A Cynic’s New Suit

While impeaching Bill Clinton over a blowjob remains the gold standard for absurdity and cynicism, the House GOP plan to sue Obama is impressive. This same House GOP that’s now voted 54 times to repeal the ACA will next sue the president for partially delaying its implementation. You cant make this stuff up.

Starting this year, the ACA requires corporations with more than 50 employees to provide health insurance. Obama unilaterally gave a one-year extension, and will not enforce the provision until 2015. This move was sensible because insurance markets should mature more over that time, making compliance less burdensome on companies in what remains a tepid recovery. It’s the sort of legal fix that Congress would have taken care of itself in years passed – but today’s radical GOP would prefer to see the ACA fail, instead of making uncontentious changes to improve it.

And that’s why the GOP is unhappy to see part of its most hated law put on hold. Of course, procedure is important, and Obama’s changing of the law via executive order merits scrutiny. But one cannot help but note that this is a strange executive act for the House GOP to sue over – the irresistible inference being that they couldnt find anything better; and that they think their constituents are too dumb to pick up on the details.

The lawsuit is emblematic of the GOP’s plan to resist the president on every issue, even on issues they agree on. In 2010, e.g., John McCain was a co-sponsor of a Senate resolution to establish a deficit reduction task force – Mitch McConnell was an outspoken supporter. After some deliberation, President Obama also came out in support of the resolution. At which point, McCain and McConnell did something rather curious – if by “curious” one means “revolting” – they did an about-face, and with their GOP colleagues, they killed the bill. Never mind that they thought it was good law – good for their constituents, good for the country. As long as Obama supported it, they would not, cynically sacrificing a measure they had previously lauded on the Senate floor.*

Then there’s McConnell’s famous remark that – in the face of the worst economic crisis in 80 years – his number one priority was to make Obama a one-term president. And so obstructionism for its own sake has become the GOP’s highest policy objective. Seemingly unsatisfied with sitting on their hands while one crisis after another passes without legislative action, the House GOP would next see to it that the executive branch also does nothing. Or perhaps Boehner cannot resist making literal the metaphor sometimes used to describe him – as he moves ahead with his empty suit….

 

Refs:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/166838/congress-job-approval-starts-2014.aspx

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/08/03/286995/mcconnell-admits-to-taking-debt-ceiling-hostage-its-worth-ransoming/

* this anecdote is discussed in It’s Even Worse Than It Looks by Mann and Ornstein – a fascinating and infuriating read.

 

 

 

 

Gaza Futility

There is no side to be taken in the ongoing Israeli-Gaza war. Israel has occupied Gaza in varying degrees for 47 years. Since its 2005 pullout, Israeli has maintained a blockade that severely hinders economic life and health in Gaza. Hamas emerged after 20 years of Israeli occupation, during the first Palestinian uprising in 1987. It has since risen to become Gaza’s dominant political group. Hamas are religious extremists, with little skill for governance, and no regard for human life. Perceiving that their popularity increases with Israeli aggression, Hamas deliberately provokes Israeli attacks by firing rockets into Israel from Gaza.

Israel’s ongoing blockade constitutes an act of war. Firing rockets into Israel is the only way that that Hamas, the democratically elected leadership of Gaza, can fight back – Israel has proven unresponsive in negotiations absent the use of force. Israel, for its part, reasonably insists that it needs to control imports into Gaza to keep out materials used for making rockets. If Israel lifted the blockade, one might reasonably expect armaments to flow into Gaza, to be used on Israelis. Hamas, and practically every other political group in Gaza, is intent on lobbing ordinance onto Israelis. It’s a vicious circle: the blockade, intended to reduce rocket attacks, remains itself a justification for such attacks. The rocket attacks, intended in part to retaliate for the blockade, remain itself a justification for the blockade.

