Liberal Inconsistencies: The Islamic Question

The Wall Street Journal published a very important and insightful editorial in Tuesday's edition. The author, Tawfik Hamid, is a former member of an Islamist terrorist group, now a medical doctor living in the West.

He makes many fine and thought-provoking points in his article. However, for my purposes, perhaps the most relevant are these two: Western moral relativism has removed our bases for criticizing Islamic inhumanity and barbarism, and; American feminists are more focused on relatively minor economic issues in their own country, than more profound issues of basic human rights for women in Islamic countries.

He writes, part,

"But indeed, there is much that is clearly wrong with the Islamic world. Women are stoned to death and undergo clitorectomies. Gays hang from the gallows under the approving eyes of the proponents of Shariah, the legal code of Islam. Sunni and Shia massacre each other daily in Iraq....

Yet it is ironic and discouraging that many non-Muslim, Western intellectuals -- who unceasingly claim to support human rights -- have become obstacles to reforming Islam. Political correctness among Westerners obstructs unambiguous criticism of Shariah's inhumanity. They find socioeconomic or political excuses for Islamist terrorism such as poverty, colonialism, discrimination or the existence of Israel. What incentive is there for Muslims to demand reform when Western "progressives" pave the way for Islamist barbarity? Indeed, if the problem is not one of religious beliefs, it leaves one to wonder why Christians who live among Muslims under identical circumstances refrain from contributing to wide-scale, systematic campaigns of terror.

Western feminists duly fight in their home countries for equal pay and opportunity, but seemingly ignore, under a façade of cultural relativism, that large numbers of women in the Islamic world live under threat of beating, execution and genital mutilation, or cannot vote, drive cars and dress as they please.

The tendency of many Westerners to restrict themselves to self-criticism further obstructs reformation in Islam. Americans demonstrate against the war in Iraq, yet decline to demonstrate against the terrorists who kidnap innocent people and behead them. Similarly, after the Madrid train bombings, millions of Spanish citizens demonstrated against their separatist organization, ETA. But once the demonstrators realized that Muslims were behind the terror attacks they suspended the demonstrations. This example sent a message to radical Islamists to continue their violent methods."

These are eye-opening and very blunt statements by Hamid. If he had uttered them a few years ago, it would be one thing.

However, we are now in a position to take his statements in a different light. The US Speaker of the House is a woman. Where is Frisco Nan's outrage against the Islamic treatment of women? Where is her solidarity, not to mention that of her party's, with women across the Levant, as they are mistreated, physically abused, and treated as property?

Is it not grossly inconsistent for Nan and her minions to squawk over second-order issues of compensation equality, while their Arabic Islamic sisters are under threats of severe penalties for simply desiring basic human rights?

Further, the Democratic party, which champions the withholding of judgment from anyone's situation, from determining 'right' and 'wrong,' have now hobbled America's ability to appropriately judge the inhumanity of Islamic extremists. Hamid notes that the same liberal Americans who decry our involvement in Iraq, fail to apply similar standards to our enemies among the Islamists of the region.

Liberal Democrats are now reaping the whirlwind of what they have sown with their selective application of criticism, their relativism, and their politically correct views on so many important issues. Having stifled debate on so many critical issues in our own society, and demonized even the ability to express dissent and debate issues, they have lost their own ability to realize when Islamic extremists have gone too far. The Liberals' own capitulation on applying universal, unconditional standards of morality or human behavior have now trapped them into being unable to choose between extreme Islam as a protected 'minority,' and extreme Islam as destructive of basic human rights.

How ironic for the Liberal Democrats to have corrupted the old biblical aphorism about seeing the mote in your neighbor's eye, and not acknowledging the beam in your own, to missing the beam in your neighbor's eye, and mistaking instead the mote in your own for a tumor.

The only thing worse than having such "leadership" in the House, is if similarly-minded Democrats win the White House as well in 2008.

More On Trade & Capital Flows

With all the political demagoguery in the air lately about trade deficits, current account deficits, and foreign-held US debt, especially in this time of presidential campaigning, it is worth noting the recent editorial by Mohammed El-Erian and Nobel Laureate Michael Spence in the Wall Street Journal this past week.

They wrote a lengthy piece about the US savings rate. Essentially, they contend that the recent appreciation in US residential real estate has resulted in unexpectedly high, near-term "savings," in the form of those real estate asset values. Many people have chosen to convert some of that newly-acquired, or realized, wealth, into other assets, via spending. Thus, US imports have risen, and dollars have flowed overseas.

The people in other countries have chosen to sell us their goods and services, and accepted dollars in payment, as savings, rather than consume more right now, themselves. They are in the wealth-accumulation phase of economic growth.

