The Strange Parallel Worlds of Fundamentalism and State-Owned Banks

Technology-minded fiscal conservatives are often puzzled that the most vociferous of laissez faire capitalism in the United States today are also the most unfriendly to secular thinking and church-state separation. If you understand and even celebrate the principle survival of the fittest and evolution in an economic sense, why insist that the same principles in other areas?

No less a capitalist than Adam Smith recognized that natural selection applies not only within economics, but to economic systems as a whole. In other words, if capitalism was a bad system, then it would be outcompeted by another system that would rise to replace it. Writing as Jane Galt, Megan McArdle paraphrased this by saying that capitalism is the the system to find the best system. On the other side of the issue we have William Jennings Bryant, who prosecuted a Mr. Scopes for teaching evolution in public schools. Do you know what one of Bryant's big arguments was for outlawing evolution? That it was teaching children to be more capitalistic. Guess what? He was dead right! If you're going to be consistent, you have to pick whether you want to be a creationist OR a capitalist.

The reason that we tech-minded fiscal conservatives can't just let the social conservatives have their fun is that, when the chips are down and they're forced to make a decision about which is more important - capitalism or Scripture - the social cons usually throw out capitalism, and with it, America's business and technological edge.

Foreign Policy Magazine has an interesting article on 2009's top dead thinkers, and the focus is on economists - specifically on Austrian school economists whose prophetic writings about our current financial woes have been misunderstood through modern-day cheerleaders (capitalists wrecking capitalism) rather than by people genuinely trying to understand economic theory and make decisions that are rational in terms of material betterment. And the connections to Darwin are clear in the article. The money-line is the last sentence:

"This economic system," Schumpeter wrote in his earlier The Theory of Economic Development, "cannot do without the ultima ratio [final argument] of the complete destruction of those existences which are irretrievably associated with the hopelessly unadapted." Indeed, he saw that the economy remained saddled with too many of "those firms that are unfit to live." That could serve as a painfully accurate description of the Western financial system today. [Moreso China's banks, but that's another article. - Tom]

Yet all those allusions to evolution and fitness to live serve as a reminder of the dead thinker we should all have spent at least part of 2009 venerating: Charles Darwin (1809-1882). This year was not only his bicentennial but the 150th birthday of his paradigm-shifting On the Origin of Species. Just reflect on these sentences from Darwin's seminal work:

"All organic beings are exposed to severe competition."

"As more individuals are produced than can possibly survive, there must in every case be a struggle for existence."

"Each organic being ... has to struggle for life and to suffer great destruction.... The vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply."

Thanks in no small measure to the efforts of his modern heirs, notably Richard Dawkins, we are all Darwinians now -- except in the strange parallel worlds of fundamentalist Christianity and state-guaranteed finance.

Special Interest Groups Pressuring Companies

One of my pet peeves is when some whiny special interest group decides that because something offends them (a movie, a TV show, a book, etc.), that nobody else should be allowed to see it. Guys, you don't like it, don't buy it.

Fortunately, we live in a part of the world with free enterprise and free speech. Unfortunately, when the groups are big enough, they can scare the companies in question into complying with their agendas. The Golden Compass Trilogy - or what was to be a trilogy anyway - is a perfect example. The first movie is a lot of fun, and even if fantasy kid-stuff isn't your thing, it's still worth pointing out that Nicole Kidman has never looked so good.

Now, according to classic Western-looking actor Sam Elliott,
the second and third films have been cancelled, not for money issues (the first made $380 million!) but for a stupid reason:

"Asked what had happened to the two remaining films, [Sam] Elliott, 65, who played a Texan aeronaut called Lee Scoresby in the film, said: 'The Catholic Church happened to The Golden Compass, as far as I'm concerned.'

It's up to each of us whether we buy a product, not a government or a special interest group. If it's free enterprise versus the organization that practically invented intrusive government, well, I think you know which one should, and will, win in the end.

Which Republican Congresspeople are Brave Enough

...to answer a yes-no question, and stand by it? There's an easy way to resolve all this distracting foolishness about birth certificates. Despite all the evidence, politicians who question the President's birth are contemptible enough, but even more cowardly are would-be leaders who won't commit to a position. It's really pretty easy. Either you do believe something, or you don't. If you're a no-nonsense man or woman of the people, why not a simple yes or no?

Here it is: which Republicans in Congress are willing to openly say (or have said) that Obama is a U.S. citizen? Which have openly said that he's not, and stuck to it? Who has flip-flopped when it was convenient to avoid offending people?

