South Dakota Politics

High Noon at the High Court: Coming to your PS3

I think it's time for a video game pitting armed men and women in black robes against one another. We could call it Battle Judiciary, or High Noon on the High Court. Only law nerds would play it, but hey…a lot of them have cash.

You could model it on the Wisconsin Court, which seemed to be rehearsing recently. My colleague emeritus, David Newquist, is on the case.

During the week preceding the release of the decision, sources inside the court say that Prosser became so enraged at another justice over the proceedings that he grabbed her by the neck. The incident is under investigation and has been reported in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Wisconsin State Journal.

I would point out that "sources inside the court" also dispute the above account: Christine Schneider, writing at The Corner.

According to one witness, Bradley charged toward Prosser, shaking her clenched fist in his face. Another source says they were "literally nose to nose." Prosser then put his hands up to push her away. As one source pointed out, if a man wants to push a woman who is facing him, he wouldn't push her in the chest (unless he wants to face an entirely different criminal charge). Consequently, Prosser put his hands on Bradley's shoulders to push her away, and in doing so, made contact with her neck.

As far as I can tell, not a single person willing to be named has spoken to the press. This looks like a case of "it got angry, then it got crowded," as we used to say back at Jonesboro High School. Regardless of who advanced on whom, both of the combatants should be sent to their chambers without their supper.

If High Noon at the High Court is produced (maybe my friend Terry in California will do the programming!), minors will be able to buy it in California. From the LA Times:

The Supreme Court ended its term with a vigorous defense of free speech, striking down a California law that banned sales of violent video games to minors and effectively shielding the entertainment industry from any government effort to limit violent content.

The U.S. Supreme Court, God bless its honorable butt, remains steadfast in its commitment to free speech.

In Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, the Court applied strict scrutiny to the California law. This is a court-generated device that would, in principle, allow a government to violate a constitutional prohibition if the government had a compelling interest in doing so and there was no other practical means of satisfying that interest. In practice, fortunately, almost nothing ever survives strict scrutiny.

The Court recognizes that free speech protection extends to entertainment, on the grounds that ideas, and especially political ideas, are frequently expressed in such media. Jon Stewart can breathe a sigh of relief.

There are exceptions to free speech protection in the Court's record: threats to public officials, fighting words, obscenity, etc. The Court found that there was no first amendment exception in its record for depictions of violence, whether distributed to minors or not. In general, speech directed to minors (religious or environmental propaganda, etc.) has the same protection as speech directed to adults.

Eugene Volokh has an excellent summary of the decision, with more detail than I provide here. I note with interest that the 7-2 decision split in an entertaining way. Scalia was joined by Kennedy, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan. Alito and Roberts wrote concurring opinions. Thomas and Breyer dissented. That is no party line vote.

The concurring opinions expressed a desire to craft a better piece of legislation instead of bluntly closing the door on any such project. Justice Thomas' dissent would empower the state to give the decision wholly to the parent.

The practices and beliefs of the founding generation establish that "the freedom of speech," as originally understood, does not include a right to speak to minors (or a right of minors to access speech) without going through the minors' parents or guardians.

This is a neat distinction. Under Justice Thomas' interpretation, only an adult could legally purchase a covered video game, though he or she could then give it to a minor. That would maximize parental control, but also raise the possibility that adults could be prosecuted under a similar law. Under the majority interpretation, it is up to the parents to police their children's purchases.

I have to admit more than a little sympathy for the Justices Alito, Roberts, Thomas, and Meyer's views. Consider this passage from Alito's concurrence.

The objective of one game is to rape a mother and her daughters; in another, the goal is to rape Native American women. There is a game in which players engage in "ethnic cleansing" and can choose to gun down African-Americans, Latinos, or Jews. In still another game, players attempt to fire a rifle shot into the head of President Kennedy as his motorcade passes by the Texas School Book Depository.

That is very nasty, no good stuff. Of course, that's the trouble with free speech. It means that very bad people can say very bad things, and we the people can't smash them for it. Public censure should come down on this sort of thing like a ton of bricks. Mom and/or Dad should keep a close eye on what little Joey plugs into his PS 3. Maybe the State of California has no business creating new categories of unprotected speech. I reluctantly cast my vote with the majority.

Contra Gore

Perhaps no more devastating review of a more worthy target has yet been penned. Walter Russell Mead on Al Gore:

You can be a leading environmentalist and fail to pay all of your taxes. You can be a leading environmentalist and be unkind to your aged mother. You can be a leading environmentalist and squeeze the toothpaste tube from the middle, park in the handicapped spots at the mall or scribble angry marginal notes in library books.

But you cannot be a leading environmentalist who hopes to lead the general public into a long and difficult struggle for sacrifice and fundamental change if your own conduct is so flagrantly inconsistent with the green gospel you profess. If the heart of your message is that the peril of climate change is so imminent and so overwhelming that the entire political and social system of the world must change, now, you cannot fly on private jets. You cannot own multiple mansions. You cannot even become enormously rich investing in companies that will profit if the policies you advocate are put into place.

And this:

I am not one of those who thinks him a hypocrite; I think rather that he shares an illusion common amongst the narcissistic glitterati of our time: that politically fashionable virtue cancels private vice. The drug addled Hollywood celeb whose personal life is a long record of broken promises and failed relationships and whose serial bouts with drug and alcohol abuse and revolving door rehab adventures are notorious can redeem all by "standing up" for some exotic, stylish cause. These moral poseurs and dilettantes of virtue are modern versions of those guilt-plagued medieval nobles who built churches and monasteries to 'atone' for their careers of bloodshed, oppression and scandal.

Mr. Gore is sincere, as the fur-fighting actresses are sincere, as so many 'causey' plutocrats and moguls are sincere. It is perhaps also true that the fundraisers who absolve them of their guilt in exchange for the donations and the publicity are at least as sincere as the indulgence sellers in Martin Luther's Germany.

I don't judge, dear reader, and neither should you. May we all find mercy when we stand alone, naked and ashamed before the judgment seat of God.

I judge that Mr. Gore would have been a lot better off had he been charged with hypocrisy. Hypocrites at least believe that they ought to be something they are not. Does someone who so conspicuously consumes resources and expels so much carbon faltus really believe that we must, immediately change our ways? No. What we really believes is that we must, at all costs, keep one Al Gore in the public eye.

President Zelig 2

In my Obama as Zelig post, I suggested that the President takes the shape of the people around him. Friend and frequent interlocutor A.I. took offense and accused me of psychologizing. I thought this odd, as I referred only to the behavior of the Barack Obama and those around him and not at all to any hidden psychological mechanisms.

In my defense, I point out these passages from Maureen Dowd:

Our president likes to be on both sides at once.

In Afghanistan, he wants to go but he wants to stay. He's surging and withdrawing simultaneously. He's leaving fewer troops than are needed for a counterinsurgency strategy and more troops than are needed for a counterterrorism strategy — and he seems to want both strategies at the same time. Our work is done but we have to still be there. Our work isn't done but we can go.

