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I’m not a huge fan of being able to amend a state constitution simply by a majority vote of citizens.  However, when four people can single-handedly override a HUGE portion of the population, I believe it should be put up with.  I do believe the Supreme Court of my state went WAY beyond their power.  When an issue is this explosive and debatable, four people should not decide its outcome.

I call on my fellow Californians to reverse the decision handed down.  A recent poll found that 54 percent of Californians back a constitutional amendment restricting marriage to one woman and one man.  With the diversity and sheer size of the state, it is hard to know how reliable that poll is.  I think it is clear, though, that both sides of the issue feel they can win it.

I have said this before and I will say it again.  Homosexuals have the same right to marry as heterosexuals, notwithstanding the argument of our Supreme Court.  If they choose to marry within the definition of marriage, they can do so.  And without argument, they have the same right to relate and cohabitate with one another.  The better argument is that the classifications in the definition of marriage themselves could fall outside the state’s legitimate interests, as was the line of reasoning in Vermont.  Admittedly, few secular reasons exist for preventing gays from marrying, but as I have said before, I see no reason to invoke religious motivations in secular subjects.  In doing so, I do not feel that I have created or hindered an establishment of religion from existing, nor have I prohibited the free exercise of religion.

I genuinely feel that the destruction of our nation will proceed from our moral decadence.  I believe God upholds and destroys nations and with that conviction, I cannot support the marriage of homosexuals.  I believe we must be kind and loving to homosexuals.  But there has to be a line somewhere.  I call on my Californians to draw that line this November. 

One of the most recognizable parts of the Department of Homeland Security is the National Threat Advisory that you find on their website. I got to thinking about that the other day and wondered if there has ever been a time that the threat has been below yellow. Well, I looked it up and, as you might expect, the answer is no. The DHS has a history of changes to the threat level. Its interesting reading but the one thing that struck me about it is it has never been below yellow.

The obvious question that I think has an equally obvious answer is, “Is it even possible for it to be below yellow?” The answer is of course not! No executive department is going to say that they are no longer important. They might as well just cut the whole left side of that thing off. It is a daily reminder that we need to be afraid.

I also wonder how many people really know what that thing means or even use it to make day to day decisions. I wonder how many national security-related agencies consult the national threat advisory for guidance in their day to day operations. Does anybody use that thing?!?! Or is it…well…propaganda? Quite frankly, its the slickest propaganda ever. We don’t even know it. It penetrates the guards of our intellect and leads us to view people we don’t understand with microscopic suspicion. I say we get rid of that horrid thing. I don’t want to go to war with Iran.

As some of you probably know, Steve Forbes spoke tonight at Harding University.  I have to admit, I rather enjoyed the speech he gave.  I think even if you disagreed with him to the core, you could learn a lot from his because he really knows his stuff.

One of the things he brought up that really ringed true to me was his discussion of our monetary policy failures in the last eight years.  One of his best compliments of the night was actually to Bill Clinton who, he said, handled the money supply much better than Bush has.  All I could think was, “You and me Steve.  I’ve been saying it too.”

As you probably know, the Fed has been lowering the interest rates since the end of last year to stimulate the economy.  I don’t want to get into the nuts and bolts of it on a blog post but what ends up happening is the money supply increases.  When that happens, our dollar weakens.  Okay, well now you know.

The excuse that many make is that a weak dollar leads to more exports.  While that’s true in the short run, in the long run the global economy adjusts and you lose that advantage.  Additionally, you hurt your own economy so much that the gains are outweighed by the losses.

And all this monetary policy is in the interest of getting us out of a housing slump that cannot be avoided—a housing slump that WILL be recoverable.

Forbes made a remark that talking about monetary policy is a great way to get people to sit in another seat in a plane because its so boring.  I think monetary policy is fascinating.  I hope each one of you do too.

Here’s a short satire I wrote. I’m hoping to create a mess.

Year 2017

Justice Alito, a stalwart of the Republican party in his growing age and failing health, lead many Republicans to ponder the pending political doom. The sitting president, a Democrat from Oregon who had, in his college years, attached himself to an offshore drilling platform in order to prevent what he perceived as an encroachment on the mollusk population was certain to appoint a replacement who would line up with his heart-felt political world-view. In their desperate attempt to keep their longest faithful adherent on the bench, the Republicans put Alito into cryogenic freezing. That way, whenever a cure for his ailment would be found, he could quickly be put on the bench and fight to prevent Federal interference on states’ rights for another 75 years.

25 years later, a cure for his disease was found. In a highly publicized event, Alito was brought out of freezing and began being restored to health. Two weeks later, when he was revitalized and ready to start deciding on the bench again, a problem arose. When Alito was put into freezing, it was presumed that he had died and the President placed a new Justice in his place, a circuit judge named Ralph Zilch, a sympathizer to gun restrictions, abortion rights, and communism. But ever since the 1860s the court size had statutorily set at nine. However, constitutionally once a justice has been appointed, they have the tenure for life. The ten Supreme Court justices stared at each other dumbfounded as they entered the court ready to rule on a case involving computer chips planted in secret service agents’ brains allowing them to perceive stress levels in

The knee-jerk reaction of the Democrats was to conclude that the Judiciary Act of 1869 is unconstitutional. They reasoned that if the law stood, it would require a sitting justice to lose his tenure, an action that would violate Article Three of the constitution. However, the Republicans argued that the unconstitutional act was actually the appointment of the replacement justice in the first place. As long as Alito was still technically alive, the Supreme Court should have proceeded with only eight justices. And besides, it would be wrong to declare a whole law unconstitutional simply because it was not followed.

The justices decided to take a day off to figure out what ought to happen. Commentators felt that Congress ought to make an amendment to the Judiciary Act of 1869 but neither party was willing to compromise. Leaving the Act would be a blow to the Democrats. Amending it would be a blow to the Republicans. Debate ensued but nothing ever came out of Congress. One justice decided that the Supreme Court should be put on trial. Alito would be put on trial against Zilch and the other eight justices would decide. In one of the strangest cases ever, the court heard Alito v. Zilch.

Now you get to decide, how do you rule on this case?

I find it funny how many have attacked the superdelegate component of presidential primaries. We have already written about them. You can read what David has already said about them. Personally (and you might find it ironic that I’d be the one to say this), I don’t think they’re all that bad. As a matter of fact, I think they will end up serving a purpose that I’m quite keen to.

We should keep in mind to begin with what the purpose of a political party is. They were not created to further democracy. They are entities that arise within democracies to make democracies as undemocratic as possible. Parties are about power. Not representation. Superdelegates are simply a modern-day manifestation of that truth.

In this case, the mandatory delegate count needed to secure the party’s nomination is quite high. It is set that way so that a candidate must have a very overwhelming popular support to secure a nomination. In the instance that that support is not high enough to create a clear consensus, the party has a way of deciding which candidate will be the most electable in their judgement. This is the purpose, as I see it, of a superdelegate. This is not about democracy. It is about electability and power. Not just for the presidency but for the various other party members and their interests. If you are a supporter of the party system and you are an adherent to a political party, this should not be such a setback to you. You should embrace this system.

