a great idea, one that would achieve justice, relieve President Bush (and his brother, for that matter) of a political headache and benefit the War on Terror. He proposes that we swap Posada for three wanted terrorists who are now hiding in Cuba: William Morales, Joanne Chesimard and Victor Manuel Gerena.

And if Castro refuses? We've called his bluff, and we can always resort to Plan B: Send Posada to Gitmo! (Well, okay, Morris didn't say that, but he should have!)

The second item is a news story (via RealClear Politics) about a ten-point proposal for democratic reform in Cuba that came out of the recent rally of dissidents there. The article does not list the ten points, although what does come through in the article sounds like a mixed bag. Of course, the real news is that this rally occurred at all.

Participants also called for the openness in the one-party system, the abolition of the death penalty and economic reforms. In a strongly worded statement, the resolution proclaimed Cuba's government as a ''Stalinist'' model that constitutes a ``totalitarian and essentially anti-democratic regime.''

The resolution further demanded the return to the ''democratic traditions'' of the country, ''pluralism for political parties, programs, political ideologies and candidates'' and called for the recognition of exiles ``as members of the Cuban nation.''

On the death penalty, the resolution denounced all applications of the death penalty from the ''summary executions'' that began on Jan. 1, 1959 (when Castro took power) to those carried out in March 2003 against three Cuban men who tried to hijack a boat to flee the island.

The resolution also blamed the country's economic woes on policies adopted by a government for which ''politics are more important than the economy.'' The resolution stated that increased foreign investment was crucial to sustain development, increase purchasing power and move exports. It also said that government's recent policy of distributing rice and cookware to Cubans rendered the population dependent and impoverished and enabled the government to ``manipulate the masses.''

The document also called on the government to show it is serious about cooperating on the global war on terror by expelling members of ETA, a Basque guerrilla group, ''and any other foreign terrorists who have found refuge'' in Cuba, including U.S. fugitives.

The government also should publicly apologize to families of those killed during the sinking of the 13 de Marzo tugboat in 1994 and the Brothers to the Rescue pilots shot down by Cuban MiGs in 1996, the resolution stated.

How does that last paragraph grab you?

Oh? You don't say, Fidel? Sinking tugboats loaded with civilians is somehow better than downing civilian aircraft? And your regime downing civilian aircraft is also different? And that difference is what? Oh! It's different because you ordered it done, isn't it? Of course! Posada's real crime is that he's just some bourgeois, private terrorist rather than a government employee!

But I digress. What will it be, Fidel? Glasnost and a slow loss of power, or keeping your seat on the powderkeg?

This second story is good news. I am cautiously optimistic.

-- CAV

Texas May Ban Civil Unions

In the Houston Chronicle today is a story about an upcoming vote on the issue of not just gay marriage, but civil unions as well.

The state Senate sent voters on Saturday a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages and civil unions in Texas, with balloting set for Nov. 5.

While I have some reservations about the idea of gay marriage, I think that at the very least gay couples should have some way to formalize a committed relationship.

This is ridiculous, but I will be very surprised if this measure is not passed.

-- CAV

May 22, 2005 Announcements

Reason Roundup

This week's Reason Roundup is posted over at the Charlotte Capitalist.

The bigger story here, and the gorilla in the living room that no one wants to notice, is that flushing a Qur'an down the toilet should not be grounds to commit murder.

Amen. Lots of good stuff. Be sure to pay Andy's blog a visit!

Sarah Beth: Back in the Saddle Soon!

Sarah Beth, who has been incommunicado for the past few days checked in briefly to let her readers know what she's been up to.

I should be back online for good after Memorial Day, that’s when they come install the Internet Access at my new place at least. Assuming my furniture comes in on time. Right now my whole life is sitting on a truck in FL waiting to be brought up to me.

Here's hoping that the move goes well!

Memorial Day = Vacation Time!

Barring the unforeseen, Mrs. Van Horn and I will be taking some time off on the sugar-white sands of the Florida panhandle this Memorial Day. This appears to be my big chance to do some reading I've been itching to do, while my home brew continues fermenting in H-Town and the wife pecks away at her dissertation. (Oh well! At least one of us will be on vacation!)