A half-century of Israeli occupation came with the usual perks. For 27 years (1967-94), the Israeli military directly administered most government functions. Israel colonized Gaza with 21 settlements, whose combined population only maxed at about 8000. Those settlements nonetheless controlled 20% of all the land in Gaza – leaving more than 1 million Arabs to share the other 80%. Despite international condemnation of their occupation, Israel would have been content to occupy and colonize Gaza indefinitely. It was Palestinian resistance that brought Israel to the bargaining table in the 90s, and drove them out in 2005.

Israel’s differential treatment of Gaza and the West Bank is driven by demography, geography and history. Gaza, with 1.7 million people living in 139 square miles, has the same size and population of 1960 Detroit. The West Bank is fifteen times larger (about the size of Delaware), with an Arab population of 2.1 million; it also encompasses the biblical lands of Judea and Samaria, not to mention East Jerusalem. In short, Gaza is 10 times more densely populated than the West Bank, which is therefore much more attractive for Israeli colonization. While Israel has abandoned its Gaza settlements, it continues to expand its colonization of the West Bank, with 500,000 settlers and direct control of 40% of the territory.

Unlike the West Bank, Gaza is too small and too densely populated with Palestinians to be attractive for Israeli colonization. It will for a long time to come be very poor, and very hostile to Israel. The purpose of Israel’s present incursion is political: the Israeli government hopes to convince Israelis that they’re doing their best to end the rocket attacks out of Gaza. Beyond that, it will accomplish nothing. Hostility toward Israel, whether in the form of suicide bombers or rocket attacks, are the consequence of a political movement, which will never be defeated on the battlefield. It took decades of Israeli occupation to create Hamas. It will takes decades more for them to go away. The US should condemn Israel’s invasion of Gaza – not because it’s unjustified, but because it’s futile.

 

Refs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Palestinian_territories

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_statistics_for_Israeli_Gaza_Strip_settlements

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Intifada

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bank

 

 

 

 

We’re All Socialists

Once you agree that we’re able to identify economic sectors that are neglected by markets, and furthermore accept the government’s role in allocating resources into those sectors, you have subscribed to two of the most important tenets of socialism, and are left to figure out what kind of socialist you want to be.

Some roles of government are so ancient that people take them for granted. No one is regarded as a socialist for asserting that government should build bridges or maintain a fire and police department. However the economic logic of government activity in these areas is not terribly different from the logic behind public education – or public insurance. The distinction between a “capitalist” who supports the government’s role in education, infrastructure and public safety, and a “socialist” who additionally supports the government’s role in insurance is only a matter of degree.

When western societies started pooling resources to collectively educate children in the 18th century, socialism wasnt even a word. All but the most rabid conservatives accept that collecting taxes and spending them to educate children is a proper role for government. (Conservatives get hysterical over the federal government’s role in education.)  Conservative acceptance of public education is as well their tacit acknowledgement of the failure of markets to fulfill the need.

It helps to be reminded of the chasm between “classical” economics and other economic models. Classical economics has it that markets are self-correcting and self-sustaining – that central planners cannot improve on a free market’s allocations. Anyone who accepts public education necessarily rejects classical economics – because if markets could not be improved upon by central planning, then public education would be unnecessary and wasteful – free markets would see to education privately, leaving no need for public schools.

But education markets suffer from several well-known problems. One is access to capital: a five year old cant go to the bank to secure a loan to pay for his education for the next 10 or 20 years. Even if he could, one’s own education is so rife in positive externalities, that it would suffer from chronic underinvestment. (The benefits of your education accrue significantly to other people – if you could somehow capture all of their benefit too, you would be willing to spend a lot more for your own education.) Parents who pay for their child’s education have the same externality problem.

Public education is a big ticket item, dramatically increasing the size of government. In the US, total annual government education spending on all levels will for the first time exceed $1 trillion in 2014. That’s 50% more than the government spends on defense – and almost as much as government spending on healthcare and pensions.