This is where my interest kick in. I don’t believe people are very comfortable with this reality in our pluralistic age. I tend to think that once these realities surface (as they will probably surface in the coming months leading to the Democratic Party Convention), people will begin to see the horrors of the party system. People will begin to sever their ties to that system and will begin to align themselves simply to their own beliefs. All I have to say is: “Hillary, do your thing!”

At the onset of perestroika, the Soviet Union was set to enter a new era of economic growth and opportunity. As we all know, that never happened. In Latin America, privatization has led to growth, but not in any way that has positively impacted the majority of its citizens. Knee-jerkers typically move to blame capitalism as a means of distributing wealth within a society. The private, entrepreneurial economy has led to the society we have in America today. Any contrary argument finds little basis. The issue is not as simple as: “Is capitalism (or neoliberalism) good?” or “Is capitalism (or neoliberalism) bad?”

I think there are more nuances that need to be investigated before making these assertions. In the former Soviet Union and in Latin America, I find two common themes which discouraged the dispersion of wealth in the process of privatization. The problem is monopoly. The industries that were being privatized were huge and had achieved economies of scale. When that is the case, the local population cannot compete with them. Also, as foreign investors begin to own large stocks in these firms, the money leaves the country once profits are made. For this post, I will focus more on the former problem than the latter.

Competition is CRUCIAL to healthy capitalism. While competition can lead to several vices that need to be checked, you need competition for healthy capitalism. People, erringly, tend to take one side or the other on the issue of competition being good or bad. Really, its both. A government restraining the vices of competition, while not eliminating it and even fostering it, is the ideal. When no competition is present, there is not accountability to the people. Now, I’m not trying to make these businessmen into saints by saying they are accountable to the people. They are accountable for selfish reasons. In privatization efforts, I see two steps that need to be present for a healthy transition. 1) The government should not simply sell a whole industry. Rather, it should break the industry into parts and sell the parts individually and if possible, even break a single part of the industry into two companies. This will allow for a greater dispersion of wealth and more competition. 2) A fair amount of isolationism needs to be put in place. A time-specified protective tariff should be established. This will allow the new local industry to build up. For those of you against the tariff, I argue that our country would have never made it without one. We were absolutely afraid of becoming dependent on Great Britain the way Latin America is dependent on us. Also, the government needs to keep out foreign ownership. When local citizens own the companies, it empowers them, makes them more accountable to the people, encourages more meaningful infrastructure buildup, injects more consumption spending into other local firms, and creates a larger tax base for things like education, less bribe-prone law enforcement, healthcare, and infrastructure.

Are these solutions problem-free? Mmmmnope. But, I do feel that they would make a difference.

America absolutely needs to be the world leader with regard to environmental protection. One thing that encourages me about the three remaining candidates is that they all are sympathetic to the environmental implications of economic policies. All three candidates have expressed at one time or another a desire to implement a cap and trade system in America. This would be similar to the one created by the Kyoto Protocol, the big difference being that American dollars do not go to other countries. Instead, more-polluting companies have to give money to less-polluting companies. At least according to the rhetoric of those who oppose Kyoto, the big hang-up has more to do with the fact that significant amounts of money would be going to China.  However, there are some who say a carbon tax would more adequately do the job. Among the arguments that carbon taxers make are:

1. More predictable energy prices
2. Quicker and easier implementation
3. More transparency
4. Less room for manipulation by special interests
5. More pervasiveness throughout all industries
6. Greater ability to implement a progressive tax

I basically pulled these verbatim off of carbontax.org. I would add one more consideration that they did not. Cap and trade will (and really already is) create/creating a third party broker system. Essentially middle men are forming that purchase pollution credits and sell them. This is really just a waste of money on a economy and seems to be a breeding ground for all kinds of elicit business practices. None of these are conclusions I have firmly landed on but I thought I’d throw them out there in order to debate the merits of some of these concerns.

People need to get over this. I guess since we don’t have another primary until late in April, we need a good news story.

The Christendom in this country is a very diverse association. People are going to say things that not everybody, or even most people, believes (e.g. “God hates fags”). Even within individual sects, there is still a considerable amount of diversity. Take this very blog. All three of us attend churches of Christ, yet how fundamentally different do we interpret the religious, political, and social landscape?

If you want to keep going with Obama, you might want to include the Wahabi school he attended while his family lived in Indonesia. Some of you might know that Osama bin Laden is a strict adherent to the teachings of al-Wahab. So does this mean that Barack Hussein Obama is out to collaborate with al Qaeda? No!

This story needs to find its way out of the news. It is not in any way constructive to the presidential election.

I read an interesting article today speculating on McCain’s vice president pick. The New Yorker feels that Condoleezza Rice might be the best pick for McCain in the November election and they made some valid points.

One, she would partially offset the black vote should he run against Obama and would partially offset the female vote should he run against Hilary. Sure, more of each will be attracted to the other candidate but as close as I think the race will be, all that matters is if either candidate can pull any votes from the other.

Two, she supports the Iraq philosophy of McCain without all the baggage of Bush or Rumsfeld. Few discussions of Iraq involve Rice; most involve the aforementioned. People of all walks get into a fit when someone mentions Rumsfeld. Few have those same feelings towards Rice.

Three, she has never been party to any executive power struggles such as that between Bush and Powell. She tends to be loyal to the president.

So I have to say, I think Rice might just be that candidate come November.

In the last couple years, interest in Arkansas’ Fayetteville Shale natural gas has grown significantly. Chesapeake Oil quietly purchased mineral rights to more than 2 million acres of land and are drilling at a prolific rate in White County. In the first year of drilling, sales taxes for the county (its only source of revenue) rose ten percent. Drilling has only picked up since then and royalty checks are yet to be received from leasers. The county has the potential to make a lot of money!

The problem is dealing with the roads that will get destroyed from the come and go of trucks hauling everything that goes into the drilling process. The roads in this county are absolutely not made for the 70-80 thousand pound trucks. They are the cheap chip seal stuff. Not only do they not stand up well to heavy trucks but they are difficult to repair.

I’m a bit worried that Chesapeake Oil will drill its gas, folks will get some nice checks in the mail, the wells will dry up, and White County will not be any better off that it began.

Governor Beebe is currently trying to impose a 7% severance tax on the purchase price of the gas. Currently, Arkansas has a ridiculously low severance tax which brings in about $600,000 a year. This new severance tax would have brought in 92 million dollars had it been in place last year. The money would go straight to the Department of Transportation.

Of course there is a huge constitutional issue that always plagues revenue raising attempts in Arkansas which I don’t want to spend too much time on. To make a long story short, there is going to be a long, heated battle between the Governor, the General Assembly leadership, and I think the Supreme Court over this tax proposal.

On the local level, counties and cities need to begin establishing a road repair fund with the additional sales taxes they will be making. If they begin planning now, they can have some fantastic roads by the time they are all done with drilling.