Wine Lovers

Should take note: Willy Shake, whose blog is a fun and enjoyable place, wants to get into fermented grapes! I have a love-hate relationship with wine. Oh, okay! I'll admit it: I am the "battered wife" of wine. I enjoy it from time to time -- when I don't get splitting headaches from it! Nevertheless, I pass this on owing to the fact that it's a good idea. The virtual bard wants to learn more about wine and is looking for others who want to explore the same territory. Stop by if you might be interested. My wine knowledge is, unsurprisingly, very limited with my favorite being the pine-flavored Greek wine known as "retsina." Beyond that, the wife picks 'em for me, and then almost exclusively when we go for Italian. (I pick her beers for her.)

It'll be interesting to see where this goes. I'll at least follow this. It can't hurt -- unless I actually drink something!

Further Thoughts on Granholm vs. Heald

Speaking of wine, the General takes a look at a recent Supreme Court decision concerning interstate wine commerce over at Benjo Blog.

Feedback Solicited at The Undercurrent

Ned Chalmers of The Undercurrent is "giving away copies of Atlas Shrugged to some of the respondents" to a feedback survey for their May issue.

Star Wars

We saw Star Wars this Saturday. After all the "anti-hype," I certainly went in with low expectations. It was, however, pretty enjoyable. The over-lamented anti-Bush bits were nothing compared to the gratuitous agitprop one might see in almost any other film these days. The action and special effects were about what one might expect. There were even unintended comedic bonuses in the dialogue. Much of the stilted hero-villain bits reminded me of the Austin Powers series, and (Am I the only one who's got the guts to say this?) George Lucas's romantic dialogue is almost ingeniously, laughably bad. If you remember the semi-psychotic lingo (Yeah. It's a dated term, but somehow it fits.) with which young Anakin Skywalker successfully wooed Padmé Amidala in Attack of the Clones, you won't be disappointed. But the Ed Wood aficianado in me surfaces and causes me to digress. Heh! On a serious note, the movie is not so bad, as far as action flicks go. You could do worse: C+.

Chief o' the Barbie

This recipe of Bothenook's for barbecued pork tenderloin turned out really well! And his other recipes are all right here.

-- CAV

My Life: Claiming It Is Not Defending It

As one who advocates Objectivism (the philosophy of Ayn Rand) and who has had to watch a loved one die from a long illness, I must express my indignation and outrage at the raving, hysterical attack posted at RealClear Politics and penned by Michael Janocik against the Ayn Rand Institute for its support of assisted suicide. I am not affiliated with ARI, but am a long-time supporter of their work.

Janocik and others, upon hearing of my personal philosophy might object that I have an "agenda" to push. They are correct. And they might dismiss my argument simply as so much psychological wreckage pursuant to such a great personal loss. They would be wrong, and obscenely dishonest to do so besides. As for my agenda, though, it is simple. Like Mr. Janocik, I will die one day. In fact, I may become terminally ill and die. If that happens, I would like the greatest possible latitude in the way I die.

Since my life is my own, how it ends should be up to me. However, this will not necessarily be the case until my right to have assistance in ending my life is finally protected by law. If Janocik feels threatened by my agenda, he should rest assured: He is the only person who could decide to end his life under such a law. He would still be free to make a different choice than I might. Just as my life is not his to decide what to do with, neither is his life up to me. But this idea bothers Janocik so much that he feels the need to speak out against the almost commonsensical notion that my life is mine, his is his, and yours is yours.

Notice that I did not say that he made a rational case for his point, however. Unfortunately, Michael Janocik deliberately obfuscates many important issues in trying to convince as many other voters as possible of his take on assisted suicide. Yes. I am accusing Mr. Janocik of being intellectually dishonest just as a detective would finger a criminal in an investigation. As Ayn Rand once pointed out in her essay, "Philosophical Detection" (in Philosophy: Who Needs It), "A philosophical detective must remember that all human knowledge has a hierarchical structure; he must learn to distinguish the fundamental from the derivative.... If the foundation does not hold, neither will anything else." One should remember this when reading any opinion piece, especially Janocik's: Accept his essay and you may well die of slow torture. Literally. It's your life after all.

