New at Reason

December 21, 2005

Matt Welch says the struggle against Islamic authoritarianism is no Cold War.

Comments

|12.21.05 @ 3:54PM|#

Bravo, Mr. Welch.

|12.21.05 @ 4:05PM|#

I get what you're saying Matt, but this sort of thing makes me scratch my head a bit. What do you view as a stable equilibrium for Iraq? Is it really dictators or bust? If so, is there an implication about choosing a preferable dictator? Don't we always get accused of blowback when we do that?

I guess the gist of my head scratching is, do you really think that doing absolutely nothing provides the most stability at the lowest cost?

|12.21.05 @ 4:09PM|#

But what if doing something actually makes the situation worse? Suppose instead of a dictator, you get a de facto ayatollah? Simply installing a puppet government and wishing "lotsa luck" isn't going to work.

Besides, both Sunnis and Shi'a want our presence in Iraq to rapidly diminish, probably so they can get back to stoning adulterers and banning Western music. Is that improvement, or moving in a new direction down another bad road?

|12.21.05 @ 4:10PM|#

Jason,
I don't know that Matt is offering so much a critique of the policy itself as he is criticizing the Bushies for weakening their case by beating the inappropriate "it won the cold war" trope into the ground.

|12.21.05 @ 4:11PM|#

The difference between Czechoslovakia and Iraq is clear: Czechs are not Arabs. Arabs have a much different take on life. In Arab culture, killing is sport.

One can't embrace the concept of "diversity" and then make the claim that cultures are not fundamentally different. Some cultures worship death. But not the Czechs.

|12.21.05 @ 4:16PM|#

Man, I'm tired of this Iraq thing. What America needs right now is for a wealthy tube-fed vegetative blonde to go missing in Acapulco.

VM|12.21.05 @ 4:26PM|#

cool work, Matt!

"That happy trend will not be accelerated by mouthing Ronald Reagan, while imitating Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon, and J. Edgar Hoover."

isn't what the "conservatives" have been doing since, oh, about 1990???

Bored: ha!

|12.21.05 @ 4:44PM|#

Important point. This ain't the Cold War: the USSR could have wiped us out (just as we could have wiped them out). By contrast, the Islamofascists could, in a worst-case scenario disrupt commerce (prehaps provoking a major economic downturn) or set off a few tactical nukes. Not to make light of said scenarios but there's really no comparison. The real danger (and you can be sure that the bin Ladens of this world understand this) is in our government using the perceived threat as an excuse to overreact...

Oh, but that could never happen here, right?

Right?

|12.21.05 @ 4:44PM|#

"The difference between Czechoslovakia and Iraq is clear: Czechs are not Arabs. Arabs have a much different take on life. In Arab culture, killing is sport."

Yes every single muslim wants to kill people for fun. You are so smart. Gabby Hayes smart.

|12.21.05 @ 4:55PM|#

please explain how the the United States is freer than it was in 1972.

Vikings of monas past|12.21.05 @ 5:05PM|#

Art: you suggesting it's not?
regardless i like the thought game:

how 'bout setting up some reasoning behind "less free" and "more free". then we could figure this out!

here are some ways of starting:

we could break this down into social/cultural components and see what has changed

then we could do a breakdown of law enforcement (probably have to consider pre oklahoma city as a segment in time) accountability.

then we could see how many more fees and regulations there are. divide those up along types of externalities, if you'd like.

how available and transparent gov't info is.

how available information is (with fact checking ability)

this would be an interesting exercise.

and you'd get different answers, depending on how the reviewer interprets.

a fundie would feel that the presence of gays would be an affront and would rate the social "less free". a tree hugger would cite better environmental regulation from 1972 and probably suggest "more free".

j edgar hoover people would rate "no change", hence the needs for time segments

economic freedom: how do we measure this? taxation? regulation? loopholes in the tax code? average tax bill? these are tough issues here.

oh well, time for really important stuff: Max X is on. 'later

|12.21.05 @ 5:19PM|#

Yes every single muslim wants to kill people for fun. You are so smart. Gabby Hayes smart.

That was not what I said. Chide me if you'd like, but some cultures have within their core a culture of death. Not all cultures are sweetness and light.

Study some history and get back to us.

|12.21.05 @ 5:21PM|#

Gabby Hayes smart.

You got somthin' against Mr. Hayes?

|12.21.05 @ 5:27PM|#

Hambone just gave someone a homework assignment. Who are you, Hakulyt's retard brother?

R C Dean|12.21.05 @ 5:31PM|#

do you really think that doing absolutely nothing provides the most stability at the lowest cost?

What's so great about a "stability" that consists of fundamentalist and/or fascist Middle Eastern regimes that are brutally oppressive, barbarically backwards in their treatment of women, political opposition, intellectual inquiry, etc., and export their most discontented and asocial elements to the West?

Keep in mind that maintaining stability in the Mideast means preserving the very social dysfunctions that drove multiple attacks on the US (and Israel) throughout the eighties and nineties.

But what if doing something actually makes the situation worse?

That's always a risk, but when the status quo is bad enough its a risk you have to take.

Varangy|12.21.05 @ 6:14PM|#

How long are Matt Welch and his cohorts going to re-live/exploit their years as pseudo-intellectual douche-bag ex-pats, giving them the moral high-ground to pontificate on all matters concerning liberty in Eastern Europe and elsewhere?

Spare us. Please.

Matt, more often than not, you have no idea what you are writing about.

VM|12.21.05 @ 6:24PM|#

Take it easy, Varangy. take it easy.

Matt does good work. He did point out to me that Red Hot and Blues is STILL there! the only downside, imo, is that he's pro EU (at least two cheers' worth).

And he's right about the cold war today's problem.

so what's yer beef?

cripes, it sounds like you didn't get to go abroad your junior year and are bitter. if you have some factual beefs, throw 'em out here. we'll read 'em.

until then, titrate, have a drink, spank, or something. life is too short!

you wanna borrow my noam chomsky blow up doll?

|12.21.05 @ 6:43PM|#

R C Dean - your formulation at the end is the problem.

