Tuesday, December 31, 2002

Axis of Evil: Is It Real?

Last night I saw Michael Ledeen claim yet again that the Axis of Evil is more a real than a rhetorical device. (The transcript is not available yet. When it is, it will reside here.) He claims, and I agree with him, that the "Axis of Evil" is a real alliance between these three powers. Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, are acting in concert against us, and furthermore that we are now seeing an escalation of the war against our civilization that might, within the next few weeks, burgeon into an actual two-front war... that when we move against Iraq, North Korea will move against Seoul.

This presents us with a rather frightening possibility. Especially since North Korea does not fit neatly into the Islamofascist mold. It would be much simpler to be able to believe that the coming conflict is some sort of a modern Crusade: Christendom against Islam. The addition of the godless North Koreans makes the conflict quite a bit wider than that.

This is not the first time that Ledeen has said more or less the same thing. In March, on NRO, for instance. At that time, I agreed with Ledeen that Iran's people were the greatest hope in the region, but that the Iranian regime was capable of most ominous action. Now, 10 months later, Iran seems to be the more quiescent of the three evil powers. They are, however, working hand in glove with the other two powers that make up the Axis. They are certainly working with Iraq in the Middle East conflict. They may be working with Pakistan and its Nuclear program. The missing piece of the puzzle is in delivery systems. That is North Korea's strong suit. They are medium range missile experts.

It is easy to wargame a total defeat of Iraq in a few weeks. But North Korea is prepared to attack Seoul with massive force. There are estimates that they could launch over a million rounds of short and medium range missiles and mortar rounds against the South within the first 24 hours of any attack. We have tens on thousands of American troops there in their fields of fire right now. Get your seat belts tightened folks. This could be a really rough ride.

Monday, December 30, 2002

Conservatives and Race

In the aftermath of the Trent Lott resignation it is interesting to note the difference between the Conservative and the Liberal reactions toLott's words. At first the Democrats were content to say nothing, possibly in the hope of having the issue fester for months, to their political advantage. On the other hand, possibly they were disinclined to bring the subject up considering their own record of the subject. Why, only last year Robert Byrd, Democrat icon used the term "nigger" in an interview, and his past language has betrayed more than a little bias against the black race in America (he was a former Grand Kleagle in the KKK), so the dems might feel just a little hesitant to start such a fight. But once the battle was joined, they demagogued the issue to death.

But the pressure on Lott to resign came from the right. As told by John Leo it was entirely Republicans who put the pressure on. This is not a question of which party or side of the political spectrum the rascicts reside in. That is clear for all to see. What I see in all of this is that only one side is expoliting the issue in such a politically tawdry way. Yet the blacks continue to give their votes to the left. This is something that I will never understand. This is a group that votes in a bloc more monolithic than the 2nd amendment people do, and look at the political power of the "NRA." If the black voters would just get a clue as to how the political system works in this country, they could hold either party hostage to their issues. Instead they just reliably vote for the donkey, so the Democrats give them nothing (they have no reason to), and the Republicans have no reason to give them anything, since they will harvest no votes that way. Still, no civil rights legislation moves without Republican votes.

It's really quite sad. This group, so vibrant and so much an intrinsic part of this great nation (their ancestors have been here longer than most whites') refuses or is unable to fully participate in the national politics. They have leaders who make a business of crying victim, and the rank and file, the great majority of whom are not on the receiving end of the government largesse given in their name, just go along and support the party that treats them like second class citizens.

Thursday, December 26, 2002

Turkish Attack on Iraq Imminent?

According to Debka.com, an attack by 70,000 Turkish troops on Mosul and Kirkuk is imminent. From their website:
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Wednesday, December 25, Talabani is to be joined in Turkey by his former rival and fellow chief of the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq, Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdish Democratic Party-KDP. Together with Turkish political and military leaders and US representatives, they will try and hammer out an historic Turkish-Kurdish accord based on a text drafted in Washington.

Its key elements are:

A. The Kurdish autonomous government of northern Iraq will grant 70,000 Turkish troops of the 2nd and 3rd Corps free passage through its territory for the Turkish push towards the big northern Iraqi oil cities of Kirkuk and Mosul.

B. While transiting this enclave, Turkish troops will show every respect for Kurdish autonomy, thereby also conferring tacit recognition on the part of Ankara.

C. The Turkish contingents will seize control the two oil cities with the support of Iraqi ethnic Turkoman units, who will be said to have risen up against Saddam Hussein’s domination of their region. For the moment, the Kurds will not press claims to Iraqi oilfields.