I really think this can be a wonderful asset to our state. It is extremely important though that people don’t become greedy and that citizens become informed about what is going on. I also believe citizens should demand that this severance tax get raised. This is truly in everyone’s best interest.

So I found it interesting to hear that Pakistan has banned You Tube in their country. What I didn’t know was that Brazil had also banned You Tube last year. Apparently a video of Daniela Cicarelli, a famous supermodel, having sex on a beach with her boyfriend became the most viewed video in Brazil for several days.

I think this brings up an interesting topic of discussion. Should You Tube succumb to the pressures of other countries to retract videos from their website?

I personally think You Tube, except in cases of copyright, should allow whatever gets uploaded to their site to stay there. I think the world has a great opportunity for positive change because a medium of information exists between all countries. Granted, some would say that if a country blocks You Tube, the opportunity for that country goes away. However, for the most part, You Tube presents an opportunity for people to export their cultures. It offers a chance for individuals to communicate to millions in a way never seen before. Whether people use that opportunity for good or bad should be for individuals to decide. Most people are going to use You Tube for brainless and wasteful activity. However, I feel the potential good outweighs the inevitable bad.

Last year, Manuel Zelaya, the president of Honduras, was caught in the middle of a corruption scandal because of an implicating video on You Tube. To me, this represents the good that can come from the site. It gives public officials less of a wall to hide behind. It makes them more accountable not just to their own people but to the entire international community.

If You Tube sets a precedent for allowing countries to bully it around, a great opportunity will be lost.

According to CNN Al Qaeda has used at least two women who were hospitalized for mental disorders due to war exposure in suicide bombings. The obvious implication of this is that Al Qaeda is running out of people. I seriously doubt Al Qaeda would employ the honorable work of jihad to schizophrenic women. After all one of the benefits of dying in jihad is the afterlife of numerous virgins to attend to you. This benefit is not exactly feministic in nature.Personally, I think containing hospitals from Al Qaeda infiltration should not be very hard. The current hospital director is facing questioning right now over whether or not he gave Al Qaeda the information on these mentally ill women.It is also noteworthy that the diary of Abu Tariq, an Iraqi Al Qaeda emir, has been released this week. According to Tariq, in one battalion, the number of fighters dropped from 200 to ten. In another, it dropped from 300 to 16.

I didn’t go to the ASI speaker Barton the other night though I had a pretty good idea of what was said. While I’m not fond of people being called historians who lack the formal training that such a distinction ought to have, I must say that there is one part of his message that I agree with. I think it is a terrible thing that we are so afraid of politicians who appeal to God in their decision-making.Right here and now I want to dispel the fallacy that being a Christian and a politician means that you support imperialism, that you think its great that large multi-national corporations should oppress local populations, that you hate gays, and that you want Hispanics to be deported in white vans.You can be an evangelical and support efforts to protect the environment. You can be an evangelical and support efforts to keep big business more accountable to society at large. You can be an evangelical and support a socialized medical industry. You can be an evangelical and support equal treatment of homosexuals in society. I’m a bit aggravated by the tendency to always react to public officials who are evangelicals in a negative light. Sure you might disagree with them, but they are perfectly entitled to make their decisions in a religious context.You might find it interesting to note that some of the most prominent socialists in America were also evangelical Christians. Francis Bellamy, the man who wrote the original Pledge of Allegiance of all things, was a baptist minister and a socialist. What a seemingly strange crosscurrent of beliefs that seems to us today! Men with the socialist tendencies of this man would be praised by the very people who oppose religious overtones in political discussion.There is nothing wrong with invoking religious beliefs in political stances. We must resist the temptation to deny an opinion its full consideration solely on the basis of its underlying religious convictions.

Just a few days ago was the first anniversary of the “surge” into Iraq. I can quote more people than I have time who received the surge with disgruntlement. However, with what I’m reading, I just can’t argue any other way, the surge is working.The difference between now and before the surge is absolutely prodigious. According to USA Today, the military has control of 75% of Baghdad, the target of the surge and Al Qaeda. And this says nothing of the dramatic improvement in Anbar, which is the governorate to the West of Baghdad. A region that had no trace of civilization intact before the surge is now ready, according to Major General Gaskin, to be turned over to the Iraqis. My hat is off to General Petraeus.All of these charts can be found at globalsecurity.org.

California Proposition 93 is a pickle for me.Our state operates on the proposition system. Bills receiving the minimum number of signatures are put on the ballot along with the primary candidates and the people have access to direct democracy. While I’m not much of a populist, I think having a limited direct democracy is fine, if not very interesting to talk about.That being said, proposition 93 reduces the term limit of legislators from a total amount of 14 years to 12 years. This is 14 and 12 years regardless of which legislative chamber. By default, I’m against term limits. I like professionalization in state legislatures. However, I would also like the kick our current legislators out the door, particularly our leadership.California has consistently been overwhelmingly pro-term limits. All attempts to overturn term limits have failed misreably, much to my displeasure. Therefore, many voters are probably going to be drawn in by this measure. What many of them are going to miss is that this proposition basically resets the number of years each legislator has served as if they were just starting. That means legislators approaching their limit (e.g. Fabian Nunez), get to start over. They will then enjoy 12 more years in the legislature. While this bill appears to decrease the terms of legislators, it actually increases them.In my ideal world, we would vote this bill down (one that actually increases the terms of legislators, something I would normally support) and then in the future overturn term limits. I also realize the odds of that happening are astronomical.

I was surprised that no one here had posted on the revelation last week that Iran had abandoned their nuclear weapons program in 2003. This news is incredibly fortunate because it removes the casus belli that the Bush administration has so long espoused in its harsh rhetoric against the Islamic Republic. The down-side of this is that now European leaders are finding themselves in the same position the Bush administration was in in re Iraq in 2003.

They are still encouraging the international community to keep up the pressure on Iran regarding their nuclear program. The Bush administration seems more than willing to keep the pressure on Iran. Hopefully reason will prevail in this, but it seems more likely that the US and key EU members will keep pushing the situation closer and closer to violence. News that should have allowed the world to heave a collective sigh of relief has done nothing of the sort.

This is also a good example of technological imperialism. Even though the US intelligence community has conceded that Iran’s nuclear program is not military in nature, the Bush administration as well as the governments of Germany, France and the UK all seem determined to keep peaceful nuclear technology out of the hands of less-developed states. For example, the conflict over building heavy water reactors is a perfect instance of technological imperialism. While in the US the preferred form of nuclear power plant is light water, the Canadians prefer to use heavy water reactors. Like Iran, Canada is a signatory of the NPT. Why have the Iranians been accused of violating the NPT by seeking to build heavy water reactors but the Canadians haven’t? The dispute in Iran is merely a continuation of the Western imperialism that spawned the Islamic Republic in the first place.