That's always a risk, but when the status quo is bad enough its a risk you have to take.

You've only stated the two variables - badness, and risk. But there's the other variable - the expected value. You can have a huge amount of badness, an intolerable amount of it, but if your expected value doesn't exceed your risk, you should stand pat.

It's not a simple calculation - poor short-term effects can proceed better long-term ones - but your reasoning is incomplete otherwise, and leads you into all sorts of diseconomies. "Throwing good money after bad." "The cure is worse than the disease." "Things went from bad to worse." "Out of the frying pan and into the fire." OK, now I'm just having fun.

I felt from the beginning about the war like I do about buying stocks. Here's the process I'd like to be able to follow:

- I buy when the price is low.
- If the price goes up, I sell.
- If the price goes down, I don't buy.

Unfortunate.

|12.21.05 @ 7:33PM|#

"The difference between Czechoslovakia and Iraq is clear: Czechs are not Arabs. Arabs have a much different take on life. In Arab culture, killing is sport."

This is the kind of idiotic generalization that gets you on a course to disasterous policies.

I am an Iranian who's been living in the United States for the past 15 years. I've lost 2 uncles and numerous friends and neighbors to Saddam Hussain's Iraq's war on Iran (ironically funded mostly by Kuwaiti financing, French and Russian weapon systems, and an implicit American Nod), in short, I bet I have a lot more personal reasons to hate Arabs or say they are 'death glorifyers'.

But Arabs are truely "overly" passionate people, their friendship is permanant and overwhelmingly kind and generous, and their aggression is equally final. Combine that mindset with the misinformation constantly fed by Arab Government run media, and the not deniable fact that US has had a clear and present bias towards selling weapons technology exclusively to Israel in the conflict while publicly pretending to be uninvolved. And you have a recipe for disaster.

Your kind of 'they're just savages' retoric is simple and easy to digest. That doesn't make it correct or insightful. US would be wise not to continue on the road to alienate 1 billion muslims around the world by holding all of them responsible for the acts of a terrorist organization Al Qaida, who by the highest estimates is no more than 5000 strong, and ironically had majority of their members trained and supported by CIA during the Afghan-Soviet war.

You reap what you sow, instability and unjust borders (courtesy of churchill) will manifest itself in unnatural phenomena, like islamic extremism which is one step better than being someone else's 'bitch'.

Don't forget, giving your life for a cause isn't as crazy as we make it sound like.

I know of a great nation who was founded with a mantra: "Give me Liberty, or give me death"

|12.21.05 @ 7:36PM|#

Hambone,
So Muslims have a culture based on violence. It's too bad they don't have a history of peaceful resolution of problems and the lack of murderous tyrants and cultures like Christendom.

|12.21.05 @ 7:36PM|#

Matt Welch says the struggle against Islamic authoritarianism is no Cold War.

Yes. On the other hand:

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco
this ain't no fooling around

-- "Life During Wartime," Talking Heads

Actually, I post the following every few months, so maybe I'll post it again:

"Don't destroy our town to save it. Remember how the West saw off the Stalinists and the Islamists. The fun-loving, freedom-loving decadent West undermined and subverted its enemies by making them be like itself, not by becoming grim and hard and serious like them. Those who had the most laughs had the last laugh."

-- Jonathan Wilde, leader of the libertarian space movement and founder of the anarcho-capitalist enclave in North London Town, 2045 (looking back to our present)

(as quoted in the SF novel The Star Fraction by Ken MacLeod, 1995 -- a book that should be of interest to both libertarians and leftists)

|12.21.05 @ 7:44PM|#

Is it possible to describing a "culture" in any meaningful way without resorting to generalities?

Just wondering.

|12.21.05 @ 7:47PM|#

I know of a great nation who was founded with a mantra: "Give me Liberty, or give me death"

Canada?

|12.21.05 @ 7:52PM|#

Canada?

I thought they said, "Give me Liberty, When you get around to it!"

|12.21.05 @ 8:01PM|#

No, Canada was

Give me liberty eh, or give me a beer eh?!

Just kidding, canadians are pretty nice people.

|12.21.05 @ 8:23PM|#

Bazil:

I agree that we shouldn�t generalize and that the terrorists are just a small fraction of Arabs. The terrorists are to blame for their attacks, and we in the US need to focus on them. However, I don�t think the borders drawn up by Churchill are the only reason for terrorist attacks. After all, the Damascus massacre of Christians was committed a century before Churchill drew those boarders.

The attitudes of the average Arab do affect attacks. When terrorists attacked Jordan this year, Arabs protested in the streets and disowned the terrorists. This pressure caused the terrorists to insist they made a mistake and will probably prevent a similar attack in the future. If most Arabs protested all terrorist attacks, they would become less common. Tell you what, I�ll denounce Bush when he orders attacks on innocent civilians and you denounce terrorists when they do the same.

|12.21.05 @ 8:27PM|#

Is it possible to describing a "culture" in any meaningful way without resorting to generalities?

Absolutely, you can argue that the absolute nature of Islam and the fact that Islam was the only abrahamic religion founded not by an outcast prince (Moses of Judaism) or a poor carpenter (Jesus of Christianity), rather by a daring businessman who married into wealth when it suited his purposes and raised an army and managed to conquer most of modern-day Saudi Arabia, makes a difference.

You see, when you rule the country as a "Prophet of God" as Mohammad did, you'd have to come up with rules on taxation and crime and sanitation and all the things a ruler has to consider. So Islam has laws ranging from how to enter a bathroom (right foot first of course!) to what percentage of a businessman's wealth should be paid to what collection agency of the state. This comprehensive nature of the faith, implicitely gave the muslim clergy the feeling that they had to control ALL aspects of the Umma (another word for all muslims) lest they enter the bathroom with the incorrect foot first and invoke the wrath of the almighty.

