The insanity over the cartoon drawings of the prophet Muhammad, originally published in a Danish newspaper, show no sign of abating though god-only-knows how many words have been so far spent debating the issue. A few points to make my viewpoint clear:
To say, as has been repeated ad nauseum since this controversy began, that freedom of speech is not the freedom to offend or insult is completely, totally and maddeningly wrong. It gets things, in fact, completely backwards. Freedom of speech does not exist without the freedom to insult and offend. It seems almost too obvious to have to point out, but to tolerate only those opinions and expressions that you agree with is to make the right to freedom of speech completely meaningless. There is, and there should not be, any right to not be offended in a democratic country. Yes, there are restrictions on the right to free speech in many free countries (in my own, Canada, it is "subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society"), but hardly can this case be an example of a justifiable restriction. Holocaust denial and blatant anti-Semitism are the most common examples of limitations on free speech, but the difference between those cases and the publication of these cartoons should be obvious enough even though I am admitedly not even completely comfortable with those justifications. In the case of anti-Semitic (meaning, of course, anti-Jewish, though somewhat of a misnomer since Arabs are as semitic as Jews) or other rascist material, the offence is not directed at the beliefs of someone, but rather at their unchangeable identity.
It must be remembered that for Hitler and the Nazis (and those who continue to propagate views similar to theirs to this day), "Jewishness" had nothing to do with believing in Judaism, but was a racial signifier that could not be escaped by simply converting to Christianity. To even have a sole jewish grandparent meant one was "tainted" and was considered enough justification to end up in the gas chambers, though this managed to be avoided by many of those with mixed ancestry. To be a Muslim, however, is not an unchangeable identity (even though according to the Koran, and many Muslims today, the punishment for apostasy from Islam is death), but a religious set of beliefs that deserves no special respect as compared to any other set of beliefs. To back down in the face of the violent intimidation that has so far been propagated is to give up on this such important right.
Here is Charles Krauthammer's take with which I couldn't agree more:
As much of the Islamic world erupts in a studied frenzy over the Danish Muhammad cartoons, there are voices of reason being heard on both sides. Some Islamic leaders and organizations, while endorsing the demonstrators' sense of grievance and sharing their outrage, speak out against using violence as a vehicle of expression. Their Western counterparts -- intellectuals, including most of the major newspapers in the United States -- are similarly balanced: While, of course, endorsing the principle of free expression, they criticize the Danish newspaper for abusing that right by publishing offensive cartoons, and they declare themselves opposed, in the name of religious sensitivity, to doing the same.
God save us from the voices of reason.
What passes for moderation in the Islamic community -- "I share your rage but don't torch that embassy" -- is nothing of the sort. It is simply a cynical way to endorse the goals of the mob without endorsing its means. It is fraudulent because, while pretending to uphold the principle of religious sensitivity, it is interested only in this instance of religious insensitivity.
Have any of these "moderates" ever protested the grotesque caricatures of Christians and, most especially, Jews that are broadcast throughout the Middle East on a daily basis? The sermons on Palestinian TV that refer to Jews as the sons of pigs and monkeys? The Syrian prime-time TV series that shows rabbis slaughtering a gentile boy to ritually consume his blood? The 41-part (!) series on Egyptian TV based on that anti-Semitic czarist forgery (and inspiration of the Nazis), "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," showing the Jews to be engaged in a century-old conspiracy to control the world?
...
There is a "sensitivity" argument for not having published the cartoons in the first place, back in September when they first appeared in that Danish newspaper. But it is not September. It is February. The cartoons have been published, and the newspaper, the publishers and Denmark itself have come under savage attack. After multiple arsons, devastating boycotts, and threats to cut off hands and heads, the issue is no longer news value, i.e., whether a newspaper needs to publish them to inform the audience about what is going on. The issue now is solidarity.
The mob is trying to dictate to Western newspapers, indeed Western governments, what is a legitimate subject for discussion and caricature. The cartoons do not begin to approach the artistic level of Salman Rushdie's prose, but that's not the point. The point is who decides what can be said and what can be drawn within the precincts of what we quaintly think of as the free world.
The mob has turned this into a test case for freedom of speech in the West. The German, French and Italian newspapers that republished these cartoons did so not to inform but to defy -- to declare that they will not be intimidated by the mob.
Read the whole thing at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/09/AR2006020901434.html
Monday, February 13, 2006
Thursday, February 09, 2006
And they expect us to believe them?
So what must surely be some of the dumbest words to ever come out of an Attorney General of the United-States were in fact uttered this last Monday. The present holder of that position, Alberto Gonzales, was testifying before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Commitee concerning the Bush Administration's use of the NSA (National Secutriy Agency) domestically to spy on Americans electronic communication without a warrant. This despite the explicit criminalizing of such activity by a 1978 law, entitled the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act, that established a secret court to review, and give warrants for, any such activity. FISA, as it is commonly known, was enacted in response to revelations of judicially unchecked government wiretapping of citizens during the Nixon Administration. The rules by which authorities could get a warrant for a wiretap were made easier in the PATRIOT Act passed after 9/11, but any electronic surveillance still required approval by the court.
Though the Bush Administration has repeatedly endorsed the changes made to FISA since 2001 and never challenged the law's constitutionality till they were caught breaking it, it now claims that they are not legally required to even follow the law because of the "War on Terror" going on - Bush's inherent executive authority supposedly overriding Congressional statute. This is a completely specious argument as anyone with even the slightest knowledge of the philosophy behind the U.S. Constitution should know; this being, the division of powers between the three branches of government - Executive, Judicial and Legislative. For any of these branches to claim exclusive authority concerning the rights of American citizens is obviously unconstitutional.
Yet Gonzales was on Capitol Hill to defend what is completely undefensible and is undoubtedly, in my mind, and impeachable offence. The following remark was the stupidest thing he said, but the everything was said was shameful for someone who is supposed to be the USA's highest law enforcement official. His slavish obediance is in sharp contrast to the actions of Elliot Richardson who as Attorney General in 1973 was ordered by Nixon to fire Archibald Cox, the Special Prosecutor appointed by Richardson who was investigating the 1972 Watergate burglary. Richardson resigned rather than obey orders that went against his understanding of law and justice, and his promise to Congress to not interfere with Cox's investigation. This kind of courage is sadly in short supply in Washington D.C. today, but must be found if Bush's abuses of power are to be stopped and the USA's democracy to be preserved.
Key Gonzales quote (via Crooks and Liars): President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale.
The mind staggers at the stupidity...
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/02/06.html#a7043
Though the Bush Administration has repeatedly endorsed the changes made to FISA since 2001 and never challenged the law's constitutionality till they were caught breaking it, it now claims that they are not legally required to even follow the law because of the "War on Terror" going on - Bush's inherent executive authority supposedly overriding Congressional statute. This is a completely specious argument as anyone with even the slightest knowledge of the philosophy behind the U.S. Constitution should know; this being, the division of powers between the three branches of government - Executive, Judicial and Legislative. For any of these branches to claim exclusive authority concerning the rights of American citizens is obviously unconstitutional.
Yet Gonzales was on Capitol Hill to defend what is completely undefensible and is undoubtedly, in my mind, and impeachable offence. The following remark was the stupidest thing he said, but the everything was said was shameful for someone who is supposed to be the USA's highest law enforcement official. His slavish obediance is in sharp contrast to the actions of Elliot Richardson who as Attorney General in 1973 was ordered by Nixon to fire Archibald Cox, the Special Prosecutor appointed by Richardson who was investigating the 1972 Watergate burglary. Richardson resigned rather than obey orders that went against his understanding of law and justice, and his promise to Congress to not interfere with Cox's investigation. This kind of courage is sadly in short supply in Washington D.C. today, but must be found if Bush's abuses of power are to be stopped and the USA's democracy to be preserved.
Key Gonzales quote (via Crooks and Liars): President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale.
The mind staggers at the stupidity...
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/02/06.html#a7043
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
The perniciousness of paranoia
The tendency of so many to view the problems of the world in all their complexity as the evil machinations of a "them" in sharp contrast to an eminently virtuous "us" itself explains a great deal of what is now wrong in the world today. For the Nazis it was the Aryans vs the Jews; for communists, the Proletariat vs the Bourgeoisies; for David Icke and his eco-fascists (google his name if you're at all curious), humans vs shape-shifting part-human, part-lizard are instead the dichotomy. In the Islamic world of today, a similar tendency has become increasingly evident and in an article I just read today, though it was originally posted back in 2004, Nick Cohen describes this sad situation very well.
EVER SINCE 11 September 2001 reasonable people in liberal democracies have concluded that their enemies must at some level be reasonable, too. Surely such hatred must have been provoked by the west. Surely the solution must be for western governments to stop being provocative. Their rational opponents would then have no reason to commit homicidal attacks, and we would be safe. Unfortunately the belief in a rational motive is an illusion. To sustain the rationalist fallacy, you must ignore vast amounts of evidence. In the Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan and Algeria, millions have died in Islamist wars and massacres that make Srebrenica and the World Trade Center appear paltry affairs. Islamist movements dedicated to persecuting Muslims who believe in the separation of church and state or the emancipation of women are not rational on any terms but their own. This seems a simple point to make. If you pay al-Qaeda and its imitators the compliment of reading what their leaders say, you find a cosmic dream of an Islamic empire dominating the world.
But the point is rarely taken, in part because Afghanistan and the Sudan are faraway countries of which we know little. How many people, for instance, have heard of the slaughter of the “heretical” Shia Muslims in central Afghanistan by al-Qaeda and the Taliban, let alone asked themselves what foul ideology drove them to do it? Yet there is a link closer to home which ties Islamism to the mass irrationalist movements of the west. You can hear it like a faint drumbeat, a background noise behind the bombings and the propaganda that alerts the listener to Europe’s baleful history. On 9 March, to take the most recent example, two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a restaurant in Istanbul. If their victims had been British, American or Jewish, right-thinking people would have said that the overthrow of the Taliban or the invasion of Iraq or the humiliation of the Palestinians was the “root cause” of the murders. As it was, the dead were members of a party of diners from a Masonic lodge, and the story died as quickly as they did.
In November 2003, 32 people were killed and more than 400 injured when the British consulate in Istanbul and the (British) HSBC bank were attacked. Every right-thinking person agreed that the suicidal assaults were a punishment for the war on Iraq, and no one dwelt on the oddity of the statement given by the caller who claimed responsibility on behalf of a Turkish Islamist group and al-Qaeda. “We will continue to attack Masonic targets,” he said. “The Muslims are not alone.”
Type “Masons” and “Islam” into Google and you get about 14,000 hits. The Masons, you learn, hide subliminal messages in The Simpsons as well as the music of the Eagles, Michael Jackson and Madonna, the better to brainwash the world. (Should you be inclined to play “Hotel California” backwards, you will hear “yeah Satan”, apparently.) Abu Hamza, who extolled the glories of martyrdom from the Finsbury Park mosque in London, told the Independent: “I am not saying every American government figure knew about [11 September 2001]. But there are a few people [in the US government] who want to trigger a third world war. They are sponsored by the business lobby. Most of them are Freemasons, and they have loyalty to the Zionists.”
...
To British eyes this is all howling mad. Every now and again, journalists receive unprovable accusations that the Masons have tied up a plum job or fixed a planning decision, but on the whole British Freemasonry has become a Pythonesque joke - “the mafia of the mediocre”, as a character in Our Friends in the North exclaimed. Men who roll up their trouser legs and exchange silly handshakes are many things, but a conspiracy for world domination they are not. That tyrants and religious fanatics see them as such is revealing. It shows that the paranoias of fascist Europe have spread to many of the third world’s reactionary movements.
...