As a small-time conservative blogger, I'll go first. President Obama, despite any of his mistaken policies, is a natural-born U.S. Citizen. Of course this makes me a RINO, an infiltrator, etc. etc. yada yada any of the helpful terms that the inmates running the GOP asylum use as the evaporative cooling of IQ's continues. But I'm happy to be thrown out of any club where that's an anti-shibboleth. Another reason that you can apparently get kicked out of the GOP today: the ability to win a general election.

The U.S. Should Build a Stronger Alliance With India

I've often imagined Colin Powell on 9/11, going to Bush and saying "We have to call Pakistan now." As we all know by now, Pakistan has a long border with Afghanistan, and at the time they were China's forced ally in the soft tension against India. On top of it they're an extremely volatile Muslim country with nuclear weapons. Having them on our side during a war in Afghanistan, at least nominally, was top priority.

Does it seem strange that we continue to have trouble with militants emerging from Pakistan, either to go back to their strongholds in Afghanistan or to try to destabilize our few democratic allies in the region by having its out-of-control ex-military terrorize Mumbai? Has Pakistan's government even inched closer to a respectable open democracy in that time? Or is it still at best frustrating, at worst terrifying, that after years of support from the U.S., this Muslim nuclear junta still menaces its neighbors and tolerates Taliban fanatics crossing its borders?

We've been neglecting our alliance with India for far too long, and India has noticed. India is an absolute key not only to pressuring Pakistan, but to shore up Asia for markets and democracy against China. As a pluralistic democracy, they're a natural fit (as Fareed Zakaria is correct in frequently pointing out) and the links between the American technological establishment and India, particularly Silicon Valley, are another excellent connection which we don't seem to be cultivating. (Do you know China has an office for coordinating expats? Smart! Where is our own effort to encourage connections between individuals whose national interests align?) And the prediction by many economists that India's GDP will overtake China's in the twenty-first century adds further weight to this argument.

The Obama administration has so far ignored this opportunity to be part of the Asian century, as opposed to tied down in parts of the world that will not be players on the world stage for a long, long time. Encouraging and accomplishing this could be a real win for those Republicans who understand that in the twenty-first century no one can afford to ignore what goes on outside our borders (I hoped 9/11 would have cured us of that). Another win for Republicans that Democrats couldn't afford to be seen opposing would be a VAT in addition for dialing back and simplifying income tax, something which Bruce Bartlett has been promoting.

To put a point on it, the loudest voices on the right currently seem a lot more concerned with complaining than fixing, at the expense of ever winning an election. If I have to choose whether to associate with do-nothing, spoil-the-majority-party-for-the-point-of-spoiling them whiners, or winners with solutions trying to get something done, I will go with the winners. Always. And winners have solutions. Outrage never fixed anything.

Why Do We Tolerate China's Censorship Outside of China?

The behavior of Chinese government security forces on the streets of the U.S. and other free countries should have been enough, but now they're doing it at sober indoor functions. OpenNet Iniative Asia is a forum to promote freedom of expression, particularly online, and recently took place in Sharm, Egypt. There was a poster about China's Great Firewall, and in response to pressure from Chinese authorties, the organizers caved and did the predictable thing - and it's all on video. This just happened last month.

I typically accept that the Chinese government is rational enough not to want to take over the world, but actions like this make this more difficult to believe.

Heroines of the Month: Pissed off Korean Ladies

This is the first open dissent in North Korea that I have seen. A good sign, even if too late for thousands.

Those Pro-Individual-Liberty Bastards in California

Well doesn't Libertarian flagship Reason magazine seem smug that marijuana legalization is coming up for a vote in California next year? For that matter, so am I. And so should you be. Why are so many on the right so eager to outsource our judgment of what's good or bad for us to the Federal government?

Red Dawn Remake: The Chinese Are Coming

I can envision two reactions to this from Americans who don't pay much attention to foreign affairs. One is: "Wow, I guess I hadn't really thought about how China really is a world power now. I should demand that my elected leaders take notice of this and make decisions to ensure that America's economic and technical preeminence remains unchallenged while encouraging progress toward democracy in a country with whom we share an interest in being a trade partner rather than a military adversary."

Another possible reaction is: "China is evil! Even though as a tea-partier I spend my day ranting about the inherent evils of government I am constitutionally unable to distinguish between a people and their government! Rather than trying to coexist as trade partners and encouraging moves toward democracy and openness we should attack them! I'm gonna beat up the next Asian-lookin' guy I see!" Of course, the first reaction would be better.

Either way, the movie will come out in 2010. Filming has begun in Michigan (go here for Chinese troops on the streets of Pontiac).

What Does Your Ideal World Look Like?

