Category: Politics

All the news that’s fit to slant

Guess what? Media bias is real. Rather than excerpt any particular passage from the news release, I’ll sum it up with what I’ve said in the past: Duh. This is new information?

Give any thinking person access to media, whether newspapers, television, radio, or The Internets, and they’ll find something that could count as bias. It’s the reader’s job to read with a critical mind. Without that, the reader can be swayed “against his wishes,” which concerns me exactly zero percent. Buyer beware and all that. If a reader wants bias, he’ll seek it out. If he doesn’t, he’ll boycott news outlets that skew against his beliefs. If he’s too ignorant or lazy or whatever to participate in that exchange, I’m not going to feel sorry for him. The marketplace for ideas exists for a reason. Engage or shut up.

Read the summary of the study and make up your own mind; it’s a quick read. If nothing else, it’s an insight into the “Fun with Numbers” mentality of quantitatively comparing items that have no justifiable scientific link. That, tied together with methodology that appears to ignore context, will most certainly achieve the desired confirmation of the liberal media bias thesis. Big deal.

Tortured logic on torture

The McCain amendment (re)codifying prohibitions against torture of prisoners appears close to passage. There are a few last-minute snags, mostly surrounding the Bush Administration’s desire to avoid further criminal liability for anyone who may have tortured prisoners in the last few years. Sen. McCain is correct in refusing to compromise until the White House agrees to the legislation without changes.

Using a bit of choice wording and faulty logic, the editors of the Wall Street Journal further pushed their counter-argument yesterday, determined to see the torture option remain available to any and all U.S. personnel fighting the war against terror. Consider:

Part of the problem with interpreting those words is that they depend on the context. All things being equal, we can’t think of a worse human rights abuse than blowing someone to bits with a Hellfire missile. Yet no one objected when that happened to al Qaeda leader Hamza Rabia in Pakistan two weeks ago. If certain individuals can be ethically targeted for death in a war, then wouldn’t the same hold true for rough interrogation methods? A strange code of morality would allow the killing of Rabia but not his stressful questioning to prevent further murders he might plan against innocent civilians.

Some of the more sophisticated critics recognize this, as well as the possibility of “ticking bomb” scenarios. That includes Senator McCain, who has written in Newsweek that on occasion “an interrogator might well try extreme measures.” But he opposes writing any guidance into law or regulation–the way the Bush Administration has done–suggesting instead that the interrogator should go ahead and do what he thinks is needed and then depend on “authorities and the public” to “take [context] into account when judging his actions.”

I don’t see the direct connection between ethically targeting an individual for death during war and torturing him in captivity. If the individual, in this case Rabia, is free, he’s a danger. The proper intention against an enemy is to stop him from being a threat. Death certainly does that. But if he’s captured, is he a threat any longer? The basic answer is no, although the more complicated answer is presumably yes because he possesses information. Of course, if a target possesses such high value information that torturing him is allegedly justified, targeting him for death seems counter-productive to the larger goal of winning the war. Hellfire missiles and waterboarding aren’t interchangeable in this debate.

That, of course, leads back to the original argument. What is justified? Although specific definitions already exist, and the Bush Administration generated memos designed to pigeon-hole war on terror captives into a small box invented to avoid existing laws and treaties, the editors pretend that torture opponents should justify why current United States policy should be reversed revert back to pre-Bush Administration standards. The argument relies on obfuscation to distract weaker opponents. It’s a fine strategy if they can pull it off. They don’t.

And don’t forget “rendition”–the turning over of captured terrorists–to the likes of Egypt or Syria, the practice favored by the Clinton Administration because it lacked the nerve to handle captured terrorists outside the criminal justice system. We trust the CIA more than Egyptian intelligence, but where are the “torture” critics on the morality of this practice? The truth is that if the McCain Amendment passes, rendition will almost certainly increase. Perhaps this will be the next liberal target, until every al Qaeda detainee is treated no differently than a common thief.

We realize that our views on this subject won’t carry the day, at least not until the U.S. suffers a more serious attack. The Bush Administration is already backing down from Mr. Cheney’s earlier position, holding out in this week’s negotiations on the McCain Amendment only for immunity for the past actions of U.S. interrogators. We still wish the President would take his case to the public, and perhaps even request hearings next year on Capitol Hill, because Americans are more sophisticated about the reality of what it takes to break these terrorists than are most journalists.

