South Dakota Politics

Terrorism is Forgivable, When the Terrorist is on the Left

I have said enough about the connection between Barack Obama and Bill Ayers.  To sum that up, no, I don't think that Obama's association with Ayers means that Obama has terrorist sympathies.  But the question of how to think about Bill Ayers has a dimension beyond that of Obama's character. 

David S. Tanenhaus makes his case for Ayers in Slate.  It goes like this: Ayers's participation in the terrorist activities of the Weathermen in the nineteen sixties and seventies is ancient history.  You have to view it in the context of the times, which presumably provide some measure of excuse, though Tanenhaus doesn't elaborate.  Tanenhaus met Ayers the same time as Obama did, and then Ayers was dedicated to the idea that juvenile lawbreakers should not be treated as adults in court.  Let us presume, for the sake of the argument, that this is a noble cause.  The argument amounts to this: we should judge Ayers and the people who embrace him by his latter noble work, and not by his history-washed early excesses.

This, I say, is giving the Devil a pass.  Let's start with the history-wash part.  Bill Ayers was, in 1968, a citizen of the United States of America.  The U.S. is and was then a genuine Republic.  Ayers was free to say or print anything he wished to say or print about the Vietnam war, or poverty, or anything else.  He was free to petition the government for a redress of grievances, or to run for office.  He was also free to engage in non-violent civil disobedience, as did the civil rights activists under the leadership of Martin Luther King.  Those are the options available to decent and civilized people in a Republic. 

Instead, Ayers and his cronies planted bombs at the New York City police headquarters and the Pentagon, being not quite ambitious or intelligent enough to think to hijack airplanes.  There is no historical context that makes this okay.  The bombings were crimes against the United States and all its people.  Ayers said in a TV interview that they went to great pains to make sure nobody was hurt.  That is pure worm tongue.  There are only two differences between Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168  people in Oklahoma City, and Ayers: McVeigh was smarter and more effective in his purpose, and McVeigh wasn't a leftist and so doesn't have someone at Slate defending him.  Well, maybe three differences: McVeigh paid for his crimes. 

As for all the good deeds Ayers has done, they might be redeeming, in part, if he had the decency to admit that his youthful terrorism was wrong.  But he has never renounced the bombings.  He wishes had done more.  Too bad he didn't know about fertilizer bombs.  Nor is he ready to say that he won't do it again. 

Ayers is a monster.  He would let loose the worst kind of violence on all sides if, well, he didn't have such a cushy position at the University of Illinois.  No decent person should have anything to do with him.  That the Left provides him so much shelter and so much esteem is a scandal. 

Groom Screws Up Big Time

Or maybe the post title should have been: Baptist Wedding. 

Clumsy Best Man Ruins Wedding - Watch more free videos

Presidential Substance 2

I argued in my last post that Obama's association with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers is most plausibly explained by go along to get along approach to whatever crowd he is in with.  Nobody around him in his Chicago circles objected to Bill Ayers, so neither did Barack.  So far as anyone knows, Obama has never taken a stand contrary to the conventional wisdom on his side.  This suggests a man with not a lot going on beneath the surface, which may actually be fine for most of the work of an ordinary presidency.  If, however, something really serious happens, what inner resources will he draw upon?

Gracious and much appreciated reader, Gene, sends me this note in reply.

Professor I share your concerns about Obama's inner reserves.  I think you correctly portrayed the significance of his Ayers and Wright relationships.  I'm trying to put this in the context of past presidents I remember--going back to Eisenhower--did any exhibit an inner reserve that got them or this country through tough times.  But every time I come up with what seems to be an example of or lack of inner strength--upon closer examination they we're just interested in political survival. (Nixon-Watergate,  Clinton--Monica, Carter-Iranian hostages).  If this is the test then Obama passes-he is a political survivor--Clinton and now McCain have learned not to underestimate him.