Secularization, the natural process of realizing that the interpretations and the holy text written by a bronze-age people shouldn't be taken as divine writings rather as historical dogma or even wisdom of humanity, therefore became a serious and dangerous threat to the Muslim establishement. So it's perfectly alright to generalize and say that Muslim culture emphasizes way TOO MUCH on the "next world" at the expense of this one. The idea is particularly appealing to the oppressive government elites in charge of almost all muslim countries who found this "you're starving and dying, but that's ok, you've got salvation coming up in heaven" a very good crowd control mechanism.

So generalization are absolutely ok, if they are made dispassionately, intelligently and without malice.

If you generalise, a big proportions of Muslims are not well educated. OR that all suicide bombers have been religious devote Sunni Muslims, that's perfectly ok as it is factual.

But if you say Muslims just like killing, then you just sound silly as if that was the case, we'd have a billion suicide bombers, and belive me, that wouldn't be even funny to contemplate as a cartoon.

|12.21.05 @ 8:27PM|#

Is it possible to describing a "culture" in any meaningful way without resorting to generalities?

Absolutely, you can argue that the absolute nature of Islam and the fact that Islam was the only abrahamic religion founded not by an outcast prince (Moses of Judaism) or a poor carpenter (Jesus of Christianity), rather by a daring businessman who married into wealth when it suited his purposes and raised an army and managed to conquer most of modern-day Saudi Arabia, makes a difference.

You see, when you rule the country as a "Prophet of God" as Mohammad did, you'd have to come up with rules on taxation and crime and sanitation and all the things a ruler has to consider. So Islam has laws ranging from how to enter a bathroom (right foot first of course!) to what percentage of a businessman's wealth should be paid to what collection agency of the state. This comprehensive nature of the faith, implicitely gave the muslim clergy the feeling that they had to control ALL aspects of the Umma (another word for all muslims) lest they enter the bathroom with the incorrect foot first and invoke the wrath of the almighty.

Secularization, the natural process of realizing that the interpretations and the holy text written by a bronze-age people shouldn't be taken as divine writings rather as historical dogma or even wisdom of humanity, therefore became a serious and dangerous threat to the Muslim establishement. So it's perfectly alright to generalize and say that Muslim culture emphasizes way TOO MUCH on the "next world" at the expense of this one. The idea is particularly appealing to the oppressive government elites in charge of almost all muslim countries who found this "you're starving and dying, but that's ok, you've got salvation coming up in heaven" a very good crowd control mechanism.

So generalization are absolutely ok, if they are made dispassionately, intelligently and without malice.

If you generalise, a big proportions of Muslims are not well educated. OR that all suicide bombers have been religious devote Sunni Muslims, that's perfectly ok as it is factual.

But if you say Muslims just like killing, then you just sound silly as if that was the case, we'd have a billion suicide bombers, and belive me, that wouldn't be even funny to contemplate as a cartoon.

|12.21.05 @ 8:28PM|#

Is it possible to describing a "culture" in any meaningful way without resorting to generalities?

Absolutely, you can argue that the absolute nature of Islam and the fact that Islam was the only abrahamic religion founded not by an outcast prince (Moses of Judaism) or a poor carpenter (Jesus of Christianity), rather by a daring businessman who married into wealth when it suited his purposes and raised an army and managed to conquer most of modern-day Saudi Arabia, makes a difference.

You see, when you rule the country as a "Prophet of God" as Mohammad did, you'd have to come up with rules on taxation and crime and sanitation and all the things a ruler has to consider. So Islam has laws ranging from how to enter a bathroom (right foot first of course!) to what percentage of a businessman's wealth should be paid to what collection agency of the state. This comprehensive nature of the faith, implicitely gave the muslim clergy the feeling that they had to control ALL aspects of the Umma (another word for all muslims) lest they enter the bathroom with the incorrect foot first and invoke the wrath of the almighty.

Secularization, the natural process of realizing that the interpretations and the holy text written by a bronze-age people shouldn't be taken as divine writings rather as historical dogma or even wisdom of humanity, therefore became a serious and dangerous threat to the Muslim establishement. So it's perfectly alright to generalize and say that Muslim culture emphasizes way TOO MUCH on the "next world" at the expense of this one. The idea is particularly appealing to the oppressive government elites in charge of almost all muslim countries who found this "you're starving and dying, but that's ok, you've got salvation coming up in heaven" a very good crowd control mechanism.

So generalization are absolutely ok, if they are made dispassionately, intelligently and without malice.

If you generalise, a big proportions of Muslims are not well educated. OR that all suicide bombers have been religious devote Sunni Muslims, that's perfectly ok as it is factual.

But if you say Muslims just like killing, then you just sound silly as if that was the case, we'd have a billion suicide bombers, and belive me, that wouldn't be even funny to contemplate as a cartoon.

|12.21.05 @ 9:13PM|#

So, guys, rather than claiming that Islam is a culture of death can we agree that terrorists and suicide bombers and the mullahs who preach forcibly converting the infidel/attacking infidels who don't fall in line have a culture of death?

|12.21.05 @ 9:22PM|#

rob,

Works for me. Religion is merely the excuse. Certain aspects of fundamental Islam are without a doubt violent and misguided, but the Crusades and the Inquisition (not to mention the Conquistadors) prove the same thing about Christianity.

Some people just take things way too literally. It's the nature of faith and its effect on the human psyche.

|12.21.05 @ 9:24PM|#

rob,

Works for me. Religion is merely the excuse. Certain aspects of fundamental Islam are without a doubt violent and misguided, but the Crusades and the Inquisition (not to mention the Conquistadors) prove the same thing about Christianity.

Some people just take things way too literally. It's the nature of faith and its effect on the human psyche.

|12.21.05 @ 9:25PM|#

rob,

Works for me. Religion is merely the excuse. Certain aspects of fundamental Islam are without a doubt violent and misguided, but the Crusades and the Inquisition (not to mention the Conquistadors) prove the same thing about Christianity.

Some people just take things way too literally. It's the nature of faith and its effect on the human psyche.

|12.21.05 @ 11:31PM|#

Bazil,
What about ruling a nation necessitates a rule about which foot you use to enter the bathroom? I can at least understand this relation to areas such as inheritance law. The amount of unnecessary, spiritually inconsequential rules was one of the biggest turn-offs of Islam for me.

|12.21.05 @ 11:47PM|#

I agree 100% that blaming the west for islamic terrorism is the most foolish thing that the Islamic world is doing.