The rest can be found at http://www.nickcohen.net/?p=71
EVER SINCE 11 September 2001 reasonable people in liberal democracies have concluded that their enemies must at some level be reasonable, too. Surely such hatred must have been provoked by the west. Surely the solution must be for western governments to stop being provocative. Their rational opponents would then have no reason to commit homicidal attacks, and we would be safe. Unfortunately the belief in a rational motive is an illusion. To sustain the rationalist fallacy, you must ignore vast amounts of evidence. In the Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan and Algeria, millions have died in Islamist wars and massacres that make Srebrenica and the World Trade Center appear paltry affairs. Islamist movements dedicated to persecuting Muslims who believe in the separation of church and state or the emancipation of women are not rational on any terms but their own. This seems a simple point to make. If you pay al-Qaeda and its imitators the compliment of reading what their leaders say, you find a cosmic dream of an Islamic empire dominating the world.
But the point is rarely taken, in part because Afghanistan and the Sudan are faraway countries of which we know little. How many people, for instance, have heard of the slaughter of the “heretical” Shia Muslims in central Afghanistan by al-Qaeda and the Taliban, let alone asked themselves what foul ideology drove them to do it? Yet there is a link closer to home which ties Islamism to the mass irrationalist movements of the west. You can hear it like a faint drumbeat, a background noise behind the bombings and the propaganda that alerts the listener to Europe’s baleful history. On 9 March, to take the most recent example, two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a restaurant in Istanbul. If their victims had been British, American or Jewish, right-thinking people would have said that the overthrow of the Taliban or the invasion of Iraq or the humiliation of the Palestinians was the “root cause” of the murders. As it was, the dead were members of a party of diners from a Masonic lodge, and the story died as quickly as they did.
In November 2003, 32 people were killed and more than 400 injured when the British consulate in Istanbul and the (British) HSBC bank were attacked. Every right-thinking person agreed that the suicidal assaults were a punishment for the war on Iraq, and no one dwelt on the oddity of the statement given by the caller who claimed responsibility on behalf of a Turkish Islamist group and al-Qaeda. “We will continue to attack Masonic targets,” he said. “The Muslims are not alone.”
Type “Masons” and “Islam” into Google and you get about 14,000 hits. The Masons, you learn, hide subliminal messages in The Simpsons as well as the music of the Eagles, Michael Jackson and Madonna, the better to brainwash the world. (Should you be inclined to play “Hotel California” backwards, you will hear “yeah Satan”, apparently.) Abu Hamza, who extolled the glories of martyrdom from the Finsbury Park mosque in London, told the Independent: “I am not saying every American government figure knew about [11 September 2001]. But there are a few people [in the US government] who want to trigger a third world war. They are sponsored by the business lobby. Most of them are Freemasons, and they have loyalty to the Zionists.”
...
To British eyes this is all howling mad. Every now and again, journalists receive unprovable accusations that the Masons have tied up a plum job or fixed a planning decision, but on the whole British Freemasonry has become a Pythonesque joke - “the mafia of the mediocre”, as a character in Our Friends in the North exclaimed. Men who roll up their trouser legs and exchange silly handshakes are many things, but a conspiracy for world domination they are not. That tyrants and religious fanatics see them as such is revealing. It shows that the paranoias of fascist Europe have spread to many of the third world’s reactionary movements.
...
The rest can be found at http://www.nickcohen.net/?p=71
Monday, February 06, 2006
Worthy of a read
Not much to say today. My thoughts of late have been mostly focused on the insanity going on on account of the drawings of Muhammad that originally appeared in a Danish newspaper but have since been re-printed elsewhere. Apparently two people died in Afghanistan during anti-Denmark and Europe protests today and in the last two days the embassies of Denmark in Damascus and Beirut, as well as the Norwegian embassy in Damascus, have been burned in protest. All this over 12 cartoons. It boggles the mind. I don't agree with Noam Chomsky about much, but he did once say quite truthfully (to paraphrase) that you don't believe in freedom of speech if you don't tolerate things that you personally despise. What is it about the Muslim world today that can go to such extremes over so little is a question to wonder. Perhaps more thoughts later, but in the meantime here's a couple of exerpts and links to the entireties concerning this issue. First from one of my favourite writers, Mark Steyn.
Last year, a newspaper called Jyllands-Posten published several cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed, whose physical representation in art is forbidden by Islam. The cartoons aren't particularly good and they were intended to be provocative. But they had a serious point. Before coming to that, we should note that in the Western world "artists" "provoke" with the same numbing regularity as young Muslim men light up other countries' flags. When Tony-winning author Terence McNally writes a Broadway play in which Jesus has gay sex with Judas, the New York Times and Co. rush to garland him with praise for how "brave" and "challenging" he is. The rule for "brave" "transgressive" "artists" is a simple one: If you're going to be provocative, it's best to do it with people who can't be provoked.
Thus, NBC is celebrating Easter this year with a special edition of the gay sitcom "Will & Grace," in which a Christian conservative cooking-show host, played by the popular singing slattern Britney Spears, offers seasonal recipes -- "Cruci-fixin's." On the other hand, the same network, in its coverage of the global riots over the Danish cartoons, has declined to show any of the offending artwork out of "respect" for the Muslim faith.
Which means out of respect for their ability to locate the executive vice president's home in the suburbs and firebomb his garage.
Jyllands-Posten wasn't being offensive for the sake of it. They had a serious point -- or, at any rate, a more serious one than Britney Spears or Terence McNally. The cartoons accompanied a piece about the dangers of "self-censorship" -- i.e., a climate in which there's no explicit law forbidding you from addressing the more, er, lively aspects of Islam but nonetheless everyone feels it's better not to.
That's the question the Danish newspaper was testing: the weakness of free societies in the face of intimidation by militant Islam.
One day, years from now, as archaeologists sift through the ruins of an ancient civilization for clues to its downfall, they'll marvel at how easy it all was. You don't need to fly jets into skyscrapers and kill thousands of people. As a matter of fact, that's a bad strategy, because even the wimpiest state will feel obliged to respond. But if you frame the issue in terms of multicultural "sensitivity," the wimp state will bend over backward to give you everything you want -- including, eventually, the keys to those skyscrapers. Thus, Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, hailed the "sensitivity" of Fleet Street in not reprinting the offending cartoons.
No doubt he's similarly impressed by the "sensitivity" of Anne Owers, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, for prohibiting the flying of the English national flag in English prisons on the grounds that it shows the cross of St. George, which was used by the Crusaders and thus is offensive to Muslims. And no doubt he's impressed by the "sensitivity" of Burger King, which withdrew its ice cream cones from its British menus because Rashad Akhtar of High Wycombe complained that the creamy swirl shown on the lid looked like the word "Allah" in Arabic script. I don't know which sura in the Koran says don't forget, folks, it's not just physical representations of God or the Prophet but also chocolate ice cream squiggly representations of the name, but ixnay on both just to be "sensitive."
And doubtless the British foreign secretary also appreciates the "sensitivity" of the owner of France-Soir, who fired his editor for republishing the Danish cartoons. And the "sensitivity" of the Dutch film director Albert Ter Heerdt, who canceled the sequel to his hit multicultural comedy ''Shouf Shouf Habibi!'' on the grounds that "I don't want a knife in my chest" -- which is what happened to the last Dutch film director to make a movie about Islam: Theo van Gogh, on whose ''right to dissent'' all those Hollywood blowhards are strangely silent. Perhaps they're just being "sensitive,'' too.
And perhaps the British foreign secretary also admires the "sensitivity" of those Dutch public figures who once spoke out against the intimidatory aspects of Islam and have now opted for diplomatic silence and life under 24-hour armed guard. And maybe he even admires the "sensitivity" of the increasing numbers of Dutch people who dislike the pervasive fear and tension in certain parts of the Netherlands and so have emigrated to Canada and New Zealand.
Very few societies are genuinely multicultural. Most are bicultural: On the one hand, there are folks who are black, white, gay, straight, pre-op transsexual, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, worshippers of global-warming doom-mongers, and they rub along as best they can. And on the other hand are folks who do not accept the give-and-take, the rough-and-tumble of a "diverse" "tolerant" society, and, when one gently raises the matter of their intolerance, they threaten to kill you, which makes the question somewhat moot.
Read it all at http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn05.html
Next is a much deserved "fisking" of this literary forms anti-patron saint; Robert Fisk's own recent column about this controversy. No surprise he thinks it's all the West's fault. Scott Burgess at The Daily Ablution disagrees and with him I couldn't agree more.
"So let's start off with the Department of Home Truths. This is not an issue of secularism versus Islam."
An interesting hypothesis - one which, having stated, Mr. Fisk proceeds to immediately
disprove:
"For Muslims, the Prophet is the man who received divine words directly from God. We see our prophets as faintly historical figures, at odds with our high-tech human rights, almost caricatures of themselves. The fact is that Muslims live their religion. We do not. They have kept their faith through innumerable historical vicissitudes. We have lost our faith ever since Matthew Arnold wrote about the sea's 'long, withdrawing roar'. That's why we talk about 'the West versus Islam' rather than 'Christians versus Islam'- because there aren't an awful lot of Christians left in Europe."
So let me get this straight. "This is not an issue of secularism versus Islam" - the reason being that Europeans are secular and Muslims are not. "That's why we talk about 'the West versus Islam' rather than 'Christians versus Islam'". He's really not doing his point any favours here, is he?
In the next paragraph, Mr. Fisk sinks his dentures into the meaty flesh of Western hypocrisy. We, not the innocent Muslim faithful, are the wrongdoers in all of this:
"Besides, we can exercise our own hypocrisy over religious feelings. I happen to remember how, more than a decade ago, a film called The Last Temptation of Christ showed Jesus making love to a woman. In Paris, someone set fire to the cinema showing the movie, killing a young man. I also happen to remember a US university which invited me to give a lecture three years ago. I did. It was entitled 'September 11, 2001: ask who did it but, for God's sake, don't ask why'. When I arrived, I found that the university had deleted the phrase 'for God's sake' becuase 'we didn't want to offend certain sensibilities'. Ah-ha, so we have 'sensibilities' too.
"In other words, while we claim that Muslims must be good secularlists when it comes to free speech - or cheap cartoons - we can worry about adherents to our own precious religion just as much."
Verily, the mind boggles. Is Mr. Fisk really equating the best examples of excessive Christian sensitivity that he can come up with - the action of a single nutcase over a decade ago, and the inconsequential censorship of a university jobsworth three years ago - with the threats, violence and worldwide "Days of Anger" we've been seeing over the last few days?
"We can worry ... just as much" about Christians? On a day when the streets are full of fanatics chanting "UK you must pray ... 7/7 on its way"? It's rare for words to fail me, but this is such a time.
[Continued]...
"For many Muslims, the 'Islamic' reaction to the affair is an embarrassment. There is good reason to believe that Muslims would like to see some elements of reform introduced into their religion. If this cartoon had advanced the cause of those who want to debate this issue, no-one would have minded."
Once again, the obtuseness is simply breathtaking. Mr. Fisk is seriously stating that "no-one would have minded" if the cartoons had advanced the cause of reform-minded Muslims. It is, however, quite obvious that many Muslims would have minded - specifically, those who do not want to see reform debated or pushed forward. Those individuals would still have done all in their power to stir up fundamentalist anger, just as they're doing now. And guess what? They're the dangerous ones.
Continuing:
"This is not a great time to heat up the old Samuel Huntingdon garbage about a 'clash of civilisations'. Iran now has a clerical government again. So, to all intents and purposes, does Iraq (which was not supposed to end up with a democratically elected clerical administration, but that's what happens when you topple dictators). In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood won 20 per cent of the seats in the recent parliamentary elections. Now we have Hamas in charge of 'Palestine'. There's a message here, isn't there?"
Why yes, there is. The message is that the Muslim world is turning increasingly to theocracy, with all of its strictures on speech and action, medieval punishments and the like. Meanwhile, as Mr. Fisk himself points out, free Europe has become increasingly secular (except for the burgeoning Muslim communities in its midst). As all but the willfully blind can now see, this is precisely the clash that Mr. Fisk denies so stubbornly, and so ineffectually.