I certainly agree with Gene that Obama is a formidable politician, and his opposition should be careful not to underestimate him.  But I think that cases of Presidents who act out of inner reserve rather than mere political expediency are not that hard to find.  Oddly enough, I think that Jimmy Carter was acting out of principle when he sat there for a year while the Iranians occupied our embassy and held our people hostage.  He knew it was costing him, but he really believed that patience and negotiation were the right thing.  He did eventually cave in to political pressure, and authorize a military expedition that was ridiculously risky and ended in disaster.  Carter's problem was not lack of courage or principle; it was that he had the wrong principles for dealing with Iran.

Ronald Reagan provides a better case.  When he joined with Thatcher, Kohl, and Mitterrand, and put intermediate range nukes in Germany to counter Soviet INF already deployed, there was a tremendous campaign waged against the move by the European left.  Reagan held firm (with a little encouragement from Thatcher: "don't go wobbly on me, Ronnie!"), and the result was the INF treaty and the destruction of a potentially destabilizing class of weapons. 

A smaller example, but apropos, is Bush's leadership at the beginning of the invasion of Afghanistan.  I think it was a mistake not to send in massive ground forces, instead of doing what we did and fighting from the air.  But that was the strategy, and at first it didn't seem to be working.  Bush's cabinet went wobbly, and some of his top advisors talked of pulling out.  Bush asked them: didn't you all think this was a good idea just a few days ago?  Then let's give it a little time.  That is sticking to your gunships, and it is a good example of leadership, whatever you think about the rest of George W.'s presidency. 

Given what we know about McCain, there is every reason to think he has that kind of quality.  Given what we know about Obama, there is no reason to think he has such qualities.  Of course they may be there.  But at this point, one can only have faith.  That, or hope that nothing important will happen while Obama is President. 

A Sober Look At Science

Apparently, since I am being attacked in the Aberdeen American News, they have run my column on Eric Cohen's new book, In The Shadow of Progress: Being Human In The Age Of Technology.  You have to have read my piece in order to understand the attack.  Read both.  Needless to say, the difference between one choosing to be an organ donor and the willful destruction of a human embryo is fairly obvious so I will not add to that obvious point.  Here is what I wrote:

Our technological age allows us power over nature that our ancestors could only dream of. In his new book, “In The Shadow of Progress: Being Human in the Age of Technology,” Eric Cohen reminds us that human life is made up of tragedy that technology cannot remove and hope that it cannot replace. 

Technology has surely made our lives better in countless ways. We are blissfully liberated from much of the drudgery of past times, using machines to cook our food, do our dishes, and clean our homes. Science and technology give hope to the child stricken with cancer, who only a few years ago would have been sentenced to death. Only a fool wishes to return to the harsh past. 

Cohen warns us, though, that technology also alienates us from the human experience. The fervent belief in inevitable progress blinds us to the costs of technology as we increasingly use technology to manipulate our very humanity in the service of progress. Science runs the danger of seeing man as just more matter to be manipulated. In this sense man is both a beast and god. He is at once raw material and the master of it. 

“The methods of science,” Cohen writes, “cannot vindicate the ends of science.” Many scientists see it as their duty to ameliorate human misery, “to seek power in the name of human charity.” But science, in itself, cannot tell us, for example, why it is wrong to kill some in order to benefit others. Science is, after all, just a method. Scientific knowledge gives some the power over others, but it does not give wisdom as to how to use that power. 

Science cannot define its own limits. There is much about us that is limits us. We did not choose when we were born, we did not choose our sex, and we do not get to choose when we die. “It is this truth about our natures,” Cohen writes, “that the grand dreamers of the biotechnology revolution too often forget, precisely because they seek bodies that never decline and souls that never sorrow.” 

In this sense the scientist and the bohemian are partners. There is “a connection in the belief that human limits should be overcome, taboos are anathema, and human shame is an illusion.”  Both are interested in liberation from nature. 

Some wish women to be liberated from their child-bearing nature, so we create artificial contraception and abortion to rid us of unwanted children.  Some hope for the day when genetics will allow us to make better babies than nature. We use technology to liberate us from aging through cosmetics and plastic surgery. We can avoid sorrow through drugs that can make sure we never really feel bad. All of this suggests a frustration with nature’s unwillingness to cater to our desires. 

So we become like Dr. Frankenstein, manipulating life to satisfy our own desires. In the case of embryonic stem cell research we literally use the parts of dead human beings for our own benefit. 