The inherint UNCOMPROMISING nature of organized religion is the main reason a young man (of questionable intelligence in most cases) would see an easy and direct path to the best of the best states of being possible: "heaven"

If one believes with utter conviction that he is acting on behalf of the ultimate arbiter, god, then strapping a bomb to oneself and blowing up "enemies of god" wouldn't weigh too heavily on one's conscious.

It is precisely that "we have everything figured out" aspect of religion, Islam especially, that should be confronted philosophically and rebutted.

Simply avoiding discussions as is often the norm, in my opinon, gives and implicit nod to the religious notions.

Also, Islam's political nature is a bit problematic. It is much easier to have a seperate church and state institutions in Protestant (christian) cultures than it is in most all encompasing denomenation such as Islam, or Orthodox Judaism (some sects of whom denounce Israel for being a democracy as opposed to ruled by a Jewish King)

|12.22.05 @ 3:25AM|#

Basil,

It is much easier to have a seperate church and state institutions in Protestant (christian) cultures than it is in most all encompasing denomenation such as Islam

Because, there has yet to be an Islamic equivalent of the Rennasaince and Reformation?

It wasn't easy separating church and state in the Christian world before the Protestants came along.

You sound like you know more first hand about what's happening in the ME than anybody I've seen around here. So let me ask you a question.

If what you're saying is true about fundamentalist religion being a big part of the problem (right?), then isn't the only long term solution to raise the general education level?

I attribute the end of fundamentalist Christian rule in the West to a rise in the educational standards (i.e., when Europe finally got its hands on Aristotle again for the first time in many centuries -- and if I'm not mistaken, those translations came to Europe from Muslims).

|12.22.05 @ 3:34AM|#

Basil,

Another question for you. In your opinion, is there any real hope that the Sunnis in Iraq are really going to go along with a shared government? And by "go along" I mean, they finally decide to stop fighting and suicide bombings?

I have doubts that the Sunnis would ever give up their fight. But I'm an admittedly ignorant outsider.

I do not believe we Americans have a clear understanding what we're really dealing with in Iraq. Just like we had no idea what we were dealing with in Vietnam (a good part of why Nam was such a mess).

How can you "help" people whose motives you don't really understand? This is our biggest liability in Iraq, I think. And at this point, trying to help them is what it's all about.

|12.22.05 @ 4:32AM|#

Rob,

So, guys, rather than claiming that Islam is a culture of death can we agree that terrorists and suicide bombers and the mullahs who preach forcibly converting the infidel/attacking infidels who don't fall in line have a culture of death?

Religion is all about control of thought and action, driven by the agenda of the clergy. Dogmatic control is dangerous and was the whole point behind separation of church and state.

Christianity also suffers from a culture of death to infidels (the Crusades provide a historical view, our modern abortion clinic bombers and recent rants by Pat Robertson a more modern glimpse).

I do wonder if Matt could give us some sort of breakdown of Czech organized religions? My guess is that religion is fragmented and personal (rather than the well oiled, big business we see in the US today) because of typical Soviet style suppression. Without significant clergy influence, people are free to be who they are without a bunch of made up obligations and guilt.

|12.22.05 @ 5:51AM|#

Hey Mo,

good to see you back. I see that another Mohammedan has come and joined the fray also. Good to go.

(I have nothing to add, just thought I would give a shoutout)

|12.22.05 @ 7:49AM|#

Bush can do his part to help the situation in the Middle East. Now that Iraq has an elected parliament, the US should make a treaty with the parliament that says we�ll stay all long as they want us there, but leave as soon as they request it. That way, we won�t abandon Iraq when they need us, but we�ll stop being an occupying force. We should also ask the parliament to set up courts and run the prison system. US troops should just stop and capture insurgents then hand them over to the Iraqi government for justice.

|12.22.05 @ 8:11AM|#

From what I�ve seen, Orthodox Jew�s have the same views on the separation of church and state as most religious Christians. They run the gambit from wanting the separation so they can worship in peace to insisting on a handful of special powers for their clergy. The sect that apposes the government of Israel aren�t apposed to democracy, they are opposed to a human created Jewish state. They think Jews should have waited until G-d sent the messiah to establish a theocracy. Ultimately, they do want a theocracy, but that sect wants to use prayer instead of politics to create it.

|12.22.05 @ 8:37AM|#

Jews did mix violence and religion when they fought the Canaanites, and there was a brief period of forced conversions shortly before the Roman occupation. Herod was the grandson of one of the forced converts, and Jews took his brutal reign as a sign the forced conversions are a bad idea. Even today, the Orthodox conversion process includes verifying that no one is coercing the convert. The rabbis also ruled that the war on the Canaanites was a unique case and Jews shouldn�t conduct any new holy wars. This is just a theory, but I think both Jews and Christians learned tolerance once they realized that imposing their version of the Bible on everyone was impossible and G-d would not be pleased with forced obedience.

The Muslims of 10th to 12th century Spain were particularly tolerant. What lead to that, and how could we repeat it?

|12.22.05 @ 8:57AM|#

"That's always a risk, but when the status quo is bad enough its a risk you have to take"

Spoken like a Kyoto true believer...

|12.22.05 @ 9:04AM|#

Slightly off topic, but I think relevant to the topic -

Did anyone see the article about all the Russians who are celebrating Stalin's birthday? I don't have a link, but I'm sure you can google it (or there is a link from Lew Rockwell's blog, which is where I found it).

I think it is relevant because it shows that some people prefer strong-arm dictators. Not everyone yearns for our Western style democracy. So when we come in with guns a-blazing, and impose it on them, how do you think such people will react?