And why is the Ummah turning to theocracy to the extent that it is? Come on, you know the answer to that - as always, it's our fault:
"[The message is] That American policies - 'regime change' in the Middle East - are not achieving their ends. These millions of voters were preferring Islam to the corrupt regimes we imposed on them."
Remind me - which "corrupt regime" did we impose on Iraq? On Palestine? Have we "imposed" Mubarak, or the Iranian government just prior to this new clerical one?
The whole thing can be found at http://dailyablution.blogs.com/the_daily_ablution/2006/02/fisk_in_a_barre.html
Last year, a newspaper called Jyllands-Posten published several cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed, whose physical representation in art is forbidden by Islam. The cartoons aren't particularly good and they were intended to be provocative. But they had a serious point. Before coming to that, we should note that in the Western world "artists" "provoke" with the same numbing regularity as young Muslim men light up other countries' flags. When Tony-winning author Terence McNally writes a Broadway play in which Jesus has gay sex with Judas, the New York Times and Co. rush to garland him with praise for how "brave" and "challenging" he is. The rule for "brave" "transgressive" "artists" is a simple one: If you're going to be provocative, it's best to do it with people who can't be provoked.
Thus, NBC is celebrating Easter this year with a special edition of the gay sitcom "Will & Grace," in which a Christian conservative cooking-show host, played by the popular singing slattern Britney Spears, offers seasonal recipes -- "Cruci-fixin's." On the other hand, the same network, in its coverage of the global riots over the Danish cartoons, has declined to show any of the offending artwork out of "respect" for the Muslim faith.
Which means out of respect for their ability to locate the executive vice president's home in the suburbs and firebomb his garage.
Jyllands-Posten wasn't being offensive for the sake of it. They had a serious point -- or, at any rate, a more serious one than Britney Spears or Terence McNally. The cartoons accompanied a piece about the dangers of "self-censorship" -- i.e., a climate in which there's no explicit law forbidding you from addressing the more, er, lively aspects of Islam but nonetheless everyone feels it's better not to.
That's the question the Danish newspaper was testing: the weakness of free societies in the face of intimidation by militant Islam.
One day, years from now, as archaeologists sift through the ruins of an ancient civilization for clues to its downfall, they'll marvel at how easy it all was. You don't need to fly jets into skyscrapers and kill thousands of people. As a matter of fact, that's a bad strategy, because even the wimpiest state will feel obliged to respond. But if you frame the issue in terms of multicultural "sensitivity," the wimp state will bend over backward to give you everything you want -- including, eventually, the keys to those skyscrapers. Thus, Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, hailed the "sensitivity" of Fleet Street in not reprinting the offending cartoons.
No doubt he's similarly impressed by the "sensitivity" of Anne Owers, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, for prohibiting the flying of the English national flag in English prisons on the grounds that it shows the cross of St. George, which was used by the Crusaders and thus is offensive to Muslims. And no doubt he's impressed by the "sensitivity" of Burger King, which withdrew its ice cream cones from its British menus because Rashad Akhtar of High Wycombe complained that the creamy swirl shown on the lid looked like the word "Allah" in Arabic script. I don't know which sura in the Koran says don't forget, folks, it's not just physical representations of God or the Prophet but also chocolate ice cream squiggly representations of the name, but ixnay on both just to be "sensitive."
And doubtless the British foreign secretary also appreciates the "sensitivity" of the owner of France-Soir, who fired his editor for republishing the Danish cartoons. And the "sensitivity" of the Dutch film director Albert Ter Heerdt, who canceled the sequel to his hit multicultural comedy ''Shouf Shouf Habibi!'' on the grounds that "I don't want a knife in my chest" -- which is what happened to the last Dutch film director to make a movie about Islam: Theo van Gogh, on whose ''right to dissent'' all those Hollywood blowhards are strangely silent. Perhaps they're just being "sensitive,'' too.
And perhaps the British foreign secretary also admires the "sensitivity" of those Dutch public figures who once spoke out against the intimidatory aspects of Islam and have now opted for diplomatic silence and life under 24-hour armed guard. And maybe he even admires the "sensitivity" of the increasing numbers of Dutch people who dislike the pervasive fear and tension in certain parts of the Netherlands and so have emigrated to Canada and New Zealand.
Very few societies are genuinely multicultural. Most are bicultural: On the one hand, there are folks who are black, white, gay, straight, pre-op transsexual, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, worshippers of global-warming doom-mongers, and they rub along as best they can. And on the other hand are folks who do not accept the give-and-take, the rough-and-tumble of a "diverse" "tolerant" society, and, when one gently raises the matter of their intolerance, they threaten to kill you, which makes the question somewhat moot.
Read it all at http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn05.html
Next is a much deserved "fisking" of this literary forms anti-patron saint; Robert Fisk's own recent column about this controversy. No surprise he thinks it's all the West's fault. Scott Burgess at The Daily Ablution disagrees and with him I couldn't agree more.
"So let's start off with the Department of Home Truths. This is not an issue of secularism versus Islam."
An interesting hypothesis - one which, having stated, Mr. Fisk proceeds to immediately
disprove:
"For Muslims, the Prophet is the man who received divine words directly from God. We see our prophets as faintly historical figures, at odds with our high-tech human rights, almost caricatures of themselves. The fact is that Muslims live their religion. We do not. They have kept their faith through innumerable historical vicissitudes. We have lost our faith ever since Matthew Arnold wrote about the sea's 'long, withdrawing roar'. That's why we talk about 'the West versus Islam' rather than 'Christians versus Islam'- because there aren't an awful lot of Christians left in Europe."
So let me get this straight. "This is not an issue of secularism versus Islam" - the reason being that Europeans are secular and Muslims are not. "That's why we talk about 'the West versus Islam' rather than 'Christians versus Islam'". He's really not doing his point any favours here, is he?
In the next paragraph, Mr. Fisk sinks his dentures into the meaty flesh of Western hypocrisy. We, not the innocent Muslim faithful, are the wrongdoers in all of this:
"Besides, we can exercise our own hypocrisy over religious feelings. I happen to remember how, more than a decade ago, a film called The Last Temptation of Christ showed Jesus making love to a woman. In Paris, someone set fire to the cinema showing the movie, killing a young man. I also happen to remember a US university which invited me to give a lecture three years ago. I did. It was entitled 'September 11, 2001: ask who did it but, for God's sake, don't ask why'. When I arrived, I found that the university had deleted the phrase 'for God's sake' becuase 'we didn't want to offend certain sensibilities'. Ah-ha, so we have 'sensibilities' too.
"In other words, while we claim that Muslims must be good secularlists when it comes to free speech - or cheap cartoons - we can worry about adherents to our own precious religion just as much."
Verily, the mind boggles. Is Mr. Fisk really equating the best examples of excessive Christian sensitivity that he can come up with - the action of a single nutcase over a decade ago, and the inconsequential censorship of a university jobsworth three years ago - with the threats, violence and worldwide "Days of Anger" we've been seeing over the last few days?
"We can worry ... just as much" about Christians? On a day when the streets are full of fanatics chanting "UK you must pray ... 7/7 on its way"? It's rare for words to fail me, but this is such a time.
[Continued]...
"For many Muslims, the 'Islamic' reaction to the affair is an embarrassment. There is good reason to believe that Muslims would like to see some elements of reform introduced into their religion. If this cartoon had advanced the cause of those who want to debate this issue, no-one would have minded."
Once again, the obtuseness is simply breathtaking. Mr. Fisk is seriously stating that "no-one would have minded" if the cartoons had advanced the cause of reform-minded Muslims. It is, however, quite obvious that many Muslims would have minded - specifically, those who do not want to see reform debated or pushed forward. Those individuals would still have done all in their power to stir up fundamentalist anger, just as they're doing now. And guess what? They're the dangerous ones.
Continuing:
"This is not a great time to heat up the old Samuel Huntingdon garbage about a 'clash of civilisations'. Iran now has a clerical government again. So, to all intents and purposes, does Iraq (which was not supposed to end up with a democratically elected clerical administration, but that's what happens when you topple dictators). In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood won 20 per cent of the seats in the recent parliamentary elections. Now we have Hamas in charge of 'Palestine'. There's a message here, isn't there?"
Why yes, there is. The message is that the Muslim world is turning increasingly to theocracy, with all of its strictures on speech and action, medieval punishments and the like. Meanwhile, as Mr. Fisk himself points out, free Europe has become increasingly secular (except for the burgeoning Muslim communities in its midst). As all but the willfully blind can now see, this is precisely the clash that Mr. Fisk denies so stubbornly, and so ineffectually.
And why is the Ummah turning to theocracy to the extent that it is? Come on, you know the answer to that - as always, it's our fault:
"[The message is] That American policies - 'regime change' in the Middle East - are not achieving their ends. These millions of voters were preferring Islam to the corrupt regimes we imposed on them."
Remind me - which "corrupt regime" did we impose on Iraq? On Palestine? Have we "imposed" Mubarak, or the Iranian government just prior to this new clerical one?
The whole thing can be found at http://dailyablution.blogs.com/the_daily_ablution/2006/02/fisk_in_a_barre.html
Sunday, February 05, 2006
So about that election...
I've been feeling quite uninspired of late to write anything and for those who might have been cheking in here every so often - surely having given up waiting for me to post something undoubtedly - I'm sorry for this lack of literary output. It comes in waves and so when the sea is calm the idea of forcing myself to write something for the sake of writing has little appeal for me. Hopefully this will soon change.
I should have written more about the recent Canadian election during and in its immediate aftermath, but whatever my opinions were seemed to have been more eloquently put by others. So it is with a commentary I just had the fortune to find online by the inimicable Rex Murphy concerning a certain American's intrusion into the Canadian electoral debate. I expressed the same opinion to various friends, but he says it so damn well that I'll defer to him (thanks to Google News for bypassing the Globe & Mail's subscriber wall):
Well, it was a narrow escape. But we did it. Canadians have preserved their liberties and independence against the always rapacious American beast.
We knew there were powerful elements in the United States that wanted us to kowtow and genuflect to a simplistic worldview, that knuckle-dragging Good-versus-Evil script they have been remorselessly propagandizing all over the world since 9/11.
They have been trying to drag Canada into this simpleton's game for years, mauling truth and banishing nuance with a continuous stream of invective posing as reason, and caricature passing itself off as accuracy.
It's a difficult thing to resist the mighty United States at any time, and especially difficult in all the dust and storm of a national election. But we did it.
It was a close-run thing. But on Monday night, Canada fought back and won. On Jan. 20, just three days before our vote, Michael Moore, entrepreneur, fabulist, philosophe, issued a broadside to the citizens of this country warning us sternly, and with the imperious irony of which he is so fully a master, against the perils of electing a Stephen Harper government:
Do you want to help George Bush by turning Canada into his latest conquest? Is that how you want millions of us down here to see you from now on? The next notch on the cowboy belt?
I was worried at first that the subtlety of the pitch might obscure its wonderful impertinence — worried that the charm of Mr. Moore's address might distract Canadians from the consideration that an American millionaire celebrity pitchman was interfering in, and attempting to influence, the Canadian vote.
I was worried, too, that this one-man shock-and-awe “documentarian” might be leading a charge, that the other bright bulbs of international busybodyism were massed behind his formidable massed behind. Was Sean Penn on the way to monitor the vote in Etobicoke? Was he planning one of his patented fact-finding junkets like the visits that brought such comfort and peace to the citizens of Baghdad? I could see the headlines: Penn in Halifax. Visits Bar. Reads Construction-Site Posters. Warns Harper is Christian. Says “God Bless Canada.”
Well, that didn't happen. We're were spared the fast-food internationalism of Mr. Penn, and that probably meant we were spared assorted sermons from Alex Baldwin, Janeane Garofalo, Al Franken and that whole posse of celebrity dilettantes who see the whole world as an audience for their inch-deep, paint-by-numbers, cause-a-day homilies. Maybe they were off somewhere saving a seal.
