Continuing my ongoing Friday post series on the basics of Islam.  We’ve had some great questions, so far.  Keep ‘em coming, guys!

As always, let me lay down the ground rules:

1.  Please keep your questions general.  This isn’t a blog focused on Islamic beliefs and theology, so asking questions like, “Well, the Maliki school of jurisprudence says xyz,” are really well outside the scope of what I’m trying to do here.

2.  Remember that although I have some professional experience and training in comparative religion and theology, and can draw on my personal knowledge of Islam as a practicing Muslim, I’m not a legitimate religious authority.  I am neither an Imam nor one of the Ulema.  In Western terms, I haven’t been to seminary.  I’m not a priest, minister, or rabbi.  I’m just the guy in the pew, not the guy on the altar.

Having gotten that out of the way, who’d like to be first?

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I apologize for not being able to answer the excellent questions posed in my last Islam Q and A session.  Although I won’t reprint the questions and comments here, I will attempt to answer them in the order asked.  Additionally, in order to avoid confusion, I will use the comments section for my answers and identify the question’s author by name.

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The greedheads at Exxon/Mobil and Chevron/Texaco are at it again. Those clever devils who artificially raised oil prices so high that their profits gushed forth at @ a mediocre 10% margin have now cleverly turned the profit spigot down just in time for the election. Just down the street someone is selling gas for $1.98 a gallon! As Barbara Mikulski the renowned economist and commodities expert reminded us:

it is often the large, vertically integrated oil companies that dictate the prices that gasoline retailers can charge.

They know where their bread is buttered and that is with the Bush/Halliburton team, and they are pulling out the stops to get the Republithugs back in office. Once the dirty deed is done we can expect heating oil prices to climb just when we need it the most. This will be followed in the spring by another “market driven” increase in the price of gas just as the summer driving season begins. It is an old game, drive prices higher just at the time when we need it the most and let them decline just when we don’t use it as much. These gyrations are just a way to tamp down our outrage enough to let them get away with it again next time and conveniently keep their profits down when elections are about to occur and our outrage might lead to change.

Think I am wrong? When did we invade Iraq to seize their oil? March, just before driving season. Easy cover for jacking up oil prices wasn’t it? When will we invade Iran? Before May, I promise.

It is no accident that elections are held in the fall. Long ago the oil companies figured out that the fall was not an especially profitable time for them due to low gasoline usage and relatively tame energy usage for heating and cooling. What better time to manipulate the market for lower energy costs?

What? You say that oil was not a source of energy when we set up our election dates? Hah! Capitalists are a nasty bunch, and far sighted. The only reason petroleum wasn’t used at the time was because oligarchic whale oil combinations in the Northeast and slave holding interests in the South were keeping it from us. They knew what was to come. It is no accident that the petroleum based economy began its rise soon after the end of slavery as a means of labor. How to avoid paying laborers their fair share, especially the duskier ones? Drive down the need for labor with mechanization based on? That is right, petroleum, oil, gas, black gold! Once we were hooked the profits were guaranteed and we have been at their mercy ever since.

It is time we marshaled our forces to put Pelosi and Reid in charge so they can stop “Cheney’s Secret Energy Task Force” and the collusion with the Bush regime. Gas guzzlers of the world UNITE!

Update: It seems I was channeling Rich Lowry.

Technorati Tags: Gasoline, oil, Exxon, excess profits, Bush, Halliburton, collusion, Pelosi, Reid, Mikulski, Michael Moore’s feverish brain

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There has been a lot of buzz the past few days about a recent National Intelligence Estimate (”NIE“), portions of which were leaked to the media, and just what it says about the current state of the GWOT. While the MSM seems prepared to accept as gospel truth the worst possible interpretations of the NIE, so much so that informative passages and relevant context were completely absent from the reporting, the actual document itself seems to be more balanced. A former member of the U.S. intelligence community, Spook86, explains (h/t McQ):

Thankfully, the actual NIE is not the harbinger of disaster that the Times and WaPo would have us believe. According to members of the intel community who have seen the document, the NIE is actually fair and balanced (to coin a phrase), noting both successes and failures in the War on Terror–and identifying potential points of failure for the jihadists.

Spook86 goes on to provide the parts that the MSM left out. Two particularly damning omissions (italics = Spook86 comments):

Or how about this statement, which–in part–reflects the impact of increased pressure on the terrorists: “A large body of reporting indicates that people identifying themselves as jihadists is increasing…however, they are largely decentralized, lack a coherent strategy and are becoming more diffuse.” Hmm…doesn’t sound much like Al Qaida’s pre-9-11 game plan.

and

More support for the defeating the enemy on his home turf: “Threats to the U.S. are intrinsically linked to U.S. success or failure in Iraq.” President Bush and senior administration officials have made this argument many times–and it’s been consistently dismissed by the “experts” at the WaPo and Times.

Read the whole thing, as well as McQ’s comments here.

So why would the New York Times and the Washington Post omit such pertinent information in a newstory (ostensibly) about the effect of the War in Iraq? And why would Democrats, content to use what they say are the conclusions of the NIE as political fodder, ignore the actual assessments, or at least those parts of it which don’t support their narrative? It is becoming harder and harder to answer these questions in a way that gives both the MSM and anti-war Democrats the benefit of the doubt. At what point does such one-sided commentary become undeserving of a beneficent light?

To be clear, I am indeed questioning their patriotism. When partisan objectives dominate national security interests the champions of such objectives need to be called out. I do not mean that questioning this Administration’s tactics and prosecution of the war is unpatriotic, nor are the calls to get out of Iraq now. I don’t always agree with these arguments, but I find great value in bringing such issues to the floor for debate. What I find unpatriotic is the deceipt and distortion present in the kind of reporting that consistently paints a dishonest picture of the war effort, and the kind of rhetoric delivered on the hustings that undermines our national interests in favor of partisan gains.

A decision was made three years ago to invade Iraq, and all the whining and crying in the world (which amounts to little more than goal-post moving and blatant falsehoods) will not turn back the clock. There was a debate in this country about what to do and the anti-war side lost. Get over it and, to borrow a phrase, move on. We are now staged in the Middle East, for better or worse, and the only clear way to extricate oursleves without further damage is to WIN THE G**D**N WAR. As the NIE states:

“Threats to the U.S. are intrinsically linked to U.S. success or failure in Iraq.”

Those of you who seek to undermine the Bush Administration by undermining the war are doing your fellow countrymen a great disservice. Your selfish partisan needs should be taking a backseat to the interests of this nation as a whole. In fact, it is no longer a question of whether or not you are patriotic. It is now a question of how and when you will regain the patriotism you have so carelessly foresaken.

Technorati Tags: NIE, National Intelligence Estimate, War on Terror, Iraq, Jane Harman, media, MSM, anti-war, intelligence

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(Listening notes: The Clash)

I am not an attorney, and there are undoubtedly many things I do not understand about the legal points as to whether the NSA program complies with FISA or not, or whether the President has inherent authority to conduct such surveillance during wartime. I may have opinions, but they would hardly be authoritative. I have a deeper question. If the administration has violated FISA and they are bound by FISA, how much should we care? After all, we libertarians are supposed to value the “Rule of Law” and constraints on executive power above all. We are opposed to Princes and Kingly airs.