Once you accept our ability to identify failing market sectors, and subscribe in principle to the government’s ability to correct those failures through regulation or outright government provision, you open up the debate as to which market sectors need attention. Beyond education, infrastructure and security, perhaps the next most obvious market failure is insurance – and it’s no coincidence that governments worldwide have been in the insurance business for 150 years.

As conservatives mindlessly rail against government-provided health insurance as socialism, it’s amusing to chide them on their own socialist beliefs. But it’s no less heartening to appreciate the considerable common ground shared by Americans from both ends of the political spectrum.

 

 

Taxing Smokes and Drinks

Smoking is bad for you. Sugar-sweetened sodas are probably bad for you too. But taxes on cigarettes and sugary drinks are dumb and mean-spirited, and liberals should oppose them.

Smoking causes cancer, heart disease and emphysema. Despite this knowledge, some adults still want to smoke – and their decision should be respected, even if most other adults dont understand it. Levying punitive taxes on tobacco – as high as 400% on a pack of cigarettes – as if to help others make the “right” decision, is paternalistic and obnoxious. It’s well known that smoking causes disease – helping it cause poverty too is gratuitous.

Many are familiar with the argument: since society ultimately picks up the tab for the health consequences of smoking, society can rightfully tax it to reduce smoking rates. Milton Friedman rightly critiqued this as a slippery-slope to tyranny – that the sum of such policies will greatly erode liberty. But few realize that the math doesnt work either: smoking probably reduces government spending because smokers live shorter lives, and so collect less social security than they would otherwise. We should be glad to pay a premium for liberty – but it’s nice to know that we can let smokers smoke in peace without fretting over the bill.

Conservatives look stupid when rejecting gay love or marriage – seemingly unable to make the rather simple inference that gays can naturally and normally have romantic feelings for members of the same sex, even though such feelings can seem strange or repugnant to some heterosexuals. The inability to tolerate – much less acknowledge the validity of – preferences different from their own, reveals a fundamental lack of insight and imagination.

But liberals look just as stupid when they beat up on the working-class over their Marlboros and Coke Classic. Driving without a seatbelt is idiotic – but if informed adults want to go that way, they should have at it, free of state intrusion. It is in fact NOT at all obvious how one goes about weighing the trade-offs between unhealthy behaviors and shortened lives. You dont have to understand why someone else is willing to give up 10 or 20 years to smoke, eat badly, ride a motorcycle or skydive – but as a liberal, you must accept their informed decision, else you fall into the same species of error that conservatives make on gay rights.

There’s also a more modern, fancier slippery slope: that since smoking is addictive, we can dismiss the choice of adults to smoke because their decision is not consensual. We might treat smokers as people who have been duped into an addiction, and so disregard their apparent preference, and look for ways to help set them straight. Despite the efficacy of medical models for the treatment of drug abuse and addiction, invalidating the considered, informed decisions of adults is dangerous business. A liberal society demands that adults be given the benefit of the doubt.

Liberals are sometimes rightly critiqued as elites who are so sure they know better than other people, that they’re willing to substitute their judgement for those they deem to be in need of guidance. Smoking and obesity patterns follow class lines, with poor, uneducated working people far more likely to smoke and be overweight. Cigarette taxes thus seem as paternalistic as they are regressive, and feed the perception that liberals are out of touch with the working class.

Respecting other people means, above all, recognizing that their choices on activities that impact their own lives are valid per se. It is the government’s role to disseminate information so people can make the best possible decisions. But manipulating prices through tax policy to impact preferences is simply not a proper role for a liberal government. The decisions of informed adults should be respected, even if they are not understood.

 

 

Regulating The Business of Racism

Not all rights in the Bill of Rights are equal. Every right you have depends on your ability to go before an impartial judge to complain of your treatment at the hands of the executive; and your ability to communicate your preferences to other people, including your representatives in the legislature. If all of your other rights were lost, as long as you still had the right to speak your mind and be heard, there’d still be hope. This is why government regulation of expression is so dangerous, no matter how well-intended it may be. The right to speak your mind is the most precious right you have. Reciprocally, the government’s power to censor human expression is its most dangerous.

