Around the Web on 11-28-05

Ugh. Even a short blogging hiatus can throw you off your rhythm. Today, I'll spit out a quick roundup of news that caught my eye as I was doing some catching up.

Krauthammer and EU on Torture

The torture debate continues like a slow, steady succession of drops landing upon the forehead of the body politic. This Charles Krauthammer column, while offered as a rebuttal to McCain's Newsweek argument, actually shows why.

A rational moral calculus might not permit measures as extreme as the nuke-in-Manhattan scenario, but would surely permit measures beyond mere psychological pressure.

Such a determination would not be made with an untroubled conscience. It would be troubled because there is no denying the monstrous evil that is any form of torture [italics added]. And there is no denying how corrupting it can be to the individuals and society that practice it. But elected leaders, responsible above all for the protection of their citizens, have the obligation to tolerate their own sleepless nights by doing what is necessary--and only what is necessary, nothing more--to get information that could prevent mass murder.

In an otherwise fairly good article (which also errs, like one by Sowell, in failing to note that there are valid, non-intelligence applications for torture), Krauthammer is done in by the fundamental flaw in his moral premises: intrinsicism. Nothing, even including torture, is inherently evil. (And an act can be judged as good or evil only when its impact on whether one lives or dies is considered.) While I would agree that having to torture someone is likely to have negative psychological effects, I vehemently disagree that torturing someone to stop the mass murder in this example is "evil". It would be very good, but probably also very psychologically hard to do -- just like fighting in the front lines of a defensive war.

Ironically, Krauthammer started off by parroting the very words needed to resolve this dilemma: "[a] rational moral calculus". Only when a life proper to man is the standard by which one judges one's actions can a legitimate context for the performance of normally immoral acts be fully comprehended.

Intrinsicism explains why some would ban torture altogether in the name of decency (sacrificing life to morality in the process), while some would permit the "evil" of torture in the name of saving lives (sacrificing morality to life). But with the aid of a rational moral calculus, it is possible to resolve this dilemma because only such a moral code establishes the necessity of morality for life.

And speaking of sacrificing life to irational codes of morality, the European Union, already wobbly on our next enemy, Iran, is getting ready to withdraw what little help some of its member states are providing against our current foes.

EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini warned Monday any EU nation found to have operated secret CIA prisons could have their EU voting rights suspended.

"I would be obliged to propose to the Council (of EU Ministers) serious consequences, including the suspension of voting rights in the Council," Frattini said at a counter-terrorism conference.

Campaign Finance 'Reform' Continues to Metastasize

This article by George Will is a wake-up call.

The grip was recently extended to talk radio in Washington state. A judge ruled that two Seattle talk-radio hosts who advocated repeal of a gas-tax increase must compute the cash value of their speech as a "campaign contribution," subject to regulation. Fortunately for the hosts, the speech did not occur in the last three weeks of the campaign, when speech valued at more than $5,000 is a crime.

In California, "progressive" thinking has progressed to the conclusion that because money in politics is bad, political competition is, too. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger advocated, unsuccessfully, having retired judges draw legislative districts in order to reduce gerrymandering and produce more competitive races. A group opposed to that argued that if districts were more competitive, "politicians would be forced to spend more money and become more dependent on special-interest money." [bold added]

But liberals' abhorrence of political money is selective. Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, recently reported that when Democratic senators met in a Capitol room near the Senate floor to plan strategy, their leader, Harry Reid, permitted Stephen Bing to attend. In 2004, Bing, 40, gave more than $14 million of his inherited wealth to Democratic candidates and liberal groups supporting them.

Was there any appearance of impropriety--say, cash purchasing access? Gosh, no, said Democrats to Roll Call: "Reid's aides and other Senate Democrats said there is nothing wrong with such a big donor attending meetings otherwise open to only senators and a few top aides, because Bing is not a lobbyist and is not seeking any favors from Democrats." Sen. Barbara Boxer explained that Bing is "just really interested in making this country better." ...

And speaking of torture and campaign finance "reform"...

More Rumblings of McCain in 2008

This article explains why McCain might emerge as the Republican challenger to Hillary Clinton for the Presidency in 2008. Incidentally, this would be for the same reason that the Republicans will probably lose in 2008 unless things change before then.

A former aide to the senator, Marshall Wittmann, ... said he believes the stars are aligning for a McCain candidacy.

...

Observers inside and outside the Republican Party have said that the party has fallen into disarray in recent months after a strong showing in last year's elections. Despite comfortable majorities in both houses of Congress, party leaders have faced problems passing basic budget legislation. Even Republican stalwarts conceded that the GOP's showing in state elections this year was poor. And President Bush's approval ratings are at an all-time low, due in large part to worries about Iraq.

"The party is in a crisis at the moment," Mr. Wittmann said. "I think the party is increasingly looking for a leader who has popularity and can broaden the party."

...

Polls show he may be the only GOP candidate who could defeat Senator Clinton if she is the Democratic nominee in 2008.