D. Turkey will then proceed to create an autonomous Turkoman entity stretching from northern to central Iraq up to the approaches to Baghdad.

E. The United States and Turkey will foster political, defensive and economic cooperation between the Kurdish and Turkoman self-governing provinces and guarantee their security. This clause indicates that a portion of North Iraq’s oil revenues will be channeled to the Kurdish province.

In advance of this conference, the Turkish army was placed Tuesday, December 24, on a high state of preparedness and the 2nd and 3d corps deployed along the Iraqi border in battle array.

According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, the successful outcome of the three-way parley on this document will open the way for a possible Turkish invasion of northern Iraq and its advance on the oil cities without waiting for the general American offensive to begin on other fronts.
While one can gainsay anything found on Debka.com, they are not a bunch of web wildmen. They have presaged some serious movements in the past. Believe them or not, it makes good reading. The entire article can be found here.

Turkish Attack on Iraq Imminent?

According to Debka.com, an attack by 70,000 Turkish troops on Mosul and Kirkuk is imminent. From their website:
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Wednesday, December 25, Talabani is to be joined in Turkey by his former rival and fellow chief of the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq, Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdish Democratic Party-KDP. Together with Turkish political and military leaders and US representatives, they will try and hammer out an historic Turkish-Kurdish accord based on a text drafted in Washington.

Its key elements are:

A. The Kurdish autonomous government of northern Iraq will grant 70,000 Turkish troops of the 2nd and 3rd Corps free passage through its territory for the Turkish push towards the big northern Iraqi oil cities of Kirkuk and Mosul.

B. While transiting this enclave, Turkish troops will show every respect for Kurdish autonomy, thereby also conferring tacit recognition on the part of Ankara.

C. The Turkish contingents will seize control the two oil cities with the support of Iraqi ethnic Turkoman units, who will be said to have risen up against Saddam Hussein’s domination of their region. For the moment, the Kurds will not press claims to Iraqi oilfields.

D. Turkey will then proceed to create an autonomous Turkoman entity stretching from northern to central Iraq up to the approaches to Baghdad.

E. The United States and Turkey will foster political, defensive and economic cooperation between the Kurdish and Turkoman self-governing provinces and guarantee their security. This clause indicates that a portion of North Iraq’s oil revenues will be channeled to the Kurdish province.

In advance of this conference, the Turkish army was placed Tuesday, December 24, on a high state of preparedness and the 2nd and 3d corps deployed along the Iraqi border in battle array.

According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, the successful outcome of the three-way parley on this document will open the way for a possible Turkish invasion of northern Iraq and its advance on the oil cities without waiting for the general American offensive to begin on other fronts.
While one can gainsay anything found on Debka.com, they are not a bunch of web wildmen. They have presaged some serious movements in the past. Believe them or not, it makes good reading. The entire article can be found here.

Wednesday, December 25, 2002

The Case for the Empire

It may be Christmas, but the thirst for geo-political tinkering runs deep in certain circles (mine). When "Attack of the Clones," the latest episode of the Star Wars movies came out, the Weekly Standard ran a remarkable article examining the political aspects of the battles represented by the ouvre. It resides here. Rather that excerpt the article, I reccommend that you read it all. It looks at the Star Wars series from a dispassionate point of view, and by the end, I bought the idea that the Empire is the good guys.

See if you can resist the logic of this thesis. It goes to one of the points that I am very fond of making: Where you stand depends upon where you sit.

Friday, December 20, 2002

Trent Lott

This whole Trent Lott thing has been amusing to me. This guy makes an innocent (to him) comment at his friend's birthday party and it gets blown all out of proportion to the facts. In the hypocrisy laden gestalt known as Washington it gets turned into a career-killing faux pas. Then the animals start making their jungle noises designed to extract the most career-enhancing juice posible from the still warm corpse of their colleague. All very funny. But, some of the noise is just too much to bear.

The Democrats have made an art form out of race-hustling. They have become so successful at it that they now garner over 90% of the black vote. This from a party that gives nothing to the blacks, with the exception of some food stamps, and creating an atmosphere in which a sizable cohort of the African-American population is destroyed from the standpoint of being equipped to successfully assimilate into mainstream America. It is galling to listen to such a useless piece of human garbage as Hillary Clinton saying things like: "If they think that having one person stepping down cleanses them from a generation of exploiting" blah blah blah, when she represents the party of the race-baiters, and is married to maybe the best exploiter of black pain ever to come down the pike.