But at least the Administration has been willing to admit that protecting Americans takes more than denouncing “torture” at the top of one’s lungs. Once the McCain Amendment becomes law, perhaps the torture moralists will continue their creeping honesty and let us know what U.S. interrogators can do to break the next Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Of particular offense in that passage is the nonsense questioning the manhood of the Clinton Administration because “it lacked the nerve to handle captured terrorists outside the criminal justice system.” Illegal activity, rendition in Clinton’s case, or torture in Bush’s case, is still illegal activity. It does not matter whether an administration had the balls to do the deed itself. How differently do we treat those who murder and those who hire a murderer in their place? But who has the testicular fortitude to beat the shit out of the bad guys is not all that matters.

Our sense of justice and morals prevent us from allowing or endorsing government-sanctioned torture in America. Whether we call it torture, rugged interrogation, or aggressive coercion, it remains against the law. More importantly, we have a civilian-led military, complete with a Congress and judiciary entrusted with powers to check the executive from abusing and ignoring limits on his powers. When those bodies refuse to act, as they have for the better part of this scandal, we also have the First Amendment. Not to empower individuals to dictate how to break terrorists, but to ensure that limits on military behavior are enforced. The opposite of that is not sophistication, but barbarism.

How about a “Bridge to Everywhere”?

In an editorial in today’s Washington Post, Felix G. Rohatyn and Warren Rudman propose a solution to decaying infrastructure in America. Specifically, they highlight two examples.

On the Gulf Coast, the failure to invest adequately in the levees of New Orleans and to prepare for or manage the resulting disaster was obvious to the world.

On the Pacific Coast, in the state of Washington, a quieter crisis loomed. The region’s infrastructure had been outstripped by growth. But the new governor, Christine Gregoire, had the courage to impose a phased-in motor fuels tax to repair the state’s dilapidated and congested roads and bridges. Her opposition tried to repeal [ed. note: Initiative 912] the legislation with a ballot initiative, but thanks in part to the support of the state’s most powerful business leaders, voters stood by her and supported the tax, which would cost the average driver about $1 a week. They appeared to understand that this is a small price to protect lives threatened by bridges such as Seattle’s Alaskan Way viaduct, a twin deck freeway that is used by 100,000 vehicles a day and that could collapse in an earthquake. Their last-minute intervention may have prevented one more disaster for now, but the opposition will undoubtedly be back.

I only know the general details of how Gov. Gregoire imposed the motor fuels tax, and I’m not impressed by the idea that raising taxes is courageous, but I’m fine with the facts mentioned so far. Infrastructure is in dangerous condition. Something needs to be done. Admittedly I don’t remember the last major earthquake in Washington state, but deteriorating infrastructure is still bad. However they pay for it, the improvements seem wise. However, as I stated in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, fixing the problem at the local level, where information will be most accurate and current, is best.

I’m also aware that Washington isn’t the only location in America with infrastructure problems. Any short drive through the D.C. area will provide the same revelation, though I don’t know of anything specifically in immediate danger of falling down. As with the Wilson Bridge, though, proactive is best. So how do Mr. Rohatyn and Sen. Rudman arrive at this conclusion within a few short paragraphs?

Americans may not want “big government,” but they want as much government as is necessary to be safe and secure. Today state and local governments spend at least three times as much on infrastructure as the federal government does. In the 1960s the shares for both were even. Even so, increases in state spending have not been enough to check the decline in many of our public assets. A new type of federal involvement would be a powerful initiative and would require a new focus. Rebuilding America is a historic task; we have the means to do it.

I suspect that the authors haven’t noticed the federal deficit lately. Otherwise, I doubt they’d say we have the means to do this at the federal level. Regardless, it wouldn’t be a powerful initiative, but rather, a power-grabbing initiative. The federal government did this with the levees in New Orleans. How well did that work?

More interestingly, doesn’t the Washington example show that state and local governments are better equipped to know which infrastructure projects are most urgent? We can argue about whether or not an increased motor fuel tax is the way to pay for upgrades, but I’d rather Washington’s residents determine that. I also expect them to pay fund them. Just like my fellow Virginians and I should pay for road improvements in Northern Virginia.