Today the Supreme Court will be ruling on the constitutionality of holding detainees indefinitely in Guantanamo Bay. This is one of the issues that I strongly disagree with President Bush. The most troubling part of it to me is that he uses his War Power, while not actually declaring war, and detains the terror suspects overseas in an effort to avoid our constitutional law as well as international law. This gives him the power to do just about anything.From what I understand, this court case is not about the 1949 Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War (which I believe Bush has absolutely violated the spirit of). Article 106 of it states that prisoners are to have the right of “appeal or petition from any sentence pronounced on him.” The case is more about habeas corpus. I also believe Bush has absolutely violated the spirit of Habeas Corpus. Article 1 Section 9 states that habeas corpus can be suspended when the “invasion of public Safety require it.” Bush would argue that it does. I disagree. A military court would be perfectly sufficient to try the detainees. My guess is that the crux of the issue is going to be defining what constitutes an “invasion of public safety” that would “require” habeas corpus be suspended. An example of a good time to suspend habeas corpus was our Civil War.I’m curious what some of you law scholars think of this. Have habeas corpus issues ever come up in the Supreme Court?

For the longest time I’ve been critical of the administration for doing nothing with Darfur. We have officially labeled it a “genocide” which is extremely rare because doing so invokes the Genocide Convention, which states that parties to the convention are to “take such action for the prevention and suppression of genocide.” While I doubt it was high ideals that have kept us out of Darfur, I have to admit that I’m a bit skeptical of what could be accomplished there. I have also become a bit weary of our world police role.That being said, I think its important to understand that, like Iraq, the Darfur conflict is an extremely complicated one. This is not just a simple civil war as many people believe. Here are some of the active conflicts:1. Sudan - Darfur: A sizable population of Darfur, feeling marginalized (and perhaps rightly so) in Sudanese politics undertook a rebellion, known as the Sudan Liberation Army. Having done considerable damage, the Sudanese government armed militia called the “Janjaweed” (note: you’ll find many alternate spellings of this). Since then, millions of ordinary citizens have been targeted, thus eliminating the population of potential rebels.2. North - South: The Islamic North has been fighting the Christians in southern Sudan for decades.3. Arab - African4. Herders - FarmersI have tried to simplify the conflict as much as I can. Anyone who is actually educated in this conflict would probably look with disdain on this post because I’ve probably over-simplified the conflict.That being said, I don’t know what we could actually do there. There isn’t really a clear side to pull for. Obviously, the ordinary farmers who had nothing to do with the rebellion are the ones who we should be supporting. But how? It is very hard to distinguish a rebel and a non-rebel. Its not as if there is a clear target to aim for. Also, you have millions of people who are absolutely fearful and distrustful of others and for too many reasons. You stop one conflict and you have at least three more serious conflicts.I’m curious to hear what you all think we should do with Darfur.

This is worth a look if you haven’t seen it yet. I’m sure this clip is somewhat out of context but it’s hard to imagine a context that would earn him any forgiveness from fiscal conservatives.

[YouTube]

In light of Governor Spitzer’s failed attempt to create a drivers license program in New Jersey for illegal immigrants, I thought I’d give my spiel on what I think of the issue. First of all, my overall stance on immigration is pro-immigration. While admitting large short term costs from immigration, I see the long term benefits outweighing them. That being said, drivers licenses to illegals and increasing the ability to be legal are two separate issues.I can admit that there are good arguments for the drivers licenses. Immigrants with drivers licenses would surely be less likely to flee an automobile accident. Having documents with the identity of illegals helps law enforcement keep track of people.That being said, are there not absurdities in the idea? How do you implement such a thing? I’m sure if you support this idea, you realize there are privacy issues involved. Picture yourself at the DMV and you see a line with a sign above it saying “Illegal Alien Line.” What’s to stop immigration enforcement from camping out in front of that line? “Oh here comes one, let’s arrest him.”And think about the conflicting laws that inevitably would exist. I admit, I’m not schooled on immigration laws, but I don’t think I have to be to come to that conclusion.I wish people that were pro immigration could stand against a bad pro-immigration policy. Just because a policy supports what you support doesn’t mean its a good policy.While I’m in this vein, I am getting so fed up with Hilary’s rhetoric on this issue. It’s constantly, “We need this because of this administration’s failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform.” That is a stupid thing to say for so many reasons and it is exactly the kind of thing that makes me sick of politics and hesitant to support any politician. First, “comprehensive immigration reform” means completely different things to different people. It is the kind of thing that means absolutely nothing but is agreeable to everyone. Its stupid. It makes society stupid and makes governance stupid. It makes it impossible for anyone to know anything. Second, the president does not pass immigration reform. Congress does. I know politicians that discuss how complicated issues are usually don’t win and the one’s that do are the ones that can dumb it up for everyone. Maybe that’s why I don’t support anyone.

Yesterday I turned in my POLS 461 to Dr. Howard. What a relief that was. Now that I’m done with it, I thought I’d share some of my findings.

My research goal was to find whether states with professional legislatures spend and tax more as a percentage of gross state product than states with citizens legislatures.

Before I go on, let me define a few things. Professional legislatures are ones that are in session the majority of the year, have larger personal staff, and are paid more (among other things). Citizens legislatures are the opposite of professional legislatures. Most states have “hybrid legislatures” which are in between.

Gross state product is just the same as gross domestic product (which measures the economic output of a nation) except it is limited to individual states. Gross state product represents the highest amount that a state legislature could theoretically collect in revenue. Thus, dividing spending by gross state product accounts for the size of states and represents the real value of government programs to states.

I hypothesized that professional legislatures spend and tax more as a percentage of gross state product. I was absolutely wrong. Professional legislatures spend less than citizens legislatures.

Possible implications of my findings are that the larger governments which tend to spawn professional legislatures have achieved economies of scale and their marginal costs are lower.

I have been a critic of the citizens legislature movement for a while now. Now I have statistics on my side.

Every single article or post on Musharraf includes the fact that he rose to power in a coup and that the Supreme Court is expected to rule his reelection unconstitutional, thus leading to his recent “emergency actions.”

While most people take this for granted, I want someone to tell me what was unconstitutional about his reelection. I don’t want you to tell me why you think it was wrong or why you don’t like Musharraf or why the US Constitution would have ruled it unconstitutional. I want to know what was actually unconstitutional with his reelection based on the Pakistani Constitution. The first person to tell me and be able to prove your claim will get a handsome prize.

In calling a spade a spade, Pervez Musharraf has just declared martial law in Pakistan. Musharaff, who rose to power in a bloodless coup in 1999, has surprised many Westerners as being cooperative with the United States and Great Britain. Though there are many terrorists in his country who cross from the border of Afghanistan, he has certainly made bold moves in ridding his country of known terrorists. Enough that many Westerners give him the benefit of the doubt as to his intentions. And this includes many people who are not George W. Bush.
About a week from now, the Supreme Court was expected to unfavorably rule on the constitutionality of his reelection, which would allow Bhutto to reclaim her place of power. Under the guise of “emergency powers,” Musharraf surrounded the Supreme Court with paramilitary troops, enforced a curfew, and has arrested over five-hundred protesters. Needless to say, Musharraf will never have the influence he desired or even once had.
Musharraf’s actions leave me with very little optimism for that part of the world. There are so few good leaders. If you think about it, losing control of the military is a very scary thing for someone who once ran it, and was protecting you from people who want to kill you. Unfortunately, Musharraf is resorting to the same kind of fear which ruins every kind of society, in every part of the world, in all people. Sometimes, its revealed in martial law, sometimes its revealed in wire-tapping political opponents, sometimes its revealed in racism. A fearful society is without a chance.