This is the key point. Over time, these people, and countries, will, as they become wealthier, spend their savings, and begin consuming more. Some of that spending will be dollars, for US goods and services. Then the trade flows will, to some extent, partially reverse.

It's a timing issue, as the authors wrote,

"Among the policy mistakes, protectionism measures in the US would derail the global adjustment. So, too, would the inability of emerging economies to navigate their complex policy challenges.

Geopolitical shocks would also be a problem, as they could undermine the free flow of goods and services."

In short, trade and capital flows, spending, deficits, and investments are long-term, continuing phenomena which ebb and flow. Once on this merry-go-round of financial spending, investment, and trade flows, it is impossible to simply take a snapshot and declare the situation to be "good," or "bad."

It's clear from recent comments in the press that most US politicians, and, more frighteningly, Presidential candidates for 2008, as I noted in this post concerning Hillary Clinton's recent idiotic comments on international funds flow, do not grasp this in the least. They are playing politics with fears of 'foreign held debt,' and 'current account deficits." To my knowledge, not a one of these candidates has an economics or even a business degree.

Sadly, as El-Erian and Spence cite, these so-called leaders may do lasting and serious damage to our international trading and investment system with their short-sighted calls for protectionism, regulation of capital flows, and other trade- and funds-flow interdicting nonsense.

Let's hope wiser heads prevail, so the natural cycle of differently-maturing economies can continue to productively interact around the globe, to everyone's ultimate better living standards, greater wealth, and peaceful prosperity for generations to come. It's a long term process, never truly capable of being declared "over," nor having "winners" or "losers" throughout the process.

The Economics of Free Trade: Alan Blinder's Curious About Face

Alan Blinder's recent about-face on free trade, as described in Wednesday's featured Wall Street Journal front page article, provides a lot of food for thought.

Within the very long article, a key section, from my point of view, refers to Greg Mankiw, who, in 2004, as Bush's chairman of the CEA, stated,

"Does it matter from an economic standpoint whether items produced abroad come on planes and ships or over fiber optic cables?....Well, no, the economics is basically the same...More things are tradable than...in the past, and that's a good thing."

The point is not that education, or even "skills," per se, protect against Ricardian effects of trade. It is simply the ability to add value. If it can be added elsewhere, then workers in first country are at risk. Theoretically, given certain assumptions of transportation costs and timeframes, an Indian could replace your local shoe shiner.

As always, Americans have to innovate. And some 'innovations' may be less lasting or successful than you would imagine. For example, my father has tossed out his PC, for an iMac. Microsoft's subcontinental Indian 'helpless' desk finally drove him to reject the brand wholesale. I have read of other call centers returning to US shores, as Americans find themselves furious over poor communications with distant customer "service" reps.

Blinder is, I think, being somewhat foolish in cataloging his "little list" of occupations, with his assessment of their ability to be outsourced offshore. Such replacement of US labor is a function of speed and uniqueness of delivery of solutions to customer needs, not merely the availability of educated people on other continents, connected by packet networks of voice and/or data.

It's one thing for a company to choose locations from which it will serve its customers. It's quite another for a country to begin enforcing those choices by fiat. The US is, fortunately, still not France. Let's hope Alan Blinder doesn't influence too many politicians, or it soon may be headed in that direction.

Politics In The Age of The Blog & YouTube

Thursday's Wall Street Journal carried an excellent editorial by Dan Henninger concerning the current implications of a long-ago technological competition between telephonic circuit switching, and today's prevalent data packet switching. Allowing for a little confusion and oversight of AT&T's engineers developing packet switching for their backbone network with the coming of ESS switches, he is correct in noting that we are now seeing ramifications of the eventual domination of communications technology by packet switching networks.

Henninger's example is the recent anti-Hillary YouTube video, which I discussed in this recent post, developed by Phil de Vellis. If you still need any more evidence of how useless so-called 'campaign finance' regulations are, consider this example. de Vellis said he did the clip 'in a Sunday afternoon with "some software".' So much for raising $100MM to run a multi-media campaign. Now, a major presidential candidate's supporters can develop and air free spots on YouTube for nothing. And talk about exposure!

As usual, the Feds are running behind. This week, failed Democratic presidential contender and habitual coiffed-and-sore-headed Senator John Kerry demonized Bush supporter and ambassadorial nominee, Sam Fox, for his 527 Swift Boat financial support in the 2004 campaign. Going forward, that sort of issue may be moot. Who will need that kind of support for independently-produced, supportive videos on a multitude of burgeoning, free video clip sites?