I’ll give my overview, and it is quite tentative. I think the 1st and 4th amendment arguments against the program are without merit, and the violation of FISA is an open question. I find the argument that the Bush administration has explicitly or implicitly agreed that what they are doing violates FISA exceptionally weak, but that doesn’t mean they do not in fact believe they are in violation of FISA. (more…)

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First, I’d like to apologize for my prolonged absence.  I assure you, gentle readers, that the rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated.  I hope to redo my last post and respond to questions and comments related to it this week.  And now for something completely different.

Aziz over at City of Brass has dissected Pope Benedict’s recent gaffe much more thoroughly than I have been able to.  I agree with the majority of what he says, especially regarding the Pope’s positions on secularism and his open invitation to interfaith dialogue.  I suspect that the Pope suffers from Fallaci syndrome*, however, which is that when addressing Muslims he says pretty much the opposite of what he seems to mean.  Check it out.  It’s a great post.

http://cityofbrass.blogspot.com/2006/09/taking-up-popes-gauntlet.html

 

*The late Orianna Fallaci, Italian atheist, anti-fascist resistance fighter, and highly talented journalist wrote heavily on Islam in the last years of her life.  Although I believe her motives were pure in that she meant to point out the dangers of radical Islamists, her wording was, shall we say, less than ideal.  In fact, Christopher Hitchens said of her work that it was pretty much the exact wrong way to go about writing a book about Islam.  It managed to be both insightful and loaded with reckless and needlessly inflammatory rhetoric.  The current Pope seems to also suffer from this.

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(Listening notes:XTC)

Update: More resistance to Hezbollah.

When Israel launched its attack on Hezbollah back in July I was fearful. I have always had an attachment to Lebanon going back to my days in grade school when I did a project on its history and culture (I also did the same with Iran and India. I was and am a lover of geoography and my emotional and intellectual attachment continues to this day for all three countries.) I also did not have my own place to blog at that point, I was merely a commenter at various places around the web, especially QandO where I left this comment as the battle got underway:

Aldous,

It is hardly a defense to argue that firing unguided missiles at population centers is okay because you don’t have the capability to actually hit a military target.

As to the civilian casualties such as the minivan the primary blame goes to Hezbollah. They are the ones using civilian areas as bases and hiding places. They do this purposely knowing that people such as you will be angered. They want civilian deaths, and it is an effective tactic because of course people such as you will blame the IDF. Inevitably the IDF will make a mistake and tragedy will follow.

That being said, the Israeli attacks are stupid and the civilian casualties are tragic. If the IDF wishes to disarm Hezbollah this was not the way to do it. I don’t necessarily have a problem with the IDF’s conduct (or the anger of many Lebanese at the IDF, how else are they to feel?) or any disproportionate aspects, war is supposed to be disproportionate. That is how you win. It isn’t some finely calibrated machine to send just the right message. War is about achieving certain tactical and strategic aims.

Of course that is the issue I have with Israel’s response. Hamas, Hezbollah and others fighting Israel have no hope of achieving anything for their people other than more misery, but Israel does have the capacity to achieve longer term strategic objectives. If the hope is to achieve something like a peaceful border with Lebanon then the risks of this strategy outweigh the benefits. It still might work, the world can turn in funny ways, but the possibility of Lebanon collapsing is too great.

It would have made far more sense to limit the attacks at first to the south and clearly defined military targets as much as possible. Meanwhile the IDF could have demanded that immediate action be taken to enforce the UN Resolutions calling for the disarmament of Hezbollah. That would have given the IDF time to prepare for the offensive (something they are doing on the fly here) while giving the Lebanese government and the world community an opportunity to step up to the plate. It probably wouldn’t have worked, but it would have given them a chance and possibly spared most of Lebanon from what is happening now. It also might have swayed world opinion a bit more in their direction, everything helps.

Armchair generals can obviously criticize this on several grounds.

1) It would allow time for Hezbollah to retreat; especially since the IDF would be sparing much of the infrastructure they are now attacking to hinder such an escape.

So what. If the goal is to make the border secure (and from what I can tell Israel doesn’t want to occupy it itself) then fewer Hezbollah is the goal. One of the issues with McQ’s demand that the Lebanese government do it themselves, is that they can’t right now. This would make it easier whether it was done by Lebanon itself or in concert with others.

2) It would make it too easy for Hezbollah to receive supplies and reinforcements. This is a better argument, but I think it is outweighed by the gains of a more limited conflict. More importantly, if Israel is doing something besides just bombing this will be a one sided conflict on the ground. A larger concentration of Hezbollah fighters to be killed or captured, while not necessary for Israel’s aims, is hardly a bad thing in the long run.

Hopefully it will work out that way anyway, but I think the same objectives could have been accomplished with less impact on Lebanon and a greater chance of possible cooperation between Lebanon, Israel and the rest of the world. I am only talking probabilities here, but that is how I think the risks should have been measured.

Of course that is if the IDF’s goals are what I think they are, if not, then we’ll have to see whether this all makes sense.

Looking back after only a short while I am pretty satisfied with that spur of the moment analysis of a conflict barely begun. I certainly feel my early analysis of the tactics of Hezbollah and its impact on the media and public opinion seems prescient. Of course, regular readers of this site know my opinion of claims of prescience delivered with certitude. Of course I had hopes as well, and despite my fears I hoped that Israel would be effective enough to severely damage Hezbollah and accomplish its goals. With that in mind I will warn that we should keep Churchill’s warning about early judgement of the wisdom, or lack thereof, of our actions close at hand: (more…)

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Theology and moral codes tell us to be good, in conflict with our natural desires and appetites, which tell us the opposite: be bad! Take what you want! Look out for #1! Socializing ourselves to develop a sense of empathy–that is, an emotionally-based understanding for how our actions affect others–is crucial for the development of ethical frameworks, the rule of law, and free societies. However, there are two sides to moral injunctions, the social and the personal. For example, when we teach the Golden Rule (”Do unto others…”), a version of which is found in virtually all religions, the focus is usually on the social, playing on the empathetic feeling and the impact of one’s actions on another. The personal, self-centered side of morality is often ignored.

Empathy requires an imaginative leap: How would I feel if someone did that to me? But since we are naturally wired to be selfish, it is a shorter leap to imagine: How would I feel if I did that? Of course, those feelings are inextricable from empathy, a quality that (thankfully) all but sociopaths have to some degree, but I don’t mean the feelings of being sorry because of the pain I cause somebody else, I mean the effects on myself of what I do, without taking into account how others feel.

Nor am I talking about a cycle of violence, in which my actions invite retaliation from others I have harmed. In fact, I am not talking about violence at all, although certainly it could be argued (as Steven Spielberg recently has) that violence psychologically harms its perpetrators. Instead, I mean basic selfishness and its spiritual costs, which is the topic of XTC’s magnificent song, “The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul.”