If there’s one thing I’m fairly certain of, it’s that our military needs a radical transformation. The world in its structure, powers, regimes, and conflicts are have changed greatly in the last two decades. Yet, our military is still organized to fight the Soviet Union. I have two proposals for the military, each probably political unpalatable, but I’m going to propose them anyway.

1. We have to organize our military to fight small wars. The majority of the conflicts around the world, and the majority of the conflicts we have ever fought, have been small. Therefore, the procurement of more nuclear armaments is becoming more and more unnecessary. Not the least reason being that we have so many. Small means the two sides are not great powers. It means being able to track down and eliminate stateless terrorist groups around the world. Thus what is needed is a dramatic increase in our special forces. The goal is for us to enter an urban region, neutralize the terrorist group, and leave without having to establish a presence in the country.

2. China leads me to my next proposal. With China’s burgeoning economic power, many believe armed conflict with them is inevitable. I don’t happen to be one of those people, but let’s run with that idea. In the meantime, China is not very threatening. Their current General Secretary, Hu Jintao, is not much of a provocateur. He sees global conflict as threatening to his economy. Case in point: North Korea. To protect ourselves for conflict with a great power like China in the future, the correct action is not higher military expenditures. We do not need more warheads or F-22’s, or M1 Abrams. What we need, as Richard K. Betts expressed is a “system of readiness to get ready.” That means we need to be researching ways to organize our resources so that if conflict ever was imminent, we could expand our military capabilities quickly. That way, China will never be threatened unless we ever give them a reason to be. The key is to not create a self fulfilling prophecy by preparing for conflict that is not there.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe Iraq is undertaking its first post-Saddam act of foreign policy, albeit within their own country, with someone other than the United States. In response to Turkey’s vow that it will begin moving into Northern Iraq to counter the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Maliki did what is probably the smartest thing he’s done since he’s been in office. Join them.

Maliki and Ali Babacan, the Turkish Foreign Minister met today before several Iraqi officials to discuss their plans to halt the PKK. This is amid growing international pressure for Iraq to do something about their Northern border.

If the Iraqi military could organize themselves to conduct counter-terrorist operation like that in the mountains of Northern Iraq, personally I think that could go a long way towards stability for the country. I also could see Iraqi-Turkish relations improve. They’ve never been great since about the late 80’s and the PKK is a good reason for that.

Once again, I think it was the wrong time for us to bring up that Turkey resolution. Will there ever be a good time? Maybe not. At this point, I don’t care.

To me, Social Security is a perfect case study in politics. I remember quite well how big this issue was just a few years ago.

At any rate, Social Security is still the most inevitable and problematic economic issue facing this country in the next quarter century. When the three of us Political Cartelers are fully established in our political careers, we’ll be out trying to solve this problem.

There are three schools of thought on solving this issue. Every other idea is really a variant of one of these three.

1. Cut benefits. This can mean, eliminating the program entirely, reducing its Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) and allowing inflation to mask the decreased benefits, or increasing the age to receive benefits. Personally, I think Social Security is a program that got way out of hand and I wish its benefits never reached the level that they are now. However, being that they do exist and millions have based a large part of their retirements on it, cutting or eliminating benefits would be not only bad for the country, but outright dishonest. I don’t support this fix.

2. Privatize Accounts. Oh yes, the Bush plan. While I do think that this could actually do some good for the overall economy, this is by no means a fix. I am sold that increasing the amount of money going to the private sector has a great potential for overall economic gain. However, Bush never proved that this would do so substantially, or even near substantially, enough that the increase tax revenue from a stronger economy and the increase capital gains from these private accounts would make up the eventual difference.

3. Raise Taxes. This plan sounds so bad. Obviously, raising taxes to make up for this huge difference is going to wreck the economy. A wrecked economy is going to severely lower the amount of revenue going to the government to pay for the program and we’ll end up worse than we started, right?

Well, not quite.

As a matter of fact, if we raised taxes very slightly right now and earmarked those funds to social security, the entire problem would be solved. The entire problem. You see, every big business conservative sees this as a one-time, lump-sum, economy-breaking tax. It’s not. We’re talking about a tax that you wouldn’t notice if you looked for it.

I hate to disappoint my colleague, again, on this blog who likes to label me as a conservative. I don’t believe tax cuts are the answer to every economic problem. Sometimes, they are just what we need.

Today, thousands are protesting Columbia University for allowing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak on their campus. The argument is that such a repulsive leader, one who almost surely is stirring up extremists in Iraq, who denies the holocaust and wants Israel blown off the map ought not to be able to deliver his rhetoric in this country.

Well I disagree. Has there ever been a better opportunity to display the Western values of free speech and liberalism that we hold? No. Is Ahmadinejad going to say anything that we haven’t heard from him before? No. Is he going to be able to change any minds? Probably not. But how much better will we look in the eyes of Iranians when we allow someone like him to voice his views in our country.

Ahmadinejad is not very popular in his country. If we can sway the Iranians on our side and not his, a lot of good can happen in the long term.

I have to say I think it rather deplorable what is happening in Jena, LA right now. Three white students hung nooses around campus and were suspended. This began a escalation of racial tension which culminated in six black students beating a white classmate. All were arrested but only one, Mychal Bell, is still in custuody. Bell, in addition to beating the student was accused of stomping on his head.

Massive crowds have been protesting during the trials demanding that Bell be released and claimin a lack of justice in the system. Personally, I think this is a bunch of crap. I’m sorry but what the black community is wanting is not justice, it’s anarchy. So three stupid kids are racists. Now all of the sudden, the black community has permission to resort to violence. How much justice is there in the idea that because of the mistakes of a few white people, every white person suddenly has to bow down to every black person?

Regardless of whether there have been white people in Jena that have gotten off for crimes they committed, and I don’t doubt they have, these boys committed a crime. And “justice” would require them to be punished for it.

The Fed lowered the discount rate by half a percentage yesterday. For those of you not familiar the Federal Reserve, it is essentially the “bank for banks.” Without getting into all the roles the Fed plays, the discount rate is the interest rate the Federal Reserve charges to banks who take out a loan from them. The idea in lowering it is it will create more available loanable funds, thus lowering interest rates of all kinds. In this case the Fed was reacting to the faltering housing market. A large number of houses have foreclosed due to subprime loans. These are the kind of loans that people take out who cannot afford a large down payment. The interest rates start out low and grow dramatically after a year. The housing market in on the downswing of that now. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg. As the housing market falters, you will find the general economy falter.