After proposing the expansion of federal control, the authors offer a funding scheme that, in all honesty, I’m not quite sure I understand. It involves something about a national investment corporation (NIC) and “self-financing” bonds with a federal guarantee. It sounds more like Social Security IOUs than anything. If someone cares to read the article and decipher how the NIC would work, I’d be happy to listen. For now, I’m resigned to regarding it as a central planning sleight-of-hand that would transfer control and decision-making from where local knowledge resides to Washington, while spreading tax obligations everywhere. I’m not persuaded.

By the end of the editorial, the authors acknowledge that they’ll face opposition, although they fail to understand why:

There will no doubt be opposition to solving this problem. Advocates of “small government” will characteristically oppose government’s performing its valid, historical role. Critics will accuse the NIC of being a “new bureaucracy” when, in fact, it might be the only practical approach to reform in the existing bureaucracies.

I don’t oppose solving this problem. Claiming that “small government” advocates characteristically oppose this is incorrect. “Small government” advocates expect the government to perform its necessary, appropriate tasks. However, building roads, bridges, airports and water projects are for state and local governments. Just because we’ve historically violated that does not mean we should continue to do so, adding more bureaucracy and impossible-to-deliver promises to the government heap.

It takes two sides to play the game

In a column today, Robert Novak opines about looming campaigns to derail Judge Samuel Alito’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. Mr. Novak throws around some of the usual rhetoric implying a battle for the soul of the Supreme Court and the nation. Consider:

Little of this has much to do with how Alito actually would conduct himself as a justice, but Supreme Court confirmations have taken on the characteristics of American elections. In truth, the Alito campaign is one part of a relentless, sustained struggle for control of the Supreme Court extending far into the future. Nan Aron of the Alliance for Justice in 2004 declared she will do “whatever it takes” to keep conservatives off the Supreme Court. This year, when Aron was asked what she would do to stop Alito, she replied, “You name it, we’ll do it.”

At least we know early on exactly what Mr. Novak is selling. But what is the meat of the two-sided campaign?

… Alito’s dissents on criminal-search and gun-control cases are cited to turn him into a ”jack-booted thug.” This characterization might seem more credible for Alito, the son of an Italian immigrant, than for Roberts, whose father was a corporate executive.

Alito’s strategists reply with “law enforcement week,” emphasizing his endorsement by the Fraternal Order of Police. To assail Alito’s decisions, said FOP President Chuck Canterbury, is “like attacking a police officer for doing his job and making arrests.”

Based on my initial reaction to a dissenting opinion by Judge Alito, which I did not characterize as support for strip-searching twelve-year-olds as the more hysterical partisans have done, I suppose I’ve attacked police officers. I also hate baseball, apple pie, and puppies. And the Fourth of July. To be more reasonable about it, I’m not concerned about police doing their job. It’s a valid, necessary function in a civil society. I just happen to believe that there should be limits, as previously outlined in the United States Constitution. That isn’t too much to expect. If Judge Alito has given indications in the past that he’s inclined to uphold police/state power, at the expense of the Constitution, then he provided that fact pattern. My only job as a thinking person is to form an opinion on the facts alone. That’s what I tried to do and what I’ll be looking to do during the confirmation hearings. Then I’ll make up my mind.

Given that Mr. Novak uses Mr. Canterbury’s statement as a support for his argument against those interested in stopping Judge Alito’s confirmation, this next bit comes as little surprise.

An Internet ad distributed by the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network to more than 10 million users this week will fire back on critics of Alito’s dissent validating the search of the young daughter of a suspected drug dealer. It contended that “left-wing extremists opposing” Alito “may have found new allies — drug dealers who hide drugs on children.” The ad is also sent on the Internet to Grassfire.org, a conservative activist group with 1.5 million members that produced 700,000 signatures in support of an amendment opposing homosexual marriages.

I’m not sure what that last sentence has to do with anything else in his argument, other than wow, Mr. Novak must have an obsession with the topic. I’m also not sure I can fathom how that slipped past his editor. Whatever. I’ll count that sentence as a minor victory of sorts because marriage wasn’t in quotes. Perhaps he conceded the point. Doubtful, but perhaps. I digress.