Many countries have laws against “hate speech.” Depending on where you are, you can be imprisoned for advocating for genocide (Canada); for insulting or disparaging someone’s race, religion, skin color or sexual orientation (Denmark, Iceland), or for denying that the Holocaust happened (France, Belgium) – just to give a few examples. In the US, all such laws would be unconstitutional – leaving Americans relatively free to spew whatever madness or hatred that strikes their fancy.

Then there’s the US Civil Rights Act. While a private citizen can put up racially offensive signs on his front lawn, or publish newsletters denigrating particular ethnic groups, in business he is NOT free to discriminate against customers or employees on the basis of race or religion. This dichotomy is justified because commerce does not get the same protection as civil and political expression. (Up until recently, the US Supreme Court understood the difference between a person and a firm; and between speaking and spending.) Some conservatives complain that this is an overreach of government power – that forcing a restaurant owner, e.g., to serve whites is a denial of his property rights, if not his right to express a particular view by a specific means.

The NFL’s Washington franchise, as a business under US law, cannot discriminate against customers or employees on the basis of race. It is not clear whether a Native American working for the firm could sue the team on the theory that its use of the term Redskins constitutes a form of harassment. For illustration, one might imagine a black supremacist starting a business that prints racially disparaging bumper-stickers. (The Field Guide defers to its readership the imagining of a few especially offensive examples.) Clearly, a white person who applies for employment in such a firm must be treated equally for hiring purposes. But once hired, could he thereafter sue the firm because production of its only product constitutes a denial of his civil rights?

The aim is to demonstrate that several liberal principles are in conflict in this set of issues. Protecting the sensibilities of minorities is important. No less important in a polyglot society is the value of toleration – ensuring individuals a maximum of latitude to live and organize their lives. But free speech – and by free we mean specifically free of government regulation – is paramount. Compared to other western democracies, the US stakes out an extreme position re the government’s power to regulate the content of speech. The Field Guide submits that the US gets it right on this issue – even if in some instances, the result is distasteful.

The Washington franchise has been stripped of its trademarks – this is entirely appropriate and was long overdue. But empowering the government to prevent the firm’s use of a racial slur as its team name; or to forbid its use of a racially inflammatory logo, would be a mistake. One must have faith that liberal values, given time enough, will be borne out – as they always have. Empowering the state to censor the speech of racists – even big racist firms – gives the cause of liberalism a small victory, at too dear a cost. It is nothing more than the majority silencing the expression of a minority it deems unworthy. Though the end may seem attractive, the means, when stripped down to its bare bones, are as ugly as ever.

Consider the best argument against the flag-burning amendment: A flag sheltered by threats to personal liberty can never be a symbol of liberty, and as such, is worthless. Likewise, when liberalism manipulates the apparatus of government to stifle expression it finds noxious, it destroys its core precepts: that the condition of individual liberty will ultimately lead our species to the best of all possible worlds; that given free exchange in the marketplace of ideas, the best ideas will ultimately prevail. Even when progress toward that end is sometimes too slow, empowering the government to pick winners and losers among ideas is itself the worst idea of all.

 

Refs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech

 

Note to Field Guide friends and readers: the hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are upon us, and the Field Guide’s stalwart staff is not immune. CT has commanded a two (2(!)) week cessation of all LFG-related activities, to commence not later than sundown on Friday – encouraging all to use some vacay to nurture the liberal spirit, and if that fails, to drink till inebriation and dialogue members of the opposite (or same) sex till accession.