Could defeat Clinton? Pusuant to a recent posting here, I would guess that this assessment might reflect a closeness in the polls due to the fact McCain's positions are, in many cases, indistinguishable from Clinton's. Such races are often very close.

Unless the Republicans want, at best, a President both wings of the party have problems with and, at worst, Hillary Clinton (and I'm not sure I'm using these superlatives in the correct order here), they need to do some soul-searching.

How did they defeat the Dems so soundly in the last election? Because the public saw a substantial difference between Bush and Kerry on the main issue of the election: the war. How did they begin losing this strong support? When they started squandering their "political capital" fighting to pass elements of the unpopular agenda of the religious right, most notably during the Terri Schiavo debacle, while muddling through the war rather than prosecuting it ruthlessly and unapologetically. In the meantime, Hillary Clinton manages, in this atmosphere of chaos, to look almost as good as any Republican -- and with their help besides!

Until the Republicans stop running as hawkish fiscal conservatives -- but governing like indifferent religious conservatives -- (i.e., until they exorcise the religious right) they will continue to collapse at their moment of triumph.

The Paradox of the Left

This article suggests one thing I completely agree with, taken out of its context. It suggests that analogously to the liberal tome called What's the Matter with Kansas?, "the left desperately needs ... a book ... titled What's the Matter with Manhattan?"

Unfortunately, if you hope for an article which, from the left, finally urges liberals to challenge their basic premises, you will be sadly disappointed.

But at least you won't be completely unhappy with what you will get, instead: a report on the continuing meltdown of the Democratic Party. The article discusses efforts by the mayor of Los Angeles to "reform" (rather than privatize) that city's public educational system.

[T]he decision of Villaraigosa -- a Democrat with impeccable progressive credentials -- to take on the United Teachers Los Angeles and their allies on the Los Angeles school board could finally open the eyes of liberals to the paradox of their alliance with the most reactionary force in American life: the teachers unions who desperately defend the discredited education status quo.

The potential dissolution of yet another Democratic alliance will not cause lasting reform in and of itself, but if one thinks of it as akin to the kind of destabilization our nation has caused recently in the Middle East, once sees that we have, at least, a situation more amenable to change than it was before.

Liberal "Talk Radio"

Over Thanksgiving, my wife's uncle, a liberal Northeasterner, was attempting to teach one of his sons not to talk about any one topic too much by saying, "No more talk radio!" when the son began to perseverate. He explained that in talk radio, "They just keep talking about the same thing over and over again."

One reason that might be is because the liberals keep "talking about the same thing over and over again", as one does in an article I found today that evaded every failure of socialized medicine over the past century, offered no arguments in its favor, and merely, in this vacuum, discussed the "best" way to enslave the medical profession.

The best first step would be public, universal coverage for everyone under age 25, a group relatively cheap to insure. That would be a big political step toward true national health insurance, because it would accustom working-age Americans to the value of a universal system. And if it works for our kids and our parents, why not for everyone?

Well, I've already addressed this before, so I'll merely reiterate the following.

If I sound repetitive here, it's because the socialist left keeps trying to do the same thing with a new spin every few years. So writing against such efforts ends up being fairly easy: Figure out a way to explain why the new spin makes no difference and then point out the fallacies behind the socialist position. (These do not change.)

It's a bit like counterarguing someone who pops up every few years trying to convince everyone else that the sun rises in the West. One year, he'll say that it's an illusion that it rises in the East. Another year, he'll insist that what we're calling "East" is really "West". And then he'll try to tell us that what we think of as "setting" is really "rising". Of course he's wrong every single time, and I end up repeating myself.

Whose fault is that, really?

Relativism Paves the Way for Religion, Part 536

This article is by an academic who bemoans the "academic diversity" movement because it includes such claptrap as Creationism.

As attractive as these principles seem to be -- diversity, choice, alternatives -- what do they actually mean in the classroom? Must an astronomer teach astrology? The course on early Christianity include militant atheists? A class on the Holocaust, the Holocaust deniers? A lecture on 9/11, the conspiracy theorists? These "other viewpoints" all have a bevy of experts behind them. The few qualifiers tossed into the proposed Academic Bill of Rights, which specify that diverse views be aired only "where appropriate," do not undo the damage.

Once again, the religious right adopts the abuses of the left when it suits its agenda.

"Pay no attention to the (rational) man behind the curtain!"

As with terrorism, another (grossly perceptual) means by which some Moslems pretend that their culture is superior to that of the West is revealed to depend upon the (profoundly conceptual) achievements of the West.

Muslims tend to see architecture as an expression of dominance. ... [I]t was no coincidence that the WTC Twin Towers were attacked, and when destroyed, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur became the undisputed tallest inhabitestructureses int he world. The Pertamina Towers[, also in mostly Moslem Malaysia,] incorporate Islamic design themes.

Yes. Moslems see skyscrapers -- a uniquely Western achievement -- built in Moslem lands as symbolic of the cultural dominance of Islam. I've heard of stealing credit for the accomplishments of others, but this sort of cultural grand larceny is ridiculous!

-- CAV