Allow me to recap Mr. Novak’s central point. Fringe leftist groups are mounting unfounded attacks on Judge Alito’s nomination, turning the confirmation process into a political circus. This should be seen as a bad turn of events in American politics. I’m with him in theory, although I understand our perspectives diverge sharply beyond that. But an internet ad accusing “left-wing extremists” of siding with “drug dealers who hide drugs on children” is different from the nonsense put forth by the left? Ummm … How? By using the phrase “may have found”? I call shenanigans.

Seeing nuance where no justifiable nuance exists

From The Corner at National Review Online comes this tidbit on torture. I won’t recap the whole discussion because it mostly veers off into a tangent about what sort of physical endangerment one would choose if captured, but there is a telling explanation made in the process. First, a basic assumption for torture from Jonah Goldberg:

And don’t tell me the analogy doesn’t work because the criminals are choosing torture of their free will. The terrorists in these hypotheticals choose torture too — when they decide not to divulge inforrmation [sic]. Everyone agrees that torture or even coercion for reason not directly tied to pressing need should never be tolerated.

Fine, terrorists choose torture when they don’t talk. What about American soldiers captured in the field of battle? If they’re tortured by their captors, do we dismiss it because they followed orders to reveal only name, rank, and serial number? Or do we denounce the torture as a gross violation of human rights and international standards of war? I agree that there’s a distinct difference between terrorists and American soldiers, but the underlying assumption of how a captor should treat a captive remains the same, I think.

As an aside, I don’t think everyone agrees that torture or coercion should never be tolerated without the ticking time bomb scenario. Many of the debates around the blogosphere reveal particularly nasty examples of people taking glee in the idea of torturing terrorists because the terrorists are bad. Modify the last sentence to “reasonable people agree” and we can move on.

Later, in response to reader reaction, Mr. Goldberg responds with this:

Moreover, innocent people would not choose torture. They would give up the information needed. Of course there is a very real and legitimate danger of torturing innocent people because we wrongly don’t believe they’re innocent, which would be awful — again just like killing or imprisoning innocent people is awful. But for the terrorist who knows that innocent men, women and children are about to be murdered and chooses to stay silent, I simply haven’t read a principled argument that makes the moral case against coercing this accomplice to murder that I personally find convincing. Contrary to what a lot of people think, that alone doesn’t make me “pro-torture.” It makes me unpersuaded by some of the more high-minded arguments of the anti-torture crowd.

I concede that that doesn’t make Mr. Goldberg “pro-torture,” but I still have a question that should seem obvious. How would an innocent person give up needed information? If he’s innocent, he doesn’t know anything to give up. How long do we torture him for withholding information before we realize he’s innocent? Does the torture inflicted remain justified after he’s no longer a suspect because he was thought to be a terrorist at the time of the torture? We know we’ve imprisoned suspected terrorists in the last four years who’ve turned out to be innocent individuals.

I simply haven’t read a reasonable argument that makes the legal case for torture compelling. That it’s also morally and politically devastating to the United States should also factor into what should’ve been a short debate. Senator McCain’s amendment should pass the Congress unchanged. President Bush should sign it.

Behold the power of The Internets

Browsing through the Congressional votes database on the Washington Post’s site today, I discovered a unique and interesting way to review legislative votes. Sure, anyone could think that organizing by party and state. I might even come up with region. But gender? I wouldn’t have thought that overly useful. And baby-boomer status? I guess age could matter. I wouldn’t use that, though. But here’s the Holy Grail (data for vote 618, H.R. 4440):


Astrological sign
Yes
No
Not Voting
Aquarius3311
Sagittarius2412
Taurus2121
Gemini4502
Leo2903
Aries3001
Capricorn3401
Libra4102
Scorpio3000
Cancer5400
Virgo4800
Pisces2600
Total415413

Someone please explain to me when that might ever be useful. Other than the bored hippie constituency, maybe, I don’t get it. Just because technology rocks doesn’t mean we should use it to use it.