Next time you hear someone complaining about politics and the state of the world - you know the type, long on moral outrage, short on ideas - ask them: what is the end goal of what you believe? What's the point of it all?

I suspect and hope that for most of us the ideal world looks very similar, and we just have different priorities and methods for getting there.

The following three quotes are an effective reminder of the kind of America and world it's worth struggling for, and in 2009 they seem positively revolutionary.

We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

- President Dwight D. Eisenhower at the start of his first term, 16 April 1953

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, farewell address, 17 January 1961

President Eisenhower's concern about the military industrial complex...his words have unfortunately come true. He was worried that priorities are set by what benefits corporations as opposed to what benefits the country.

- John McCain, 2005, Why We Fight

China and Info-phobia

No one was surprised that Chinese censors blocked Obama's call for internet freedom. I imagine plenty of Chinese surfers heard it anyway, and evaluated it for themselves. This is the same government that condemned Western press coverage of the Iranian's people struggle to be heard as irresponsible rabble-rousing.

This is the same government that claims it is trying to modernize China (it's better than before, but still behind Guatemala in per capita income), and yet it treats its citizens as school children who have to be protected from the nasty realities of the world; it's also the same government that has increasingly regressed to a form of Han nationalism, regarding Tibetans and Uighurs among others as aliens who should be grateful for their (forced) homestead inside the Middle Kingdom. (And where are the voices of the always-overheated American Right calling attention to injustice in Xinjiang and Tibet? Disappointingly few and far between.)

What, exactly, is the Chinese Communist Party afraid will happen when China's citizens are given unfettered access to the world at large? Free speech and elections go a long way to improving lives and economies. A country ready to take on global responsibilities doesn't have such insecurities.

ARG Profile #1: Randy Brogdon

Randy Brogdon is an ARG: an Asshole Ruining the GOP. He's an excellent example of what's driving young people and intellectuals further away from the Republican Party. Good riddance you say? Sure, just like that seat in NY-23. And Arlen Specter. Who knows how many more "victories" the ARGs will have?

But back to Randy Brogdon - you want some examples of his assholery? First and foremost, how about making veiled threats to secede from the country. If there's something more anti-American than literally trying to destroy the Union, please let me know what it is. What has his panties in a bunch? Brogdon considers it an overextension of Federal authority for Oklahoma to receive stimulus money? (I'm sure he could arrange to send any funds for his district back to Washington. Strangely, he seems not to have done so.)

Randy Brogdon also wants America to lose its technical and scientific edge and fail in the global marketplace. Make no mistake - he wants China's education system to pass our own, because he's openly anti-education. He thinks you should have to teach your kids at home, but that's okay, since he also thinks you should be able to teach kids whatever you want - unless it's plate tectonics, the germ theory of disease, or that the Earth is round. (Think I'm kidding? Here it is.) And this guy is running for governor of Oklahoma. If that happens, a generation of people will grow up thinking of Randy Brogdon when they think "Republican". That's why he's an ARG.

If you're comfortable throwing all that away so Randy Brogdon can use government regulation to force his weird Seventh-Day Adventist beliefs on your kids, then hey. Your call. If letting him wreck America's technical competitiveness as China catches up doesn't bother you at all, then Brogdon and the other ARGs are your best choice.

China Says: Well Look What Happens When You Can't Control Your Spending

Instead of trying to get our biggest competitor, and the other most important country in the world to shape up into a democracy, Obama spends his time telling them the dollar and our banks will be okay.

It's a forced move. We have a huge deficit. There's no point in anyone's spending any more time Bush-bashing because it's not productive, but it bears emphasizing to the tea-partiers: this deficit didn't magically appear on 20 January this year, and where were you for the previous eight years? But it bears greater emphasizing to everyone else that we have to do something to fix this (like not pass a massively expensive health care bill to add to the fire) or we will soon have greater problems than not being able to encourage reform in the biggest nation on the planet. Bruce Bartlett has one solution that - forgive me - any Republican with balls would be getting behind.

Handbook for Sabotaging America's Technical Edge

There are so many nutcases out there (vaccine denalists and anti-science-eduction types being just two) that it's becoming easier to see the pattern they all follow.

Somebody even boiled it down into a rulebook. Of course they're being sarcastic, but it's scary that it's so widespread these days that you can recognize the general plan they all follow.

Why aren't these people seen as what they are - prime enemies of American democracy and enterprise?

Thoughts on Fort Hood from an Ex-Muslim

Ibn Warraq is a fellow at the Center for Inquiry and the author of Why I am Not a Muslim, the story of his rejection of Islam after subjecting it to rational thought.