CT will remain at the home office to oversee the fine-tuning of our trusty LFG woodchipper – and while he’s left open the possibility of reposting hidden gems from the Field Guide’s dusky past, we will return in full freshness on Wednesday July 16th –

 

 

 

NBA, NFL and the Business of Racism

The NBA has revenues of more than $5 billion. Its 30 teams have a collective valuation, per Forbes, of $19 billion – though given recent sales of other sports franchises, that’s probably understated. And so when one owner got caught making racially disparaging remarks, 29 others moved swiftly to excise the canker from the league’s cajillion dollar body. While final, legal closure will likely require years in court (the kind without hoops), it is, as far as fans and players are concerned, largely settled. The league rose to the occasion and cast out a resident racist, allowing the rest to move on.

The case of Donald Sterling is interesting and heartening because it will very likely be put to rest by operation of market forces, with a racist owner dispatched from the NBA because racism is bad for business. When racism is made to go away by private actors, without recourse to the coercive power of the state, that’s a good thing, and a sign of progress.

In contrast, the case of Washington’s NFL franchise is not likely to go away any time soon. Washington has been using a racial slur as its team name since 1933. As far back as 1968, the National Congress of American Indians condemned the team’s use of Redskins; scores of other Native American tribes and organizations have subsequently followed suit – just in case the point had been missed by Washington’s ownership, which was infamous for being among the most racist in professional sports. (In 1962, threatened with eviction from their home stadium by the federal government, they became the last pro football team to integrate – while playing in a city that was more than 50% black.)

Last week, the US Patent and Trademark Office revoked Washington’s team trademarks, deeming the Redskins name and image to be racially disparaging, and thus not entitled to trademark protection. This is the second time that the USPTO has issued such a decision. They did so first in 1999 – a decision that was later reversed.

There can be no serious debate as to whether “Redskins” is a racial slur, Dictionaries are unanimous. Decades of usage may have had a desensitizing effect – but try to Imagine yourself addressing a roomful of Native Americans as Redskins, and any remaining doubt will vanish. A harder question is the proper role of the state in adjudicating, if not remedying, the situation.

Consider that between Sterling’s comments and Washington’s name, the latter case is far more egregious, persisting now for more than 80 years, validated day in and day out by the league, its players and fans; in the mouths of sponsors, announcers and members of the press. The reason the matter persists is simply that Native Americans are not economically significant enough for NFL ownership, its players or fanbase to rethink current practice. Most people dont care – and Native Americans lack the political or economic capital to force them to reconsider.

While Sterling’s comments merited a severe rebuke, the size and swiftness of the response was driven not by the size of the insult, but by the amount of money at stake. Or, as stated above, it was not resolved by justice but by commerce. In Washington’s case, commerce may not be enough to make its ill-conceived team name go away – and justice may not have an answer either.

While trademark revocation is appropriate, it will have some undesirable effects if it stands. Clearly, it will hit the team in the wallet, which was petitioners’ objective. But Washington, with an estimated worth of $1.7 billion, may find the name valuable enough to keep, even in the absence of trademark protection. More perversely, anyone will be able to manufacture and sell merchandise with the Redskins name and logo, without having to get permission or pay licensing fees. According to basic economic theory, this will lead to a significant INCREASE in the supply of Redskins-branded items, and a drop in price. In other words, with its trademark protection revoked, use of the Redskins name and logo on commercial merchandise should become MORE widespread than ever.

Beyond revoking the trademark, it’s not clear what the government can or should do. Liberals must tread carefully in areas involving freedom of expression, including so-called hate speech – of which this matter is a sub-species. The Field Guide will take the issue up when we return on Friday.