I attended the New York City public schools in the 1960s, so my familiarity with blacks should be obvious. In any case, I will not defend or otherwise characterize my understanding of them, or detail how many black friends were at my wedding or any other bona fides I may have, to be able to claim to be qualified to comment on the bad deal that the blacks get in this country. Hello, but the Indians get a bad deal as well. The Catholics are getting a hard time lately, and the Jews have had a rocky time until the last few decades. But no group that I can think of has had so much of the crap that is poured on their existence administered by their putative "friends," as have the blacks by the Democrats, their "protectors." They don't need protection. They are quite qualified to hold up their own end. But as long as so many of them buy into the lie that "whitey" owes them something, they will continue to have a hard time getting ahead. As long as a group as powerful as the Democrat party can prosper so richly from making the black race in America a victim class, they will continue to be victims. And as long as they give their votes to the party that has become their own worst enemy, without asking for (or at least getting) anything in return, their prospects will continue looking dim. The shamelessness with which the Democrats abuse and exploit them is truly disgusting.

CSPAN Viewers Can Teach Us Too

One of the best current affairs shows available on video is CSPAN's Washington Journal. On this program, they have some of the best, albeit less well known, guests, as well as call ins from some of the better-informed callers in the talk industry. These callers are, for the most part, political news junkies, and therefore offer more informed questions and observations than most callers on other media (i.e. radio talk show callers and newspaper letter-to-the-editor writers). There are, to be sure, a few loonies who call in, but mostly this program is a place where one can get a feeling for the mood in certain (more informed) quarters of the nation. I tune in this program often, in particular to hear the liberal opinions, although conservatives are in abundance here as well.

One fellow this morning expressed astonishment that Richard Nixon received about one third of the black vote in 1960, and ascribed this result to the fact that JFK was Catholic. This statement betrays two common misconceptions, one is that Nixon was conservative, and two was that the black vote was always owned by the Democrats.

Under Nixon, central government spending rose from 20 percent of the gross domestic product to 22 percent. Military spending dropped from 9 percent of GDP to 6 percent, while spending on the entitlement programs that form the backbone of the welfare state soared. The last balanced budget this country has known until the 1990s bubble economy occurred in Nixon's first year in office. Subsequently, budget deficits began to steadily rise, creating the overwhelming portion of today's national debt. Nixon instituted wage and price controls, and presided over the formation of the EPA, BATF, and the first Earth day, while overseeing full school desegregation and signing the Endangered Species Act. This seems, in retrospect, to be rather a more liberal record than even FDR could boast. He was seen as a conservative mostly by his political opponents.

Add to this the greater truth that, historically, blacks form a more conservative voting bloc that whites generally. Until recently, the Republican party has been the party of rights for minorities, from the abolition of slavery to the Voting Rights Act. Only leftist demagoguery has cast the right in the rascist light that illumines it today. Even as, under a Republican president, three of the most powerful Americans are of African origin, this misperception continues. Even an innocent remark at a friend's one hundredth birthday is used as "proof" of the Republican rascist zeitgeist.

Sometimes I think that without misunderstanding, there would be no understanding at all. So much of our national debate is founded upon misperception and spin that it is difficult to differentiate the truth from the lies, While we have more sources on information that ever before, it is a full time job to digest it all. Luckily, you, my readers, have me as a resource, and I can help you do just a little of the zero based thinking that we, as informed mambers of the polity, need to do in order to keep abreast of the range of issues that are important to us all. Me, and maybe a hundred others, and we have a chance of making sense of it all. All of the sites on my blogroll, to the left (!?) of this post, deserve your support, or at least the time it takes to read us.

Friday, December 13, 2002

Vacation Over

Just returned from a week in beautiful midtown Manhattan. The land of my birth, old friends, and a realization that there is more money to be made there, per square foot or any other way you want to measure it, than anywhere else on the planet. I stayed in the A.C., saw a friend off into matrimony, and rekindled some good old friendships. Ruminated on the fact that friendship is a renewable contract, but there is no option written into the contract that makes the renewal automatic. Maintaining a friendship takes effort. Maybe even work. And people change. Even me.

But I realized two things. Old friends are worth the effort. And I have the best marriage. To the best girl. There is.