All in all, it's just a question, because it's all irrelevant to whether all you hawks should have your fingers in my pocketbook to support your social engineering project on the other side of the planet...

|12.22.05 @ 9:25AM|#

vikings of monas past:

I was thinking of free as being free of government intrusions into our daily lives. For example the drug war has cranked up considerably since 1972. The US Patriot Act counts as less freedom. The recent Supreme court decision on eminent domain counts as less freedom. higher taxes. When I built my home in '79 there was one horse inspector and all I had to do was show them a floor plan. Now many more permits and red tape.

So my experience tells me that there is more govt intrusion. That's how I percieve it. Matt obviously percieves it differently. I was just curious as to how he came to his conclusion. And what he meant by "free".

VIking Moose|12.22.05 @ 10:08AM|#

Hi Art!

agreed - this is a tricky one to discuss, because of exactly what you mention. there are so many ways of classifying "free" within gov't intervention you can go crazy!

Hi Mo!

|12.22.05 @ 10:32AM|#

Brazil -

Islam was the only abrahamic religion founded not by an outcast prince (Moses of Judaism) or a poor carpenter (Jesus of Christianity)

Judaism was founded by Abraham, not Moses. As in the Abraham of "abrahamic religion".

Christianity was not founded by Jesus. Jesus saw his teachings as an extension of his Judaic learning and faith. The founding Christians could be considered those "Jewish Christians" who renewed their knowledge of the laws in the Pentateuch and the application of the laws in their daily lives, or Paul, who first wrote of Jesus's teachings could perhaps be considered a founding Christian.

R C Dean|12.22.05 @ 11:07AM|#

I was thinking of free as being free of government intrusions into our daily lives.

That's the classical definition of freedom, alright.

There is another view that looks more at capabilities and opportunities and calls them "freedom." Someone taking this view might say "I am more free to travel now than I was in the 19th century because now I can go anywhere in the world in less than a day."

Whereas someone taking the classical view would say that we have less freedom to travel because you can't go far these days without being braced for papers, groped by officials, and required to kowtow for permission to continue on your journey.

|12.22.05 @ 11:15AM|#

What do you view as a stable equilibrium for Iraq?

I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

(My apartment was burglarized. I'm in a foul mood.)

|12.22.05 @ 11:53AM|#

"That's always a risk, but when the status quo is bad enough its a risk you have to take"

Spoken like a Kyoto true believer...


Sigh. All risk analysis is invalid. Someday ... SOMEDAY, I will convince quasibill that this is a nonsense argument. I just know I will.

|12.22.05 @ 12:05PM|#

I was thinking of free as being free of government intrusions into our daily lives.

Exactly. If you consider how much more the government intervenes in the normal activities of an average citizen on typical day, the proposition that we're more free today then in 1972 is laughable. A few quick examples off the top of my head:

Smoking? In 1972 you could do it almost anywhere.
Seat belt laws? As of 1972, the law required seat belts be installed in cars manufactured after a certain year, but there was no requirement to actually use them.
Sobriety check-points. Are you kidding?
Getting on an airplane: not quite as easy as getting on a bus at that point, but certainly a helluva lot easier than today.
Drug tests as a requirement for employment: I think there would have been rioting in the streets.

In fact, barely an hour goes by when I don't encounter a decision or a course of action I would have taken in 1972 without a thought that's forbidden to me now. I have to believe anyone who would make that statement just wasn't around in 1972.

|12.22.05 @ 12:07PM|#

"Sigh. All risk analysis is invalid. Someday ... SOMEDAY, I will convince quasibill that this is a nonsense argument. I just know I will"

1. That's not my argument, it's your interpretation of it.

2. My argument is that all risk analysis is subjective, and therefore not appropriate for the government to undertake. My view of the risk of being scalded by coffee might be entirely different from yours, based on nothing more than a different tolerance level to burns, or to a horrific accident I had earlier in life. My view of the risk of global warming might be different than yours, because I live near a coast, or because I depend on the current climate to run my business. My view of the risk of terrorist attacks might be different from yours, based on the fact that I live in a relatively rural area, that is tremendously unlikely to be targeted by foreign terrorists.

Because all of these are true, the amount of money I'd be willing to spend to achieve some subjectively defined unit of change in these risks is going to be entirely different from what you are willing to spend, even if we can agree on something approaching an objective measure of the risk.

Value is subjective. That's the whole basis of the free market after all - that you value what you buy from more than I do. Otherwise, there would be no reason for us to engage in a transaction.

Since value is subjective, all risk analysis is too. That's why personal insurance is better than universal coverage.

You're highly unlikely to convince me of anything different, because this is the ultimate source of my political opinions - this understanding is what "turned" me into a libertarian in the first place...

|12.22.05 @ 12:19PM|#

But if you say Muslims just like killing, then you just sound silly as if that was the case, we'd have a billion suicide bombers, and belive me, that wouldn't be even funny to contemplate as a cartoon.

I never said "Muslims" I said "Arabs". BTW: How man people have the Czechs beheaded this year? How many suicide bombings are on their scorecard?

To reiterate. Cultures have differnt mores. ARAB culture glorifies killing. As the Iranian poster said, "Arabs are truely "overly" passionate people, their friendship is permanant and overwhelmingly kind and generous, and their aggression is equally final." Translation: as culture, ARABS lack reason.

|12.22.05 @ 12:38PM|#

Hambone:

The vast majority of Arabs didn�t behead anyone this year either. Looking at the most popular media in Arab countries, you can see there is plenty of intolerance there. However, most Arabs don�t reach the point of killing people. There are even some Arabs that push for more freedom, peace, and tolerance. We need to give a hand to those individuals who push for positive change, instead of making sweeping generalizations.

|12.22.05 @ 12:40PM|#

quasibill:

So, NO amount of risk justifies the government engaging in risk analysis for any reason, right? This is fundamental stuff here. So, a legal system that is less than 100% precise in imprisoning only the guilty is entirely unacceptable. The acceptance of a 95% effective justice system is based on risk analysis, and that makes us all Kyoto believers, I suppose.

If you are an anarchist, there is no problem with this view. If you are a minarchist, it is nonsense.