I’m sorry but I really disagree with what Bernanke did. I like to think of the Fed as apolitical but this was clearly a shortsighted move.

1. The move will not get rid of the housing slump. It will only prolong it.
2. It will most certainly be inflationary. The economy is very close to the full employment level.
3. It encourages more margin speculation. Again, this is profitable in the short term but unstable in the long term.

I feel the economy needs to be taught a lesson. These mortgage companies giving out subprime loans aren’t profiting from a faltering housing market. They don’t profit from people who can’t pay their mortgage after a year. But their workers who get paid on comission do. On that token, the people buying housing they can’t afford need the same lesson. When most of these people bought these houses, the economy and the housing market were on an upswing and the equity built-up in the house would pay for itself. This is buying on margin with real estate. It is one of the reasons we had a great depression and we still haven’t learned from it.

No president in my opinion has ever been a greater catalyst for environmental conservation. Roosevelt was the brain behind the United States Forest Service. He set aside more federally administered lands than every president proceeding him combined. In the picture, Roosevelt stands beside John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, environmentalist, and a great influence on Roosevelt, though the two disagreed on the relative value of the environment and human industrialization. Roosevelt believed in using natural resources. He believed in using them in abundance. But had the foresight, as usual, to anticipate an exploitation of natural resources that would leave our posterity in a world devoid of such. Take the buffalo. We nearly extincted the buffalo in a very, very short time a century and a half ago, and Roosevelt was very aware of this.

The method of reckless and uncontrolled private use and waste has done for us all the good it ever can; and it is time to put an end to it before it does all the evil it easily may. We have passed the time when heedless waste and destruction and arrogant monopoly are longer permissible. Henceforth we must seek national efficiency by a new and better way, by the was of orderly development and use, coupled with the preservation of our natural resources, by making the most of what we have foe the benefit of all of us, instead of leaving the sources of material prosperity open to indiscriminate exploitation. These are some of the reasons why it is wise that we shoud abandon the old point of view, and why Conservation has become a great moral issue in becoming a patriotic duty.

As the industrialization of America was exponentially increasing, it was a very real concern for him that the natural beauty, usefulness, and accessibility of the country would be lost forever if nothing was done. If you think Roosevelt’s fears were unfounded, study Nigeria. See what a ruined and desolate country that is in the Delta Region. Nigeria needed a Roosevelt to protect it from the near-sighted and inconsiderate gorgers of the earth.

This will be a quickie because I’m extremely busy with my 461…

One of the strategies of General Petraeus has been to get the army more involved in the tribal provinces of Iraq, which tend to be Sunni and tend to be safe havens for Al Qaeda. The army has recently begun hiring ordinary provincial citizens to assist the US and Iraqi armies. One of the reasons for this has been a deep mistrust between the Sunnis and the largely Shiite army. Those hired, who really are paid volunteers, are not given weapons but cameras and radios. Their purpose is to work for the US army and with the Shiite Iraqi army. Sunnis who are joining these units tend to claim a dissatisfaction with Al Qaeda and don’t want them in their neighborhoods. Most criticism of the program come from Shiites who feel they aren’t getting any “slice of the pie.” However, I think it has strong points.

1. It bridges the gap between sectarian law enforcement.
2. It takes away much of the “turning a blind eye” of the Shiite armies to Shiite crime.
3. It gives employment to Sunnis who are very discriminated against in Iraqi society.
4. It will increase trust between the two sects.
5. It makes Al Qaeda’s mission much more difficult.
6. It seems to be working.

I have made it no secret that Teddy Roosevelt is my favorite president. I’ll go farther than that; he’s one of my all-time favorite historical figures and a personal hero and role model for me. Understanding my admiration for this man will help you understand my underlying political assumptions and as for the purpose of this post, what I mean when I use the word “moderate.”

The big issue of the turn of the century was capital vs labor. The infancy of the nation was absent of such a problem because capitol had not grown large enough. The problem arose during the industrial revolution and the nation was growing into a previously unheard of state. As the rest of human history would suggest, people would find themselves in one camp or the other. From their spot, they would hurl insults at the other side and blame them for all problems arising in the conflict. Policy preferences on either side would be a direct reflection of the camp of the person. If one was for labor, the problems of the world were all a result of business owners and everything in the world would be better if we could get rid of them. If one was for capital, the problems in the country were those lazy and riotous workers whom the government needs to put down.

I think we find these problems have persisted throughout all of history and persist today. If it’s not capital vs labor it’s blacks vs whites or Israel vs Palestine or Democrats vs Republicans or Westerners vs The Developing World or any number of issues.

Teddy Roosevelt was smart enough to realize that both sides (capital and labor) were important. He was objective enough to realize that both were corrupt. And he was brave enough to proclaim it. Roosevelt believed in workers receiving ample conditions and having a voice in their stake of the economic stratum. However, he scorned the violent protests of the labor movement. Roosevelt also believed that those men who, through hard work and ingenuity, were able to advance in the business world and own a large amount of capital were good for the country. The workers do not have jobs without the business owners. However, he was never afraid to expose the dishonest, selfish, and predatory practices of some businesses, no matter how it might cost him politically in the short run.

If there is one lesson which I would rather teach my fellow Americans than any other, it is to hound down the dishonest man - no matter what his condition - and to brush aside with impatient contempt the creature who denounces dishonesty only when it is found in some special social stratum. Hunt down the dishonest man without regard to class; and if he belongs to your class, hunt him down a little quicker.

We could learn a lot from his example as we tend to take our shots at other groups of people without looking at ourselves or taking a second to acknowledge the redeeming values and value of the other schools of thought.

One thing that bugs me to death about the right wing is the absolute insistance on lower taxes and smaller government. Back in the days when I was a Republican (the dark ages) I would go to conventions and listen to people preach this stuff over and over like they read it from the Bible and that nobody had ever said it before. I found it very hard to relate to those people.

I have a lot more in common with a Teddy Roosevelt than I do a Ronald Reagan. In general, I like low taxes and small government because I want citizens to be able to chose to do what they want so long as it doesn’t harm others, but you can only go so far. There is a lot of economic regulation that the government does that I believe is good. And anytime the country or a state goes into a recession, what is the eternal Republican cure? Lower taxes! Good grief!

Barack Obama has almost certainly lost my vote over two things he has stated in the last month or two that I simply disagreed with too much.

1. His claim that he would never use nuclear arms in any situation wherein a civilian would be harmed. Quite frankly, it is not this mindset that I necessarily disagree with. If he wants to feel that way, I’m really fine with that. The problem is, I don’t think he should have said it. The point of having nuclear arms is not that you would ever use them. It is simply a deterant. It means that if a country has any agressive ambitions, they will have to think twice knowing that their actions could have their entire country destroyed if worse came to worse. Well, if Obama gets elected, we might as well drop all our nuclear arsenal into the ocean because it will be as if we never had them.