On Libya, President Obama wants to lead from behind. He's engaging in hostilities against Qaddafi while telling Congress he's not engaging in hostilities against Qaddafi.

On the budget, he wants to cut spending and increase spending. On the environment, he wants to increase energy production but is reluctant to drill. On health care, he wants to get everybody covered but will not press for a universal system. On Wall Street, he assails fat cats, but at cocktail parties, he wants to collect some of their fat for his campaign.

This is, of course, all accurate observation and no psychologizing. Ms. Dowd is criticizing the President's political decision making, not his superego. She is doing a devasting job of it. 

I would add that my argument picks up the pattern. The President is perfectly capable of reaching a strong and daring decision, as he did when he decided on the Afghanistan surge. All it took was for every single person in the room to endorse the decision. The President himself said to the room that if anyone disagreed, they would go back to the drawing board.

When there is no consensus, Obama virtually never makes the call. He simply reflects the lack of consensus, as Dowd shows above. I think I got the President right.

Gendercide2

Almost all marriages in all known cultures are either polygynous (one man, more than one wife) or monogamous. That's because polyandry, by leaving some women without husbands, reduces the reproductive potential of a society that practices it. Now, who benefits more from a polygynous system: men or women?

If you are already parsing the word "benefit", two points. By the standards that usually apply, women benefit. Imagine a society consisting of fifty eligible men and fifty eligible women, with both cohorts ranked from one to fifty in terms competitiveness in the marriage market. If M1 (rich & sexy) gets W1 and W2, that means W2 has moved up one position. M2 moves down by losing W2, whom he would have won in a monogamous system; however, he gets W3 and W4. W3 and 4 move up one and two positions respectively.

That works all the way down the line, with the least competitive women benefitting the most. W49 and 50 move up 24 and 25 positions, respectively. The big losers, obviously, are Males 26-50, who get to play Dungeons and Dragons or join the church. Obviously, real societies are much more opaque and complex than this. Almost as obviously, the market will work pretty much like this.

There are, however, costs that only recent societies have recognized. Women will be viewed as acquirable assets of wealthy males. Polygyny tends to promote both patriarchal views of the sex relation and it both requires and reinforces highly stratified societies. Cultural relativism is all well and good except when it isn't, and it isn't if you want to promote democracy and women's rights.

These things came to mind as I read a second review of Mara Hvistendahl's Unnatural Selection. Jonathan Last, at the Wall Street Journal, does a much better job on the book. I just put it on my Kindle. As I pointed out in my first post, one hundred and sixty three million women missing from the world population can hardly be good for women's rights. That is the number of women who would have been born but for sex-selective abortions, according to Ms. Hvistendahl. If you think that most societies are still biased against women (you would be right, of course), the world as a whole has now become more biased in a much more brutal way.

The great gendercide that Ms. Hvistendahl exposes is the result of three factors: abortion, ultrasound, and strong cultural preferences for sons over daughters. Apart from the political effects of the loss of so many female voters and office holders, what does this do to the status of women?

The economist Gary Becker has noted that when women become scarce, their value increases, and he sees this as a positive development. But as Ms. Hvistendahl demonstrates, "this assessment is true only in the crudest sense." A 17-year-old girl in a developing country is in no position to capture her own value. Instead, a young woman may well become chattel, providing income either for their families or for pimps.

That surely seems right to me. Increasing the value of women as marketable assets for their families or whoever else controls them won't benefit women in those societies where the sex ratio is most skewed.

More ominous, perhaps, will be the effect on men. When a lot of men congregate for long periods of time without the prospect of marriage, they tend to break things. Mortality from violence and alcohol reached epidemic proportions in the California gold rush camps.

There is indeed compelling evidence of a link between sex ratios and violence. High sex ratios mean that a society is going to have "surplus men"—that is, men with no hope of marrying because there are not enough women. Such men accumulate in the lower classes, where risks of violence are already elevated. And unmarried men with limited incomes tend to make trouble. In Chinese provinces where the sex ratio has spiked, a crime wave has followed. Today in India, the best predictor of violence and crime for any given area is not income but sex ratio.

I would add that a society that is dealing with a lot of cranky males can solve the problem by sending them on foreign adventures.

The gendercide is not entirely an accidental collision of technology and traditional cultures. It has been actively encouraged by well-meaning busy bodies in the developed world.

Ms. Hvistendahl dredges up plenty of unpleasant documents from Western actors like the Ford Foundation, the United Nations and Planned Parenthood, showing how they pushed sex-selective abortion as a means of controlling population growth. In 1976, for instance, the medical director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Malcom Potts, wrote that, when it came to developing nations, abortion was even better than birth control: "Early abortion is safe, effective, cheap and potentially the easiest method to administer."

The following year another Planned Parenthood official celebrated China's coercive methods of family planning, noting that "persuasion and motivation [are] very effective in a society in which social sanctions can be applied against those who fail to cooperate in the construction of the socialist state." As early as 1969, the Population Council's Sheldon Segal was publicly proclaiming the benefits of sex-selective abortion as a means of combating the "population bomb" in the East. Overall Ms. Hvistendahl paints a detailed picture of Western Malthusians pushing a set of terrible policy prescriptions in an effort to road-test solutions to a problem that never actually manifested itself.

Population control has been one of the most murderous ideas in the history of murderous ideas. At its root is a simple idea: people are bad and more people is worse. Misbegotten Malthusianism sent a million Irish to miserable deaths in the 19^th century. It is responsible for the atrocious one child policy in China. It encouraged the disappearance of 163 million women worldwide. Ms Hvistendahl show us that it is not a force for progress; it encourages the most retrograde tendencies in modern civilization.

People are a good, not bad. Daughters are every bit as precious as sons. We, and I mean that "we" in the largest sense, need to get straight on this.

Obama is Zelig

File this one under "unintentionally revealing?" Be sure to add the question mark, for it is difficult to believe that Justin Driver was oblivious to the implications of his piece "Obama's Law", in The New Republic.

Driver is very disappointed in President Obama.

Much of the criticism directed at Obama's handling of the federal judiciary has concentrated on the lethargic rate of his nominations compared with that of his predecessors. And Obama's team was, in fact, painfully slow out of the starting blocks. During the first two years of his presidency, Obama nominated just 103 district court and circuit court judges, 26 fewer judges than George W. Bush and 37 fewer than Bill Clinton. Only a feverish push last year prevented those gaps from being larger.

The grim truth is that Obama has yet to have a single judge or justice confirmed who is considered a leading intellectual light for progressive constitutional interpretation.

Obama hasn't appointed a lot of progressive judges who believe that the role of the judiciary is to enact progressive legislation that the President and Congress are unwilling or unable to enact.

Driver thinks that this is not mere lethargy or inattention, nor is it the result of Republican obstruction. Rather, Obama has been influence by two scholars: Lawrence Tribe (the good progressive) and Cass Sunstein (a liberal who favors judicial restraint). Unfortunately, in Driver's view, Obama really agrees with Sunstein.

Whatever the merits of this argument, it is remarkable how little Driver has to go on when determining Obama's judicial philosophy.