Or, what is much more likely, maybe he concluded there was really no need for the secondary battalions. We, the respectful, bland and polite citizens of a country that is really only a farm team for the U.S. entertainment industry — hello Céline, Jim, Dan and Avril — would naturally be flattered into sheer insensibility that the portentous Mr. Moore even knew we were having an election. He has a taste for insolence, referring to Stephen Harper, who has more brain than Michael Moore has girth, as someone “who should be running for governor of Utah,“ and whose election would “reduce Canada to a cheap download of Bush & Co.”
One size fits all — that's our Mikey. Because he thinks he has a problem with George Bush, that must be the script for the rest of the world. This is the very essence of imperialism. To believe that your story is everyone else's. To believe that your political drama is the template for every other political drama in the whole wide world. Michael Moore could go to Fogo Island, Nfld., for the municipal elections and find them a perfect parable of the Halliburton super-conspiracy. He'd see Dick Cheney's influence in the selection of the town clerk.
Ego turns the world into one big mirror, and nothing looks back at the celebrity narcissus but the vacant monomaniac staring in. News flash, Mr. Moore: Our election wasn't about Dick Cheney. Or George Bush. Paul Martin (thank God) isn't Bill Clinton. Stephen Harper doesn't own a decoder ring sent him by Karl Rove. Considering the success you've had in stopping George Bush in the country where he actually runs — and on last report he is in his second term — do you really think you should be sparing the time and the shavings of your wit to offer advice to others?
George Bush got three million votes more than John Kerry in the last U.S. presidential election. Karl Rove is on bended knee every day in thanks for the contribution Fahrenheit 9/11 made to that surplus. If you can't win your own elections, Michael, what made you think you had anything to say about ours?
Other than that, I'm glad you called. But we defied you. Stephen Harper is prime minister, and I suppose that tells you all you need to know, which is: Canadians don't care what you think you think.
I know this will annoy all my friends on the Left, but I am indeed glad that the Conservatives won. For me it came down to my belief that the Liberals had to lose; they'd be in power too long and it had obviously corrupted them far past the point to anymore deserve the trust of Canadians. Though I am a supporter of same-sex marriage (and some other policies usually thought of as leftist), that's not what this election was about. Rather, the absolute importance in a democratic system for there to be at least two competing parties with a realistic chance of forming the government. Ever since the Progressive Conservative's 1993 blowout, through over 12 years of Liberal party rule (mostly having a majority in Parliament), that has not been the case. Nothing, in my opinion, was more important in this election than helping to restore this so necessary balance. And in the year and a half or so that Paul Martin has been Prime Minister, he has shown indecision instead of decisiveness, desperation instead of leadership and dishonesty instead of directness. All of these negatives were only made more obvious in the pressure of the campaign as the Liberal's scare tactics (being the entirety of their message) - vote for us because Stephen Harper's scary! - were found wanting. The Liberal Party has for years now been almost devoid of any passion other than holding onto power at all cost. A few years on the opposition benches should give them time and space to do some much needed thinking as to what exactly they stand for instead of madly careening from Left to Right saying whatever they think will offer the best political advantage as Paul Martin has shown himself wont to do.
Same-sex marriage is here to stay. Harper has commited to allowing a free vote if the issue is debated by Parliament and those who would like to preserve the "traditional" definition of marriage don't have the votes to make that happen; let alone use the Not-Withstanding clause of the Charter. As for implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, another reason given to not vote Conservative, the Liberal's hypocrisy knows no bounds in criticizing the Bush Administration for not going along with it and the Conservatives for not wanting to go along with it when they themselves have so far done little to reduce carbon dioxide emmisions. Even though the USA hasn't signed onto the deal they've done a better job than Canada has in reducing CO2 emmisions since the Liberal's have been in power.
The Canadian political scene just got a whole lot more interesting anyways. The question is now whether Harper will follow in the footsteps on John Diefenbaker - turning a minority into a massive majority in a year - or Joe Clark - losing a minority in nine months to a resurgent Pierre Trudeau. We can only wait and see...
I should have written more about the recent Canadian election during and in its immediate aftermath, but whatever my opinions were seemed to have been more eloquently put by others. So it is with a commentary I just had the fortune to find online by the inimicable Rex Murphy concerning a certain American's intrusion into the Canadian electoral debate. I expressed the same opinion to various friends, but he says it so damn well that I'll defer to him (thanks to Google News for bypassing the Globe & Mail's subscriber wall):
Well, it was a narrow escape. But we did it. Canadians have preserved their liberties and independence against the always rapacious American beast.
We knew there were powerful elements in the United States that wanted us to kowtow and genuflect to a simplistic worldview, that knuckle-dragging Good-versus-Evil script they have been remorselessly propagandizing all over the world since 9/11.
They have been trying to drag Canada into this simpleton's game for years, mauling truth and banishing nuance with a continuous stream of invective posing as reason, and caricature passing itself off as accuracy.
It's a difficult thing to resist the mighty United States at any time, and especially difficult in all the dust and storm of a national election. But we did it.
It was a close-run thing. But on Monday night, Canada fought back and won. On Jan. 20, just three days before our vote, Michael Moore, entrepreneur, fabulist, philosophe, issued a broadside to the citizens of this country warning us sternly, and with the imperious irony of which he is so fully a master, against the perils of electing a Stephen Harper government:
Do you want to help George Bush by turning Canada into his latest conquest? Is that how you want millions of us down here to see you from now on? The next notch on the cowboy belt?
I was worried at first that the subtlety of the pitch might obscure its wonderful impertinence — worried that the charm of Mr. Moore's address might distract Canadians from the consideration that an American millionaire celebrity pitchman was interfering in, and attempting to influence, the Canadian vote.
I was worried, too, that this one-man shock-and-awe “documentarian” might be leading a charge, that the other bright bulbs of international busybodyism were massed behind his formidable massed behind. Was Sean Penn on the way to monitor the vote in Etobicoke? Was he planning one of his patented fact-finding junkets like the visits that brought such comfort and peace to the citizens of Baghdad? I could see the headlines: Penn in Halifax. Visits Bar. Reads Construction-Site Posters. Warns Harper is Christian. Says “God Bless Canada.”
Well, that didn't happen. We're were spared the fast-food internationalism of Mr. Penn, and that probably meant we were spared assorted sermons from Alex Baldwin, Janeane Garofalo, Al Franken and that whole posse of celebrity dilettantes who see the whole world as an audience for their inch-deep, paint-by-numbers, cause-a-day homilies. Maybe they were off somewhere saving a seal.
Or, what is much more likely, maybe he concluded there was really no need for the secondary battalions. We, the respectful, bland and polite citizens of a country that is really only a farm team for the U.S. entertainment industry — hello Céline, Jim, Dan and Avril — would naturally be flattered into sheer insensibility that the portentous Mr. Moore even knew we were having an election. He has a taste for insolence, referring to Stephen Harper, who has more brain than Michael Moore has girth, as someone “who should be running for governor of Utah,“ and whose election would “reduce Canada to a cheap download of Bush & Co.”
One size fits all — that's our Mikey. Because he thinks he has a problem with George Bush, that must be the script for the rest of the world. This is the very essence of imperialism. To believe that your story is everyone else's. To believe that your political drama is the template for every other political drama in the whole wide world. Michael Moore could go to Fogo Island, Nfld., for the municipal elections and find them a perfect parable of the Halliburton super-conspiracy. He'd see Dick Cheney's influence in the selection of the town clerk.
Ego turns the world into one big mirror, and nothing looks back at the celebrity narcissus but the vacant monomaniac staring in. News flash, Mr. Moore: Our election wasn't about Dick Cheney. Or George Bush. Paul Martin (thank God) isn't Bill Clinton. Stephen Harper doesn't own a decoder ring sent him by Karl Rove. Considering the success you've had in stopping George Bush in the country where he actually runs — and on last report he is in his second term — do you really think you should be sparing the time and the shavings of your wit to offer advice to others?
George Bush got three million votes more than John Kerry in the last U.S. presidential election. Karl Rove is on bended knee every day in thanks for the contribution Fahrenheit 9/11 made to that surplus. If you can't win your own elections, Michael, what made you think you had anything to say about ours?
Other than that, I'm glad you called. But we defied you. Stephen Harper is prime minister, and I suppose that tells you all you need to know, which is: Canadians don't care what you think you think.
I know this will annoy all my friends on the Left, but I am indeed glad that the Conservatives won. For me it came down to my belief that the Liberals had to lose; they'd be in power too long and it had obviously corrupted them far past the point to anymore deserve the trust of Canadians. Though I am a supporter of same-sex marriage (and some other policies usually thought of as leftist), that's not what this election was about. Rather, the absolute importance in a democratic system for there to be at least two competing parties with a realistic chance of forming the government. Ever since the Progressive Conservative's 1993 blowout, through over 12 years of Liberal party rule (mostly having a majority in Parliament), that has not been the case. Nothing, in my opinion, was more important in this election than helping to restore this so necessary balance. And in the year and a half or so that Paul Martin has been Prime Minister, he has shown indecision instead of decisiveness, desperation instead of leadership and dishonesty instead of directness. All of these negatives were only made more obvious in the pressure of the campaign as the Liberal's scare tactics (being the entirety of their message) - vote for us because Stephen Harper's scary! - were found wanting. The Liberal Party has for years now been almost devoid of any passion other than holding onto power at all cost. A few years on the opposition benches should give them time and space to do some much needed thinking as to what exactly they stand for instead of madly careening from Left to Right saying whatever they think will offer the best political advantage as Paul Martin has shown himself wont to do.
Same-sex marriage is here to stay. Harper has commited to allowing a free vote if the issue is debated by Parliament and those who would like to preserve the "traditional" definition of marriage don't have the votes to make that happen; let alone use the Not-Withstanding clause of the Charter. As for implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, another reason given to not vote Conservative, the Liberal's hypocrisy knows no bounds in criticizing the Bush Administration for not going along with it and the Conservatives for not wanting to go along with it when they themselves have so far done little to reduce carbon dioxide emmisions. Even though the USA hasn't signed onto the deal they've done a better job than Canada has in reducing CO2 emmisions since the Liberal's have been in power.
The Canadian political scene just got a whole lot more interesting anyways. The question is now whether Harper will follow in the footsteps on John Diefenbaker - turning a minority into a massive majority in a year - or Joe Clark - losing a minority in nine months to a resurgent Pierre Trudeau. We can only wait and see...
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
So about this supposed "War on Christmas"
If you're foolish enough to listen to/watch any of the various blowhards on that paragon of intellectual idiocy, FOX News (O'Reilly and Hannity among others) you might be under the impression that the dark forces of liberal secularism, including the ACLU and the NewYork Times, are waging a not-so secret campaign against Christmas as part of their agenda to destroy all that is good and holy in America. The preposterousness of this is, I hope, obvious to all even semi-intelligent people. Yes, the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) has filed suit against some governments for allowing nativity sets, an obvious Christian symbol, in public buildings, but then the 1st amendment to the U.S. Constitution is very clear: "Congress [by most taken to mean not just the Federal legislature, but all levels of government] shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." For any level of government to privilege Christian religious symbolism above Judaic, Islamic or any other is to go against, if not the letter then definitely the spirit, of this very important constitutional principle. To exagerate this necessary process as a "War on Christmas" or Christians in general is to engage in the most ridiculous and shameful demagoguery - seemingly a specialty at FOX News.
Okay, so some corporations have opted to go with more generic pronouncements like "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," but then why is this a problem? There are a lot of people who aren't Christian whether they, she or anyone else likes it or not so why not use words that include those celebrating Hannukah, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice or the non-religious just enjoying a holiday?
What I find most ironic about those who complain about businesses not celebrating Christmas though - with some even encouraging people to boycott those that do not - is that, if anything, Christians should be thankful for this happening. After all, haven't many Christians (including members of my own family) been decrying for years the rampant commercialization of Christmas? That this date meant to celebrate the birth of Christ has become instead a time for businesses to boost their profit margins by selling things to people buying gifts? Think of the Macy's Christmas parade in New York City made famous in the movie Miracle on 34th Street. Was it really to celebrate the birth of Christ or simply a way to improve their financial bottom line by using Christmas to promote their stores and thereby sell more products? The answer is of course obvious. Rather than lamenting the lack of Christmas references in society, Christians should be thankful that Christmas is no longer being as much used by those who care nothing about Christ in order to make money - rather sacriligious don't you think?