Henninger also theorizes, correctly, I believe, that voter appetites for, and consumption of, political media is becoming shorter. YouTube clips, instead of whole 30 minute programs.

How wild is it that de Vellis uses a real "1984"-styled Orwellian video clip, modeled on the infamous Apple Superbowl ad, as a "really real" political statement today? Art/life/art/life....

Can you even tell anymore which is the "art," and which is the "life?" The de Vellis ad really smacks Hillary where it hurts- her stuffed-shirt, overbearing, arrogance and put-on attitude of actually caring what anyone else thinks. Maybe voters have finally caught up with the pols.

George Bush's Presidential Stands

As the Gonzales US DA firing flap continues, it is a pleasure to see George Bush remain resolute and warn Frisco Nan not to use subpoenas as fishing licenses.

Ditto his stand on the Iraq war resolution in the House. Bush has served notice that he will make the Democrats enact a binding resolution, affecting funding, if they insist on attempting to usurp Executive Branch powers, albeit probably unconstitutionally.

As I glanced at this week's Economist cover, I saw that they have portrayed Bush, Rice and Cheney as "Besieged." I think this is a common tactic that the press uses when they do not agree with a politician- painting him or her as 'isolated,' 'besieged,' or 'out of touch.' In this case, however, I see all of Bush's stands as completely appropriate.

The war in Iraq is but a part of a religious conflict, begun by radical Islamists, that has been building since the middle of the inept Clinton administration's term. Gonzales' firing of the US attorneys is totally legal, whatever the cause. They serve at the pleasure of the President, period. Nobody in the mainstream press, save the Wall Street Journal, is reminding Americans of Slick Willie's wholesale firing of every one of the 93 sitting US District Attorney, in order to get the Whitewater and Madison Trust investigations delayed or shut down.

President Bush is doing the right thing on both issues, and his timid Republican party members, in both Congressional Houses, should be happy he has a spine. Because they have, by and large, lost theirs. Granted, the House Republicans limited defections on the Iraq resolution, but a few of their number still jumped ship.

When they look back on this era, Republicans will see Bush as a steady, confident President, who did not shy from confrontation with a petty, vindictive, and probably temporary Democratic plurality in the House and Senate.

The Obama-Friendly Video of Hillary

For those of you who haven't seen this video, I've embedded it into this post, courtesy of YouTube. The takeoff on Apple's infamous 1984 SuperBowl commercial is priceless.

However, what I found most remarkable was a discussion on Tucker Carlson's program about this video. Both Republican and Democrat guest strategists and consultants alike expressed extreme discomfort with an uncontrolled, unauthorized, zealous supporter making an attack video such as this, on the cheap, and throwing it up on YouTube, to be seen by millions instantaneously.

As the beneficiary, Obama Bim Baden would seem to be innocently chortling over the razor-sharp barb that is this political commercial. And it's free to his campaign. But, to a person, Carlson's panel agreed that Obama's campaign staff must now be cringing, awaiting the inevitably muddier riposte from an enraged Hillary supporter.

Clearly, Presidential and, as George Allen and other candidates learned last cycle, Senatorial elections are changed in the era of YouTube. Clever, motivated freelancers, mavericks, are going to be doing "favors" for their chosen candidate. And some of those efforts will doubtless shove a campaign off its message, or perhaps even knock it off balance, with a hastily-required, and unexpected apology.

The whole thing is priceless. Perhaps the McCain-Feingold nonsense really is moot now. With this sort of advertising available on YouTube for free, perhaps we have less to worry about campaign finance law muzzling of free speech.

Regardless, this video apparently marks the beginning of a radical new era in Presidential campaigning.

John McCain..... The New Bob Dole

'I've waited long enough, it's my turn, dammit!'

That was the general theme of Bob Dole's failed Presidential campaign against Bill Clinton in 1996. The former Senate Minority & Majority Leader, with a resume stretching back to the Nixon era, attempted to capitalize on several decades of Senate pomposity, horse-trading, and all-round political hackery. The result? No sale.

Fast forward 11 years, and we're seeing it again. I don't know why it took me this long to realize it, but the parallels are pretty eerie.

Both Dole and McCain were war heroes. Both have, or had, more time in the Senate than it healthy for anybody and his state. Both engaged in high-profile speech-making and legislation authoring. Neither one was noted for tact.

George Bush's back-to-back wins derailed McCain during his prime decade. Now, if he takes the oath, he'll be the oldest American to assume the Office. Frankly, McCain is no Ronald Reagan. I don't think there's much chance of that.

Now, as John McCain's campaign is fading, one wonders if he's secretly voicing the motto of his predecessor- the last Republican Senator to seriously attempt a run at the Oval Office- 'it's my turn, dammit!'