IT WOULD BE reductive to depict Obama as nothing more than a passive vessel for the legal thoughts of others. After all, he dedicated many hours to teaching constitutional law, and, whatever his other frailties, he possesses a subtle, curious, and analytical mind. He is more than capable of generating his own insights into these matters. Yet, however Obama arrived at his understanding of the judicial role, he has for more than a decade consistently articulated a constitutional conception that bears a striking similarity to Sunstein's. Obama's ongoing intellectual debt to Tribe, in contrast, is vanishingly thin.

Teaching constitutional law hardly indicates that one is no more than "a passive vessel for the legal thoughts of others." As for the claim that Obama "possesses a subtle, curious, and analytical mind," Driver's article shows how vanishingly thin the evidence is. His evidence comes almost exclusively from political statements. This is rather odd, given that Barack Obama taught constitutional law at a prestigious law school. Did he publish nothing? If he did, Driver makes no use of it.

What did Obama do as a faculty member at the University of Chicago Law School?

The dominant view of Obama's time at Chicago holds that he passed through its halls without leaving much of a mark on the institution--and with the institution, in turn, leaving even less of an impression on him. "I don't think anything that went on in these chambers affected him," Richard Epstein, a libertarian colleague of Obama's at Chicago, told The New York Times in July 2008. "He was a successful teacher and an absentee tenant on the other issues." Admittedly, Obama eschewed the faculty's renowned roundtable discussions and appears generally to have avoided sustained intellectual engagement with the school's numerous libertarians and conservatives.

So this man of a "subtle, curious, and analytical mind" wasn't curious enough to engage in conversation with the world class legal minds around him or in any other way leave a mark on the institution. It is almost as if he wasn't really there.

The most revealing paragraph occurs early in the piece.

ON MARCH 29, 1989, at a time when many of his fellow first-year law students were beginning to prepare for the spring semester's looming examinations, Barack Obama paid a visit to the office of eminent constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe…

On the basis of that meeting, Tribe took Obama on as one of his research assistants. Tribe shielded his dazzling new hire from the mundane assignments that such positions typically require. "I didn't think of him as someone to send out on mechanical tasks of digging out all the cases," Tribe recalled. Instead, the two men would periodically get together, sometimes taking strolls along the Charles River, to exchange lofty ideas about the relationship between law and society. In the wake of Obama's rapid ascent in politics, Tribe allowed that he viewed "him much more as a colleague" than as a student and even went so far as to call Obama his "most amazing research assistant."

In case you missed the force of the key words, let me repeat them:

Tribe shielded his dazzling new hire from the mundane assignments that such positions typically require. "I didn't think of him as someone to send out on mechanical tasks of digging out all the cases," Tribe recalled

Is this what a famous mentor does with a promising student, "shield him" from the work that law students are typically required to do? This was indeed a most amazing research assistant who assisted in no research! This is a scandal. One has to wonder whether the young law student was similarly shielded by his other professors and whether he had to do anything at all at Harvard. One also has to wonder why this brilliant conversationalist suddenly clammed up when he got to Chicago. One no longer has to wonder why his scholarly record is vanishingly thin.

The story Driver tells, intentionally or not, is of someone always pushed up with ladder without ever being challenged. It is a story of a tragedy, perhaps. Maybe if he had been challenged, he might have become the man that everyone feels compelled to say he is.

Obama is Woody Allen's Zelig. He takes the shape of the people around him because they project on him all their precious conceits. That is a great talent when it comes to building a career. It does not provide all that one needs when one is suddenly in charge. If Obama's story is indeed a tragedy, it has become a national one.

The Deluge

I am grateful to Jon and Miranda for posting during my brief absence. If I could just get the two of them to post occasionally on a regular basis, this blog might be interesting, at least occasionally. I won't thrill you with details of the trip, except for one. We were forced to detour around large stretches of I 29. We took US 71 north from St. Joseph Missouri and then I 80 West to North Omaha. As I approached the exit for I 29 North, I glanced left. I 29 South was under water as far as the eye could see. The sight was breathtaking, in more ways than one.

Here is another flood that is breathtaking. From the Washington Post:

The national debt will exceed the size of the entire U.S. economy by 2021 — and balloon to nearly 200 percent of GDP within 25 years — without dramatic cuts to federal health and retirement programs or steep tax increases, congressional budget analysts said Wednesday…

Over the long term, the CBO said, a projected explosion in government spending outside interest on the debt is "attributable entirely" to the ballooning cost of "Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and (to a lesser extent) insurance subsidies" intended to help finance coverage for the uninsured under President Obama's new health-care law.

Unlike the waters covering I29 South, the national debt deluge is right in our path. There are no detours available. Everyone knows what the right policy is.

"If policymakers are to put the nation on a sustainable budgetary path, they will need to let revenues increase substantially as a percentage of GDP, decrease spending significantly from projected levels, or adopt some combination of those two approaches," the CBO report said.

Some "combination of the two approaches" is the only viable approach. Right now, Republicans won't hear of tax increases and Democrats respond to even the most modest entitlement reforms with ads showing Paul Ryan pushing granny over a cliff.

This is what Presidents are supposed to be for. This is the moment a chief executive can make history. It is his job to take charge, stand apart from Congress, and reconcile the irreconcilable. The President is supposed to lead.

Unfortunately, we know by now that this President couldn't exercise leadership over a group of cub scouts. He has no plan for bringing our national finances under control. His signature piece of legislation, which he promised would help control costs, has contributed to the problem. It is only "his" in the most nominal sense, since he took almost no leadership role in fashioning it. His party hasn't been interested in passing a budget for two years. He has made no attempt to bring it to the task. If Barack Obama is reelected next year, it is all but certain that the dire predictions of the CBO will come to pass.

If there is any hope, it is in the Republican field. Oddly enough, Mitt Romney is best positioned to take the leadership role. All he needs is a sudden blessing of courage. Like that's going to happen. Someone, Romney or someone else, might step forth and say: "we are going to have to row this damn boat on both sides". That will be tough in the primaries, but tough is what we need. I wish I could believe it is what we will get.

What was it Martin Heidegger said? "Only a God could save us now."

Abortion & Gendercide

Tonight I noticed a number that was breath taking. One hundred and sixty-three million. Here, perhaps for the first time, I quote Eleanor Clift:

China's one-child policy was put in place some 30 years ago, before ultrasound technology was widely available and used to determine the sex of a fetus. Three decades later, an imbalance of boys over girls that has been made possible by gender-selection abortion practices is visible not only in China, but in India and other developing countries -- and in ethnic Asian communities in the U.S.

Mara Hvistendahl is the author of Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men. She puts the number of missing girls in Asia at 163 million, more than the entire female population in the U.S., and reports on the tens of millions of men in Asia, "surplus males," who without female counterparts may purchase women from poorer countries.

I am vehemently opposed to abortion for the same reason that Abraham Lincoln was opposed to slavery: I believe that all human beings are created equal in the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. My friends and colleagues on the left tend to be equally vehement in their support for abortion rights because they believe that the right to terminate the life of the unborn is essential to the liberty of women. That is a collision of deep principles, especially because it is rooted in one and the same moral idea: that each human being is endowed with inalienable rights.