We are also tempted to offend our nation’s deepest held belief, the belief in the equality of all. We define some lives as “valuable” others as “invaluable,” thus worth letting die. Some children are “wanted,” others “unwanted” and thus discardable. Genetic testing allows us to eliminate Down syndrome not by curing the ailment but by killing in the womb those who suffer from the disability. Cohen writes, “We will replace the hard work of human love for the disabled with a false compassion that simply weeds out the unfit. It is hard to see how the equal dignity of persons with Down syndrome is served by treating Down syndrome as a legitimate reason to abort.” 

Some say we should take the politics out of science. But politics is really just the act of discussing how we ought to live with each other. In his new book, Eric Cohen gives us some of the language we need to engage in that politics.

 

What the Ayers Association Says About Obama

Barack Obama spent twenty years at the feet of a preacher who thinks that the United States is responsible for the Second World War, and that we invented the AIDS virus to kill African Americans.  Obama worked closely with "education expert" Bill Ayers.  Ayers is frequently described, even by his critics, as a "former terrorist."  This is not accurate.  A "former terrorist" is someone who once advocated or committed terrorist acts, but now renounces them.  In the late 60's and early 70's, Bill Ayers conspired with other "Weathermen" to plant bombs in the Pentagon and elsewhere, and apparently took part in the action.  From the New York Times:

''I don't regret setting bombs,'' Bill Ayers said. ''I feel we didn't do enough… So, would Mr. Ayers do it all again, he is asked? ''I don't want to discount the possibility,'' he said.

That's not a former terrorist, that's a right now terrorist.  He is also, right now, a "distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago," which tells you something about American universities.  Barack Obama at first claimed not to know Ayers, and when it became clear that he had worked with him, claimed not to know about his radical views.  That tells you something about Obama.  Either he is stupid and uncurious, or a liar, or both.  Being charitable by inclination, I vote for B. 

Does Obama's association with Ayers at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge in 1995 mean that Obama shares Ayers' terrorist inclinations?  Of course not.  But it surely raises a question.  Imagine if John McCain were discovered to have had a close association with someone who planted bombs in abortion clinics.  I'm guessing that the New York Times would invest some ink on that!  Why did Obama, who must have had ambitions, think that his association with Ayers didn't matter?

I think it's pretty clear that Obama went along with whatever his crowd was saying for his entire career so far.  He didn't speak up in Reverend Wright's church for the same reason that he didn't think twice about working with someone who had planted bombs and advocated killing the rich: no one he knew seemed to be alarmed by such views, so he wasn't either. 

I think that Obama is not a radical leftist so much as an empty vessel.  And that's the good news.  It looks like we are about to put this guy in the White House.  Americans are accustomed to the idea that the Constitution reigns people in.  The system forces radicals on the left or right to move toward the center.  Bill Clinton had radical ideas about healthcare reform, and look what happened.  Nothing.  Like a modern automobile, the Constitution is designed to be safe, so we don't have to worry too much about which sedan we buy.  This is a sign that the voters are more intelligent than most journalists would acknowledge.  President Obama may push radical legislation, but if he does, well, a Republican Congressional majority in 2010 will probably be the only tangible result. 

But here is the worry.  There may come a crisis in which President Obama can't rely on the voices around him to tell him what to do.  Then he will need inner reserves of some kind of conviction to guide him.  We know that John McCain has such reserves.  There is not a shred of evidence that Obama has any such reserves at all.  The most charitable reading of his association with Wright and Ayers requires a conclusion that he is empty of any such thing.  America has survived a lot of mediocre Presidents.  All we have to hope for is the same luck this time round. 

CNN on Obama on Ayers

Obama’s Europe & Europe’s Obama

There is no question that Barack Obama would carry Europe if they got to vote.  From what I can tell, Justice Anthony Kennedy would probably give them the vote.  I don't think we can hold Senator Obama entirely responsible for Europe, but it is worthy of some thought.  What is Europe, that it is so fond of the Hyde Park Messiah? 