Set against a John Barry-esque background suggested by producer Todd Rundgren, “The Man Who Sailed” would be a perfect title song for a James Bond film in which Bond gets honest with himself and finds that, despite all his babes and cool toys, his spiritual life is barren and sad. Such is the predicament of the Sailor, who sets out on life’s voyage “with ego as his drunken captain” and greed as a mutineer who has “trapped all reason in the hold.” The self, driven by greed, has “no compass, guide, or chart” to guard against carnal temptations represented by “sirens that sing.”

The implied injunction against carnality should by no means be read as some kind of fundamentalist or Puritan tenet. Because songwriter Andy Partridge is probably an atheist, as witnessed by the more famous (and also great) song from the same album, there is no evidence to suggest that these orienting tools necessarily represent a religious moral framework. However, what’s important is not whether the framework is religious or secular, but that such a framework accounts for the self as part of a community rather than just a unitary, “ugly and cold” consumer of experiences. Considering Partridge’s rejection of an explicitly religious morality in “Dear God,” it is ironic that the fourth verse of “The Man Who Sailed” hints at predestination:

 

In short, living a selfish, ego-driven life is a doom in and of itself. Behavior creates consequence, cause leads to effect, and the neat resolution of the song’s final line (”He found the treasure he’d been seeking”) reinforces the idea that we get what we deserve. It is tempting to view “The Man Who Sailed” as a thematic expansion and illustration of The Beatles’ dictum, “And in the end / The love you take / Is equal to the love you make.” So, yes, Chris Farley: it’s true.
Implicit in “The Man Who Sailed’s” crisp depiction of a rudderless and lonely soul is the Big Question, “What is a life for?” As the song suggests, the hedonistic life is easy, but its reward is nothing but a “bag to keep life’s souvenirs in.” It’s a terrific and terrifying line, suggesting cheap plastic novelties, T-shirts with place names, and other items we buy to prove to ourselves that we have been there. And so a shallow life, led like a permanent vacation, yields similar gaudy, momentarily diverting, but ultimately disappointing returns. Partridge does not describe what his vision of a good life would be, thereby happily avoiding any hint of preachy-preach talking to kissy-kiss. As admirable as the sentiments may be, there are no “c’mon, people now, everybody get together, we are the world” mealy-mouthed and easily mocked platitudes. But he really doesn’t need to explain; in this negative, we can see all the outlines of the things that aren’t there.

Technorati Tags: XTC, Andy Partridge

 

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As of now my plan is to not give either of the major parties my vote in the upcoming elections. That could change, but nobody here in Baton Rouge has given me a reason to change my mind. Some races however have interested me, and one of those is the race for senator in VA between Jim Webb and George Allen.

I can’t claim to be a big fan of Allen, I know little of him really, though I am catching up on that. What I do know is I have decided I cannot stand the Webb campaign and the type of approach being taken by those supporting him.

I also know one other thing. Jon Henke is coordinating his campaign on the web, and if he has any effect on Allen’s behavior once he is elected that influence is all to the good. On the other hand those who Webb has chosen to ally himself with at this point make me sick. More evidence of why that is true can be found at the site Jon has put up for the Allen campaign.

Update: That Kos and his bunch have been pushing the racist card well beyond the silly  “macaca” brouhaha is bad enough, but the Webb campaign has been doing it as well. Jon has more here.

Technorati Tags: Jim Webb, George Allen, Virginia, Senate

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The Honourable Dennis R. O’Connor, Associate Chief Justice of Ontario , issued a report concerning a factual inquiry into the Maher Arar case (”Inquiry“). As the Washington Post reports, the Inquiry found that:

Canadian intelligence officials passed false warnings and bad information to American agents about a Muslim Canadian citizen, after which U.S. authorities secretly whisked him to Syria, where he was tortured ….

The inquiry, which focused on the Canadian intelligence services, found that agents who were under pressure to find terrorists after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, falsely labeled an Ottawa computer consultant, Maher Arar, as a dangerous radical. They asked U.S. authorities to put him and his wife, a university economist, on the al-Qaeda “watchlist,” without justification, the report said.

Arar was also listed as “an Islamic extremist individual” who was in the Washington area on Sept. 11. The report concluded that he had no involvement in Islamic extremism and was on business in San Diego that day, said the head of the inquiry commission, Ontario Justice Dennis O’Connor.

Arar, now 36, was detained by U.S. authorities as he changed planes in New York on Sept. 26, 2002. He was held for questioning for 12 days, then flown by jet to Jordan and driven to Syria. He was beaten, forced to confess to having trained in Afghanistan — where he never has been — and then kept in a coffin-size dungeon for 10 months before he was released, the Canadian inquiry commission found.

The Inquiry itself is quite voluminous, being comprised of three parts (all .pdf documents): (1) Analysis and Recommendations, (2) Factual Background – Vol. I, and (3) Factual Background – Vol. II. I have not read every word (and I probably won’t) but I am very interested in the U.S. removal order by which Arar was allegedly whisked away to Syria (via Jordan) for questioning at the hands of Syrian torturers officials. If Arar was indeed ordered to Syria by the U.S. government so that he could be questioned by means that would not legal if done while in U.S. custody, that may very well be a direct violation of U.S. law and, if so, those responsible should be punished. Period.

If, on the otherhand, this is an ordinary case of rendition, this may be a non-story. The only way to know one way or the other is to see the actual removal order, allegedly issued on October 7, 2002. The Inquiry claims to have a copy (although I can’t find it attached anywhere in the Inquiry) which Judge O’Connor ultimately obtained from CBS News (see, Factual Background – Vol. I at p. 204):

As indicated at the beginning of this chapter, American authorities declined the Commission’s invitation to testify at this Inquiry. As a result, the Commission does not have a first-hand explanation from the Americans about why Mr. Arar was removed to Syria, nor does it have an official copy of the INS order to remove him. However, the Commission does have a copy of that decision, which was obtained by DFAIT from CBS News. There is no reason to believe that this is not an accurate copy of the official order, and the following description is based on it.

(emphasis added). No, there’s no reason at all to doubt a document obtained from CBS News. None at all. Anywhoo!

The Inquiry goes on to note that:

On October 7, the INS ordered that Mr. Arar be removed from the United States because he had been found to be a member of a foreign terrorist organization, al-Qaeda.425 The Commissioner of the INS had determined that Mr. Arar’s removal to Syria would be consistent with Article 3 of the United Nations Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The decision was signed by J. Scott Blackman, Regional Director, Eastern Region, INS (the Regional Director). Mr. Arar was served with the decision at four in the morning on October 8.

(emphasis added). The emphasized portion is important because the only mention by CBS News that I can find about this report is here:

60 Minutes II has learned that the decision to deport Arar was made at the highest levels of the U.S. justice department, with a special removal order signed by John Ashcroft’s former deputy, Larry Thompson.