Arguments about the social consequences of abortion have generally been subordinate to the central moral question. Prochoice partisans have occasionally argued that it were better if a lot of unwanted children were never born. I have argued in various venues that the prochoice regime largely relieves men of responsibility for the children they sire, something that is not good for women or their children. I have also noted that the vast number of African Americans who would be alive today but for abortion is a number that may be subtracted from the pool of voters that Democrats can count on in the next election.

Those arguments are negligible compared to the fundamental moral question. Ms. Hvistendahl's number is not negligible. If she is right, and I think that no one doubts that the accurate number is appalling huge, abortion has been the single greatest disaster in the history of women on earth. Imagine a policy that effectively wiped out all the women in the United States. That is what, Ms. Hvistendahl tells us, has actually happened.

Abortion may be a great asset to an American woman for whom a pregnancy represents lost opportunities. Globally, it means that hundreds of millions of women never happen. Societies not particularly friendly to women's rights are becoming more male and less female. It is hard to imagine a more diabolical device created by the most insane male chauvinist.

Societies with tens of millions of surplus males are not likely to be more stable or otherwise healthier for it. Marriage is the only thing that has ever reliably civilized men. To put it gently, societies sexually unbalanced toward males are not likely to be more considerate of the rights of women.

To be sure, banning abortion in the U.S. wouldn't fix the problem in China and India. South Korea seems to have restored a gender balance by restoring girls to "an honored place." I would note, however, that the greatest moral progress over the last two centuries has been generated by recognizing the natural rights of individual persons. Maybe it's not restoring girls to an honored place that is the key to moral progress. Maybe it's restoring children to an honored place. Not just rich kids or white kids or heterosexual kids, but all kids. Not just kids whose heads have exited the birth canal, but all kids. Maybe the sense of obligation that a parent feels for his or her offspring, the recognition that my life is not all about me, is the real solution to the problem.

Reid “Endorses” Huntsman

I see Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney as somewhat similar candidates. Their strengths and weaknesses lie in largely the same areas. Both are experienced Republican governors who have seen some success. Huntsman notably managed to secure an 88% approval rating in 2006. Both have been accused of flip-flopping, although Romney’s flip-flopping has been on social issues like abortion and gay marriage and Huntsman’s turnarounds have been on economic issues like cap and trade. 

Perhaps the biggest obstacle Romney faces to winning his party’s nomination is his own record. Meanwhile, perhaps the biggest obstacle Jon Huntsman faces, is overcoming his ties to the Democrats. Huntsman served as President Obama’s ambassador to China, but he has been quick to point out that he also served under Presidents Reagan and Bush (the first) and then, of course, he has his record as a Republican governor to point to. But today, Harry Reid made Huntsman’s life a little harder by…well…sort of endorsing him. According to CBS News:

Asked today to weigh in on the two Mormons in the Republican presidential primary (Reid is also Mormon), the Senate leader said, "If I had a choice I would favor Huntsman over Romney," CBS News Capitol Hill Producer John Nolen reports. CBS suggests that Reid’s endorsement might have been an attempt to “kill Huntsman’s campaign with kindness.” 

That may work. On the other hand, Huntsman did come in second in the straw poll at the New Orleans Republican Leadership Conference (Ron Paul was first).

Freedom in South Dakota

Frequent commenters Donald Pay and Larry Kurtz have drawn my attention to this Rapid City Journal article, which claims that South Dakota “registers No. 2 in freedom” in a study by The Mercatus Center.

According to the study, South Dakota scores particularly high on measures of “economic freedom.” Here’s why:

South Dakota rates as the second-freest state in the nation, although it does better on economic (#1) than personal (#34) freedom. South Dakota is top among the states in terms of fiscal policy, owing to its high fiscal decentralization for its size and its low levels of taxation (7.6 percent adjusted revenues as a percentage of personal income) and spending. It might be hard to improve on South Dakota’s performance in this area.

But, says the study, South Dakota scores badly when it comes to personal freedom. Why? Are political dissenters kept from speaking?  Are protesters being tossed into prison cells and sent into isolation? No, nothing like that. According to the study:

South Dakota scores well on gun control but relatively poorly on marijuana laws and asset forfeiture (where it is a standard deviation below the average). Cigarette taxes are above average and smoking is banned in private workplaces. The state allows several kinds of gambling but has prohibited Internet gambling and social gambling. Unfortunately, victimless-crimes arrests as a percentage of all arrests are more than two standard deviations above the norm. However, South Dakota has actually improved since the last edition of the index and its drug law-enforcement rate is below the national average. Homeschool requirements, particularly on standardized testing and notification procedures, could also be relaxed.

Apparently, South Dakota isn’t free enough because it has tough laws regarding marijuana laws and asset forfeiture, prohibits two forms of gambling (while allowing others), and has somewhat strict homeschool requirements.

While Larry seems to suggest that South Dakota’s low scores on personal freedom have to do with Neoconservatism (correct me if I’m wrong, Larry!), it is interesting to note that the ban had bipartisan support, as well as bipartisan opposition (http://www.capjournal.com/articles/2009/03/06/news/doc49af1a67d7c9f241176714.txt) and that voters approved it in a referendum.  I agree that the law restricts personal freedom, and I am opposed to it. But I think that the fact that South Dakota allowed voters to have a say says something about freedom in the state as well.

Father's Day

 

Adam Curtis and the Alaei Brothers

In 2004, The BBC’s Adam Curtis created a documentary called “The Power of Nightmares”, which tried to draw a comparison between the rise of Al Qaeda and Muslim extremism with the rise of neo-conservatism.  It claimed that the threat of radical Islam was largely a myth, and portrayed Leo Strauss and neo-conservatives as Machiavellian enemies of liberty. The piece was praised by progressives and many media outlets, and the BBC called it the best factual series of the year.  But it managed to fade away from the public consciousness until recently.  Now it is making the rounds over the internet in YouTube form, while Curtis himself is still receiving a good deal of positive press.

But I confess to finding the documentary a bit silly. If the attacks on 9/11 were not evidence enough of the threat of radical Islam, it is hard to imagine what could be.  And although Curtis wants us to believe that the greatest threat to liberal freedom is Straussian conservatism, I think it’s important to note that radical islam is a threat to the very best aspects of liberalism – especially humanitarianism.

Take the case of the Alaei Brothers. It is neither the first, nor the worst example of radical Islam's attack on liberal values.  But it is a good reminder. The Alaei brothers, two medical doctors who were helping to slow the spread of HIV in Iran, were arrested by Ahmadinejad’s government after a one-day military trial, that, according to The Times Union, legal observers called “a sham.” They were charged, says The Union, with “communicating with an enemy government.” This, according to The Boston Globe, was “an apparent reference to their participation in international public health conferences supported by the United States.” Contrast this to President Bush's $30 billion AIDS plan. Is neo-conservatism really the greater threat?

Are We Comfortable?