The answer is that Europe is nothing.  It does not exist.  The "European Community" was created in 1993 in the not-so-vague hope that it would allow Europe united to stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States.  It has not been without achievements.  They did create a common currency, and a "single market", more or less.  But they have failed to get a European constitution, a fact I blogged about back in 2005. 

Now we see that Europe is equally incompetent in the face of the current financial crisis.  From Yahoo News

LONDON - Individual European governments issued a cascade of deposit guarantees to shore up their banks but fell short of any coordinated action Monday to deal with the crisis sweeping financial markets, even as stock markets crashed and the euro sank to its lowest level for over a year.  Though Europe's officials appeared to be paying lip service to the need for working together, they continued to make key announcements on deposits on a go-it-alone basis.

Germany's Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck made clear his government's opposition to the idea that the euro zone's single largest economy should put up money to prop up institutions outside his country.

He said Monday that he and Chancellor Angela Merkel were considering creating a "shield" that would protect the country's entire financial sector, and that a Europe-wide shield or bailout was out of the question. "The chancellor and I reject a European shield because we as Germans do not want to pay into a big pot where we do not have control and do not know where German money might be used," he said in a separate interview with WDR 2 radio.

Well, union sounds like a good idea, but when a real crisis comes along it's every duchy and bishopric for itself. 

And it isn't just the financial crisis that's causing them to fall apart; it's global warming as well.  Somebody call Al Gore!  From the London Economist:

JUST 18 months ago the European Union promised to save the world from climate change. A final plan to deliver on those promises must be finished soon. But it is in deep trouble.

The conclusions of the March 2007 summit proclaiming the EU's "leading role" on climate change make for wistful reading today. They begin "Europe is currently enjoying an economic upswing," and add that growth forecasts are "positive". Back in that long-lost golden age, the EU's leaders were in heroic mood. They offered binding promises known as the 20/20/20 pledges. By the year 2020, they would cut Europe's carbon emissions by at least a fifth over 1990 levels; derive 20% of all energy from renewable sources; and make energy-efficiency savings of 20%.

The heroic mood is gone now. In March 2007 Angela Merkel, the German chancellor and chairman of the summit, was a green champion. Today she sounds like a lobbyist for German business, listing the industries that must be shielded from the full costs of her package. In truth, almost every country has found reasons why the climate-change promises may be impossible to meet in their current form. Britain is gloomy about its renewable-energy targets. Ireland says its farmers must be protected (grass-fed Irish cows emit a lot of methane).

Europe is a land of pious pronouncements.  They're fond of saying all sorts of things which they themselves know to be untrue.  They loved Bill Clinton because he had a good ear for what they wanted to hear, and was always willing to say it.  It didn't matter that he was frequently lying to them, and that they knew he was lying, and that he knew that they knew he was lying.  They hated George W. Bush because he had the bad grace to say things that were true but unpleasant, as when he said that the Kyoto treaty on global warming would never come into force.  Bush was quite right of course, but it was so dreadfully gauche of him to say it. 

European pretentions to unity and environmental salvation are as ephemeral as Obama's speech Tiergarten Park in Berlin.  No wonder they love him. 

A Nation At Risk

The Mitchell Daily Republic has published a Denise Ross article featuring the wisdom of my favorite political scientist, me. 

“Tim Johnson is extremely cautious, because I doubt the outcome of that election is going to be based on how Johnson votes,” said John Schaff, a professor at Northern State University in Aberdeen and a blogger at South Dakota Politics (http://southdakotapolitics.blogs.com/).

“Either vote carries possible risks with it,” Schaff said. “How one votes on this is in part tied to how does one view that risk?”

For Johnson, the risk is tied, at least in part, to him standing for re-election next month.

Schaff notes many of the “no” votes came from members of Congress vulnerable in next month’s election. That’s not so for Johnson. In his race against Republican Joel Dykstra, polls show Johnson leading as much as a 2 to 1.

I forgive Denise for misspelling my first name (no "h", please).  It's a common mistake.  I do want to expand on this concept of risk 

Was the $700 billion "bailout" the right move?  That depends on how you assess risk.  There is no doubt that the government is providing much needed liquidity into the financial system.  Contrary to the implication of Todd Epp's tendentious post, the government, strictly speaking, isn't spending $700 billion, it is investing it.   This, like all investments, implies a modicum of risk.  It is possible that by purchasing various assets the government may eventually be able to sell those assets for a profit.  The risk here is that the government will not recoup its investment, leaving taxpayers holding the bag.