(emphasis added). So I have several questions:

• Which is it? Was it signed by DOJ official Larry Thompson, or by INS offical J. Scott Blackman?
• Where is the removal order? The Inquiry refers to it as “Exhibit P-20″ in footnote 425 to Section 6, but no such Exhibit is listed anywhere in the Inquiry.
• If CBS News has a copy, where is it and why hasn’t it been made publicly available?
• According to the Memorandum and Order of U.S. District Judge Trager in the case Arar v. Ashcroft, ––– F.Supp.2d –––, 2006 WL 346439 (E.D.N.Y.)(Feb. 16, 2006), either a copy of the removal order, signed by Blackman, or a description thereof was attached as “Exhibit D” to the Complaint, which would suggest that Arar and his attorneys have it. Why haven’t they disclosed it?

Just to be clear, I don’t know that CBS News or anyone else has done anything funny here, and it may just be my own poor research skills that are failing to turn up this report. Arar was definitely sent to Syria, but for what purpose can only be assumed right now. Having a copy of the removal order would help, and I really don’t understand why CBS News would sit on it, especially if they’ve made it available to a foreign government.

So let the Army of Davids unite and dig up some answers. I’ll post any updates I come across.

Technorati Tags: Arar, rendition, removal report, Syria, Jordan, CBS, Dennis O’Connor, Canada, Ashcroft, Trager

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It may be well known to you, dear reader, or it may not (it makes no difference), that Pogue Mahone is one of my favorite commenters, bloggers and writers. In fact, he’s been somewhat of a celebrity amongst my partners here, and our bretheren at QandO. His politics lean somewhat left for my taste (although he is a reliable anti-establishment type), and it can be difficult to draw him into topical debate. But it is not his political or philosophical predilections that strike my fancy.

Instead, it his ability to convey, through humor, a common-sense view of life that can all too often be lost in philosophical ruminations about this or that. Pogue hones in on a point by whimsically dancing around it in such a way that you can’t ignore the point, and yet he rarely alights directly upon it. Like a bee circling a pollen-heavy flower, hovering and swaying without quite touching, until it goes in for the goods, but only for a moment before it flies often again for sweeter treasure.

In short, Pogue is a wonderful writer, and you should read him. Even if you experience some turbulence along the way, you will enjoy the flight.

Pogue’s latest screed touches on the subject of sock-puppetry, but only to illustrate a more salient point — he may employ a psuedonym for his facetious fortnight follies, but he is all Pogue and nothing but Pogue. Frankly, I don’t think he could pull off the whole sock-puppet thing anyway. His writing is too damned recognizable. For example, on the subject of venturing into the blogosphere under one’s true name:

For some of us, anonymity is the latchkey that allows access for our ideas.

For others, identity is what is to be considered and they wish to build upon their identity and reputation. Whether through fortunes of their own making or by having exiguous consequence, those who publish with their true identity give their reputation as fodder to their detractors and champions alike.
Those who choose to identify should be commended for their honesty and fortitude.

It is said that eloquence is the gift of the Irish (and that we waste it on drunken rambling). Pogue has that gift and it comes through in every word he writes. In exchange, Pogue, I offer you a link and a song.

Incidentally, if you want to know what Pogue’s pseudonym means, you either need to understand Gaelic (as referenced in the title of ths post) or you’ll have to do yourself the pleasure of following the link to Pogue’s post.

slàinte

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There is an interesting debate going on over at Damnum Absque Injuria (Xrlq’s place) about whether or one should be required to be licensed with the state in order to practice law. It was inspired by an article arguing against licensure in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

As an attorney myself, I have a vested interest in restricting access to my profession. As a libertarian, I have an interest in abolishing such barriers to entry. What to do, what to do?

This is actually a pretty easy one in my opinion: abolish the mandatory licensing. There are great many things that non-lawyers can do just as well as lawyers, such as draft and negotiate standard real estate contracts, and file small claims in a General District Court. There’s really no need for an attorney to handle such minor matters, and in fact a lot of attorneys simply won’t because they can’t justify the opportunity cost of taking such matters when larger ones will pay more.

In addition, the increased competition would be minimal in my estimation, primarily because the Virginia State Bar would still require its members to receive a J.D. from an accredited school, and to take the bar exam in order to demonstrate competance. Most law school graduates would likely be interested in taking the bar exam anyway in order to qualify for bar membership in other states (particularly in the northeast and southeast where many legal jurisdiction converge in metropolitan areas). Licensed attorneys would still dominate the regular parctice of law.

Those who opt for a different path to practicing law should be bound by the same legal rules with respect to professional responsibility, and anyone who hires a non-bar lawyer would do so at his own risk. Most people would still choose a bar member just to be sure they are well represented. And for those who don’t, there will be all those licensed attorneys ready to help them sue their former non-licensed lawyers for malpractice, etc.

Most important to me is that people are free to do as they wish, so long as they don’t unduly impinge on other’s rights. If non-licensed attorneys want to practice law, I say have at it. If they screw up in that practice to the detriment of their clients, we licensed attorneys be right there to sue ‘em. If they don’t, well then more people will get the legal services they desire at a cost that maximizes their utility. It seems like a win-win situation to me.

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If you read the Washington Post yesterday, you may have noticed the story headlined, “Anti-Muslim Harrassment Complaints Jump 30 Percent” in which Michelle Boorstein “reports”:

A national Muslim advocacy organization yesterday blamed a “negative and politically charged” environment on the Internet and talk radio for the 30 percent jump in anti-Muslim incidents reported to the group last year.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations received 1,972 complaints of harassment, violence and discriminatory treatment in 2005, up from 1,522 in 2004, according to an annual report released yesterday.

[...]

“We’re seeing a rise in anti-Muslim rhetoric fed by the Internet and also on talk radio,” CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said at a news conference. “You can’t turn on the radio without hearing negative, bigoted comments about Islam.”

Seventy-nine percent of the complaints came from nine states — including Virginia and Maryland — and Washington. Those are also the places with the largest Muslim populations, CAIR said. The organization registered 144 complaints last year in Virginia, a 32 percent jump from the previous year. Maryland’s total was 85 in 2005, five more than in 2004. There were 93 complaints in the District last year. The group didn’t report the 2004 D.C. number, because the city did not make the top 10 that year.

Those are some pretty damning numbers! Except for the fact that out of a population of between 1.5 and 2.0 million, only about 2,000 made any complaint (CAIR claims that 2,300 complaints were received, of which only 1,972 were deemed legitimate). And its all because of that bigoted internet and talk radio contingent, apparently egging on these attacks (where have I heard that before?). Nevertheless, the CAIR report does suggest that anti-muslim attacks are significantly rising. So I decided to go ahead and read the report. (more…)

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Finally, Pogues back!

Please go and shower him with abuse for lack of consideration towards his fans. Besides, anytime a Baldwin brother is given a good smack it is important to support the effort.

Technorati Tags: Pogue Mahone, Steven Baldwin

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Update again: (Read this from Hitchens as well on another famous quote.)