Deadly force is encouraged

Everyone knows the facts of yesterday’s passenger shooting at Miami International Airport. I’m most interested in the responses to the shooting. ersonally, I’m inclined to assume the federal air marshal acted properly. Air security is essential and any air marshal must be allowed to act on the facts before him. We need to conduct an honest investigation and learn any lessons on how to improve air marshal response in the next incident. I have no doubt that it’ll occur. What we don’t need is shameful rhetoric.

“This shows that the program has worked beyond our expectations,” said Rep. John L. Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House transportation subcommittee on aviation. “This should send a message to a terrorist or anyone else who is considering disrupting an aircraft with a threat.”

Rep. Mica needs to shut up. The death of a man is beyond our expectations? How low were they before this incident? I can’t imagine we thought air marshals would just say “Excuse me, but could you please not blow up this plane?” Rep. Mica’s statement is posturing for the law-and-order crowd and should not be tolerated. He’s taking far too much glee in this incident.

Which brings me to Bill O’Reilly. Danielle and I watched the O’Reilly Factor last night because he had part one of his interview with Howard Stern. We wanted to watch and nothing else was on. We should’ve recorded it and fast-forwarded through the propaganda.

During the opening segments, Mr. O’Reilly spoke with a “reporter” at Miami International Airport. During the discussion, Mr. O’Reilly described the shooting as (I’m paraphrasing) “if the suspect doesn’t cooperate, the air marshal is going to blast him.” The rest of the discussion consisted of the “reporter” prosecuting the case and coming to the perfect law-and-order conclusion that any action of force by security forces are justified if the risk of terrorism exists. Rather than facts, we got glee that a man died and the remaining passengers were marched off the plane with their hands on their heads. Oh, and the luggage not belonging to the dead suspect blown up by the bomb squad was just a reminder that we take terrorism seriously.

The entire debacle disgusted me. That many people were watching, absorbing the propaganda as gospel pissed me off.

The tyranny of the majority

Via Hit & Run, this lunacy courtesy of former Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork:

The December 19 issue of National Review, marking the magazine’s 50th anniversary, includes a feature in which 10 people offer suggestions on “How to Increase Liberty in America,” to which I contributed a few paragraphs about ending the war on drugs. Sandwiched between Clint Bolick on school choice and Ward Connerly on colorblindness is Robert Bork on censorship. Just to be clear: He is for it.

“Liberty in America can be enhanced by reinstating, legislatively, restraints upon the direction of our culture and morality,” writes the former appeals court judge, now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “Censorship as an enhancement of our liberty may seem paradoxical. Yet it should be obvious, to all but the most dogmatic First Amendment absolutists, that people forced to live in an increasingly brutalized culture are, in a very real sense, not wholly free.” Bork goes on to complain that “relations between the sexes are debased by pornography”; that “large parts of television are unwatchable”; that “motion pictures rely upon sex, gore, and pyrotechnics for the edification of the target audience of 14-year-olds”; and that “popular music hardly deserves the name of music.”

Consider me a dogmatic absolutist. Also, Judge Bork might want to re-read this (for the first time?):

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It’s clear that “conservatives” like Judge Bork don’t particularly care about constitutional principles. No idea of liberty or limited government could ever be compatible with the notion that censorship is an enhancement of our liberty. That’s not obvious, no matter the proclamations from Judge Bork. Judge Bork is really saying that courts that give acknowledge rights are activists capitulating to the liberal agenda, while legislatures that restrict rights are society enhancers promoting freedom. Judge Bork believes in principles no more profound than “Everyone must abide by my beliefs.”

It certainly is a shame that he missed out on the Supreme Court with brilliance like that. America is clearly worse off.

I’m not convinced of the “truth”

In a much-talked-about editorial titled “The Truth about Torture,” Charles Krauthammer delves into the torture debate with a lengthy analysis of the issues involved. We don’t come to the same conclusions, I think, although it’s possible he’s closer to my absolute anti-torture stance than he implies. But it’s a useful discussion. I have one question. Consider:

Let’s begin with a few analytic distinctions. For the purpose of torture and prisoner maltreatment, there are three kinds of war prisoners:
…

Third, there is the terrorist with information. Here the issue of torture gets complicated and the easy pieties don’t so easily apply. Let’s take the textbook case. Ethics 101: A terrorist has planted a nuclear bomb in New York City. It will go off in one hour. A million people will die. You capture the terrorist. He knows where it is. He’s not talking.