2. Obama has stated very frankly that he aims to invade Western Pakistan. What a horrid idea! I’m well aware of Al Qaeda presence there. But you want to talk about the most unpragmatic idea in the world. The truth it, he’s trying to fight a war that should have been fought five years ago. What he is not getting is that the situation has changed now. If he wants to fight Al Qaeda, he will find them in Iraq. Just because it was a mistake to invade Iraq when we did doesn’t mean its a good time to leave now and start a fight elsewhere in a place that would have been a good place to fight five years ago. And this all at the same time that Musharraf has made some very difficult and postive decisions to fight in Western Pakistan. He is already walking a tightrope in his country because of his Western attitude. Us going in there would almost certainly create a backlash.

I felt Obama had some great things to bring to the table. I was serious when I said a while back that I might vote for him next year. Now, I see someone that I believe has idealist written all over him and no realist.

It just occured to me that I can’t vote in the primary. I’m an independent. Odds are I’m going to be forced to choose between two candidates that I don’t like.

I’ll notch that up as another reason why I hate political parties.

This next semester will feature the infamous POLS 461 paper for me. For those of you not familiar with it, it is our senior thesis research paper at Harding and can cover any political question. There is no official length the paper has to meet, which is scary. From what I’ve heard, most papers exceed 70 pages and many reach 100. As you can imagine, the topic of the paper is the most important part to getting a good grade. Start off with a poor topic and you’re screwed.

Anyway, I figured I’d get some ideas from you all as to political questions that could be the topic of my paper. And remember, this cannot be too broad. According to Mrs. Lori Klein, a paper on the adequacy of the No Child Left Behind Act is too broad.

Hey guys,
I am not able to post on here very much. I have a lot going on this summer and cannot devote much time to blogging. Some of you are probably praying in thanks right now. David, feel free to own the site for a little while until Steven and I can get back on here. I’ll comment on your posts from time to time. I hope everyone is enjoying their summer, though some of you make no distinction from the summer and other months.

Peace.

Most people are familiar with the concept of the seven wonders of the world. However, most people probably could not list them all. Or let alone most of them. The fact is, all but one of them don’t exist today. They’ve either been destroyed by earthquake or fire.

The current list of seven wonders is as follows:
1. Pyramid of Giza
2. Hanging Gardens of Babylon
3. Temple of Artemis in Ephesus
4. The Statue of Zeus at Olympia
5. Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus
6. Collosus of Rhodes
7. Lighthouse of Alexandria

The New Open World Corporation (NOWC) in 1999 began a project to establish a new list. They started with 177 monuments, reduced that to 20 by 2006 and now you can go to their website and select what you want the seven to be. The deadline for voting is 07/07/07. I’d be interested to see what you guys vote on should you decide to.

Believe me, I care a lot about race relations. But if you ask me, the number one thing today that is causing racism is none other than affirmative action. That’s right. I believe affirmative action is a direct cause of racism. Now, let me balance that statement. I believe affirmative action has been one of the greatest creations in the history of political science. Even if an employer in the 60’s thought a black man was the most qualified man for the job, hiring that man would have been looked down on by the community and that business would have been sanctioned by society. The purpose of a business is not the public good. It is to make money. Thus, black people could not get jobs. I’m not saying anything here that is new to anyone.

Ergo, it was up to the government to create a solution and I believe affirmative action was a great one. I absolutely believe that affirmative action was one of the leading causes of the racial tolerance that exceeds any other generation in history. There still is racism in our country and I’m not one of those blind people that say otherwise. But affirmative action at this point has past the point of positive returns. The negatives are exceeding the positives.

1. Affirmative action is making it much more difficult for white males to be accepted into universities.

2. Affirmative action is making white males resentful of minorities for preferential treatment.

I want all of you to think very seriously about affirmative action. Please think beyond this simply being a getting rid of a program designed to help minorities. I think that is shallow thinking. My goal is to end racism.

Foreign Affairs has a special sneak peak of their upcoming issue on their website. Barack Obama and Mit Romney each give personal essays on their respective takes on the international scene and what they would do if they were elected.

The big problem I have with both of them is they leave the question “how?” unanswered a lot. Sure, that would be great to create peaceful relations between Israel and the Arab world. But how? A lot of it is a bunch of politician mumbo jumbo that has been said for twenty-five or more years. But if you read closely, there are some telling things. I definitely recommend reading this.

Somewhere in this post, I’m going to offer you the most paradoxical statements I have ever made on this blog. You’ll find it when you get to it.

I’m am quite possibly one of the oddest political science majors around. You see, I really am appalled by politics. I hate it. I define politics as the struggle to determine who gets what. So much of it is a selfish mumbo jumbo designed to look like the public interest. There are very few politicians whose hand I would shake right now.

But the big one for me is political parties. The most assertive statement I could statement I can make regarding politics is that I hate political parties. “But Chris, aren’t political parties a blessing in our democratic society? Isn’t that freedom of speech and assembly.” You bet. But in the scope of democracy, there has not been one thing that has risen to become more undemocratic than the political party. Political parties are the bane of democracy.

Number one, they make things way oversimplified. People have no clue who they are voting for half the time. If I believe in low taxes, I will vote Republican without knowing a single thing about the candidate. It really disappoints me when people in our own department rush out to partisan gatherings around a candidate that has nothing in common with them.

Number two, they severely limit the ability of candidates to say what they feel. A candidate always has to be cognizant of what his partisan base feels.

Number three, they breed serious corruption. Now, a candidate has to please all the people who made campaign contributions to his or her political party.

Number four, they create more division. Two congressman in two political parties might share 7 out of 10 things in common with one another. But they will instead work with their own partisans before working with someone in the other party.

Number five, they are the very reason why I have no chance in politics. I make a terrible Republican and a worse Democrat.

Number six, they are not created to be Democratic. They are created to keep like-minded people in office and in power regardless of public sentiment. They are created to be undemocratic. Quite a paradox I believe.

Number seven, you cannot make it in politics without being a part of one. It is impossible to finance a campaign as an independent unless you own serious wealth.

I’m sure many of you who read this are active within one political party or another. I don’t know how you do it. But at least one great historical figure thinks the same way I do. Washington.

I stumbled upon an interesting article today from 1998. Its interesting because nobody talks about Bill Clinton when talking about Iraq. Why don’t we hear anyone calling Bill Clinton a fascist like George W. Bush is called? Quite frankly, I can’t see any difference in what Clinton is saying here and what George W. Bush would go on to say later.

Here’s a few of the highlights:

‘”Their mission is to attack Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors,” said Clinton.’

“Clinton also called Hussein a threat to his people and to the security of the world.”

‘”The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government — a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people,” Clinton said.’

Again, I’m not trying to advocate what Bush has done. I just want you people on the far left who attack Bush’s moral character to see what your liberal champion has said on the same issue.

I anxious to see how some of you are going to try an excuse him.