In my quixotic campaign to indict people for what they do say, rather than what suits our prejudices, I direct you all to a post that is making its way around the blogosphere, but you may not have decided to read. Patterico’s dissection of Newsweek’s famous quote of Alberto Gonzales:

In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.

Let me give you a hint on the problem, there was no period after provisions. Read on at Patterico’s.

Update:

While I am at it this really bugged me from Patterico’s site as well:

Technorati Tags: Michael Isikoff, Alberto Gozales, Geneva conventions, Newsweek, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, terrorists, detainees

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My birthday is this Saturday and my lovely wife is taking me to Nashville, TN for Saturday and Sunday night as my present (yes, I am very lucky). We are staying at the Hilton, right downtown, and attending the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday night. Other than that, however, we don’t have much planned so I though it might be a good idea to ask for some ideas.

We do intend to visit the Hermitage (if possible), and we may go to the Country Music Hall of Fame, but we also want to take in some of the local music scene and maybe visit a good local steakhouse. Suggestions as to the best BBQ place would also be appreciated.

So, dear readers, if you have any recommendations please leave them in the comments. If I take any you up on any of them I promise to write about it when I get back, and give all due props of course. And if anyone would care to meet my wife and I for a drink on Saturday or Sunday evening I will certainly entertain the idea since since we will be out and about anyway.

Thanks in advance.

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According to news reports, the muslim world is in a serious uproar over a perceived attack on their religion by the Pope.

Muslims around the world expressed outrage Friday over Pope Benedict XVI’s comments on Islam, with Turkey’s ruling party accusing him of trying to revive the spirit of the Crusades and scores taking to the streets in protest.

Pakistan’s parliament unanimously condemned the pope, and the Foreign Ministry summoned the Vatican’s ambassador to express regret over the remarks.

Muslim leaders railed against the Pope’s remarks, demanding personal apologies and calling for protests:

Salih Kapusuz, a deputy leader of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party, said Benedict’s remarks were either “the result of pitiful ignorance” about Islam and its prophet, or a deliberate distortion.

“He has a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the Middle Ages. He is a poor thing that has not benefited from the spirit of reform in the Christian world,” Kapusuz was quoted as saying by the state-owned Anatolia news agency. “It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades.”

“Benedict, the author of such unfortunate and insolent remarks, is going down in history for his words,” he said. “He is going down in history in the same category as leaders such as (Adolf) Hitler and (Benito) Mussolini.”

[...]

Lebanon’s most senior Shiite Muslim cleric denounced the remarks and demanded the pope personally apologize.

“We do not accept the apology through Vatican channels … and ask him (Benedict) to offer a personal apology – not through his officials – to Muslims for this false reading (of Islam),” Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah told worshippers.

[...]

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, of the Islamic Hamas group, said the pontiff (sic) had offended Muslims everywhere and called on him to reconsider his statement. He said there would be organized protests later in the day “to express Palestinian anger.”

In Iraq’s Shiite Muslim-stronghold of Kufa, Sheik Salah al-Ubaidi criticized the pope during Friday prayers, saying his remarks were a second assault on Islam. (more…)

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***UPDATEx3***

The pugnacious Italian journalist

has died. Reactions to that will no doubt vary. Her personal and intellectual bravery however cannot be doubted. A hat tip is owed to neo-neocon.

UPDATED AGAIN:For another roundup of links, but more interestingly a selection of links to writings by and about Oriana from prior to her death I suggest Iraqi Bloggers Central. There are some amazing and fascinating stories.

A roundup of links to people talking about her death can be found at Pajamas Media.

Fallaci was one of those figures who at some point in time could not have failed to inspire you and yet enrage you at another time. Anyone who says differently never read or listened to her. She offended everyone and inspired us all who paid attention. No one who remembers can forget her interview ripping off her Chador in the presence of Khomeini. She fought against the Nazi’s, covered wars from Vietnam to the Middle East and was beaten in Mexico city during the protests of 1968.

She was in this country when until shortly before she died partly because the government of Italy was prosecuting her for hate speech, a great irony given the hateful speech of those she criticized. Intelligent, beautiful and seemingly without fear she will be hard to forget.

Her friend Michael Ledeen will be penning an obituary. I will make sure to have it up here.

UPDATE: Here is Ledeen’s obituary: (more…)

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(Listening Notes: The Specials)

Via Normblog I am reminded once again about another situation which I think will not get better. It will not get better because in fact we don’t care. We don’t care that approximately two million people have died in Sudan already, mostly in the South. We don’t care that the same kind of thing is happening in Darfur. We don’t care that this is an Islamist regime that supported Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda, that they continue to do so, and terrorists find safe haven there to this day. We don’t care that if the present course is not changed then in a few more years more than double the number of people will have been killed by this regime than by the Khmer Rouge. The tide of death sweeping over the Muslim world is staggering in size and scope. This is the death toll in one country.We don’t care. Here is the press release from the Aegis Trust: (more…)

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A while back I mentioned a post by the wife of Peter, the proprietor of The Liberal Capitalist Party. Well the short brown firebrand who is the wife of the adorably pink Peter has her own blog now. If you missed her rather pointed and amusing comments on marriage, orthodoxy, class, lesbianism and hiccups I highly suggest it. If you want to laugh at her and Peters rather unfortunate run ins with the local property tax authorities I am with you. While reading don’t miss the teeny tiny “more” button at the bottom of each post. I missed a lot first pass through, much to my regret. Check out Short Sharp Shocks.

Her tag line: Nietszche said most men live lives of quiet desperation. Good thing I’m a woman.

Technorati Tags: indian, property taxes, lesbians, marriage

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I hear all of the time about how this corporation is subsidized or that person received a subsidy, but I’m not entirely positive that the word always means the same thing. What exactly is a “subsidy”?

Let’s look at the Answers.com, which provides several definitions. First there’s the dictionary definition:

sub·si·dy
n., pl. -dies.

1. Monetary assistance granted by a government to a person or group in support of an enterprise regarded as being in the public interest.
2. Financial assistance given by one person or government to another.
3. Money formerly granted to the British Crown by Parliament.

[Middle English subsidie, from Anglo-Norman, from Latin subsidium, support : sub-, behind, beneath; see sub– + sedēre, to sit.]

Next, Investopedia:

Subsidy

A benefit given by the government to groups or individuals usually in the form of a cash payment or tax reduction. The subsidy is usually given to remove some type of burden and is often considered to be in the interest of the public.

Politics play an important part in subsidization. In general, the left is more in favor of having subsidized industries, while the right feels that industry should stand on its own without public funds.

And even real estate terms:

For the most part, a subsidy appears to be some sort of financial assistance, often a cash payment either directly or in the form of a voucher or some sort. A “tax reduction” is sometimes also considered a subsidy, although I think perverts the meaning of the word. More on that later. First, let’s discuss Wal-Mart. (more…)

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(Listening notes: Van Morrison)

****UPDATED****

Originally Posted July 28th, 2006
One thing that bugs me, is the tendency of people to make general statements such as “wingers” always….. or you leftists always…. etc. It is silly and insulting, and I really try to avoid such things.