What are the hallmarks of a dishonest argument, then? Generally, anything that doesn't quite add up is a good candidate, and Janocik's essay has more than its share of such arguments. The most glaring one is this: Janocik makes dire predictions of doom should the right to assisted suicide be legally recognized -- after first claiming that man does not have the right to suicide at all! That much is correct since the first question is in fact the fundamental one. But if man has no such right, then Janocik ought to make an unassailable case for that point before moving on to explore the consequences of having assisted suicide codified into law. That's what I would do if I agreed with him. All the doomsday scenarios in the world will come off only as so much clucking by Chicken Little if the more fundamental point remains unaddressed.

But if I wanted to pull a fast one, I'd do exactly what Janocik did. I'd pretend that the case hadn't been made at all for assisted suicide, I'd slip in a quick justification for why people should be made to endure their terminal illnesses for as long as possible, and then, before my readers could catch their breath, I'd portray a doomsday scenario as the "consequence" of assisted suicide. If you haven't read Janocik's piece, read it now, then come back. I will show you that this is exactly what he did.

It is interesting that Janocik chooses as his first target, not the idea that man has a right to die, but its most effective proponents: Ayn Rand and ARI. His first paragraph is little more than an attempt to discredit Rand and, by implication, ARI. Most tellingly, there is neither a citation nor a hyperlink to any Objectivist argument in favor of physician-assisted suicide and yet, he launches an attack against Atlas Shrugged, the novel where Rand most extensively puts forth her philosophy. This, too, is telling. It shows that Janocik knows that the arguments put forth by ARI are based upon Rand's philosophy and that if this philosophy is found to be incorrect, so will the arguments. But does Janocik deliver a refutation or just a smear?

Janocik calls Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged "a reliable screed against the oppression of collectivism," but then arbitrarily calls its ethical thesis of individualism "dangerous," "unfounded," and "radical." He is correct about the ethics being radical, but implies that this is not merely "different," but "bad " by preceding this with the other two terms. His claim that the book's "devotion to "radical individualism" is "unfounded" is just that. Assuming he read the book at all, Janocik is either (a) unable to follow an explicit argument, (b) not very adept at inductive reasoning, or (c) pretending that Rand made no argument in favor of individualism in this book. The answer is (c). Otherwise, why bring up some decades-old novel about railroads whose characters ramble about money, sex, and philosophy?

Still don't believe me? Janocik deliberately misinterprets the title, which essentializes the driving force behind the plot. Janocik says, "The book’s provocative title suggests the image of a strong man casting off his responsibility to protect and care for the weak - indeed, casting off the world." No. It merely suggests that a giant is unshouldering the burden of the world. Rather than jumping to silly conclusions about why Atlas shrugged, most people become curious upon seeing the title and many read the book. When they do, they learn that the Atlases of the world have been enslaved to the morally weak by their own acceptance of altruism. The Atlases had accepted a moral code that made them into slaves and become free when they finally rejected this code. It is this code, the code of self-sacrifice, that Janocik wants you to accept when he tells you that you have no right to end your own life, even if you are in excruciating pain and will not be cured.

Janocik summarily dismisses as "unfounded" the arguments and conclusions of a 1000-plus page book (not to mention numerous other works by Rand). He then would have us decide that we have no right to end our own lives on our own terms if we wish -- on the basis of a single paragraph (below) in an essay! He may not be able to put together a coherent argument, but credit the man with gall!

Opposition to assisted suicide need not employ religious beliefs. Assisted suicide contradicts fundamental natural and moral principles [such as? --ed] that are deducible by observation and reason. Human beings, by nature, are community beings with an abiding instinct, desire, and biological response to live even in the most insufferable of circumstances. Flowing from this fact are inseparable individual and societal obligations that do not include recourse to suicide or killing innocent human life. By definition, suicide is a deliberate act or omission against the self that causes the death of the individual.

How does one know "fundamental natural and moral principles?" And how do we know the nature of man? Is instinct (the opposite of a volitional consciousness) really part of our nature? On what basis do we have "societal" obligations?" And, for that matter, what the hell "individual obligation" do I have to suffer needlessly if I choose not to? Why does Janocik not address a single one of these questions?