In his post below, Dr. Schaff draws attention to David Brooks’ argument that “if the existing leadership class doesn’t redefine `normal’  behavior, some pungent and colorful movement will sweep in and do it for them.” But in a recent article, The Economist’s G.I. suggests that Brooks may be wrong.   Here are the relevant bits of that article:

My colleague at Democracy in America imputes from Mitt Romney’s surge into the lead among presidential contenders the beginning of the end of the Tea Party’s influence in the GOP. Now, the latest WSJ-NBC opinion poll contains clues that the movement’s broader appeal may also be waning. As my chart shows, after a brief reversal, Americans are once again getting comfortable with more government in their lives. 

Why?

The bail-outs are receding from memory (and turning a profit), Mr Obama has tacked to the centre, and the economy continues to disappoint. Republicans overreached with Paul Ryan’s budget, thinking the population ready for a draconian restructuring of Medicare to deal with a looming debt crisis. Apparently, it isn’t.

I agree that Romney’s surge is bad news for The Tea Party. Romney is almost the antithesis of The Tea Party. He is an establishment candidate who signed into law a healthcare bill that largely inspired “Obamacare.” The fact that Romney is polling ahead of Bachmann may, indeed, be a sign that The Tea Party is losing momentum. Perhaps it means that Tea Party values no longer resound with Americans.

On the other hand, perhaps Romney’s surge has more to do with the individual candidates. Perhaps Romney is ahead of Bachman in the polls because people find it easier to take him seriously. Bachman has been portrayed as a second Sarah Palin. She has been portrayed as unintelligent and inexperienced and her gaffes have not helped her cause. Romney has had gaffes of his own (including the Taliban gaffe from the last debate), but he is portrayed as intelligent and experienced. Some of this is because he has handled his gaffes better. He corrected himself almost immediately after making his Taliban gaffe. But some of it is press. Perhaps The Tea Party would fare better if it ran stronger candidates or even candidates who were harder to mock.

Or perhaps G.I. is right. Perhaps Americans really are becoming comfortable with more government in their lives.  Brooks doesn't seem to think so. I hope he's right.

The Usual Suspects

Prof. Blanchard is once again taversing the countryside, so he said to me, "If you feel like blogging, go ahead." 

If you read nothing else today, give a read to David Brooks' piece today in the NY Times on the scandal that is Fannie Mae.  Perhaps the central point:

Underneath, Fannie was a cancer that helped spread risky behavior and low standards across the housing industry. We all know what happened next.

The scandal has sent the message that the leadership class is fundamentally self-dealing. Leaders on the center-right and center-left are always trying to create public-private partnerships to spark socially productive activity. But the biggest public-private partnership to date led to shameless self-enrichment and disastrous results.

It has sent the message that we have hit the moment of demosclerosis. Washington is home to a vertiginous tangle of industry associations, activist groups, think tanks and communications shops. These forces have overwhelmed the government that was originally conceived by the founders.

The final message is that members of the leadership class have done nothing to police themselves. The Wall Street-Industry-Regulator-Lobbyist tangle is even more deeply enmeshed.

Brooks, perhaps the nation's leading RINO squish, concludes a little unexpectedly:

People may not like Michele Bachmann, but when they finish “Reckless Endangerment” they will understand why there is a market for politicians like her. They’ll realize that if the existing leadership class doesn’t redefine “normal” behavior, some pungent and colorful movement will sweep in and do it for them.

Weinergate and Privacy

The first time I saw Anthony Weiner, he struck me as a little rude and very childish. He was on Megyn's Kelly's show, talking about healthcare and the death tax. When Kelly asked him how the double-taxing of the death tax was fair, Weiner refused to answer her question, turned to the side and clapped his hands, ignoring her (video).

I've always liked Megyn Kelly, so when news of the Weiner scandal broke, I have to admit that I smirked a little. But I genuinely feel sorry for Weiner. Most people have probably posted something online that would embarrass them if it was made public.  Even the publication of relatively harmless material can be devastating to us. A number of years ago, for instance, one of my brothers asked my Mom to make an ostrich face, and then, unexpectedly, snapped her picture.

He saved hundreds of copies of the photo in various folders on the family computer, under several different names. Every now and then, he'd put one of them up on the screen, just to bother her. Although most, if not all of the files have been destroyed, Mom still dreads the idea of one of them appearing on Facebook. So, although I think Weiner was incredibly stupid, I do feel sorry for him.

The scandal has made many Americans painfully aware of how public private lives can be online. Facebook and Twitter posts have created headaches for a number of people and Facebook has often come under fire for its failure to protect the privacy of its users. Google seems to be working in the opposite direction. It is now releasing Google "Me", which alerts users when information about them shows up online. It also, allegedly allows users to remove information about themselves from Google's indexes. People who find themselves in situations like Weinergate might be able to save their reputations by using Google Me - or at least to minimize the damage created by stupid or malicious posts. It has come too late for Weiner, who has finally resigned, but it may help the rest of us get rid of our ostrich faces.

Noteworthy in New Hampshire

In his last post, Dr. Blanchard states that the current Republican line-up is uninspiring. I won’t argue with him, but I found last night's debate, if not inspiring, at least entertaining and interesting. The most entertaining part of the debate was, undoubtedly, Mitt Romney’s Taliban Gaffe. For those who missed it, here’s what happened:

Voter: Osama bin Laden is dead. We've been in Afghanistan for ten years. Isn't it time to bring our combat troops home from Afghanistan?

John King: Governor Romney, take the lead on that one.

Romney: It's time for us to bring our troops home as soon as we possibly can, consistent with the word that comes to our generals that we can hand the country over to the Taliban military in a way that they're able to defend themselves.

The Romney gaffe is the sort thing that made me fall in love with politics in the first place. But, while it was entertaining, the Romney gaffe was not the most interesting part of the debate. Ron Paul’s performance was. Perhaps it’s only because critics and opponents have gone out of their way to make more mainstream Republican candidates like Michelle Bachmann seem crazy, but Paul, who is often dismissed as a loony looked not only sane, but even impressive. Paul, at least in my opinion, smoked Romney on the question of troop withdrawal – and not just because of the Taliban slip up. Here’s Paul’s response:

Paul: I served five years in the military. I’ve had a little experience. I’ve spent a little time over in the Pakistan/Afghanistan area, as well as Iran. But I wouldn’t wait for my generals. I’m the commander in chief.

I make the decisions. I tell the generals what to do. I’d bring them home as quickly as possible. And I would get them out of Iraq as well. And I wouldn’t start a war in Libya. I’d quit bombing Yemen. And I’d quit bombing Pakistan. I’d start taking care of people here at home because we could save hundreds of billions of dollars.

Our national security is not enhanced by our presence over there. We have no purpose there. We should learn the lessons of history. The longer we’re there, the worse things are and the more danger we’re in as well, because our presence there is not making friends let me tell you.

Romney’s answer really wasn’t bad. Consulting the generals on the ground is probably a prudent decision. But Paul’s answer made Romney look weak, while Paul came off looking like a stronger leader.