But there is substantial risk in the Tim Johnson position Mr. Epp lauds in his post.  The risk is that by not investing this money, a credit starved financial sector collapses taking the entire economy with it as capital simply dries up.  Robert Samuelson, who has forgotten more about economics that Todd Epp or I will ever learn, suggests today that a lesson of the Great Depression is that we cannot allow our money supply to dry up. This is why Samuelson is a cautious supporter of the bailout.  I wait to hear Mr. Epp explain whose toady Robert Samuelson is.

Those opposed to the bailout also accept some risk, namely that the economy can withstand the collapse of various financial institutions and the ensuing massive decrease in available capital. Maybe they are right, maybe they are wrong.  My point is essentially this: either vote on the bailout, yes or no, contains some risk and, conversely, the promise of some reward.  One's support or opposition to the bailout depends on one's estimation of that risk. I think it is a near thing and don't blame anyone for their vote, although I think I would have voted for the bill. 

By the way, many people are linking to this piece by Sebastian Mallaby, and for good reason.  Read it to learn about regulation, deregulation, and their relation to the current financial crisis. 

Economic Crisis and the Big “D”

Peter Schramm at No Left Turns directs readers to this piece by Niall Ferguson.  It is the clearest piece I have seen on the really big question raised by the current economic crisis: will it lead to another depression?  Harry Truman once said "it's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose your job."  Clever, but not correct.  It's a depression when it lasts not for fifteen months but for fifteen years.  That kind of economic trauma scars a generation.  So what caused the first Big D?  Here is Ferguson's key point:

[T]he underlying cause of the Great Depression — as Milton Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz argued in their seminal book A Monetary History of the United States: 1867-1960, published in 1963 — was not the stock-market crash but a "great contraction" of credit due to an epidemic of bank failures.

The credit crunch had surfaced several months before the stock-market crash, when commercial banks with combined deposits of more than $80 million suspended payments. It reached critical mass in late 1930, when 608 banks failed — among them the Bank of the United States, which accounted for about a third of the total deposits lost.

As Friedman and Schwartz saw it, the Fed could have mitigated the crisis by cutting rates, making loans and buying bonds (so-called open-market operations). Instead, it made a bad situation worse by reducing its credit to the banking system.

Ferguson's piece is somewhat reassuring.  Contemporary governments have a reasonably good grasp of the history of the Great Depression, and almost everyone is taking serious steps to avoid it.  From this point of view, the $700 billion bailout was probably the right thing to do, precisely because we handed a big wad of spending authority to Secretary Paulson without a lot of strings on how he must use it.  That will allow him to rapidly adapt to the situation, if it continues to deteriorate. 

There may be no great human concern for which human beings are less psychologically prepared than macroeconomics.  Consider this passage from Ferguson's piece. 

[T]his is no longer an exclusively American crisis. European banks are going under as well. Growth rates in the euro zone and Japan have fallen further than in the U.S. Emerging markets too are suffering. With the exception of Brazil, stock markets in the BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China) are now down about 40% or more on the year.

The notion that Asia has somehow "decoupled" itself from the U.S. now seems fanciful. China and America have come so close to merging financially that we can almost speak of "Chimerica." When Fannie and Freddie were on the brink of collapse, many were surprised to learn that fully a fifth of China's currency reserves was composed of their bonds.

I find that emotionally satisfying.  It's not just us, but them as well.  We're not in this alone!  And it's kinda cool to note that a good 20% of China's cash is tied up in bad mortgage loans that are in turn tied up in overvalued American houses.  But of course, my emotions are being stupid.  A global crisis is much worse than a regional one, because there is no one to borrow from.  That is one of the things that made the Great Depression so greatly depressing: no one could bail anyone else out. 

Someone once asked me if I ever swim.  I replied: "in emergencies."  This looks to me like an emergency.  It is one of God's jokes that it comes in the Fall of an election year.