VM|12.22.05 @ 1:04PM|#

http://www.minaret.org/mission.htm

you know, hambone, i feel exactly the same about the evangelical christian community. hell. any evangelical fundamentalist community/culture.

and what about all the other non-arab islams?

oh wait - lemme guess. it's bitterness about Fort Zinderneuf. yeah. gotcha. hokae.

|12.22.05 @ 2:23PM|#

"So, NO amount of risk justifies the government engaging in risk analysis for any reason, right?"

Well, if you're a minarchist, you'd have to say that an imminent threat of agression is an acceptable basis to perform risk analysis.

"The acceptance of a 95% effective justice system is based on risk analysis,"

Not necessarily. It's based on the reality of human endeavors - they are all flawed, due to our limited knowledge. At the same time, blythely accepting wrongful imprisonment in the name of "law and order" is wrong - you're depriving an innocent of liberty and property. If a person is innocent, no amount of due process makes his imprisonment moral or just.

A minarchist argues that those risks that fall above the 95% line are appropriate for government intervention. So I guess you believed that Saddam was 95% likely to invade the United States? I'd like to see the evidence for that - even W never made that argument.

Further, one has to recognize that security is like any other service - it can't be supplied in equal amounts to everyone. We have a heavily socialized security apparatus here. Shop clerks in Iowa pay taxes that go to make Manhattan safer for stock brokers. Bodega owners in Manhattan pay taxes so that a Podunk, Iowa fire department has chemical warfare gear.

Such government actions are not in line with a minarchist view - which posits that taxes are acceptable when they are used to the benefit of the person taxed.

Under that standard, the grand social engineering project in Iraq is wrong, no matter which you spin it. It really doesn't benefit me at all (and I would argue that it harms me, because I believe that it makes it more likely that a terrorist might target me, no matter how small that chance is in either event).

That said, yes, I am an ancap, and not a minarchist, because I've seen enough to know that a minarchy can last at most a single generation before devolving into something else. I'd be happy with a minarchy, because it would be very close to what a truly free market in law and security would provide. But I don't have any illusions that it would last.

|12.22.05 @ 2:24PM|#

Dearest VM

If you want to rip on my intelligence, fine. But please, let me try this again -- just for your benefit.

I don't give two-fucks-come-Thursday about Islam or evangelical fundamentalism or any other religion for that matter. It's all bunk. Get it???

ARAB SUPREMECY is the subject here. Arab supremacy is no different from ARYAN SUPREMECY. Are you going to make the claim that the Aryan supremacist movement in 20th century Europe was just a figment of the world's imagination?

Arab supremacy is a growing global problem. Just ask the Dutch, French, British, Australians, Sudanese, etc. Islam, is merely a handy tool, a Mein Kopf of sorts.

|12.22.05 @ 2:40PM|#

Just as an addendum:

I'm MUCH more likely to die of cancer or heart disease than of Islamic terrorism (like orders of magnitude). So a universal health insurance plan is MUCH more likely to save my life than a plan to point guns at arabs and convert their culture into one that respects Western values.

I don't support instituting a universal health insurance plan, either. But by your logic, you should.

|12.22.05 @ 2:42PM|#

quasibill:

Clearly, 95% was a number pulled out of the air to make a point, namely, that risk assessment absolutely IS the prerogative of government. It is not the mere fact that risks are being evaluated that makes a given argument good or bad, libertarian or not, which is why the insistence that all risk-analyzed roads lead to Kyoto is foolish.

Security is well within the realms of an appropriate use of government for a good number of minarchists, and the socialized nature of security is accepted as one of those non optimal things we accept. I accept a role for police, courts, and the military. The size of that role is not constrained to one vision of minarchist idealism because there is more than one view of what constitutes self defence. At this point we devolve into the discussion you and I have had numerous times.

|12.22.05 @ 2:47PM|#

"I don't support instituting a universal health insurance plan, either. But by your logic, you should."

Er, no. For starters, on a purely utilitarian front, I believe that universal health care will kill more people that it will save by crushing private incentives to conduct research. Also, defence from foreign threats is within the range of acceptable behavior for our government while socializing medicine is not. Again, we would argue about the nature of the threat.

|12.22.05 @ 2:48PM|#

"and the socialized nature of security is accepted as one of those non optimal things we accept."

This is the best written clause ever written. Ahem.

VM|12.22.05 @ 2:56PM|#

oh my.

mercy.

|12.22.05 @ 2:56PM|#

ARAB SUPREMECY is the subject here. Arab supremacy is no different from ARYAN SUPREMECY. Are you going to make the claim that the Aryan supremacist movement in 20th century Europe was just a figment of the world's imagination?

Arab supremacy is a growing global problem. Just ask the Dutch, French, British, Australians, Sudanese, etc. Islam, is merely a handy tool, a Mein Kopf of sorts.

That it�s not really about religions make sense. The killing in Sudan is Islam-on-Islam (Arabs killing Africans). The Iraq / Iran war was Islam-on-Islam (Arabs killing Persians). The Sunnis (Arabs) hate the Shiites because Shiites are Persian, which in the mind of Sunni Arabs are an inferior race. The idea of an Arab supremacy movement does make some sense.

|12.22.05 @ 2:59PM|#

Sorry. I kind of messed up the quotations part.

ARAB SUPREMECY is the subject here. Arab supremacy is no different from ARYAN SUPREMECY. Are you going to make the claim that the Aryan supremacist movement in 20th century Europe was just a figment of the world's imagination?

Arab supremacy is a growing global problem. Just ask the Dutch, French, British, Australians, Sudanese, etc. Islam, is merely a handy tool, a Mein Kopf of sorts.

That it�s not really about religions make sense. The killing in Sudan is Islam-on-Islam (Arabs killing Africans). The Iraq / Iran war was Islam-on-Islam (Arabs killing Persians). The Sunnis (Arabs) hate the Shiites because Shiites are Persian, which in the mind of Sunni Arabs are an inferior race. The idea of an Arab supremacy movement does make some sense.

|12.22.05 @ 3:01PM|#

On itallics? I give up!

|12.22.05 @ 3:39PM|#

"Clearly, 95% was a number pulled out of the air to make a point,"

No, not really. It has something to do with statistical signifigance, but I don't remember the exact definition.