I have not been much of a fan of Paul’s, but I thought he looked very good in the New Hampshire debate and I am looking forward to seeing more of him. Interestingly enough, although most polls show Romney as the Republican frontrunner, The Los Angeles Times reports that Ron Paul “handily won the debate according to applause.”

The NLRB’s No Good Very Bad Complaint

It's hard to be inspired by the Republican field for President, but I am guessing that that is not where the Obama campaign is looking right now. They are looking at states like Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. They are looking to squeeze out a victory next year.

To engage in a bit of raw speculation, if Obama loses, it may be his own National Labor Relations Board that done him in. Here is the story from the New York Times:

It may be a difficult case to prove, but the complaint filed last month by the National Labor Relations Board against Boeing is a welcome effort to defend workers' right to collective bargaining.

The N.L.R.B. is accusing the company of setting up a nonunion production line in South Carolina to retaliate against unionized workers in Washington State for striking. The board wants to force Boeing to make all of its new Dreamliner jets in Washington, rather than make 30 percent of them at the new line in Charleston.

The case hinges on proving Boeing's intent. It is illegal to retaliate against workers for striking — there have been four strikes at the Washington facility since 1989 — or threaten workers in order to discourage strikes. But the company can decide to locate production in South Carolina because it makes business sense and may include "production stability" as a factor in its decision.

A corporate lawyer I am not. I don't have the wardrobe or the cars. It seems pretty clear that Boeing can establish legitimate motives for opening a factory in Charleston. To prove the case, I would think, you would have to distinguish between a strategy to pressure the union in Washington State and a strategy to have a place to build airplanes during a strike. That looks like a tall order.

The bigger problem is that the NLRB is not just acting against Boeing; it is acting against South Carolina in favor of Washington State. That is constitutionally dubious. The Founders were very concerned to prevent the Federal Government from using its powers to favor some states over others. I wouldn't expect Obama to know about that.

I would expect him to guess that this is politically problematic. From the Wall Street Journal:

The National Labor Relations Board's acting general counsel will testify under duress at a congressional hearing in South Carolina where he is expected to face a barrage of questions from Republicans on the complaint his agency filed against Boeing Co. alleging labor-law violations.

The House Oversight Committee will press the question whether it is the business of the NLRB to tell companies where they can locate new factories and discourage them, in these times, from building new ones and hiring new workers. Boeing's is apparently hiring in Washington and South Carolina. Does the Administration really want to prevent to the latter? The answer is yes, and I am guessing that the House committee will point that out.

But it gets better. See The Volokh Conspiracy:

Law.com reports that the attorneys general of sixteen states have filed an amicus brief supporting Boeing against the National Labor Relations Board. Although the Boeing-NLRB dispute has become something of a partisan issue, the brief represents AGs from both parties and both right-to-work and non-right-to-work states. It was co-authored by the AGs from Texas and South Carolina, and joined by those from Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming.

Explaining the reason for the brief, SC AG Alan Wilson said in a press release: "Unless deterred, the NLRB's unprecedented proceedings against a company's private business decisions will cause irreparable harm to the business climate in every state and will undoubtedly create an exodus of jobs from our country."

I highlight the presence of my own dear state on that list. The NLRB action is clearly a threat to the prerogative of state governments to order their institutions as they are allowed to do under the Constitution and Federal Law.

According to legend, a priest was summoned to Machiavelli's bed, against his wishes, as he lay dying. "Do you renounce Devil and all his works", the priest asked, three times. Machiavelli finally sighed and broke his silence. "Father," he said, "this does not seem to me like a good time to make new enemies."

The NLRB complaint is not the kind of thing that a lot of voters pay attention to. It does give the House Republicans a chance to rake the administration over the coals about job creation. It has stirred another collection of state governments into action against the Administration over its policies. Obama isn't going to carry South Carolina but he did carry North Carolina last time. People in the latter state might notice that the Obama Administration tried to kill a really big factory just to their south.

Maybe the unions are the angels and Boeing and the sixteen states are the devils. Still, is this really a good time for Obama to be making new enemies?

Weiners & Syrian Lesbian Bloggers who are really Scotsmen

Here are two stories that I want to be the first to connect. From the New York Daily News:

As a cache of embarrassing new photos appeared Sunday, Rep. Anthony Weiner finally began considering the possibility that he may have to resign.

And this one from the Guardian:

The mysterious identity of a young Arab lesbian blogger who was apparently kidnapped last week in Syria has been revealed conclusively to be a hoax. The blogs were written by not by a gay girl in Damascus, but a middle-aged American man based in Scotland.

Tom MacMaster, a 40-year-old Middle East activist studying for a masters at Edinburgh University, posted an update declaring that, rather than a 35-year-old feminist and lesbian called Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari, he was "the sole author of all posts on this blog".

"I never expected this level of attention," he wrote in a posting allegedly emanating from "Istanbul, Turkey".

I submit this as evidence that there is a God and that He has a sense of humor.

Not So Warm as Expected

A few days ago I was walking in downtown Minneapolis against a fierce, hot wind. It was 103 and I enjoyed it. In early June, I was still wearing my jacket back in Aberdeen. I looked at a chart today that showed something interesting. Low daily temperatures here in the Hub City are right along the average line. High temperatures are well below average. I know that that doesn't tell us what the global trends are, but its data, isn't it?

So what is happening globally? Not much. The long term global warming pretty much stalled over the last ten years, according to satellite data. Here's a chart:

That shows that the last decade has been a little warmer than previous decades but doesn't show a rise over the last decade. Just now, things are pretty much normal.

Well, you might have expected this given the downturn in the global economy. The only problem with that is that greenhouse emissions didn't decline as expected. There was a dramatic increase. From the Guardian:

The record leap in global greenhouse gas emissions last year has thrown the spotlight on the world's only concerted attempt to stem the tide of global warming – the United Nations climate negotiations.

Next week, governments will convene in Bonn, Germany, for the latest round of more than 20 years of tortuous talks, aimed at forging a binding international agreement on climate change which so far has eluded them.

I think it is entirely possible that the long term warming trend will continue. I think it possible, but very uncertain, that human activity has some measurable effect on that trend. I think it is very uncertain that these trends will be bad for human beings or the environment in general. Cold is a bigger threat to human life that heat, and CO2 is plant food.

What I am certain about is that no international agreement is going to happen that makes any difference. I am an amateur at best when it comes to "Aqua AMSU data for the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes," but I know a lot about "international agreements." I also know something about the global political economy and I know that any real reduction in economic production among the developed world will merely shift production to the developing world. Good thing, that.

Policies intended to affect climate change in Europe and, I dare say, California, are likely to have devastating effects on the relevant economies. They won't slow down global warming by a day or a degree. They will sooner or later provoke a backlash that will not be friendly to the green vision.

A realistic policy would not include sentimental favorites like wind, solar, and biofuels technologies. It would invest heavily in new nuclear technologies and in shale gas production. I know enough not to expect realistic policies to emerge.

Careless

When then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said that we would have to pass ObamaCare to find out what's in it, she was guilty of imprecision. She should have said that if we pass it we will find out sooner or later what is in it. It is getting later fast, and the picture is getting worse as it gets clearer.