Still, the left in recent years, including many moderate Democrats has disappointed me. Not because they disagree with me, that is a given, I am a libertarian, or more properly a classic liberal. Rather, it is because they have lost their love for liberalism in its broadest sense. I think that becomes most clear in talking about foreign policy. Too much of the left has become enmeshed with totalitarianism, or at least apologetic of it, and totalitarianism that doesn’t even pretend, unlike the Soviet Union or other communist movements, to support human freedom. It was always wrong to suppose communism could truly lead to freedom, but at least one could write them off as dupes, idealists who had no understanding of the implication of the ideals they held, or at least suggested were not so threatening, fellow travelers if you will. The modern fascist, Marxist, really a hodge-podge of disparate threads make no such claims. Their illiberal, murderous and misogynist beliefs are worn as a badge of honor.

(more…)

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Omar got my mental wheels turning a few weeks ago when he wrote about the World Wildlife Fund debt-purchasing plan for conservation, as well as about some other free market alternatives to what is generally considered today to be in the purview of governments. Then Lance turned the spotlight on an exciting program in Africa regarding Combi-Packs. I started trying to think of various other projects that people have undertaken on their own, rather than waiting for some creature of the state to step in.

Perusing the bookmarks on my browser I came across Kiva, a micro-loan organization that caters to borrowers in developing countries. As it describes itself:

What is Kiva? Kiva lets you lend to a specific entrepreneur in the developing world – empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty.

For example, Aminata Ab-Twalib from Dar es Salaam , Tanzania needs $750 for capital improvements to her hair dressing business.

She runs a hair dressing business in a busy area of Kariakoo in Dar es Salaam. She has employed two people in her business. In normal business days, her salon is usually flocked with customers. She need[s] to add some comfortable sitting chairs to hold these customers on the queue. She [is] also usually [] short of hair dressing materials. The equipment[] used for hair dressing need to be highly sterilized to reduce the risk of HIV transmission and other skin diseases. To effectively run her business she need[s] an additional working capital of USD 750.

(minor corrections made to text).

And there’s David Ochieng from Mbala, Uganda who is seeking $700, of which he has already secured $400, to buy more animals for his butcher shop. Like most of the entreprenuers, David intends to repay his loan within six to thirteen months.

Essentially, for a small amount of money one can help third world entrepreneurs lift themselves out of poverty. Of course, it’s not a guaranteed success, and thus the interst rates are relatively high (I was unable to find a cite that specifies the rates charged by Kiva, but this World Bank article suggests it would be in the 25% – 30% range). But it does create a source of funding that might not otherwise be available except through the government.

In Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists Raghuram Rajan and Luigi Zingales argue that creating more access to financial markets for more people will inevitably lead to greater prosperity (see also, savingcapitalism.com). Micro-loans are a fantastic means of accomplishing this. Of course, as Hernando de Soto (this one, not that one) persuasively argues, access to capital would be much easier if more people had secure, predictable and easily enforceable property rights. And whatever these borrowers manage to build through micro-lending will really only be worth the value of their property rights in such. Nevertheless, I would submit that these sorts of programs will manage to do more to lift the poor out of grinding poverty than all the government programs, grants, charity and IMF loans that have ever been, or will ever exist.

Technorati Tags: Africa, micro-loan, finance, poverty, Kiva, Hernando de Soto, capitalism, Saving Capitalism, foreign aid

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Norm Geras has reached his, and his reasoning certainly resonates with me.

On the other hand, I am trying to overcome my feelings about fans of Phish. Luckily my new brother-in-law, who is a musician, hates Phish, loves the Stooges. In fact, when my little sister called to tell me about her being engaged to someone who I had never met, she worked those facts in within the first ten seconds of the conversation. Needless to say I was on board with the marriage 12 seconds into the conversation. Nothing more needed to be said.

I went to the beach this weekend, unfortunately it was rainy and overcast, but I enjoyed myself, because I got to stay off the beach. Beaches are lovely and all, if they could just do something about the sand.

Unfortunately that means the best thing about the beach was missing, lots of attractive women wearing next to nothing or even less. I should take a moment to make it clear that that makes me an objectifier, not an objectivist. Now that I have alienated the fans of both Betty Friedan and Ayn Rand I will continue.

This gave me a great opportunity to walk around and listen to my Ipod. It has a whole lot of stuff on it and I put it on shuffle because I enjoy the odd off beat juxtapositions of various genres and styles that results. There is something truly sublime about hearing a sequence wich includes REM, the Stones, Iggy Pop, The Posies and Dick Van Dyke singing Hushabye Mountain from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, all in one stirring sequence.

This led me to consider how unappreciated the Posies are. For those unfamiliar with them, especially their best work, “Frosting on the Beater,” imagine if Graham Nash and John Lennon had grown up listening to the Replacements and Husker Du. If that doesn’t help you go to the store and pick up some of everyone you don’t recognize from those four and after a few weeks listen to the Posies.

Coming to prominence in Seattle as the grunge sound was breaking out they should have ridden the guitar-noise band wave to tremendous success. Robby once told me that if he could create anything as perfect as “Dream All Day” he would die knowing he had lived a worthwhile life. I have to beg off, life is worthwhile to me in and of itself, but I know what he means (As for those opposed to extending life spans to the utmost, I’ll quote Peter, “I want the pill!”) Unfortunately Nirvana was the band that broke out in a huge way. Well, that isn’t so unjust, but it was definitely a shame long term as the Posies were a much more interesting direction for that sound to go. Nirvana was great, but as ten thousand bands (half from Seattle) proved, it was also a musical dead end. That is an appropriate end for Kurt Cobain’s influence, but musically frustrating. Anyway, listen to Frosting on the Beater and remember that radical Islamists don’t like Louis Armstrong. It is important.

Technorati Tags: Kurt Cobain, The Posies, Husker Du, The Replacements, Jazz, Islamists, The Beach, Ipod, Norm Geras, Phish

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Bradford Plumer let the cat out of the bag today. I know, everybody is blogging about his justification of pork barrel spending as necessary for the growth of activist government, but Capt. Ed makes the best point about Plumer’s point:

Plumer’s entire essay should be read in order to ensure that CQ readers understand exactly what he says here. Plumer’s argument amounts to an admission that the kind of big-government, intrusive spending that will come from perennial policy stands of progressives has no chance of succeeding through democratic means.

………

Bribery and extortion are wrong, whether one believes it to be in a good cause or not. Government should reflect the true will of the people, and not the will of special interests who score big money through pork.

If Plumer can’t see that, then he has made himself part of the problem. If the Left cannot convince a majority of the people of their wisdom, then they should not have an option to buy the public policy they desire.

That that point doesn’t resonate with many people says a lot.

Technorati Tags: Bradford Plumer, pork barrel, spending, progressive politics, politics, democracy

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Milton Friedman sits down with Russ Roberts. You can also listen to the podcast.