I live in California. Along with Texas, we are the most impacted by illegal immigration. I used to hold the position that we need to build this massive wall all along the border of Mexico and keep it patrolled by soldiers, helicopters, tanks, mines, dogs—-whatever the heck would keep people from entering our country illegally. Illegals are a drain on many of our public services such as healthcare, police, welfare (yes, in California, welfare), and so on.Well, I don’t think that way anymore. I am operating right now under two key assumptions and they are as follows:1. A wall is impractical. It is too expensive and really will not solve the problem anyway. Illegals are getting in through underground tunnels as we speak and that is a very, very long border to guard.2. The economy of Mexico is growing rapidly.That being the case, we have the choice to prolong the massive immigration or to shorten it. When Mexicans cross the border and work in America, they often send back money to their families. This is what economists call an “injection” into Mexico. The more this happens, the better Mexico’s economy is going to be and the sooner that Mexico will no longer be dependant on the practice of illegally immigrating and sending money. McCain-Kennedy simply makes it easier for them to come over and work, but do so legally.We can either choose to make immigrating easier for them, and shorten the time they will be immigrating, or we can make it harder for them and prolong the time until Mexico can support itself. Either way we have massive amounts of immigration.

As factionalized as Iraq is, ideology to this point hasn’t been one of the big issues dividing Iraqis. According to IraqSlogger, a Marxist group called the Iraqi Armed Revolutionary Resistance has been distributing leaflets like this one depicting Che Guevara and claimed responsibility for an attack against US troops on Sunday.

That’s just what the country needs. Another group to make a complicated situation more complicated.

Perhaps I have not an ounce of idealism left in me. With regard to Iraq, I have concluded there is no hope for her. But more importantly, I have concluded there never was hope.

My observation of others’ criticisms of our Iraq policy tend to start with phrases such as “If we would only” or “If we had only” or “If we only hadn’t.” My purpose right now is to dispel all of that. The fact that I’m coming to grips with is that no matter what we had (or hadn’t) done, that country would have ended up destroyed.

1. I have read several times on this blog and other blogs that Suddam was the best thing Iraq ever had. Suddam’s iron fist over the region was just what it needed to keep it stable and that the instability and civil war that the country is in right now is the result of the difusion of power. That’s such crap. It is a distortion, if not complete ignorance, of perfectly clear history. Suddam Hussein destroyed his country. His reign was not one of stability. It was one of paranoia and fear politics. It was one of mass genocide and terror. If you want to talk about stability in Iraq, it was much more stable before he assumed power. His first step in power was war with Iran because he was afraid the Shiites within his country would sympathize with the Shiites rising to power within Iran during their revolution. He drained the country’s resources during the war which lasted most of the decade and was in huge debt to his soldiers, whom he had promised large sums. The war ended in stalemate with Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran. The people within his country were becoming critical of him so he would randomly butcher citizens to instill fear and obedience. Anybody that questioned anything he said lost their life. Part of the debt of war was loaned off by Kuwait. Because he could not pay them back, he accused them of stealing oil from Iraq and invaded their country. That’s what lead to the first Persian Gulf War. Also during the 80’s were his mass killings of Kurds. Now all of this, keep in mind, was his own doing. There was very little in the way of provocation. The Kurds weren’t organizing a takeover of the government. All they wanted was independence in the northern mountainous region. It wasn’t until the later 90’s that you found much in the way of rioting. And all of it could be traced back to his awful military campaigns. Hussein fought back. Hard. Hundreds of thousands of his people were killed by his hand. I’m sorry. Those of you who take the great leader card on Hussein as a reason for us to have stayed out of Iraq are crazy. He was always paranoid about the Shiites and Kurds and killed them horrifically. His own Sunnis didn’t even like him. They were the ones rejoicing when his statue fell. He did more to destroy his country than any person ever could. His country would have been in shambles whether we would have intervened or not.

2. The flip side of that is that there is hope in what we are doing there and that getting rid of Suddam and all extremist is the road to stability in Iraq. Quite frankly, I believe that’s just as wrong. Killing enough hostlie Muslims cannot solve the problems of the region. The fact is, there will be ethnic tensions there that cannot be solved through military action. Extremists will always be around. They will spawn more a more rapidly as more US intervention takes place. The more we do, the more they do. You can’t win in a situation like that.

3. “Well what if we partition the country?” This is one of those ideas that political science majors come up with that I think makes us less and less relevant. Here’s why partitioning would not work:
a. Both Sunnis and Shiites would view paritioning as a loss. The only part that would feel they gained would be the Kurds. Both sides feel they can take over the entire country. Therefore, taking over a third of the country will never be acceptable.
b. Adminstration of this new country would be a nightmare. How will you make sure that the oil profits are spread evenly? Bribes will be law. No one would trust each other. Corruption and incompetancy would be the halmark of the adminstration of the oil money. And when enough feelings are hurt, a new civil war will begin.
c. No side would ever agree to a constitution that would apply to the country as whole.
d. The partitioning would not be taken well by Iraq’s neighbors, that is assuming it ever came to fruition in the first place. Number one, Iraq is positioned between two countries that are Shia. You either have to put the Sunni partition on the east or the west and that will enfuriate Syria or Iran who will then have a new and concentrated Sunni neighbor. Number two, I do not believe Iran does not want the country to be partitioned because that would shed a good light on our campaign there. They would not allow it to be successful.

4. “We should just leave. That would solve all the problems.” Ridiculous. I foresee one of two possibilities if we left. One, the country turns into an all out civil war. As stated earlier, both sides believe they can have it all. All they have to do is wait us out. Once that happens, the vaccum will have to be filled and that means either side will fight till the last man stands. What we see right now is the tip of the iceberg in the country’s civil war. You think it’s bad now, it will get much worse when we leave.

However, it’s also possible that Iran gets involved, subdues the Sunni minority, and places itself in the power position over the country. That possibility assumes a lot. That’s a very big operation to take over that whole country. Especially in a civil war with so many factions. We can’t do it, assuming that what we’re trying, I doubt Iran would be very successful either. Either way, Iraq ends up in a blood bath.

The point of this was not to advocate a certain view or policy. The point was that I am fed up with people who think they are wisemen because they can point to our current policy which is failing and say “If only we have done something different.” They see only what they want to see, distort reality on both sides, and make conclusions that make them sound smart and enlightened. I am saying there is nothing that could go right or ever could have gone right in that country.

To this point, I haven’t posted anything about economics which is strange because this is one of my favorite subjects. I guess a good place to start would be my favorite hypothetical tax model. I say hypothetical because it has never been done and probably never will, but it’s fun to talk about.

I am an advocate of the negative income tax, a tax structure advocated by Milton Friedman. Its actually pretty simple. I would darn near say this is the simplest tax structure there ever could be. To begin with, you eliminate the entire welfare system. You also eliminate minimum wage. In their place, you create a minimum yearly income. For this example we’ll use a minimum income is 10,000 dollars. That means, every single person in the country gets a guaranteed 10,000 dollars.

Then the current tax system would be com