 

Refs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Redskins_name_controversy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redskin_%28slang%29

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/06/a-linguist-on-why-redskin-is-racist-patent-overturned/373198/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Redskins#Integration_controversy

http://www.npr.org/2011/09/04/140066378/a-showdown-that-changed-footballs-racial-history

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Sterling#Racial_remarks_and_lifetime_ban

http://www.forbes.com/nba-valuations/list/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2014/01/22/as-stern-says-goodbye-knicks-lakers-set-records-as-nbas-most-valuable-teams/

http://www.forbes.com/nfl-valuations/list/

 

 

 

Crime and Punishment and Yet More Punishment

Which country has the highest incarceration rate in the world? The US. And that’s not merely the highest incarceration rate among rich countries or western countries or developed countries. The US has more prisoners as a function of its population than any country on the planet. You can rattle off the worst regimes for human rights: Burma, Cuba, China, Yemen, Saudi Arabia. But on locking ’em up, the US smokes ’em all. And it isnt even close. The US jails 40% more people than Russia or Cuba – more than doubles Iran – triples UAE, Singapore and Turkmenistan – quadruples Albania – quintuples Iraq. We could go on – we probably should go on – but you get the idea.

And that’s just the ugly part of the story – the weird (and still ugly) part is that the US doesnt even have an especially high crime rate. Lots of murders, yes indeed – but violence and property crime is no more common in the US than in Western European countries with far lower incarceration rates. Higher US incarceration rates can NOT be explained away as a response to higher crime in the US – because crime rates in the US arent that high.

Neither can higher US incarceration rates be explained by a historical increase in crime. Crime in the US peaked in 1991, and has fallen steadily for more than 20 years. Since 1991, violent crime rates have fallen by half, and property crime rates have fallen by 30-40%. Meanwhile incarceration rates have risen by 50%! Put otherwise, the US property crime rate today is about the same as it was in 1968. The US violent crime rate today is about the same as it was in 1971. The murder rate is about the same as it was in 1963. And yet the incarceration rate in the US is FIVE TIMES HIGHER than it was in the 60s and early 70s.

Just in case we’ve somehow failed to drive home this point: the US locks up an outrageous number of people. Whether compared to other countries, taken in historical context, or as a function of crime, there are way, way WAY too many Americans in prisons – we’re talking easily triple what there should be, by any international or historical comparison.

An closer look reveals two key factors behind astronomical US incarceration rates: drug laws, and the length of sentences. The so-called war on drugs has succeeded in putting a large number of non-violent offenders in US prisons. Stricter sentencing means that even though Americans do NOT get sent to prison much more often than residents of other countries, Americans tend to stay in prison far longer per sentence.

Clearly, no one should ever go to prison merely for choosing to ingest a substance – and in the twilight between now and the day that that becomes law, America should work to systematically reduce the number of people who go to prison for nonviolent drug-related crimes; and should work to shorten the sentences of those already incarcerated. The latter is precisely the plan recently backed by AG Eric Holder. It’s only a modest improvement on what remains a draconian set of laws – but it’s a change for the better, and, one hopes, a step toward the dismantling of the US prison-industrial complex.

 

Refs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate

http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Property-crime-victims

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/doj-eric-holder-urges-reduced-prison-sentence-plan

http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2014/03/holder-makes-new-move-to-shorten-drug-sentences-185034.html

 

 

 

Iraq, Syria, Vietnam: All the Same War

At a fundamental level, the US struggles with radical Islam today are the same as its struggles with communism during the Cold War. Radical Islam is a POLITICAL movement – as was communism. And like communism, it will never be defeated militarily, but only through politics – a long, slow process that takes decades.

During the Cold War, socialism was popular the world over. The US often had to choose between accepting a democratically-elected socialist government, or working to overthrow that democracy to install a dictator who was sympathetic to the US (and antagonistic to the USSR). While paying lip-service to democracy, the US spent decades subverting it across the globe – in countries such as the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Chile, Iran and Nicaragua – whenever a population had the poor taste to elect socialists.

Egypt is the most obvious post-Cold War analog, where the popularity of radical Islam was borne out in democratic elections that brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power in 2012. It took more than 4000 years of Egyptian history to produce Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first elected leader – but just one more year to overthrow him. The US responded much as it did to Hugo Chavez’s short-lived coup in Venezuela: given the choice between democracy and a US-friendly government, the US did not hesitate to turn its back on democracy, as it did for decades during the Cold War. The US just did the same thing in Ukraine too, validating the overthrow of a democratically elected pro-Russian government; and embracing the pro-Western leadership that emerged from the revolution.