Janocik has offered absolutely no argument in this entire paragraph. It is all arbitrary assertions, and as such it cannot be accepted in any other way than on faith! Maybe Janocik runs his own life that way, but my life is too important to blindly trust what someone else says. Particularly someone who is telling me I can't die on my own terms.

Janocik's take on "[w]hen a person desires suicide" succeeds in being both mawkish and obscene, starting with his derivation of the word "compassion." His derivation is right, but his evaluation of suffering as something that should be prolonged is obscene. Janocik preys on our fear of being left alone when we are sick, so that we will take the bait of the "compassion" of "society." But what does that entail? The dissolution of the necessary and appropriate personal boundaries that exist in a rational society and the dehumanization of everyone involved. If you regard yourself as a conscious, volitional being, that will bother you. But if you regard yourself as a mere collection of "impulses" and "instincts," it might not.

For example, in a rational society, one's friends and family presumably care about you because of who you are. In Janocik's "compassionate," Borg-like entity known as "society," they are presumably programmed to love you out of some collective instinct. But we're all a bunch of automatons moved by instinct, so who cares anyway?

In a rational society, your doctor may or may not be a personal friend, but his desire to profit (monetarily and in terms of personal interest) from a job well done will very effectively motivate him to cure you, alleviate your pain, or (ideally) allow you to die with dignity if need be. In Janocik's world, your doctor might be a government slave, for all we know, after "society" (incorrectly) decided that socialized medicine would deliver more care than the profit motive.

Or "society" might have better uses for medical funds than the expensive cure for your particular terminal affliction. So you will not be cured. But, hey! That's okay! "[S]ociety recognizes that the sick and frail are often vulnerable to destructive impulses or even prolonged suicidal desires resulting from severe depression." You'll be kept alive and treated for depression. And if "society" needs the antidepressants for some other purpose, a straightjacket and a rubber room should keep your life and its "intrinsic dignity" afloat!

In Janocik's society, friendship is causeless, and does not reflect in any way that another person has chosen your companionship because it is valuable to him. Remember, we're just creatures of "instinct."And in Janocik's society, a physician's livelihood and sense of accomplishment do not depend on his caring for you to the best of his ability. No. The physician has no personal stake in your life or well-being whatsoever. Again, he's just a volitionless cog in the machine.

And where is the individual in all this? Where are you? You may have "dignity and worth," but apparently this "dignity" does not extend to the right to end your life on your own terms. Nor do you, consistent with the idea the man has "instinct," really have volition anyway. "[P]ain, suffering, and ... depression typically are at the root of the suicidal impulse." So the desire to die with dignity is a symptom of pain or mental illness? And such a desire is merely an "impulse?" So a living will and the temporary throes of depression are one and the same?

Indeed, if an individual human being has "dignity and worth," to whom is his life valuable? Ayn Rand answered that question eloquently in Atlas Shrugged: One's life is one's own. Janocik gave quite a different answer when he suckered his less-careful readers with the bait of collectivism. The problem with accepting collectivism is that one must surrender himself to the collective. One forfeits his own life and lives to see the consequences. In Janocik's "compassionate" society, that may well be your own agonizing death. Your family will get to watch, but they will be powerless to put you out of your misery even if you want them to. As Janocik points out, "'Compassion' literally means 'to suffer with'." Suffering is the coin of the realm in Janocik's "compassionate society." If suffering together is what life is all about, I think he has the right formula!

The rest of the piece is scare mongering. If we are allowed to die on our own terms, it somehow follows that, "Every mother, father, and sibling will be a qualified accomplice to a killing," as if we will not have the legal apparatus in place to ensure that a person actually wants that kind of help. Or that, "Life-giving options will be available only to the rich," as if there is no financial incentive for physicians to treat more patients rather than fewer. Or that, "Because of this 'burden' on their families, many will sense a duty to die and the 'right' to assisted suicide will become death by coercion," as if there is no such thing as medical coverage. And all of this is presented as a doomsday scenario, as if being forced by a "compassionate" society to lie suffering on a deathbed while your loved ones watch (and suffer) powerlessly is not a doomsday scenario!