Sorry to be so personal. I know it's not my style. But I just had to get this out. Later, or tomorrow, I will get back to correcting the ills of planet Earth. But right now, it is good to be home. It is good to be married. Weddings tend to reinforce one's own feelings about the institution of marriage. When I was a confirmed bachelor, I would have felt sorry for the wedding participants. Today, I feel lucky to no longer be one of the singles. Watching Sex and the City actually makes me feel sorry for the characters. And anyone else who is jealous of the tawdry, lonely life those harridans lead. Sixteen years ago, they would have been my dream dates. Any one of them.

I'd better stop before I get icky. The thing about being a Reactionary Conservative is that the old values run strong in my blood. And I love my wife. I love being married. To her.

Thursday, December 05, 2002

Prohibition Repealed!

Today, Thursday, December 5, is the 69th anniversary of the repeal of Alcohol Prohibition. National Prohibition ended a little after 5:00pm EST, when Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the Constitution. Repeal of Alcohol Prohibition heralded a dramatic drop in the homicide rate -- which was ultimately erased, unfortunately, by escalating enforcement of drug prohibition and the other sequelae of prohibition, i.e. the huge profits and lawlessness that are the inevitable results of this type of government intrusion. The same thing happens when cigarette taxes rise to a high enough level. Ditto on the prohibition against fireworks in my home state of New York. Organized crime steps in. Personally, I came face to face with the mafia at the age of ten, when I went to chinatown to buy firecrackers. After buying some from a Chinese fellow, a big hulking stereotypical Italian fellow demanded money from us, because we had bought from the wrong guy. In South Carolina, no licensed fireworks dealer would sell to a ten year old child.

Today, due to prohibition, children find it easier to buy drugs than cigarettes or beer, since the vendors of these legal items refuse to sell to underaged children. Dope dealers have no such compunction. Why is it that many of those who fervently believe that "when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns," and thus are against overly restrictive gun laws, are in favor of laws that put the distribution of such dangerous substances in the hands of the most irresponsible element of our society. It can't possibly be in order to make drugs unobtainable, since that goal is unattainable. Hell, drugs are even available IN PRISON, where the most effective prohibition possible is in effect.

Drug abuse is a medical problem. Drug prohibition is an unconstitutional condition that sustains the Mob and those elements of the law enforcement and legal professions that depend upon it for revenue and power. Approximately one third of our law enforcement, penal, and judicial resources are dedicated to drug prohibition. This is money and effort that could be better used for real problems in our society. While a libertarian such as myself would just rescind these expenditures, big government law-and-order conservatives should jump at the chance to imprison more violent criminals, and tax these substances to gain the revenue to further increase the size and intrusiveness on Big Brother. Orwell foresaw this in 1984, where the plebes are allowed their legal intoxicants. (or was that Aldous Huxley's Brave New World?)

The only rational reason to support drug prohibition is the fear that drug abuse will increase if legal restraints are lifted. While that might be true, we don't really know. If a small fraction of the money presently spent on the punitive approach were spent on public education and public health aspects of the problem, it would make a difference. As long as we as a society refuse to even debate the question in a sober fashion, let alone try out some alternatives (rememver state's rights?), we will remain ignorant of the true cost of this benighted policy.

Monday, December 02, 2002

Is Bob Barr Reborn?

About twenty five years ago, when I was in the insurance business, my partner Nick thought that we should rep the products of a company which was run by a disreputable character. When I asked Nick why we should get involved with such a person, Nick said "Mike, every scumbag is reborn in the next deal." Nick and I split up over this issue, and Nick got rich, while I had to wait a couple of decades, and a couple of careers, for my ship to come in. Since then I have been painfully aware that, indeed, it is possible for a scumbag to be reborn, to change in response to new conditions.

Enter Bob Barr. Regular readers know that Barr is my poster child for scumbaggery in the political class, since he has a penchant for supporting many of my favorite issues, bolstering our freedoms and serving as a bulwark against those who would, for instance, expand property forfeiture rules or restrict free speech, while at the same time he is the most cynical of Drug Warriors, who believes that all constitutional protections should vanish if the defendant is accused of altering his consciousness. He clearly believes that anyone who uses illegal substances should be serving a life term at hard labor, and he has manipulated the power of the state to realize this result. He was the driving force in the effort to avoid even counting the result of the election of a medical marijuana initiative in Washington D.C. For this and other reasons, he was denied renomination to the U.S. Congress. With a 73% voting rating from the Libertarians, he was nonetheless opposed by them for his drug war activities.