Syria is playing out as a variation on the same theme. A client-state of the USSR during the Cold War, its poor US-relations were cemented by its role in the Six-Day (1967) and Yom Kippur (1973) Wars. Assad would otherwise be a natural US ally, given that he’s a secular leader, opposed to radical Islam. As Syria descended into civil war, the US could not take a side, because Assad’s overthrow would almost surely bring radical Islamists to power. Faced with a choice between Assad and radical Islam, the US has done nothing – which is good policy. In Syria, the US can do little more than put its own infantry in the way of two warring factions – a futility whose lesson was learned in Vietnam.

Which brings us to Iraq, where the dynamics today are all too familiar. A secular democracy is under siege by radical Islam. Unlike Syria, the US considers the secular leadership of Iraq to be an ally. But it hardly makes a difference, because, again, the root of the conflict is political – and foreign armies make for especially bad politics. See how decades of military confrontation have failed to quell anti-Israeli movements in Gaza and the West Bank. There simply is no role for the use of US military force in Iraq. US infantryman would serve as little more than targets, to the tune of hundreds, if not thousands of casualties per year; meanwhile their very presence would fuel radical Islam’s recruitment efforts.

Chaos in Syria and Iraq today is the direct and foreseeable consequence of Bush Duh’s foolish 2003 invasion. Once the Hussein regime was toppled, everything that’s since happened was inevitable: factionalization, civil war, the rise of religious extremists, and their spread across national borders. The US has no good options. The popularity of radical Islam will not be made to pass with bombs and bullets. The US infantry cannot today win the fight for secular democracy in Iraq, any more than it could win the fight for pro-Western governance in Vietnam in 1968.

Market economics and democracy have arisen the world over – but it takes years for people and their leadership to be won over to that set of policies and principles. There is, unfortunately, no short cut between where we are now – with nascent radical Islamic movements across many countries in the Middle East – and where we hope to be one day.

 

Amnesty the Inescapable

The problem with US immigration law is that it was not written to deal with the reality of 12 million undocumented people living within the US. You might conceptualize it as 4% of the entire US population, or as one out of every twenty-five US residents, or as the equivalent of the population of Illinois.

In any case, it’s a whole lotta people, and American laws can neither normalize them, nor facilitate their removal. For the latter, one should be thankful. The SS was only able to round up 6 million people across Continental Europe. Whatever police power the US would require to remove double that number from within its own borders – it’s not a creature that Americans would want to create, much less live beside.

Not to worry though – present immigration enforcement personnel are no where near the size they’d need to be to even make a dent. Consider that New York City has 40,000 police officers serving 8 million people in a 300 square mile area. By comparison, the United States has 5,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to deal with 12 million undocumented aliens living among 300 million other people in a 3,800,000 square mile area. The US Border Patrol has another 21,000 officers, patrolling a 5,500 mile border with Canada and a 2,000 mile border with Mexico. Given that the Border Patrol operates up to 100 miles inland from borders, you have 21,000 officers for an area the size of Nebraska containing 200 million people.

The problem isnt simply in the math. In practice, no country subject to a bill of rights, with hard and fast limits on the power and intrusiveness of the police, could find, hold, try and deport 12 million people. This is why amnesty will be central to any future law that meaningfully deals with America’s immigration reality – not because amnesty is just or fair, but because nothing else is practical.