No one is proposing getting rid of Christmas, but in a largely secular society where the real meaning of Christmas has, whether one likes it or not, been largely lost in the "sinfulness of modern society(here in Taiwan being a great example; very few Christians here, Christmas isn't even a holiday from work, few people know what any of the symbols mean, yet the songs are played, the trees are put up and I got stuck being Santa Claus for school class Christmas pictures and for handing out candy), Christians should be glad to have it back from those who would self-interestedly profit from it. Was it not Christ himself after all who cleansed the Temple of the money-changers and traders?
Okay, so some corporations have opted to go with more generic pronouncements like "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," but then why is this a problem? There are a lot of people who aren't Christian whether they, she or anyone else likes it or not so why not use words that include those celebrating Hannukah, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice or the non-religious just enjoying a holiday?
What I find most ironic about those who complain about businesses not celebrating Christmas though - with some even encouraging people to boycott those that do not - is that, if anything, Christians should be thankful for this happening. After all, haven't many Christians (including members of my own family) been decrying for years the rampant commercialization of Christmas? That this date meant to celebrate the birth of Christ has become instead a time for businesses to boost their profit margins by selling things to people buying gifts? Think of the Macy's Christmas parade in New York City made famous in the movie Miracle on 34th Street. Was it really to celebrate the birth of Christ or simply a way to improve their financial bottom line by using Christmas to promote their stores and thereby sell more products? The answer is of course obvious. Rather than lamenting the lack of Christmas references in society, Christians should be thankful that Christmas is no longer being as much used by those who care nothing about Christ in order to make money - rather sacriligious don't you think?
No one is proposing getting rid of Christmas, but in a largely secular society where the real meaning of Christmas has, whether one likes it or not, been largely lost in the "sinfulness of modern society(here in Taiwan being a great example; very few Christians here, Christmas isn't even a holiday from work, few people know what any of the symbols mean, yet the songs are played, the trees are put up and I got stuck being Santa Claus for school class Christmas pictures and for handing out candy), Christians should be glad to have it back from those who would self-interestedly profit from it. Was it not Christ himself after all who cleansed the Temple of the money-changers and traders?
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Bush, China and Taiwan
There are few things that the conservative-libertarian Cato Institute (www.cato.org) and the right-wing editors of the online-only Frontpage Magazine (www.frontpagemag.com) could ever be expected to find agreement on with Alexander Cockburn and the leftist magazine Counterpunch (www.counterpunch.org) he co-edits. Indeed, more reliable opposite opinions on pretty much any political issue would be hard to find.
Yet curious about the specific remarks George Bush made in Japan during his recent Asian trip—contrasting Taiwan’s political freedoms with mainland China’s continued authoritarian repression—I googled “Bush” and “Taiwan” in search of a transcript. I found what I was looking for, but in the process also discovered three articles, one on each of the above sites, with remarkably similar viewpoints. They each charged the Bush Administration with hypocrisy for claiming to be promoting democracy and freedom around the world as a universal good, while simultaneously accepting the People’s Republic of China’s claim that Taiwan—an island off the coast of China that has had de facto independence for over 50 years and has, since the lifting of a 40 year long period of Martial Law in 1987, become one of the freest in Asia—is but a “renegade” province that must at some point rejoin China, as well as doing little in response to China’s threats of armed response if Taiwan makes any moves towards asserting its right to self-determination and independence (even passing an Anti-Secession bill earlier this year that explicitly demands a military response to prevent such a thing from happening).
Taiwan was ruled by the Kuomintang (KMT) Party for nearly fifty years, but since 2000 Chen Shue-bian of the pro-independence Democratic People’s Party (DPP) has been President leading to ever greater friction with China. During the 1996 Presidential election, China, fearing the example set by a freely contested democratic election, test-fired missiles in the Taiwan Strait to try to intimidate the Taiwanese people. Then President Bill Clinton responded by sending in the largest U.S. naval deployment since the Vietnam War—two full carrier groups—to get China to back off. It did, and has since chosen to use subtler ways of coercion against Taiwan.
In 2004 Chen, running for re-election, proposed a referendum on two issues concerning Taiwan-China relations (The two questions were: (1) The People of Taiwan demand that the Taiwan Strait issue be resolved through peaceful means. Should Mainland China refuse to withdraw the missiles it has targeted at Taiwan and to openly renounce the use of force against us, would you agree that the Government should acquire more advanced anti-missile weapons to strengthen Taiwan's self-defense capabilities?
(2) Would you agree that our Government should engage in negotiation with Mainland China on the establishment of a "peace and stability" framework for cross-strait interactions in order to build consensus and for the welfare of the peoples on both sides? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROC_referendum,_2004). Neither concerned outright independence, but instead dealt with how Taiwan should react to China’s threats and state of general belligerence having as it does hundreds of ballistic missiles aimed at the island—a most reasonable and responsible action by any democratically elected government. While standing beside Wen Jiabao, China’s then new leader, on his trip to Washington in late 2003, however, Bush warned Chen against having the referendum and of otherwise upsetting the status quo. As Dave Lindorff writes in Counterpunch, “Referendums, it seems, are appropriate for Californians, not for Taiwanese or Chinese” (“Bush Sells Out Another Democracy Movement: Hypocrisy on Taiwan,” http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff01032004.html).The referendum questions won wide margins of approval among those who voted, but, at least partly because of a boycott promoted by the KMT opposition (made up largely of those mainland Chinese who fled to Taiwan in 1949 at the end of the Chinese Civil War and who prefer conciliation and eventual unification with the mainland), less than %50 of the population voted thus preventing the results from being legally binding.
Ted Galen Carpenter rightly argues in his Cato Institute article that:
[This] is no way for Washington to treat another democracy. It is unsavory for the United States to criticize a democratic polity for choosing to hold a referendum on a policy issue-however sensitive that issue might be. It is even worse to criticize such a basic exercise of democracy, as Bush did, while saying nothing about the PRC's [People’s Republic of China] destabilizing and provocative deployment of missiles across the Taiwan Strait (“President Bush's Taiwan Policy: Immoral and Dangerous,” http://www.cato.org/dailys/03-31-04.html).
In his Frontpage Magazine article, Don Feder reminds us that shortly after his Presidential election in 2001, Bush “said in a television interview that America had an obligation to do ‘whatever it took’ to help Taiwan defend itself” (“Bush’s New Taiwan Doctrine,” http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ ReadArticle.asp?ID=11285 ). Not long after, his Administration approved the largest sale of arms to Taiwan in a decade (though the KMT-opposition controlled Congress has consistently blocked the approval of the deal from Taiwan’s side ever since). This seemingly showed his Administration’s resolve to continue the policy of “strategic ambiguity”—accepting the “One China” policy that Beijing insists upon yet at the same time helping to defend Taiwan diplomatically and militarily from any use of force by China—that has defined U.S.-China relations since the U.S. switched its diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China (Taiwan) to the People’s Republic of China (communist mainland China) in 1979. That same year the Taiwan Relations Act was passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by then President Jimmy Carter that states:
…that the United States decision to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China rests upon the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means…to consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States…to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character, and…to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan (Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, http://www.usconsulate.org.hk/ustw/geninfo/tra1979.htm).
So what explains Bush’s shift away from this position of assertively defending Taiwan’s interests—those of a free and democratic “country” in sharp contrast to the continued authoritarian dictatorship and political repression of mainland China—to rebuking its government for daring to hold a referendum on relations with its threatening neighbor? All three articles agree that it largely has to do with the continuing crisis over North Korea’s nuclear weapon program and the Bush Administration’s felt need to get China, as the only country seemingly able to, to put pressure on its government to rejoin the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that it withdrew from in 2003.
While acknowledging the exigencies of international relations realpolitik Bush’s blanket appeasement of China’s bellicosity towards Taiwan is of little value – because China itself is not happy with N. Korea’s nuclear program and would not dare to attack Taiwan while there is still such a gulf between its military capabilities and the USA’s; especially before it hosts the 2008 Summer Olympic Games – and only shows Bush’s supposed promotion of democracy and freedom to be the feigned words of a moral hypocrite.
Since the lifting of Martial Law Taiwan’s democracy has taken root with a number of parties representing a range of opinion now taking part in a vibrant political process. This is in marked contrast to the continuing repression of the non-democratic, authoritarian Chinese government that still holds thousands of political prisoners in slave labor-like conditions where torture is commonly used. Of course with the mountain of evidence that has come out over the last couple of years detailing, despite the Bush Administration’s repeated denials of the appropriateness of the term, the use of torture by American military and intelligence personnel in apparent agreement with directives coming from as high up as the White House itself the United-States, at least under this Administration, has largely lost the moral authority to even speak out against China’s use of torture. The fiscal recklessness of the Bush Administration, and that of the Republicans controlling Congress, has also brought about a situation in which the health of the U.S. economy is now so massively dependent on the continued purchase of U.S. Treasury bonds by East Asian countries – China primarily (though Japan, Taiwan and S. Korea are not far behind) – that if China were to “blink” and stop, or even just slow down, their bond purchases the U.S. Federal Reserve would be forced to raise interest rates, possibly precipitously, in order to finance its debt almost certainly driving the U.S. economy into recession. Though it would not be in the self-interest of the Chinese government to do this, given that its exports to the U.S. are the primary fuel for the economic growth necessary to placate the already disgruntled teaming masses of citizens that would undoubtedly suffer, a conflict over Taiwan could very well convince them otherwise. That the Bush Administration would allow China to have such a leverage over the U.S. economy while squandering America’s moral authority in speaking out against its systemic human rights abuses are but two of the reasons why Bush should not have been re-elected.
He was, however, and though in his speech in Japan before visiting China he mentioned the freedoms of Taiwan as an example of the direction Beijing should move towards, his irresponsibility on other aspects of U.S.-China relations can only make people wonder how serious he actually is about helping to maintain Taiwan’s independence.
Yet curious about the specific remarks George Bush made in Japan during his recent Asian trip—contrasting Taiwan’s political freedoms with mainland China’s continued authoritarian repression—I googled “Bush” and “Taiwan” in search of a transcript. I found what I was looking for, but in the process also discovered three articles, one on each of the above sites, with remarkably similar viewpoints. They each charged the Bush Administration with hypocrisy for claiming to be promoting democracy and freedom around the world as a universal good, while simultaneously accepting the People’s Republic of China’s claim that Taiwan—an island off the coast of China that has had de facto independence for over 50 years and has, since the lifting of a 40 year long period of Martial Law in 1987, become one of the freest in Asia—is but a “renegade” province that must at some point rejoin China, as well as doing little in response to China’s threats of armed response if Taiwan makes any moves towards asserting its right to self-determination and independence (even passing an Anti-Secession bill earlier this year that explicitly demands a military response to prevent such a thing from happening).
Taiwan was ruled by the Kuomintang (KMT) Party for nearly fifty years, but since 2000 Chen Shue-bian of the pro-independence Democratic People’s Party (DPP) has been President leading to ever greater friction with China. During the 1996 Presidential election, China, fearing the example set by a freely contested democratic election, test-fired missiles in the Taiwan Strait to try to intimidate the Taiwanese people. Then President Bill Clinton responded by sending in the largest U.S. naval deployment since the Vietnam War—two full carrier groups—to get China to back off. It did, and has since chosen to use subtler ways of coercion against Taiwan.
In 2004 Chen, running for re-election, proposed a referendum on two issues concerning Taiwan-China relations (The two questions were: (1) The People of Taiwan demand that the Taiwan Strait issue be resolved through peaceful means. Should Mainland China refuse to withdraw the missiles it has targeted at Taiwan and to openly renounce the use of force against us, would you agree that the Government should acquire more advanced anti-missile weapons to strengthen Taiwan's self-defense capabilities?