As we have seen, Michael Janocik is being dishonest on many levels. He arbitrarily attacks Ayn Rand's arguments for individualism as "arbitrary." He claims that, "Opposition to assisted suicide need not employ religious beliefs," just before asking us to accept his rationale on faith. He portrays a "compassionate" society whose hallmark is that it will do anything for the miserable except let them end their own misery if they wish. And finally, Janocik has a straw man (scare crow?) version of assisted suicide destroying our society. And if I am accusing Janocik of being an intellectual criminal, I would also include what I think is his possible motive. This is the easiest part of all because he lays it out for all of us to see: He wants "society" to be able to prevent you from ending your life with assistance if that's what you want. This directly contradicts the very notion that your life is yours, and yours alone. Janocik is claiming a piece of your life and hoping you won't notice. In fact, he is hoping you will do it for him by accepting his moral premise -- that you do not exist for your own sake -- and then act accordingly.

I lost my father several years ago to a long, degenerative disease. Although I was amazed by the equanimity with which he faced his illness, I was also personally devastated to see him worse and worse every time I visited my parents. The last time I saw him, he was a frail shadow of his former self and was in enough pain to warrant a prescription for morphine. I do not know what Dad would have chosen to do at that point, but if he had wanted to die, I would have understood and at least been able to take solace in the idea that his suffering had come to an end. I do not know what he would have chosen. The law as it is now -- the law that Michael Janocik is such a ghoulish fan of -- made my father's wishes totally irrelevant. I do not know what he would have chosen, but I know that I would like the option of physician-assisted suicide were I in his shoes. Both of my brothers, who are not Objectivists but Christians, also now support the right of a terminally ill patient to end his own life.

What do you have against my father, Mr. Janocik? And what do you have against me? My life belongs to me. It is not yours to turn into a medieval torture chamber. You protest that you are defending my life when you are in fact laying claim to it. Get your filthy hands away from it. And keep them away.

-- CAV

Crossposted to the Egosphere
emailed to RealClear Politics

Welcome Cox and Forkum Readers!

I would like to thank Allen Forkum of the infamous duo of political cartoonists, Cox and Forkum, for linking to one of my posts (Visit them to find out which one.) and for blogrolling me! I greatly admire and enjoy their work. As a still fairly new blogger, I am honored by their notice and appreciate the Cox'n'Forkumlanche I'm currently weathering. (I have already set a new record for hits in a day. Yippee!) I also appreciate the fact they they permit us bloggers to post their cartoons on our own blogs.

Much more importantly, their cartoons do an excellent job of essentializing current events and of translating sometimes complicated analyses into an instantly-graspable visual format. Their work is greatly accelerating the process of introducing rational thought into the political discourse. If my blog grows up one day to be a tenth as effective as their site, I'll count it a success in that respect.

-- CAV

A Few Good Reads

Two of my hobbies conflict this evening: home brewing and blogging! Yes! I finally got a big enough block of time free last Saturday to give home brewing my first stab. As a scientist, I'll have to say that it is with great confusion and trepidation that I read the recipe. Either the requirements for sterilization called for by the recipe are much more lax than I'm in the habit of thinking or this batch has already been infected with bacteria and ruined. Or both. Let's say I saw ample opportunity for unwanted microbes to come in and compete with the good guys -- the brewer's yeast. I'm hoping to be wrong, but I'm not expecting much out of my first batch. I've got lots of new knowledge about brewing and questions for the other members of my home brewing club out of the experience, though. If it's spoiled, I'll call it a "bitter lesson." If it's any good, I can call it "Irish Stout #1."

Since I'm not sure how long this step will take, and my usual post on China may require some extra reading, I'll post the following roundup of interesting news I encountered today.

The Upcoming Self-Emancipation of Black America

The chains of racism are nearly gone. The chains of self-destruction will be next.

Today, via RealClear Politics, I learned of an interesting development on the Harrisburg, PA, city council that has not gone unnoticed by Republicans on the national level: A black city councilman has switched to the Republican party and did so with the support of his colleagues. Harrisburg has an all-black city council.

"There's been a huge ripple" in the Democratic Party as a result of his switch, [Otto] Banks told me [Josh White, the state GOP's communications director --ed]. The reaction has been particularly favorable within his community. "More and more people of color are starting to take a second look at the Republican Party."

Mr. Banks, who now calls himself a "progressive Republican," voted for John Kerry in 2004, but after the campaign "took some time off and really started to do some soul-searching. I realized that many of the ownership and economic opportunity issues I stood behind were actually part of the president's program."