Question: If you have the slightest belief that hanging this man by his thumbs will get you the information to save a million people, are you permitted to do it?

That’s an absurd scenario that’s been readily debunked throughout the blogosphere in the last week, so I won’t go into it here. I’m more interested in Mr. Krauthammer’s assumptions (although he’s not alone in pushing this scenario with the same assumptions).

Specifically, how do we know there’s a nuclear bomb set to go off in one hour? I don’t ask that as a “gotcha” question; it’s not. I’m genuinely interested in the assumption because it could change the approach to the scenario. Isn’t there a possible inference in this scenario that indicates intelligence gathering might be useful? Or do we want to just continue with the assumption that we’re not good enough to prevent such terrorism from reaching the United States through time-tested methods, thus torture is the only option?

For more insight, read this.

Capitalism starves babies (and other lies)

I’ve discussed labor unions and touched on how they’re not particularly helpful to America anymore. In this editorial, E. J. Dionne Jr. discusses the future of American industry and the wrongs labor unions tried to right. It’s an interesting read, although every time I thought he might finally be heading for truth, Mr. Dionne takes an undesirable intellectual detour. For instance:

Decades ago, Walter Reuther, the storied head of the United Auto Workers union, was taken on a tour of an automated factory by a Ford Motor Co. executive.

Somewhat gleefully, the Ford honcho told the legendary union leader: “You know, not one of these machines pays dues to the UAW.”

To which Reuther snapped: “And not one of them buys new Ford cars, either.”

It’s a semi-witty response and one that any company interested in technology should heed. However, Mr. Dionne draws the wrong conclusion from that exchange. Of course the machines don’t buy new cars, but the logic flow does not automatically lead back to “Machines Bad, Assembly Workers Good”. The purpose of a business is to maximize profit. If robotic assembly arms help reduce costs, they’re useful. Finding ways to make the displaced workers productive is the next exercise. However, those unions so determined to “help” workers don’t understand that those displaced workers may be more productive working elsewhere. It’s the “creative destruction” described by economist Joseph Schumpeter, referenced in the editorial.

Mr. Dionne then debates the manner in which the left liberals Democrats progressives should tell the story of unions and labor and looking out for the little guy. He promotes that as more compelling than the story of capitalism told by economic conservatives. Rather than stumble along, leaving the core of the debate to the other side, progressives should discuss how government shepherding of creative destruction can improve lives. Consider:

But this muddle reflects a default on parts of the left and, especially, within the Democratic Party. Because so many Democrats fear that they might sound like — God forbid! — socialists, they are unwilling to challenge the right’s core story. Capitalism, all by itself, would never have achieved the rising living standards that were the pride of the United States in O’Neill’s 1950s and still are today. The rules enforced by the National Labor Relations Board made it possible for Reuther’s union to organize by protecting workers’ rights. Cheap 30-year mortgages, which became the norm because of Federal Housing Administration guarantees, created a nation of homeowners.

As medical costs rise, more Americans will need government help. More employers will need to offload the costs of medical insurance to avoid bankruptcy. Yes, that’s “socialized medicine,” just like Medicare. But don’t tell anyone. The phrase plays terribly in focus groups.

For 60 years New Dealers and social democrats, liberals and progressives, turned Schumpeter on his head. They insisted that few would embrace capitalism’s innovations if the system’s tendency toward creative destruction was not balanced by public innovations to spread the bounty and protect millions from being injured by change. It’s a compelling story. Walter Reuther knew it well. Too bad it isn’t told very often anymore.

Mr. Dionne can argue that socialist redistribution and intentional economic stagnation are the best policies for America, but I need more proof than the National Labor Relations Board and mortgage guarantees, which don’t amount to proof that the private industry can’t handle those tasks. He can even argue that socialized medicine is necessary because businesses can’t provide it much longer. I’ve mentioned a better solution in the past, but the debate is worthwhile. He shouldn’t pretend that he’s promoting an improved, socialistic version of capitalism, though. Resisting change doesn’t stop it from happening. If it did, we’d still be using the horse-and-buggy and listening to vinyl records Gramophones.