(2) Would you agree that our Government should engage in negotiation with Mainland China on the establishment of a "peace and stability" framework for cross-strait interactions in order to build consensus and for the welfare of the peoples on both sides? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROC_referendum,_2004). Neither concerned outright independence, but instead dealt with how Taiwan should react to China’s threats and state of general belligerence having as it does hundreds of ballistic missiles aimed at the island—a most reasonable and responsible action by any democratically elected government. While standing beside Wen Jiabao, China’s then new leader, on his trip to Washington in late 2003, however, Bush warned Chen against having the referendum and of otherwise upsetting the status quo. As Dave Lindorff writes in Counterpunch, “Referendums, it seems, are appropriate for Californians, not for Taiwanese or Chinese” (“Bush Sells Out Another Democracy Movement: Hypocrisy on Taiwan,” http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff01032004.html).The referendum questions won wide margins of approval among those who voted, but, at least partly because of a boycott promoted by the KMT opposition (made up largely of those mainland Chinese who fled to Taiwan in 1949 at the end of the Chinese Civil War and who prefer conciliation and eventual unification with the mainland), less than %50 of the population voted thus preventing the results from being legally binding.
Ted Galen Carpenter rightly argues in his Cato Institute article that:
[This] is no way for Washington to treat another democracy. It is unsavory for the United States to criticize a democratic polity for choosing to hold a referendum on a policy issue-however sensitive that issue might be. It is even worse to criticize such a basic exercise of democracy, as Bush did, while saying nothing about the PRC's [People’s Republic of China] destabilizing and provocative deployment of missiles across the Taiwan Strait (“President Bush's Taiwan Policy: Immoral and Dangerous,” http://www.cato.org/dailys/03-31-04.html).
In his Frontpage Magazine article, Don Feder reminds us that shortly after his Presidential election in 2001, Bush “said in a television interview that America had an obligation to do ‘whatever it took’ to help Taiwan defend itself” (“Bush’s New Taiwan Doctrine,” http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ ReadArticle.asp?ID=11285 ). Not long after, his Administration approved the largest sale of arms to Taiwan in a decade (though the KMT-opposition controlled Congress has consistently blocked the approval of the deal from Taiwan’s side ever since). This seemingly showed his Administration’s resolve to continue the policy of “strategic ambiguity”—accepting the “One China” policy that Beijing insists upon yet at the same time helping to defend Taiwan diplomatically and militarily from any use of force by China—that has defined U.S.-China relations since the U.S. switched its diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China (Taiwan) to the People’s Republic of China (communist mainland China) in 1979. That same year the Taiwan Relations Act was passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by then President Jimmy Carter that states:
…that the United States decision to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China rests upon the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means…to consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States…to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character, and…to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan (Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, http://www.usconsulate.org.hk/ustw/geninfo/tra1979.htm).
So what explains Bush’s shift away from this position of assertively defending Taiwan’s interests—those of a free and democratic “country” in sharp contrast to the continued authoritarian dictatorship and political repression of mainland China—to rebuking its government for daring to hold a referendum on relations with its threatening neighbor? All three articles agree that it largely has to do with the continuing crisis over North Korea’s nuclear weapon program and the Bush Administration’s felt need to get China, as the only country seemingly able to, to put pressure on its government to rejoin the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that it withdrew from in 2003.
While acknowledging the exigencies of international relations realpolitik Bush’s blanket appeasement of China’s bellicosity towards Taiwan is of little value – because China itself is not happy with N. Korea’s nuclear program and would not dare to attack Taiwan while there is still such a gulf between its military capabilities and the USA’s; especially before it hosts the 2008 Summer Olympic Games – and only shows Bush’s supposed promotion of democracy and freedom to be the feigned words of a moral hypocrite.
Since the lifting of Martial Law Taiwan’s democracy has taken root with a number of parties representing a range of opinion now taking part in a vibrant political process. This is in marked contrast to the continuing repression of the non-democratic, authoritarian Chinese government that still holds thousands of political prisoners in slave labor-like conditions where torture is commonly used. Of course with the mountain of evidence that has come out over the last couple of years detailing, despite the Bush Administration’s repeated denials of the appropriateness of the term, the use of torture by American military and intelligence personnel in apparent agreement with directives coming from as high up as the White House itself the United-States, at least under this Administration, has largely lost the moral authority to even speak out against China’s use of torture. The fiscal recklessness of the Bush Administration, and that of the Republicans controlling Congress, has also brought about a situation in which the health of the U.S. economy is now so massively dependent on the continued purchase of U.S. Treasury bonds by East Asian countries – China primarily (though Japan, Taiwan and S. Korea are not far behind) – that if China were to “blink” and stop, or even just slow down, their bond purchases the U.S. Federal Reserve would be forced to raise interest rates, possibly precipitously, in order to finance its debt almost certainly driving the U.S. economy into recession. Though it would not be in the self-interest of the Chinese government to do this, given that its exports to the U.S. are the primary fuel for the economic growth necessary to placate the already disgruntled teaming masses of citizens that would undoubtedly suffer, a conflict over Taiwan could very well convince them otherwise. That the Bush Administration would allow China to have such a leverage over the U.S. economy while squandering America’s moral authority in speaking out against its systemic human rights abuses are but two of the reasons why Bush should not have been re-elected.
He was, however, and though in his speech in Japan before visiting China he mentioned the freedoms of Taiwan as an example of the direction Beijing should move towards, his irresponsibility on other aspects of U.S.-China relations can only make people wonder how serious he actually is about helping to maintain Taiwan’s independence.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Oh the arrogance!
I meant to write something about this sooner, but this week has been busy as I started working mornings (just a temporary sub job till the end of the month), which had been my prime writing time. I certainly couldn't remain quiet about this one though. Anyways, for those Canadians who have not been paying attention to the media's coverage of the Federal election (and any non-Canadians who for some reason or other have some interest in the vagaries of Canadian politics), Scott Reid, one of the top advisors to Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin, said during a December 11 television debate on the different parties child-care proposals that the Conservative parties proposal of giving $1,200 a year to parents for each child to be used as they wished was wrong because some parents might waste it on "beer and popcorn." Challenged by the woman representing the Conservatives for so insulting Canadian parents, Reid then defended his previous statement by arguing that "there are no controls over what that money [in the Conservatives' proposal] goes toward." Later that day during another television debate between party representatives, John Duffy, another Liberal party advisor, defended Reid's comments, stating that "there is nothing to stop someone from pocketing Stephen Harper's [the leader of the Conservative Party] $1200 supposed child-care bonus...and spending it however the heck they want." In other words (if you haven't gleaned the point from these remarks already), the Liberal party believes that Canadians can't be trusted to take care of their own children; this must instead be solely the provenance of the oh so enlightened government. Instead of giving money directly to parents trusting them to make the best decision for their children, the Liberal's propose to spend $5 billion or so in transfers to the provinces to create a system of approved child-care centres across the country. Now given that the Liberal's have shown nothing during their last twelve years in power if not a brazen carelessness with taxpayers money, this supposed cost of $5 billion must be at the very least doubled to $10 billion. This is the same essential government, even if the leader has changed, after all that said when first proposing their almost completely useless Firearms Registry in 1995 that it would have a net cost of $2 million - 10 years later it has cost well over $1 billion. A modest doubling of their proposed cost is therefore a more than reasonable projection. This money comes from, of course, the taxpayers of Canada who are already being penalized if a parent decides to stay at home and take care of their children instead of enrolling them in institutionalized day-care; a situation that can only be expected to worsen if the Liberal’s plan is put into place. How so you ask?
Right now in Canada all expenses for enrolling one’s child in an official day-care are %100 tax deductible. If a parent decides, because their spouse is willing and able to work enough to support them, to stay at home to take care of their children, however, none of the costs associated are equivalently eligible for a tax deduction. If one is wealthy enough the cost could be easily accepted, but if one is relatively poor, the difference might very well be enough to force both parents to work and their children into day-care against their wishes. The government is thus discriminating against parents who choose to take care of their own children rather than putting them in institutionalized day-care — hardly a proper role for any government to be engaged in. The Liberal’s plan would only compound this problem through the inevitability of raising taxes to pay for yet another universal social program with its legion of bureaucrats, public-sector unions and lack of any real accountability to individual citizens.
Yet even if it were to "only" cost $5 billion and did not require any tax increases, the Liberal's proposal would still be wrong. It reveals clearly an attitude that is all too prevalent in Canada, but that few seem to worry about: that government always knows best. Though the Canadian health-care system is far from perfect I accept the necessity of government involvement as the price to pay for making health-care universally accessible; one thing I think should be a basic right of citizens in civilized countries, though people, unlike what has been the case until recently (and is still considered heresy by many on the Left), should be allowed to purchase health-care services privately if they have the desire and the means. As well, the profusion of bureaucracy that seems to necessarily accompany government social programs seems to be, in this case, in fact better than the evidenced alternative in the USA where a substantially higher percentage of their GDP is spent on health-care (though over 40 million people are not covered); mainly because of their even worse health-care bureaucracy caused by having so many different insurers for health-care providers to deal with (though the Canadian system could certainly learn a great deal from the USA in terms of introducing competitive mechanisms into its health-care system in order to motivate better service and efficiencies that are now discouraged by the government monopoly. See the findings of Senator Kirby’s Report on Health-Care for more details.)
The technology of health-care has become so complicated that massive bureaucracy, whether public or private, seems to be an inevitable and unavoidable consequence. In the case of child-care, however, no such government intrusion should be accepted. Despite the repeated insistence (that is usually uncritically repeated by the media) of self-interested child-care professionals’ unions, raising children has not become increasingly complicated on account of “the need to stay competitive” or any such associated drivel. Instead, this is a standard justification for the introduction of universal child-care plans, like the one the Liberal’s are proposing, that are in fact little but disguised power grabs by bureaucrats, unions and socialist intellectuals who would prefer everyone were the same. Human beings are incredibly adaptive and if raised with love, caring and the appropriate educational opportunities will develop the means and skills necessary to accomplish the greatest things. This is much more likely to happen in a non-institutionalized environment—either provided by the parents’ themselves or by someone directly responsible to them—than a government run, unionized system of child-care centres where individual differences are sacrificed to the interests of the Rousseauian General Will. Though I have no children as of yet, I have no desire to entrust the government with their care; intimations of Huxley’s Brave New World come far too easily to mind.
A couple of quotes pertaining to Reid’s “beer and popcorn” remarks also deserve to be read. First is an editorial from The National Post from December 13, 2005 (http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/editorialsletters/story.html?id=03bf9410-125a-407b-8acf-954095d417bf) excerpts below:
Some commentators have described Scott Reid's controversial comments on a weekend television panel as nothing more than a "gaffe." Far from it. The suggestion by Paul Martin's most senior spokesman that parents would use the child-care benefits being proposed by the Conservatives to buy "beer and popcorn" was more than a mere slip-up. In fact, it was a rare look through the Liberals' glasses -- a chance to see how they view Canadians, and why they favour such a paternalistic mode of government.
The two major parties' differing philosophies on child care have laid bare a larger philosophical divide. By providing parents with $1,200 per child per year to spend as they see fit, the Conservatives have shown they trust Canadian parents to make their own decisions about how to care for children and manage a family budget. But not the Liberals. Rather than leaving it up to parents to decide among daycare, nannies, stay-at-home parenting or care by relatives, Paul Martin insists only one option should be favoured: a top-down network of state-approved daycare centres. According to this view, bureaucrats know better than parents what is best for children. Just think, Mr. Reid, told viewers: If child-care money were under the control of parents themselves, they would simply "blow [it] on beer and popcorn."