Elsewhere Ron Bailey has an article “The Man Who Fed the World,” on Norman Borlaug whose work may have saved more lives and relieved more suffering than any other person in human history. See also this earlier interview with him in Reason Magazine and more, along with other links, at Pienso.

Update:

I just noted in Pienso’s comment section this quote from the Reason interview. I am going to quote it in full:

Reason: What do you think of organic farming? A lot of people claim it’s better for human health and the environment.

Borlaug: That’s ridiculous. This shouldn’t even be a debate. Even if you could use all the organic material that you have–the animal manures, the human waste, the plant residues–and get them back on the soil, you couldn’t feed more than 4 billion people. In addition, if all agriculture were organic, you would have to increase cropland area dramatically, spreading out into marginal areas and cutting down millions of acres of forests.

At the present time, approximately 80 million tons of nitrogen nutrients are utilized each year. If you tried to produce this nitrogen organically, you would require an additional 5 or 6 billion head of cattle to supply the manure. How much wild land would you have to sacrifice just to produce the forage for these cows? There’s a lot of nonsense going on here.

If people want to believe that the organic food has better nutritive value, it’s up to them to make that foolish decision. But there’s absolutely no research that shows that organic foods provide better nutrition. As far as plants are concerned, they can’t tell whether that nitrate ion comes from artificial chemicals or from decomposed organic matter. If some consumers believe that it’s better from the point of view of their health to have organic food, God bless them. Let them buy it. Let them pay a bit more. It’s a free society. But don’t tell the world that we can feed the present population without chemical fertilizer. That’s when this misinformation becomes destructive.

Technorati Tags: Norman Borlaug, Milton Friedman, Russ Roberts, economics, biotech, Ron Bailey, poverty, agriculture

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(Listening notes: Who else but Fela Kuti)

Cafe Hayek reminded me this week about one of the more interesting groups working to help in Africa, Enterprise Africa. One highlight has been the work of Monsanto:

Enter the private sector, specifically Monsanto South Africa, with the Combi- Pack, a box containing enough maize seed, herbicide, and fertilizer to plant ¼ hectare of maize. Combi-Packs are part of the phenomenon known as marketing to the “bottom of the pyramid.” Large corporations design and sell products and services to very low-income consumers, billions of individuals who as a group have substantial purchasing power.

Farmers in KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga provinces who use Combi-Packs along with no-till, or minimum-till, agriculture have increased maize yields. Now, the farmers raise enough maize that they can feed their families and then sell the excess, earning money to fix homes, buy clothes, and pay school fees.

Furthermore, Combi-Packs combined with no and minimum till agriculture have had beneficial effects for the environment, reducing erosion, and conserving water. Swelekile Alina Nkosi, a farmer in Mlondozi in rural Mpumalanga, enjoys these benefits. “I’m so happy with this way of farming. What will happen when I’m old I don’t know, but one thing is good, and that is now there’s no water cutting through, so my soil is conserved.”

Here is a link to the full paper in pdf format. In addition to this Enterprise Africa has been doing research in the vein of Hernando De Soto on property rights, land titling and other legal issues. Spend some time poking around.

Technorati Tags: Africa, poverty, Monsanto, Combi-packs, African agriculture, Enterprise Africa, Fela Kuti

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I have delayed addressing the previous posts regarding fascism in order to let the comments percolate and the issue become more defined. Before I do so here, please take the time to read the previous posts (here and here) and the comments to them. The discussion was valuable and enlightening and I thank all who contributed for doing so.

Restatement of Argument
First I want to restate the argument I made earlier that mushroomed into the discussion of whether fascism is rooted in the left or not. My original three comments that started all of this were this:

Plus, don’t forget that this was the height of the “Progressive” era, when it was taken for granted by nearly everyone that the State should be in control of things and “individualists” were nasty little buggers concerned only about themselves. Hitler and Mussolini were touted for years as creating the model “workingman’s paradise”, the future of all socialist goevrning (sic) models.

and this:

There are myriad examples of both Hitler and Mussolini being held in high regard for their version of socialism that was not international in scope as was Lenin’s communism.

and finally this:

Well, Mona, if you don’t understand the fact that both Hitler and Mussolini were products of the left there’s not much I’m going to say or cite to convince you otherwise.

I’m not interested in rehashing the comments, quotes, and conjecture regarding praise for Hitler and Mussolini from the left. Suffice it to say that when Mussolini and Hitler were rising to power (Mussolini achieving such much earlier than Hitler of course) two prevailing attitudes were in play: (i) planned economies and strong central government responsible for all phases of individual lives were assumed by nearly everyone to the way of the future, and (ii) by the time both Hitler and Mussolini were in power, most everyone assumed that the future was either with fascism or communism, and they were scared as hell of communism.

The most significant idea to be taken from the above, IMHO, is that “it was taken for granted by nearly everyone that the State should be in control of things and ‘individualists’ were nasty little buggers concerned only about themselves.” As far as I’m concerned, nearly everybody was on the “left” in those days because they considered the State to be the answer to all problems. When I noted that there were many examples of Hitler and Mussolini being praised for their version of socialism, I was trying to highlight the prevailing attitude of both European and American leaders and intellectuals and why Neville Chamberlain probably gets much more flack than he deserves. As the acerbically witty Monty Python players put it, “NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition.” On top of that, the threat of communist revolution was incredibly worrisome, and whomever would keep that threat at bay was welcomed quite openly. Thus, with the ground so ripe for a new, authoritarian, state-organized political, social and economic system — one that would being intimately involved in every individual’s life, regardless of individual concern and promise to prevent a revolution as happened in Russia — it really shouldn’t be a wonder that fascism was quite popular at first.

As Lance summarized quite succinctly (especially for Lance!):

Glad to hear anybody else’s comments but I would like to get back to Michael’s original premise, because whether you consider the fascists or Hitler left or right I think we can all agree that the progressive impulse for having the state as the prime actor in a nations affairs was widespread. Therefore movements which promised land reform, control over business and planning the economy in general were given a less than skeptical hearing and that that allowed the fascists intellectual and moral space to gather power. I think that is an important point in understanding the intellectual climate Chamberlain operated in. (more…)

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It’s time again for my weekly Questions and Answers session covering the beliefs and practices of Islam.  Feel free to jump in and ask any questions you’d like about Islam or Muslims.  The only rule, as always, is to keep the questions fairly general.  I don’t want detailed or highly technical questions like, “Well, sura xyz says this…,” etc.  Devolving into technical discussions defeats the point of this post.  Don’t be shy or embarassed to ask questions here.  Remember, the only foolish question is the unasked one. As always, I like to issue the following disclaimer:  I am neither an Imam nor one of the Ulema.  I am just “Joe Muslim,” the man on the street, so to speak.  I am not a recognized, legitimate authority on Islam.  In short, I’m the guy in the pew, not the guy on the altar.

PS I’m going to be away from the keyboard until Wednesday or so.  Please go ahead and post your questions, however I won’t be able to respond until Wednesday afternoon or evening.  Thanks!