He is, for example, for school choice programs. He likes the idea of workers investing some payroll contributions and building a nest egg they can own and leave to their families.

Most troubling, he said, is how Democrats have treated their party's most loyal constituency. "The Democrats have definitely taken their African-American base for granted," he said. "We have lost our influence in the Democratic Party and by losing that, we have lost our ability to influence policies in our community."

This sounds remarkably like something I said in an earlier post.

With blacks becoming more prosperous, the welfare state agenda of the Democrats not only has less to offer, but the taxes required to support it will drive off some black support. Also, as racism continues dying as a major social force in this country, the debatable perception that Democrats are the only friends of the black man is going to do that party less good if it survives at all. Might blacks soon stop bloc voting and acquire actual power -- the power of unpredictability -- at the polls? As the Asian example above shows, that is possible.

To quote William Raspberry in an interesting, related article (via TIA Daily), "Maybe we haven't laid racism to rest, but we have reached the point where what we do matters more than what is done to us. That's great, good news. Would somebody write a book about it?" This is great news.

And for those who might be curious about the Thomas Sowell book cited by Raspberry -- a book that is clearly going to do a lot of good among the black intelligentsia -- I direct you to this old post.

Why Islam is Disrespected

Here's a bloody good read by Jeff Jacoby (via RealClear Politics). I need do no more to recommend it than to quote from it.

Christians, Jews, and Buddhists don't lash out in homicidal rage when their religion is insulted. They don't call for holy war and riot in the streets. It would be unthinkable for a mainstream priest, rabbi, or lama to demand that a blasphemer be slain. But when Reuters reported what Mohammad Hanif, the imam of a Muslim seminary in Pakistan, said about the alleged Koran-flushers -- ''They should be hung. They should be killed in public so that no one can dare to insult Islam and its sacred symbols" -- was any reader surprised?

The Muslim riots should have been met by outrage and condemnation. From every part of the civilized world should have come denunciations of those who would react to the supposed destruction of a book with brutal threats and the slaughter of 17 innocent people. But the chorus of condemnation was directed not at the killers and the fanatics who incited them, but at Newsweek.

Not that Newsweek is blameless, but going after the whipping boy that the MSM has transmogrified into should not blind us to where the blame really lies.

Some Non-Trivial Historical Trivia

(And a neat web-based resource!)

Take a gander at the lower right hand side of this page (No hat tips to people who leave nasty comments on my blog.) under the heading "Tripoli." The whole thing (the treaty ending our war with the Barbary Pirates) is an interesting read, especially at the end (You will need to flip a page. Click "Next Image."), where its author, none other than John Adams, says the following, in Article 11:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion [my emphasis]; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Musselmen; and as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext, arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

"Musselman?" "Mahometan?" I'm tempted to change my usage for once!

The Bottomless Well

At Capitalism Magazine is a must-read for those who have noticed the recent increase in calls (including from the right, who should know better) for a return to the failed energy policies of the Carter era.

Anyway, why on earth would we want to curb energy consumption? Energy abounds, and the leverage is incredible. It's a tiny proportion of the economy, yet without it, we'd grind to a halt.

Or consider the supply side. How many Americans know that the U.S. is the world's largest energy producer? We rank number 11 in oil reserves, sixth in natural gas and first in coal. In 1979, we were told that the U.S. had only 30 billion barrels of natural gas left in the ground and that we'd run out by the 1990s. Instead, over the past 25 years, we have pumped out 67 billion barrels, and strong reserves remain.

The oil is there. The obstacles to putting it to use are strictly political: restrictions on drilling, on building refineries (the number has dropped by more than half since 1980), and on making the distribution system more efficient. Remove the barriers, and prices will fall.

In addition to having more reserves than it seems, we are less dependent on Arab oil than one might think. One thing I'd add on the subject of oil: We can shift to oil shale once the wells run dry -- if they ever do. (Oil may not be a "fossil fuel" after all. Note, however, that this is a controversial theory, just like global warming.)

-- CAV

PS: See the interesting comment by Adrian Hester on the Treaty of Tripoli.

Updates

5-20-05: Added PS and fixed a typo.