…
Sadly, this condescending theory of government extends well beyond child care. On health care, the Liberals refuse to permit personal choice -- insisting that Canadians either sign on to their Soviet-style health monopoly or flee the country to get more timely care in the United States. Rather than trusting most Canadians to be self-sufficient, they continue to create a culture of dependency through regional subsidies. In a purported effort to protect us from ourselves, the Liberals established a $2-billion gun registry that served little purpose other than to harass and humiliate law-abiding firearms owners. And in general, they continue to tax us at a far higher level than is needed to provide the basic services expected of government -- because in their view, a dollar in the hands of government will be better spent than a dollar in the hands of the average Canadian.
And from www.proudtobecanadian.com/blog an edited version of columnist Andrew Coyne's take on the issue:
Liberal policy, disguised as a gaffe
[...] But it wasn’t a gaffe: It’s Liberal policy. This wasn’t some no-name MP wandering off-message. This was the Prime Minister’s chief spokesman. It wasn’t an inadvertent slip of the tongue, or an unguarded moment. It was a considered, deliberate soundbite, delivered on national television. And in case there were any doubt of its purpose, the comment was repeated, defended and elaborated upon later in the day by another of the Prime Minister’s sound-biters, John Duffy. The apologies came only after they had measured the media reaction.
Still, if the Reid Doctrine does not meet the precise definition of a gaffe—in Michael Kinsley’s classic formulation, when a politician tells the truth—it was revealing enough in its own way: if not as a mirror of objective reality, then as a window into the Liberal mind.
[...] On the other hand, it is true that Liberals think that. It may be a silly way of putting it, but it reflects a sincere belief that parents are not the best people to look after their children—that others, more expert, are.
Is that not the implicit, if not the explicit message of the Liberals’ own daycare policy? To hear the Grits talk, you’d think they were dividing up the loaves and fishes: for whereas the Tories would fob off parents with a measly “$25 a week” for each child under six, the Liberals would spend “billions” creating “spaces.” As always, they’re hoping nobody does the math: When you add up all those measly individual payments, the Tory plan would pump twice as much money into daycare each year as the Liberals’, money which, when presented to daycare providers, has a way of opening up “spaces.” It’s just that these spaces would not necessarily be where the government prefers, but rather where parents preferred.
And that’s the difference between the two plans. The implications are inescapable. The Liberals don’t trust parents to choose the right daycare provider, for the same reason they don’t trust them to decide whether to put their kids in daycare at all: because, fundamentally, they don’t trust parents. They don’t think they’re up to it. [...]
And if they don't trust parents to do what's best for their children, why would they trust any person to take care and be responsible for themselves at all? According to this logic the government should take away all of people's money - because individuals might after all misspend it - and with its enlightened wisdom build a "system" that would solve all of societies problems. This promise of a socialist utopia has been tried, of course, in dozens of countries and has not once succeeded; maybe, just maybe, because the premises are wrong...
Right now in Canada all expenses for enrolling one’s child in an official day-care are %100 tax deductible. If a parent decides, because their spouse is willing and able to work enough to support them, to stay at home to take care of their children, however, none of the costs associated are equivalently eligible for a tax deduction. If one is wealthy enough the cost could be easily accepted, but if one is relatively poor, the difference might very well be enough to force both parents to work and their children into day-care against their wishes. The government is thus discriminating against parents who choose to take care of their own children rather than putting them in institutionalized day-care — hardly a proper role for any government to be engaged in. The Liberal’s plan would only compound this problem through the inevitability of raising taxes to pay for yet another universal social program with its legion of bureaucrats, public-sector unions and lack of any real accountability to individual citizens.
Yet even if it were to "only" cost $5 billion and did not require any tax increases, the Liberal's proposal would still be wrong. It reveals clearly an attitude that is all too prevalent in Canada, but that few seem to worry about: that government always knows best. Though the Canadian health-care system is far from perfect I accept the necessity of government involvement as the price to pay for making health-care universally accessible; one thing I think should be a basic right of citizens in civilized countries, though people, unlike what has been the case until recently (and is still considered heresy by many on the Left), should be allowed to purchase health-care services privately if they have the desire and the means. As well, the profusion of bureaucracy that seems to necessarily accompany government social programs seems to be, in this case, in fact better than the evidenced alternative in the USA where a substantially higher percentage of their GDP is spent on health-care (though over 40 million people are not covered); mainly because of their even worse health-care bureaucracy caused by having so many different insurers for health-care providers to deal with (though the Canadian system could certainly learn a great deal from the USA in terms of introducing competitive mechanisms into its health-care system in order to motivate better service and efficiencies that are now discouraged by the government monopoly. See the findings of Senator Kirby’s Report on Health-Care for more details.)
The technology of health-care has become so complicated that massive bureaucracy, whether public or private, seems to be an inevitable and unavoidable consequence. In the case of child-care, however, no such government intrusion should be accepted. Despite the repeated insistence (that is usually uncritically repeated by the media) of self-interested child-care professionals’ unions, raising children has not become increasingly complicated on account of “the need to stay competitive” or any such associated drivel. Instead, this is a standard justification for the introduction of universal child-care plans, like the one the Liberal’s are proposing, that are in fact little but disguised power grabs by bureaucrats, unions and socialist intellectuals who would prefer everyone were the same. Human beings are incredibly adaptive and if raised with love, caring and the appropriate educational opportunities will develop the means and skills necessary to accomplish the greatest things. This is much more likely to happen in a non-institutionalized environment—either provided by the parents’ themselves or by someone directly responsible to them—than a government run, unionized system of child-care centres where individual differences are sacrificed to the interests of the Rousseauian General Will. Though I have no children as of yet, I have no desire to entrust the government with their care; intimations of Huxley’s Brave New World come far too easily to mind.
A couple of quotes pertaining to Reid’s “beer and popcorn” remarks also deserve to be read. First is an editorial from The National Post from December 13, 2005 (http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/editorialsletters/story.html?id=03bf9410-125a-407b-8acf-954095d417bf) excerpts below:
Some commentators have described Scott Reid's controversial comments on a weekend television panel as nothing more than a "gaffe." Far from it. The suggestion by Paul Martin's most senior spokesman that parents would use the child-care benefits being proposed by the Conservatives to buy "beer and popcorn" was more than a mere slip-up. In fact, it was a rare look through the Liberals' glasses -- a chance to see how they view Canadians, and why they favour such a paternalistic mode of government.
The two major parties' differing philosophies on child care have laid bare a larger philosophical divide. By providing parents with $1,200 per child per year to spend as they see fit, the Conservatives have shown they trust Canadian parents to make their own decisions about how to care for children and manage a family budget. But not the Liberals. Rather than leaving it up to parents to decide among daycare, nannies, stay-at-home parenting or care by relatives, Paul Martin insists only one option should be favoured: a top-down network of state-approved daycare centres. According to this view, bureaucrats know better than parents what is best for children. Just think, Mr. Reid, told viewers: If child-care money were under the control of parents themselves, they would simply "blow [it] on beer and popcorn."
…
Sadly, this condescending theory of government extends well beyond child care. On health care, the Liberals refuse to permit personal choice -- insisting that Canadians either sign on to their Soviet-style health monopoly or flee the country to get more timely care in the United States. Rather than trusting most Canadians to be self-sufficient, they continue to create a culture of dependency through regional subsidies. In a purported effort to protect us from ourselves, the Liberals established a $2-billion gun registry that served little purpose other than to harass and humiliate law-abiding firearms owners. And in general, they continue to tax us at a far higher level than is needed to provide the basic services expected of government -- because in their view, a dollar in the hands of government will be better spent than a dollar in the hands of the average Canadian.
Sorry for this being so damn long, but it’s been bugging me all week so I’ve given it a lot of thought. Any comments would of course be appreciated.
A next day update
And from www.proudtobecanadian.com/blog an edited version of columnist Andrew Coyne's take on the issue:
Liberal policy, disguised as a gaffe
[...] But it wasn’t a gaffe: It’s Liberal policy. This wasn’t some no-name MP wandering off-message. This was the Prime Minister’s chief spokesman. It wasn’t an inadvertent slip of the tongue, or an unguarded moment. It was a considered, deliberate soundbite, delivered on national television. And in case there were any doubt of its purpose, the comment was repeated, defended and elaborated upon later in the day by another of the Prime Minister’s sound-biters, John Duffy. The apologies came only after they had measured the media reaction.
Still, if the Reid Doctrine does not meet the precise definition of a gaffe—in Michael Kinsley’s classic formulation, when a politician tells the truth—it was revealing enough in its own way: if not as a mirror of objective reality, then as a window into the Liberal mind.
[...] On the other hand, it is true that Liberals think that. It may be a silly way of putting it, but it reflects a sincere belief that parents are not the best people to look after their children—that others, more expert, are.
Is that not the implicit, if not the explicit message of the Liberals’ own daycare policy? To hear the Grits talk, you’d think they were dividing up the loaves and fishes: for whereas the Tories would fob off parents with a measly “$25 a week” for each child under six, the Liberals would spend “billions” creating “spaces.” As always, they’re hoping nobody does the math: When you add up all those measly individual payments, the Tory plan would pump twice as much money into daycare each year as the Liberals’, money which, when presented to daycare providers, has a way of opening up “spaces.” It’s just that these spaces would not necessarily be where the government prefers, but rather where parents preferred.
And that’s the difference between the two plans. The implications are inescapable. The Liberals don’t trust parents to choose the right daycare provider, for the same reason they don’t trust them to decide whether to put their kids in daycare at all: because, fundamentally, they don’t trust parents. They don’t think they’re up to it. [...]
And if they don't trust parents to do what's best for their children, why would they trust any person to take care and be responsible for themselves at all? According to this logic the government should take away all of people's money - because individuals might after all misspend it - and with its enlightened wisdom build a "system" that would solve all of societies problems. This promise of a socialist utopia has been tried, of course, in dozens of countries and has not once succeeded; maybe, just maybe, because the premises are wrong...
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Chomsky on Cambodia
Those who know me well are aware of my ever-growing dislike for that intellectual guru of anti-Americanism Noam Chomsky. This comes after a few years of serious interest and agreement with his ideas during the "radical" days of my early 20's. Though I never found his writing very appealing - presicent in some ways I guess I was - the Canada Film Board financed hagiography of him (shown in an edited version on CBC television) Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media had a pretty profound effect on me.
My disillusionment with him began sometime around the time I saw a simulcast of an award ceremony he was given by the University of Calgary, and subsequent speech, while atttending the University of Alberta in 1997/98. A group of self-described, wanna-be "radicals"around this time had taken to making, wearing and selling t-shirts that read simply "Read Chomsky" on the front with a quote from him on the back. Though I still thought I agreed with Chomsky the sanctimoniousness of this bothered me with its "St. Chomsky"-ish overtones. The speech itself, excited as I was to almost see him in person, burst my bubble even more; anti-climactic as Dorothy's first glimpse of the Wizard of Oz as he turned out to be not the dramatic speeker the film had made him out to be, but instead a rather befuddled academic who in a rather croaky voice rambled on in seeming smug self-assurance of his own perspicaciousness.
On coming out of the theatre, I was even approached by a reporter for the U of A's student newspaper (that I later wrote a great deal for) asking my opinion of the speech. The spell had not been totally broken, but while saying that I liked it I also made some comments that I think rather irked the Chomskyites on campus to the effect that it had rambled on and not been entirely coherent.
It wasn't until the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001, however, that I finally freed myself from the Cult of Chomsky as he, parroting an opinion that had already by this time disgusted me, maintained that it was all the fault of America and that those killed might somehow deserve their fate.
Since then my dislike of the man's opinions has grown evermore. Recently I came across an excellent article online that discusses his disturbingly disingenuous attitudes towards the Khmer Rouge and their rule of Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. It's rather long, but well worth reading as the best analysis of not only how wrong Chomsky was, but how he dishonestly he has dealt with his errors ever since he was proved to be so wrong. Chomsky is, of course, one of the foremost spokespersons again the mainstream media's "propaganda model," but what Bruce Sharp so convincingly shows in this article is how skilfully Chomsky himself propagandizes.