Here is a snapshot, courtesy of the Boston Herald:

This week a report by the respected McKinsey & Co. found that at least 30 percent of employers are likely to stop offering their workers health insurance as a routine benefit once the federal law kicks in.

As many as half of those 1,300 companies surveyed said they would "definitely" or "probably" drop such coverage even with a government imposed penalty of as much as $2,000 per worker for companies with more than 50 employees.

We have already seen the first of wave of Obamacare's unintended consequences with the government granting more than 1,372 waivers to companies, unions and insurers who wanted to continue to offer low cost plans that didn't necessarily meet the new and rather expansive and expensive Obamacare guidelines.

When the law really kicks in by 2014 and those waivers end, the McKinsey study tells us countless businesses will be mapping plans to either drop coverage and take a hit from the fine, or offer coverage to only a select group of workers at the high end of the pay scale who wouldn't qualify for subsidized coverage under the new law…

One McKinsey analyst reported to business leaders earlier that some 80 million to 100 million Americans who currently have some form of health care coverage will have to change plans after 2014. So much for Barack Obama's promise of being able to keep the plan you like.

It is a little unfair to blame the President for not getting it right. How was he to know? It is equally unfair to blame the "countless businesses" for sitting on their capital while the economy stalls. How are they to know what ObamaCare is going to cost them?

This looks like a train wreck all on its own. Unfortunately, there are other trains coming in. Fox News covers another story that the New York Times and the Washington Post somehow missed.

Chuck Blahous and Robert Reischauer, the two independent trustees of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Fund, had a sober warning Friday: act quickly or the nation's two most popular entitlements are in serious danger.

"The earlier we act to deal with these problems, the better off we're gonna be, certainly better off the vulnerable populations are gonna be," said Blahous, referring to low-income seniors and those already receiving benefits.

What are the consequences of waiting?

The Social Security trust fund will be exhausted in 2036 and under current law, seniors will face a 23 percent across-the-board cut in benefits. If lawmakers wait until then, the magnitude of the problem is exponentially bigger.

"In 2036, if you wanted all benefit constraints to apply only prospectively, you wouldn't have a system in balance even if 100 percent of those benefits for new retirees were cut off," Blahous said.

The Democrats, having passed ObamaCare by using every trick in the book, can't wait to see what's in it. As for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, their strategy is to do nothing and allow nothing to be done. They are content to demonize anyone who suggests anything that might actually move these programs toward solvency.

If all they care about is winning the next election, this may make sense. If they want to actually save the programs they claim to care about, well, the only possibility is that they somehow think that the collapse of the system will somehow bring about the welfare state that they have always dreamed of. They are destroying the village in order to save it. Or maybe they just aren't thinking beyond 2012.

Change that No One Believes In Anymore

Barack Obama owes Anthony Weiner a not so small favor. Weiner's wiener temporarily filled the boxer shorts of the media's attention span. I'll turn the metaphor generator off now. Weiner may have ended his career and he almost certainly sacrificed his most dear ambition. He is very unlikely to be mayor of New York. From Obama's view, that was a small price to pay for distracting the media for a few days from the very bad no good news about the economy.

Maybe the President should have sent SEAL Team 6 after Weiner. Here is some news from a CBS poll.

President Obama's approval ratings fell to below 50 percent for the first time since his ratings spiked following the news of the death of Osama bin Laden last month, according to a CBS News poll released on Wednesday.

Just 48 percent of respondents approve of the way he is doing his job, compared to a 57 percent in the days immediately following news of bin Laden's demise.

Obama's approval numbers hovered in the range below 50 percent for most of the past year, though they spiked after the early May announcement that a team of elite Navy SEALs had captured and killed the al Qaeda…

The U.S. economy added just 54,000 jobs in May, the fewest number of new workers in eight months. And the unemployment rate rose to 9.1 percent from 9.0 percent in April. No president has been re-elected since Franklin Roosevelt when unemployment was above 7.2 percent.

Putting election forecasts aside for the moment, it's pretty clear that no one has any confidence in the President's leadership. Some of that loss of confidence is directly related to the present economic situation. A lot of it, maybe most of it, reflects a general awareness of the fiscal crisis that is looming and about which the President is doing nothing and proposing nothing.

So here's the question: if Barack Obama is reelected, will he suddenly become an effective leader? Will he produce a plan for restoring Social Security, Medicare, and the federal budget in general to fiscal solvency? Will he and Congress even start passing budgets again? As Samuel Johnson said of second marriages, that would be the triumph of hope over experience.

Whither the Withered Weiner

Okay, we know now beyond doubt that Congressman Anthony Weiner is a wiener, not to mention a liar. This is serious, but is there really any sense in calling for his resignation? The Congressman has not done illegal that I know of. It is not clear that he has violated any professional code of ethics. He isn't a Republican. So why should he resign?

Granted, he has revealed himself to be such a deplorable buffoon that the voters may well decide to resign him in the next election. One doubts it. Barney Frank is still in office. The voters, however, should probably be the one to make the decision unless Weiner makes it for them by stepping down.

How John Edwards Almost Weinered America

At last someone has written what I have been thinking about John Edwards for a long time: this perfidious clown might really have captured the Democratic nomination in 2008. Steve Kornacki in Salon:

Hillary Clinton would be the overwhelming front-runner for the 2008 nomination, everyone knew, the favorite of many of the big donors and pragmatic establishment types that Edwards had cultivated in '04. The only room would be to Hillary's left, where grass-roots Democratic voters and activists remained infuriated by the role their party's national leaders had played in authorizing the war. This was the turf Edwards would seek out. And for a while, it worked…

As the summer of 2006 wore on, a very real path to victory emerged for Edwards: Defeat Clinton in Iowa's activist-dominated caucuses, survive New Hampshire, then win again in Nevada with union support, and finish Clinton off in South Carolina, Edwards' native state.

Who knows what would have happened if at this same moment Barack Obama, then less than two years removed from the Illinois state Legislature, hadn't set out to help a few of his party's candidates in the '06 midterms and been overwhelmed by the size of the crowds that greeted him?

All this is speculation, of course, but it's not unreasonable. If Obama had not emerged, doesn't it seem possible, even likely, that the same portion of the Democratic electorate that was desperately seeking an alternative to Hillary Clinton would have drifted towards Edwards? Kornacki doesn't consider the fact that Edwards would not have enjoyed the disproportionate support of Black voters. I suspect that would have given Clinton the edge. But he still might have ended up on the ticket, if the Clinton people had chosen as Bill Clinton did in 1992.

Edwards on the ticket in either position would have been a ticking bomb for Democrats. It might have put John McCain in the White House with Sarah Palin a heartbeat away. Instead, we got Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Now I ask you: is this really the best we can do for candidates?

We need leadership in the White House now more than we have needed it since the Second World War. Were any of those people above, Senator Clinton included, the kind of person we should have taken seriously for the post?