"that risk assessment absolutely IS the prerogative of government."

NO. Can't disagree more. Once you posit that, you've lost the entire enchilada. By your statement, it is absolutely positively appropriate for government to absolutely ban all weaponry in say, DC. To quote RC, when the status quo is bad enough, you do something, anything, even if it might make it worse. Well, the chance that you make matters worse by passing such a law is no matter - you and I don't know for sure that it wouldn't cut down on murders in DC if passed.

Ditto for healthcare - it is exactly because the government shouldn't be doing risk assessment and analysis that it shouldn't be in the business of providing medical coverage.

"The size of that role is not constrained to one vision of minarchist idealism because there is more than one view of what constitutes self defence. "

Such as preventing a factory owner from poisoning you with pollution, or causing your property to be submerged by rising sea levels, or from creating cars that don't have seatbelts, etc.

|12.22.05 @ 3:47PM|#

"For starters, on a purely utilitarian front, I believe that universal health care will kill more people that it will save by crushing private incentives to conduct research. "

You could never prove that without trying it.

"Also, defence from foreign threats is within the range of acceptable behavior for our government while socializing medicine is not. "

Why? Because you say so? Because you're more afraid of what a foreign government might do to you? They are both forms of risk management. Risk of death is risk of death. Unless you want to bring subjective factors into, which of course, just proves my point...

|12.22.05 @ 3:50PM|#

"This is the best written clause ever written. Ahem"

?

If this was a dig at yourself, you need to read my excellent grammar. I clearly don't, because every time I re-read it after posting, I notice all the words I left out.

And yet I still refuse to use preview...

|12.22.05 @ 4:31PM|#

quasi:

Yes, that last bit was a dig at myself.

"Such as preventing a factory owner from poisoning you with pollution, or causing your property to be submerged by rising sea levels..."

Yes. If it can be demonstrated that a factory owner is harming me in these ways by way of commons like the air, risk analysis is relevant. It gets tricky when we change your sentence to 'preventing a factory owner from marginally increasing your risk of cancer while providing services that enhance your quality of life' or something like that. Even then, risk analysis is relevant, it is just much more complicated.

"You could never prove that (universal coverage harms more people) without trying it."

You seem to gloss over the nature of risk assessment. It isn't that you must try anything irrespective of risk to alleviate a known harm, it is that costs and benefits are significant factors in most types of decisions. You misparaphrased RCDean. He absolutely did not say that any current negative justifies any arbitrary action of any cost.

Constraining governments never to use risk analysis is constraining them not to exist, which, again, is fine if you are an anarchist.

Concerning your allegation that I am somehow required to treat every form of risk as the valid provence of government, I can only surmise that you are determined to see necessity where there is none. Built into the very fabric of negative freedom is the distinction between man's actions against man and man's struggles against fate or nature, or whathaveyou. A police force is empowered to enforce a law that prevents you from murdering me because preventing you from murdering me enhances my negative freedom to live and your negative freedom to live. A police force empowered to make you wear a seat belt decreases the negative freedom for all drivers, ergo, on libertarian grounds, such a cost fails to pass muster.

Built into the cost/benefit analysis is the notion of freedom costs. What the minarchist believes is that certain types of freedom costs, such as a curtailment of your right to stab me, have the effect of enhancing liberty writ large. What we should argue against is not the use of cost benefit analysis, but lazy application that ignores inconvenient costs.

|12.22.05 @ 4:53PM|#

"You seem to gloss over the nature of risk assessment"

Well, I would say it is you who do that. As I said from the beginning, risk assessment is inherently subjective. What scares me is probably entirely different from what scares you. I shouldn't be able to force you to pay to protect me from my fears, and I only ask that you pay me the same respect.

"He absolutely did not say that any current negative justifies any arbitrary action of any cost."

You misparaphrased me :) I just said that pursuant to RC's analysis, the fear of making it worse shouldn't stop you from doing something you think will make it better. Ergo, the fear that you might increase crime should not stop gun control supporters from instituting their plans if they think it will make the situation better. You'd have to argue costs/benefits, which again, is entirely a subjective analysis. Since a libertarian government must treat every citizen with equal respect, it can't get involved in subjective determinations like that, or else you'll have joe telling you his fears are appropriate for the government to address, while you'll be saying that yours are. Your compromise, as is obvious today, will be that it is appropriate for the government to do both, while hoping that later you can get it to only address your fear and stop "wasting" money on joe's.

"Built into the very fabric of negative freedom is the distinction between man's actions against man and man's struggles against fate or nature, or whathaveyou"

I don't know about that, but even accepting it - if you are forcing me, through taxation, to support what I believe to be unjustified physical aggression on others, have you not violated my negative liberty rights? Isn't government in and of itself AUTOMATICALLY a violation of my negative liberty rights, as it aggresses against me to get my taxes? So in your subjective analysis, the absolute certainty of government aggression against me is superior to the possibility that sometime in the future someone maybe, possibly, will aggress against you? At which point you will want the government to bail you out because you haven't prepared yourself to defend yourself from it?

"A police force empowered to make you wear a seat belt decreases the negative freedom for all drivers, ergo, on libertarian grounds, such a cost fails to pass muster."

Well, it increases their freedom to live, which you approved of in the sentence before. So what exactly is the nature of the distinction between the risks to life and property? I can see no difference in the mathematics that detail the risk to me from terrorism as opposed to the risk to me from global warming - i.e. they are both tremendously unlikely, but possibly catastrophic occurrences. So why should I be forced to pay more for security from one than I should from the other?

|12.22.05 @ 5:02PM|#

"Well, it increases their freedom to live, which you approved of in the sentence before."

Please review the positive vs. negative freedom distinction.