Propaganda is, by its nature, advocacy. The American Heritage dictionary defines propaganda as "The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause." Chomsky often describes the Western media as propaganda. Yet Chomsky himself is no more objective than the media he criticizes; he merely gives us different propaganda.
Chomsky's supporters frequently point out that he is trying to present the side of the story that is less often seen. But there is no guarantee that these "opposing" viewpoints have any factual merit; Porter and Hildebrand's book [Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution] is a fine example. The value of a theory lies in how it relates to the truth, not in how it relates to other theories. By habitually parroting only the contrarian view, Chomsky creates a skewed, inaccurate version of events. This is a fundamentally flawed approach: It is an approach that is concerned with persuasiveness, and not with the truth. It's the tactic of a lawyer, not a scientist. Chomsky seems to be saying: if the media is wrong, I'll present a view which is diametrically opposed. Imagine a mathematician adopting Chomsky's method: Rather than insuring the accuracy of the calculations, problems would be "solved" by averaging different wrong answers.
Describing the difference between good science and bad, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman stressed the importance of including all available evidence:
"Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can -- if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong -- to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it... In summary, the idea is to give ALL of the information to help others judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another."(Feynman, Richard: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, p. 341).
By contrast, consider the tactics employed by a devoted partisan. The partisan has already decided where her or his sympathies lie; the goal is to convince others to adopt the same position. Toward that end, a partisan will not concede anything, and will not encourage the examination of conflicting points of view. Seen in this light, the first step is to discredit conflicting accounts of any event. Arguments advanced for this purpose need not be consistent. If one reader decides that Barron and Paul are unreliable because they relied on government sources, fine; if another reader decides that Chomsky and Herman are reliable because they relied on government sources, that's fine, too. If one reader believes that the Khmer Rouge averted widespread starvation thanks to their ingenious irrigation projects, that's fine; if another reader believes that there was widespread starvation, but that it was due to the US bombing two years earlier, that's also fine.
Why are so many people persuaded by Chomsky's arguments? In large measure, this is because Chomsky is undeniably brilliant. As propagandists go, he is skillful and persuasive... or at least, persuasive to people whose only knowledge of the topic at hand comes from Chomsky himself.
Chomsky understands a critical axiom of sophistry: it's far better to mislead than to lie. Obfuscation is the propagandist's best friend. A skilled propagandist will not say, "Hildebrand and Porter's book shows that conditions under the Khmer Rouge were fairly good." Better to say that the book presents a "very favorable picture," to praise it as "carefully documented," and let the readers draw their own conclusions. Don't say, "Ponchaud's book presents a false picture of atrocities under the Khmer Rouge." Instead, simply say that this "grisly account" is "careless," and that "its veracity is therefore difficult to assess." And never forget the value of a good disclaimer: "We do not pretend to know where the truth lies..."
The whole article can be found at: http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/chomsky.htm
My disillusionment with him began sometime around the time I saw a simulcast of an award ceremony he was given by the University of Calgary, and subsequent speech, while atttending the University of Alberta in 1997/98. A group of self-described, wanna-be "radicals"around this time had taken to making, wearing and selling t-shirts that read simply "Read Chomsky" on the front with a quote from him on the back. Though I still thought I agreed with Chomsky the sanctimoniousness of this bothered me with its "St. Chomsky"-ish overtones. The speech itself, excited as I was to almost see him in person, burst my bubble even more; anti-climactic as Dorothy's first glimpse of the Wizard of Oz as he turned out to be not the dramatic speeker the film had made him out to be, but instead a rather befuddled academic who in a rather croaky voice rambled on in seeming smug self-assurance of his own perspicaciousness.
On coming out of the theatre, I was even approached by a reporter for the U of A's student newspaper (that I later wrote a great deal for) asking my opinion of the speech. The spell had not been totally broken, but while saying that I liked it I also made some comments that I think rather irked the Chomskyites on campus to the effect that it had rambled on and not been entirely coherent.
It wasn't until the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001, however, that I finally freed myself from the Cult of Chomsky as he, parroting an opinion that had already by this time disgusted me, maintained that it was all the fault of America and that those killed might somehow deserve their fate.
Since then my dislike of the man's opinions has grown evermore. Recently I came across an excellent article online that discusses his disturbingly disingenuous attitudes towards the Khmer Rouge and their rule of Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. It's rather long, but well worth reading as the best analysis of not only how wrong Chomsky was, but how he dishonestly he has dealt with his errors ever since he was proved to be so wrong. Chomsky is, of course, one of the foremost spokespersons again the mainstream media's "propaganda model," but what Bruce Sharp so convincingly shows in this article is how skilfully Chomsky himself propagandizes.
Propaganda is, by its nature, advocacy. The American Heritage dictionary defines propaganda as "The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause." Chomsky often describes the Western media as propaganda. Yet Chomsky himself is no more objective than the media he criticizes; he merely gives us different propaganda.
Chomsky's supporters frequently point out that he is trying to present the side of the story that is less often seen. But there is no guarantee that these "opposing" viewpoints have any factual merit; Porter and Hildebrand's book [Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution] is a fine example. The value of a theory lies in how it relates to the truth, not in how it relates to other theories. By habitually parroting only the contrarian view, Chomsky creates a skewed, inaccurate version of events. This is a fundamentally flawed approach: It is an approach that is concerned with persuasiveness, and not with the truth. It's the tactic of a lawyer, not a scientist. Chomsky seems to be saying: if the media is wrong, I'll present a view which is diametrically opposed. Imagine a mathematician adopting Chomsky's method: Rather than insuring the accuracy of the calculations, problems would be "solved" by averaging different wrong answers.
Describing the difference between good science and bad, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman stressed the importance of including all available evidence:
"Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can -- if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong -- to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it... In summary, the idea is to give ALL of the information to help others judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another."(Feynman, Richard: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, p. 341).
By contrast, consider the tactics employed by a devoted partisan. The partisan has already decided where her or his sympathies lie; the goal is to convince others to adopt the same position. Toward that end, a partisan will not concede anything, and will not encourage the examination of conflicting points of view. Seen in this light, the first step is to discredit conflicting accounts of any event. Arguments advanced for this purpose need not be consistent. If one reader decides that Barron and Paul are unreliable because they relied on government sources, fine; if another reader decides that Chomsky and Herman are reliable because they relied on government sources, that's fine, too. If one reader believes that the Khmer Rouge averted widespread starvation thanks to their ingenious irrigation projects, that's fine; if another reader believes that there was widespread starvation, but that it was due to the US bombing two years earlier, that's also fine.
Why are so many people persuaded by Chomsky's arguments? In large measure, this is because Chomsky is undeniably brilliant. As propagandists go, he is skillful and persuasive... or at least, persuasive to people whose only knowledge of the topic at hand comes from Chomsky himself.
Chomsky understands a critical axiom of sophistry: it's far better to mislead than to lie. Obfuscation is the propagandist's best friend. A skilled propagandist will not say, "Hildebrand and Porter's book shows that conditions under the Khmer Rouge were fairly good." Better to say that the book presents a "very favorable picture," to praise it as "carefully documented," and let the readers draw their own conclusions. Don't say, "Ponchaud's book presents a false picture of atrocities under the Khmer Rouge." Instead, simply say that this "grisly account" is "careless," and that "its veracity is therefore difficult to assess." And never forget the value of a good disclaimer: "We do not pretend to know where the truth lies..."
The whole article can be found at: http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/chomsky.htm
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Very interesting...
I had the most remarkable conversation the other day with a girl from southern China. I'd never met her, but had instead been connected to her through a site called myspace.com (very much like friendster.com or hi5.com: put up a "profile," invite friends, personalize it some ways, blah blah blah...). I don't frequent it very often, but having a few friends who use it a fair bit I check it out once in a while. A couple months back I changed my location to "Taiwan" and since then have gotten a few wanna-be friends "invitations" from people, mostly girls, in this part of the world. This girl was one of them. We exchanged emails anyways and I added her onto my MSN Messenger list but we'd never chatted until a few nights ago.
It began with the usual chit-chat, but upon being reminded that I was in Taiwan she said I should come and visit China. I responded by saying I'd like to someday, but that not being a fan of her government I'm reluctant to go as I don't want to in any way support it. Her response, "I don't understand."
So I start discussing the specifics of what I don't like about the Chinese government: its brutal annexation and ongoing ethnic cleansing of Tibet, its beligerence towards Taiwan and claim that it is but a "renegade" province of China that must at some point be reunited with the mainland instead of the rightfully independent country that it should be recognized as, its lack of democracy, use of slave labor, persecution of the Falum Gong members, and continued denial of any lives being lost when the "Peoples Liberation Army" ended the pro-democracy protests in Tianenmmen Square on June 4, 1989 among other things.
To say that she didn't appreciate my lack of appreciation would indeed be an understatement. "Oh, so you're probably one of those who think Taiwan should be independent," was more or less the gist of her response to which I replied that that is exactly what I think; saying furthermore that I didn't think China had any legal right to Taiwan and that China should respect the right of self-determination of the people of Taiwan as expressed in the UN Charter to which it is a signatory.
"You just don't understand; you're not Chinese" was then her only response to my requests for reasons as to why Taiwan "belonged" to China, but I insisted sending her links to the Wikipedia page detailing the Tianenmmen Square massacre and other Chinese atrocities which only seemed to make her angrier so then the insults started. "Gay" was the least of it, culminating in the "C" word for female genitalia - she was livid; insisting that she could say whatever she wanted, contrary to my condemnation of China's lack of freedom or press, assembly and religion, and that I didn't know anything about China. When I insisted otherwise, mentioning more details of the Chinese government's horrors, she continued the insults before finally quitting the conversation.
What to think of a young woman who has obviously been so brainwashed that any opposing viewpoints are attacked as heresy? She was on her way to Bali for a vacation so she was obviously not very poor, but clearly had never been exposed to any "truths" other than those of the Chinese government she found nothing wrong with. And to think that there are undoubtedly hundreds of millions of people just like her in China. A scary thought indeed...
It began with the usual chit-chat, but upon being reminded that I was in Taiwan she said I should come and visit China. I responded by saying I'd like to someday, but that not being a fan of her government I'm reluctant to go as I don't want to in any way support it. Her response, "I don't understand."
So I start discussing the specifics of what I don't like about the Chinese government: its brutal annexation and ongoing ethnic cleansing of Tibet, its beligerence towards Taiwan and claim that it is but a "renegade" province of China that must at some point be reunited with the mainland instead of the rightfully independent country that it should be recognized as, its lack of democracy, use of slave labor, persecution of the Falum Gong members, and continued denial of any lives being lost when the "Peoples Liberation Army" ended the pro-democracy protests in Tianenmmen Square on June 4, 1989 among other things.
To say that she didn't appreciate my lack of appreciation would indeed be an understatement. "Oh, so you're probably one of those who think Taiwan should be independent," was more or less the gist of her response to which I replied that that is exactly what I think; saying furthermore that I didn't think China had any legal right to Taiwan and that China should respect the right of self-determination of the people of Taiwan as expressed in the UN Charter to which it is a signatory.
"You just don't understand; you're not Chinese" was then her only response to my requests for reasons as to why Taiwan "belonged" to China, but I insisted sending her links to the Wikipedia page detailing the Tianenmmen Square massacre and other Chinese atrocities which only seemed to make her angrier so then the insults started. "Gay" was the least of it, culminating in the "C" word for female genitalia - she was livid; insisting that she could say whatever she wanted, contrary to my condemnation of China's lack of freedom or press, assembly and religion, and that I didn't know anything about China. When I insisted otherwise, mentioning more details of the Chinese government's horrors, she continued the insults before finally quitting the conversation.
What to think of a young woman who has obviously been so brainwashed that any opposing viewpoints are attacked as heresy? She was on her way to Bali for a vacation so she was obviously not very poor, but clearly had never been exposed to any "truths" other than those of the Chinese government she found nothing wrong with. And to think that there are undoubtedly hundreds of millions of people just like her in China. A scary thought indeed...
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