There is also the Weiner factor. At least Rep. Weiner kept his junk in his boxers when he failed to keep the image off the net. John Edwards is an appalling person, yet he was a serious contender for the presidency. To put it mildly, there is something wanting in our political culture, and it isn't starch.

Nazis & the Foreskin Front

When I posted on San Francisco's proposed ban on male circumcision, I did so partly in amusement and partly to make a serious point. I understand that there are folks who are passionately opposed to male circumcision but I simply don't believe that there is a compelling case that the procedure constitutes a serious injury. In the absence of such a case, I think such a ban is an unjustified intrusion into the prerogative of parents.

I said nothing regarding the suggestion that the intactivists were motivated in some measure by anti-Semitism mostly because I had seen no evidence of that. Well, I've seen it now. The PJ Tatler links to an online comic book FORESKIN MAN. Here is the cover of issue #2.

Now that is anti-Semitism of the purest sort. That is the blood libel.   FM fills the lower left of the cover, rippling with muscles, blond and square jawed. I refuse to interpret the logo on his chest. In the background we see Jews fresh out of the Fuehrer's fevered dreams. In case the Hebrew letters on the book and the ritual objects don't convince you, here is panel from the comic. Meet "Monster Mohel".

To say that this is textbook anti-Semitism would be misleading. The Nazis were never this clever. Hamas has not half the imagination. This is not merely evil, it's evil refined and focused.

Now I do not know who the authors of this vicious document really are. I do not know whether or to what extent they are representative of the intactivist movement. The PJ Tatler describes the comic as campaign brochure for the San Francisco ban. It doesn't look like a campaign brochure.

The FM website identifies the authors of the work as Matthew Hess, Gledson Barreto, and Ian Sokoliwski. Congratulations and Heil Hitler, Mr Hess, Barreto, and Sokoliwski; you've outed yourselves as new and improved Nazis.

Hess (I am not making any of this up!) is identified as the President of MGMbill.org, an organization promoting state and federal bans on "Male Genital Mutilation". I do not know how important this organization is in the larger intactivist movement. I do know this: if Foreskin Man is what the intactivist movement is about, that tells us sane and decent people all we need to know about it. If not, then the rest of you intactivists had better denounce and disown this scurrilous business right away. To be associated with proto-Nazi propaganda is not an advantage in American politics, I am happy to say.

I'll leave it to the psychologists to discuss the link between penile anxieties and Nazi proclivities. I'll say that anti-Semitism is an evil that is persistent, a worm that infests the heart of modern civilization. The internet allows the monsters to form a network, and that's bad. It also invites the monsters to reveal themselves, and that can be good if only the good take notice.

Fossil Fuels are our Future. Sorry.

The elite in governments and universities across the developed world believe a lot of things about energy policy but, as Mark Twain remarked, it's not what they believe that is the problem. It's the stuff they know that just ain't so.

The elites know that renewable energy (wind, solar, etc.) are the future. If they didn't know that, we wouldn't have large wind farms. Consider wind for a moment. Assume that wind farms are, right now, actually increasing the supply of available power. They aren't, but let's assume the contrary. Assume they become much more efficient in the near future. There is no reason to assume that, but it isn't logically impossible so let's assume it. Now: can wind supply more than a marginal amount of the world's energy supply? No. The same is even more so for solar power. What the elites know just ain't true.

Left wing populist Michael Lind is not someone I admire, because I do not admire populists of the left or right. Lind is someone I admire because he is a contrarian, and I admire contrarians on the left and right. He has a splendidly contrarian piece in Salon: "What if everything you've heard about Fossil Fuels is wrong".

Are we living at the beginning of the Age of Fossil Fuels, not its final decades? The very thought goes against everything that politicians and the educated public have been taught to believe in the past generation. According to the conventional wisdom, the U.S. and other industrial nations must undertake a rapid and expensive transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy for three reasons: The imminent depletion of fossil fuels, national security and the danger of global warming.

What if the conventional wisdom about the energy future of America and the world has been completely wrong?

Lind's "three reasons" for believing we have to abandon fossil fuels parses the elite wisdom pretty well. It has been taken for granted that we have run out of fossil fuels since first we began to coal out of the ground. Up to now, it has always been wrong. So there is a lot of reason to believe the supply of fossil fuels is increasing by leaps and bounds. That is the supply has always done. Lind considers "fracking", which I have posted on.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, these advances mean there is at least six times as much recoverable natural gas today as there was a decade ago.

Natural gas, which emits less carbon dioxide than coal, can be used in both electricity generation and as a fuel for automobiles.

The implications for energy security are startling. Natural gas may be only the beginning. Fracking also permits the extraction of previously-unrecoverable "tight oil," thereby postponing the day when the world runs out of petroleum. There is enough coal to produce energy for centuries.

So sorry if this confuses anyone, but we very probably aren't running out of fossil fuels. So what about the national security angle? The CW or EW as it were says that we need to abandon fossil fuels so as to be less dependent on Middle Eastern miscreants. Well…

The U.S., Canada and Mexico, it turns out, are sitting on oceans of recoverable natural gas. Shale gas is combined with recoverable oil in the Bakken "play" along the U.S.-Canadian border and the Eagle Ford play in Texas. The shale gas reserves of China turn out to be enormous, too. Other countries with now-accessible natural gas reserves, according to the U.S. government, include Australia, South Africa, Argentina, Chile, France, Poland and India.

Because shale gas reserves are so widespread, the potential for blackmail by Middle Eastern producers and Russia will diminish over time.

Lind concludes, with good reason and evidence, that exploiting these domestic reserves is the best way to increase energy independence.

On global warming, Lind exercises admirable common sense. The worst case scenarios are the least likely. I would add that the probabilities of future consequences just aren't going to allow any government, democratic or otherwise, to survive if the lights go out and the apartment gets cold.

However, if you think that global warming is the big threat, the only viable alternative is nuclear power.

If runaway global warming were a clear and present danger rather than a low probability, then the problems of nuclear waste disposal and occasional local disasters would be minor compared to the benefits to the climate of switching from coal to nuclear power.

I note that Germany, in the forefront of climate change awareness, has announced that it is going to eliminate nuclear power. That is one of the things about invincible ignorance: it is immune to its own internal contradictions.

I am, as usual, cautiously optimistic for the future of our civilization. The invincible ignorance of most elites and perhaps most Germans won't stop most of us from enjoying the benefits of technological progress. Short of some apocalyptic catastrophe, we just aren't going back to the Astroturf.

My friend Cory Heidelberger, whom I admire and like, not only because he is a reasonable fellow but also because he is patient enough to reason with me from time to time, has waged a relentless campaign against the Keystone pipeline expansion. The pipeline transports oil from oil sands in Alberta to refineries in the U.S.

Whether or not Cory's right about the risks involved in the pipeline expansion, the oil is going to be extracted and it is going to get here. We are going to depend on fossil fuels for the near future and perhaps for the next couple centuries. Progress depends on that, and happily we seem to have a sufficient supply. One day, and pretty soon perhaps, we will have the knowhow and the juice to protect the environment while we enjoy it. That will be true only if progress continues.