The mainstream media will do anything to avoid pinning the shooter's actions on his extremist religion. Warraq's worthy comments on this matter
include the following:

The [mainstream median] tell us that the mindset of Major Hasan remains a "mystery," yet his Jihadist intentions are there on the surface for everyone not paralyzed by political correctness to see. According to CNN (Nov. 7), on the morning of the shootings Hasan gave copies of the Koran to his neighbors. According to the Associated Press (Nov. 6), soldiers reported that Hasan shouted out "Allahu Akbar" [God is Great] – the war cry of all Jihadis – before firing off over a hundred rounds with two pistols in a center where some 300 unarmed soldiers had lined up for vaccines and eye tests...no one filed a formal complaint about Hasan’s views and comments for fear of appearing discriminatory -- in other words, out of political correctness.

There's a difference between tolerance and obfuscation. Religious extremism will unfortunately always exist. Let's not aid and abet its excesses by looking the other way when it strikes.

Azerbaijan Government Punishes Assault Victims

Of course, there's more to it than that: these particular assault victims were satirists (pretty funny ones actually) who got attacked in a cafe. It's funny how the pattern is always the same with governments who don't want to hear public criticism of their stupid decisions - all the government in question ever does is associate them with a crime (their own or someone else's), and it doesn't matter whether they're the victim or even whether they're acquitted - they're still punished.

In this case, Azerbaijan's citizens would do well to recognize that their government is apparently nostalgic for the days of the Soviet Union.

Mark Todd: Hero of the Fort Hood Shootings

[Added later: The story was later clarified that it was Sgt. Mark Todd who brought down Minor Hassan. Get ready to hear extremist babbling in the trial.]

MSM is of course doing the predictable dance around the obvious-to-everyone-but-them fact that the Fort Hood shooter was a Muslim extremist. This is bad for several reasons, not least among them that, for reasons of his twisted faith, it's beyond cool that he was shot by a female police officer. If he's horribly dishonored by that and his pride wounded in a way that can't be described to someone not of his culture, after what he did, so much the better.

If you're offended that I'm gloating about that, then maybe you need to get rid of your stone age religion, or stop defending the harmful primitive superstitions of other people.

Libertarian Party Victories in Pennsylvania, Iowa

Seems like the LP has done particularly well in local races in IA and PA. This is great news, and nothing to sneeze at if you're a conservative looking for a place to make your vote count - considering that the GOP is well on its way to becoming a regional party.

Brilliant Democrat Double-Agent in NY-23 Succeeds in Mission

If I were an evil Democrat (redundant?) here's what I would do. I would get someone (let's just call him "D.H.") to enter a political race, make overheated substanceless claims that the current Republican contender is a phony leftist socialist Kenyan Nazi, and then throw the election so the Democrat wins. And what's best is that devout Red State comrades would clap each other on the back, insisting that this was really a strategic victory, unable to see that what has just happened resulted in the loss of a GOP Congressional seat. Wouldn't that be devious? And it's so crazy, it just might work!

After I'd tested my dasterdly plan out once to prove that it could work, then I would set about doing the same thing to other possibly successful Republican candidates and raise money by calling them phony leftist socialist Kenyan Nazis. Like for example, Charlie Crist (yes, the same guy who was on the short list to be McCain's VP. As you know John McCain was all about picking leftist socialist Kenyan Nazis.)

Remember during the Democratic primary when Hillary's supporters were saying they would never vote for Obama in the general election? Brilliant strategy guys! Whatever your righteous motivation, you're sabotaging your own party. Lucky for us, the GOP would never allow such a thing.

End sarcasm: since I just moved, I had to re-register to vote. I can no longer say I'm Libertarian with a capital L. I registered GOP so I can make a difference in primaries by voting for the socially moderate candidates. I look forward to the day the Red State Central Politburo comes to knock on my door and throw me back out of the party.

Chinese Mineral Mercantilism Called Out at WTO

Like their mineral interests in Africa and the Middle East, their steep export tariffs and the underlying policy that motivates them are worth paying attention to. Fortunately the US and EU are doing so, but this story isn't getting much play in the North American press.

It's worth paying attention to trade disputes with China more than with, say, Europe, because the EU is composed of parliamentary democracies (which make decisions which are rationally beneficial for larger groups of people, internal and otherwise) and with whom we have a military alliance. This is not the case with China; the game is different and the rules change accordingly.

Biggest Cajones Award: Mahmoud Vahidnia

At the end of an address at a major university in Iran by the "Supreme Leader", a student started asking seriously confrontational questions. If only everybody in the world were equally prepared to call bullshit, and to hell with the consequences.