Which leads us to a matter worth mentioning, if only in passing: the drubbing of Eric Cantor. Many say he was simply outflanked on the right by the tea party in traditional fashion – that his pro-immigration-reform stance was interpreted as too pro-business. Paul Krugman theorized that the GOP bait ‘n switch has broken down: that candidates running on social issues – abortion, guns, the death penalty – will now be taken to task for pro-business policies elsewhere. A more parsimonious explanation is that Cantor is simply a lousy politician. He is, after all, absurdly conservative – a major player in the manufactured debt ceiling crisis, which was extremely popular among arch-conservatives – Cantor failed to communicate his role in it. Even his position on immigration is extreme – allowing a path to citizenship only for people who were brought to the US as minors.

The central teaching of Cantor’s defeat is really a very old lesson, but one worth retreading: GOP voters and politicians are utterly divorced from reality. The US Congress can no more change the color of the sky via legislation than they can resolve our immigration difficulties without relying heavily on amnesty.

 

Refs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Border_Patrol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Immigration_and_Customs_Enforcement#Enforcement_and_Removal_Operations_.28ERO.29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Police_Department

http://www.wired.com/2008/10/aclu-assails-10/

http://www.texasobserver.org/border-patrol-takes-no-for-an-answer-at-internal-checkpoints/

http://rt.com/usa/court-upholds-laptop-border-searches-041/

 

 

 

 

GMO Labeling

People have been modifying the genes of food plants and animals for thousands of years. The process traditionally relies on selective breeding – what Darwin called “artificial selection.” More recently, science has facilitated a faster approach: altering genes directly, adding completely new, foreign sequences to an organism’s genome; knocking out or deactivating others. Plants can now be changed in ways never before imagined, and change is effected far more rapidly.

While in theory one can produce toxic plants via artificial selection, in practice the reverse has frequently occurred: plants that were toxic have been made edible through domestication. Almonds are one example: undomesticated trees commonly produce fruit containing lethal amounts of cyanide. Some today are concerned that so-called “genetically modified organisms” (GMOs) might adversely impact human health. While their concerns have a theoretical basis, they remain empirically baseless. Despite the widespread use of genetically modified corn, soybeans, and numerous other fruits, there is absolutely no evidence that human health has been harmed. Meanwhile enormous benefits have been conferred, with food production costs dramatically reduced, productivity increased, and several crops saved from destruction.

The debate often centers around labeling requirements. Numerous western countries require that foods containing GMOs say so on their label. The US is not among them – but some states are independently entertaining such laws, including New York, where a bill is now pending. Advocates for labeling often couch their arguments in terms of consumer choice – but in the absence of any evidence that GMOs differentially impact human health, consumers’ desire to avoid them is a “pure preference”, without a basis in health, nutrition or otherwise. As such, it is proper to defer to the market to meet this particular consumer demand, and not legislate that market into existence.

The reason why these laws do not exist in the US is because of aggressive corporate lobbying against them – outspending proponents several times over. Counter-intuitive though it may be, not everything that agribusiness wants is bad. (!) Proponents include purveyors of so-called “organic” produce, who have also grown into big businesses, and have their own profit-motives.

One major advantage of liberalism is that one does NOT need to hide from the facts to maintain one’s positions. Those who pursue truth before any agenda can, in any case, make no exceptions. Liberals who take the scientific high road against conservatives on topics as varied as sexual education, evolution and climate science, should be true to their principles, and take the same approach on this issue. If GMOs were indeed harmful, we should expect to see some evidence of harm. In the utter absence of any, we can reasonably defer consideration of labeling requirements until circumstances warrant. As the facts now stand, required labeling for GMOs is capricious and unreasonable.

One must also consider the challenge of feeding a world of 7 billion people – expected to reach 8 billion in 10 years, and 9 billion in 25 years. GMOs are among our most valuable tools toward that end.

 

Refs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_organism

http://www.nepadbiosafety.net/subjects/biotechnology/process-of-developing-genetically-modified-gm-crops

http://www.learner.org/courses/biology/textbook/gmo/gmo_6.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Projections

 

 

 

 

 

and for what it’s worth, the plants and animals we keep around us have in turn modified our genes.