Now that he is unemployed, he can be expected to do what they (almost) all do: cash in. But sly Bob has surprised me. He has joined the enemy (his enemy at least) by accepting a consultancy with the American Civil Liberties Union! Plans for exploiting his access do not, of course, include his working on securing our cognitive freedoms, which the ACLU is heavily involved in, but they will use him on informational and data privacy issues. While acknowledging their congruence on past issues:
The ACLU and Barr found common ground several times during his stint in Congress, including mutual opposition to a national ID, the Justice Department’s Carnivore Internet snooping system, the proposed "Know Your Customer" banking regulation, and the controversial Operation TIPS citizen-spy program. Just recently, Barr was able to persuade the House to pass a bill requiring federal agencies to consider the privacy implications of new regulations.
they make no mention of his implacable opposition to any non-punitive approach to the problem of drug use and abuse. Bob Barr and the ACLU have been on different sides of many debates, but when they want to buy access to the corridors of power, they go to the source. They clearly have taken Nick's advice, and concluded that this scumbag has been reborn in this new deal.

Sunday, December 01, 2002

Hit or Miss?

Over at Dean's World I have been getting raked over the coals this holiday weekend, and I thought that you, my loyal reader, should see a little of the coloquy that is over there. But if you choose not to click, I present here some of the words I have laid on Dean's readers. Some thoughts on freedom for this Thanksgiving, 2002.
I must have failed to communicate properly. I decry the imminent coming of the social conservative groundswell. Personally I can think of nothing better than a return to states rights, so I can find a state to live in. That's why I moved to the Pacific Northwest in the first place. My own children go to religious school. That is my choice. I support Bush to keep my country and my people free.

I believe that Roe v. Wade was a mistake, and the federal government has no business meddling in the abortion debate. States should be free to pass laws that range fron allowing infanticide to a total abortion ban. I wouldn't want to live in either place, but you should be allowed to if you want.

But anyone who believes that those who espouse social or Christian conservativism will not be pushing their agenda hard as a result of the recent election missed something crucial that happened during the Reagan years. When the Sharks thrive, the Remora also grow strong. Reagan's popularity was reflected in boldness of action by those who would bring back the 1950s.

Don't get me wrong. I am a reactionary conservative, but I want to bring back the 1850s, with its more constitutional rendering of freedom and states rights, not the 1950s, with Eisenhower, HUAC, and the government testing people with nuclear fallout and LSD without consent.

But Dean, I never said, as you put it, "Bush is evil, Republicans hate liberty," because I believe that Democrats are even more evil, and truly hate liberty. What I do believe is that Bush is a politician, and a fundamentalist Christian one at that. We must expect him to use his power, and attempt to amass more of it, as well as to appease his base. Lovers of liberty face a Hobson's choice: vote for Republicans, or vote for losers. Either way, freedom loses. But the Democrats are no choice at all. Just imagine where we would be if Gore, Clinton, Mondale, Dukakis, Gephardt, or Daschle had been in charge on 9-11-2001. We would still be studying the "root causes of terrorism" and asking the Taliban for permission to investigate the "cowardly criminals" who had attacked us. And attacked us. And attacked us again.

Part of freedom is allowing others to have private practices that we might find abhorrent. There might well be states where women don't have the vote, alcohol is banned, polygamy is allowed, and, yes, slavery is extant. I don't know if anybody would live there, and the rights of slaves would have to be respected, but who are you to tell someone how to live their life. There is evidence that convicts being released from decades of incarceration, of whom we are expecting a bumper crop in the future, would willingly accept such a living arrangement. If I wanted to get a job from which I could not be fired, where my master pays all of the bills, in an ideal society, I should be allowed to do so. This may be far fetched, but as a matter of philosophy, I support the right of humans to pursue their own happiness in ways I may not agree with. You think I should be grateful that you will allow us to keep alcohol. I believe that citizens should have the right to their own life; to live it as they choose, including the right to end it when, where, and how they choose, given that they don't interfere with someone else's right to do the same.

What I admire about 1850s America is that the government left the people pretty much to themselves. You could build a house according to your own standards of construction. Grow whatever crops you wished. Buy whatever you wanted. Hire whomever you felt was qualified. Fire whomever you felt like firing. Rent your house to whomever you liked. Tell your secretary that she looks pretty today without giving her ammunition for blackmail against you tomorrow.

The truth is that the world I envision is not the 1850s or the 1950s, but the very best 2050s that we can fashion for my children and grandchildren to live in. I am a reactionary, not a time traveller. I want to bring back the good old days in the context of tomorrow.

Now, why can't we all just get along?
Of course, the comments and posts I am responding to above make this more of a debate than a rant. Click on over to Dean's any time for a good read. I hang out there a lot myself.