"Isn't government in and of itself AUTOMATICALLY a violation of my negative liberty rights, "

Yes. Minarchists concede that. The notion is that limiting certain kinds of freedom (like, to kill) enhances purely negative freedom. In the aggregate, rule of law makes broadly held negative liberty possible, and enforcement makes rule of law possible. To the extent enforcement is socially provided, it is non ideal, but that doesn't mean it is fundamentally illiberal.

|12.22.05 @ 6:06PM|#

Linkalot Lance:

You are being very exact and absolute in who started which religion, I was merely retelling the standard dogma.

Certainly, Jews have always considered Abraham as the begining of their identity as a Jewish people. And I understand that Saint Paul probably had more to do with the formation of christianity than did Jesus himself.

Point being that non of them had to deal with RULING a state and at the same time having every single word you utter be taken as God's divine wisdom the way Mohammad did.

For example: Mohammad "became" a profit at 40 according to Islam, he died at 63. He told his followers not to drink Alcohol at 63 literally days before his death. The exact phrase he uttered is unknown, yet it was in the context of whether your prayer is acceptable while intoxicated. Since the Koran never says Muslims can't drink, the no alcohol policy is rather suspect yet, I could probably get a death sentence if I said that outloud in Tehran these days under Ahmadinejad.

|12.22.05 @ 7:22PM|#

Another question for you. In your opinion, is there any real hope that the Sunnis in Iraq are really going to go along with a shared government? And by "go along" I mean, they finally decide to stop fighting and suicide bombings?

You must understand that I was raised (by secular parents) in Iran, so my personal understanding come with an inevitable Shia bias. Yet, you must understand that Shia faction of Islam is really a Pro-Persian quasi Zoarastrian take on Islam, whereas the Sunni faction is closer to the original Islam and very Pro-Arab quasi Badouin interpretetion of Islam.

Persians are Indo-European, Arabs are Semetic, they speak different language and have distinctly different cultural tendensies.

Persians lost Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) to the Arabs under Khalif Omar (less than a century after Mohammad's death) in the Persian cultural psyche, that is single handedly the biggest tragedy of our culture. To this day, the word Omar is associated with ugliness, brutishness and generally negative in the Persian culture. You'll never see an Iranian (persian) named Omar as it is generally despised. It is however a very revered name among Arabs. Another example is a common Iranian phrase: "Are you Parsi or Arab?" which is the literal equivilant of "are you decent?" (or barbarian?) refering to the call when entering someone's house to make sure they are well covered when entering.

In short, there is a major ancient rivalary between Persians and Arabs. It is most unfortunate yet very much alive and ingrained in the culture.

Arabs have long viewed all shias as Persian puppets. I remember telling a Saudi Arabian in college in Los Angeles that I was Shia Muslim when asked what religion I was raised under, and he simply replied "what religion?" I said Islam, and he scoffed at me saying "Shia's aren't muslims they're infidels of the cult of idol worshipers" mind you this was a well-to-do educated Saudi saying this to me, who was a pal and a drinking buddy.

So I understand why Sunni's accusingly say that the whole constitution is false because it is written by "Iranians and Americans" enemies of the Arab people. Of course, any American would laugh at the notion of the Islamic Republic of Iran cooperating with the Bush Administration on any level.

So to the Sunni's they just lost territory they had gained, and they are seeing it handed over to the Shia's whom they consider Iranian and therefore suspect.

But I do believe that there is definately hope, all these major historical battles and fightings aside, majority of human beings what similar, mundane stuff, a car, nightly entertainment, a comfortable dwelling, a good source of income etc....

And your suggestions are absoultely correct in my view, a general rise in education would have a great impact in quelching the fiery rhetorics of the clergy.

A rise in education is directly proportional to rise in secularism, especially in the Islamic world.

And I think that is directly linked to the ability to seperate the church from the state.

United States colonies pre-independence from the British Empire were among the most educated populous in the world. (even higher in percentage than today's US) I don't have any empirical research, but I sincerely believe that the high level of literacy and education in the new colonies made the passing of the constitution immensely easier.

Individualism is the key to Democracy, it's counter to the Patriarchial family oriented cultures of the middle east.

The exception being that Iran, has greatly lost respect for the shia clergy since the 1979 revolution, since the clergy found out the hardway that they actually have to deliver on their promises and saying "wait till the after-life" isn't very convincing explanation of why the country is so mismanaged, so blaming US is the next best excuse now that the soviets are gone, this has made the general population curiously anti-establishment and oddly individualistic.

Sorry for the long winded answer.

|12.23.05 @ 8:44AM|#

"Please review the positive vs. negative freedom distinction"

Actually, that was my point to you. You don't have a right to live, no matter how you phrase it. You have a right to do what you can to survive without violating other's rights. So I understand much better than thou, it seems.

Again, you're not addressing my question, which is what makes dying from a criminal gunshot any different from dying from a car accident, or a bee sting, or from a flood? You're just as dead, no matter what. So why do you draw a distinction between having a positive right to steal from me to provide the service of protection to yourself against criminals, versus apparently not having the right to steal from from to provide the service of protecting yourself from bee stings, or cancer?

I have yet to see you answer that question in any logical, rational fashion. You just state it as a given, which I don't accept.

"In the aggregate, rule of law makes broadly held negative liberty possible, and enforcement makes rule of law possible."

Agreed. But a state monopoly is not necessary for either the rule of law or enforcement of such.

"To the extent enforcement is socially provided, it is non ideal, but that doesn't mean it is fundamentally illiberal."

I don't see how you can argue that robbery is not fundamentally illiberal? Either it is, or it is not. What a minarchist argues, as I understand, is that under the right circumstances, the fundamentally illiberal nature of taxes (robbery) are outweighed by the benefits returned to those taxed (robbed). And I actually agree that this is theoretically possible. I just have seen no evidence that this utopia is even close to possible in the real world. By what method do you propose to limit the powers of your state? By having a Constitution? Ha!

jimmy|12.23.05 @ 6:00PM|#

funny, i wasn't aware libertarians ever thought communism was something worth fighting against. their attitude toward marxism and naziism (ok...people back then who WOULD'VE been libertarians today) was the same as their attitude toward islamofascism...nit-pick at the western democracies and hide their heads in the sand.