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***Corrected due to problem with missing text when posted originally***

One of our favorite commenters, Glasnost, who should have his own blog by the way, has left some trenchant criticisms of the argument that has haphazardly formed in the comments section of the introductory post we have on Neville Chamberlain. So I am reposting that part of the post and his arguments here so that we can develop them more fully.

Michael and I upon re-reading the comments we received from everybody, but especially Mona and Glasnost, felt more needed to be said and to see if we could adjust our argument to fit a little better given their insightful input and important distinctions. This is my post however; Michael has not reviewed it and in no way should be held responsible for anything I say.

First the original text from the update on the Neville Chamberlain post:

Now onto to the argument about fascism and the left. I think Michael is planning to post more on this in the comments or as a separate post. I have no idea where he is going with it, but I am waiting to hear. My own view is we are all talking past each other to some extent, but maybe this will clarify things.

First of all the left-right issue is a bit misleading at this point in time. Sure, most now put fascist movements on the right such as the Aryan Nation. That however is an artifact of the thirties. That the Nazis were socialists is not to be denied and unlike the Fascists of Italy they never denied being socialists. They however used the term “right” to describe themselves as well, but it has no usefulness today. They were describing themselves as the right wing of the socialist movement, not as the right wing of politics in general. They were a product of left wing thinkers.

Much more interesting is fascism, which had a much more complex and nuanced intellectual history. It also may be the most influential political doctrine of the 20th century, and the modern left may owe more to it than Marx. 1930’s Fascism was a socialist movement that rejected Marxist based socialism on the grounds that in reality the scientific claims of socialist revolution were wrong. The working classes were not going to revolt. Lenin famously came to the same conclusion, but felt once it happened the Marxist vision could be attained. The Fascists believed that men were not rational, they needed myths such as nationalist fervor in order to achieve the consciousness necessary to pursue and maintain a new social order. They became syndicalists and eventually arrived at the fascist ideology. As described by David Ramsey Steele:

Fascism began as a revision of Marxism by Marxists, a revision which developed in successive stages, so that these Marxists gradually stopped thinking of themselves as Marxists, and eventually stopped thinking of themselves as socialists. They never stopped thinking of themselves as anti-liberal revolutionaries.

Syndicalists began as uncompromising Marxists, but like Revisionists, they acknowledged that key tenets of Marxism had been refuted by the development of modern society. Most syndicalists came to accept much of Bernstein’s argument against traditional Marxism, but remained committed to the total rejection, rather than democratic reform, of existing society. They therefore called themselves “revolutionary revisionists.” They favored the “idealist revision of Marx,” meaning that they believed in a more independent role for ideas in social evolution that that allowed by Marxist theory.

In setting out to revise Marxism, syndicalists were most strongly motivated by the desire to be effective revolutionaries, not to tilt at windmills but to achieve a realistic understanding of the way the world works. (more…)

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Typically I try to shine a bit of light on blogs that don’t seem to get the notice that they probably deserve, such as ourselves;^}, or Pogue’s place or The Conjecturer. However, I am sure todays blog will get plenty of notice, but I cannot help myself. Who wouldn’t want to read a blog with all these people? The New Republic gives us Open University:

David A. Bell, a contributing editor who has been writing for TNR since 1984, is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Johns Hopkins. His new book, The First Total War: Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Warfare As We Know It, is coming out from Houghton Mifflin in January.

David Bromwich is Sterling Professor of English at Yale. His books include Hazlitt: The Mind of a Critic and an edition of Edmund Burke’s speeches, On Empire, Liberty, and Reform.

Daniel W. Drezner is Associate Professor of International Politics at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He is the author of All Politics Is Global, forthcoming from Princeton University Press.

David Greenberg is assistant professor of History and Journalism & Media Studies at Rutgers University. A former managing editor and acting editor of TNR, he has written for scholarly and popular publications including The Atlantic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Slate. His books include Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image and Calvin Coolidge (forthcoming).

Jacob S. Hacker is Professor of Political Science at Yale University and a Fellow at the New America Foundation. He is the author, most recently, of The Great Risk Shift: The Assault on American Jobs, Families, Health Care, and Retirement–And How You Can Fight Back (Oxford, October 2006).

Michael Kazin is a professor of history at Georgetown University. His most recent books are A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan (Knopf) and Americanism: New Perspectives on the History of an Ideal, edited with Joseph McCartin (University of North Carolina Press).

Sanford Levinson is a professor of law and government at the University of Texas in Austin. He is the author of Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (and How We the People Can Correct It) (Oxford, 2006).

Jacob T. Levy is Tomlinson Professor of Political Theory at McGill University and Secretary-Treasurer of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy. He is the author of The Multiculturalism of Fear.

Darrin M. McMahon is the Ben Weider Associate Professor of History at Florida State. He is the author of Happiness: A History (Atlantic Monthly Press) and Enemies of the Enlightenment (Oxford).

John McWhorter is Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and until 2003 was Associate Professor of Linguistics at UC Berkeley. He is the author of Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America and The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language.

Elisa New is author of The Regenerate Lyric: Theology and Innovation in American Poetry (1992), The Line’s Eye: Poetic Experience, American Sight (1998), and Where the Meanings Are: The Literature of New England Reappraised (forthcoming). She is professor of English at Harvard University.

Steven Pinker is Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard and author of The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, Words and Rules, and The Blank Slate.

Eric Rauchway is the author, most recently, of Blessed Among Nations: How the World Made America, and Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt’s America. He teaches history at the University of California, Davis.

Christine Stansell is Edwards Professor of American History at Princeton. She writes about feminism, American history, and post-catastrophic societies.

Richard Stern is Helen A. Regenstein Professor Emeritus in English Languages and Literature at the University of Chicago. His collected stories, Almonds to Zhoof, were published in 2005 and Stern received the Medal of Merit for the Novel from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Lawrence Summers is the Charles W. Elliot University Professor at Harvard University where he studies political economy. He served as University President from 2001 to 2006. Summers also served as Secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton.

Cass R. Sunstein is the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor, Law School and Department of Political Science, University of Chicago. His most recent book is Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge (August 2006).

Abigail Thernstrom is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute in New York and the vice-chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She is the co-author (with her husband) of No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning (2003) and America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible (1997).

Ted Widmer is the Director and Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. Between 1997 and 2001 he was a speechwriter and senior adviser to President Clinton, and between 2001 and 2006 he was director of the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College. He has written several books on nineteenth- and twentieith-century U.S. history, and is a frequent contributor to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other periodicals.

Alan Wolfe is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. His most recent book Does American Democracy Still Work? is forthcoming from Yale University Press, September, 2006.

I am just hoping this doesn’t keep Daniel Drezner from spending plenty of time covering an important area of mutual interest, Hayek! Though I am somewhat torn over this.

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I am all for the pursuit of happiness, but what on earth would make Tom Maguire want to

don[] an orange fright wig and dance down Main Street shouting “Flee before my majesty, working class minions! Fall down before my fine country wig!” And it may be that, while I dance and yell, I am the happiest guy in America.

You’ll have to read his post to find out. All I know is that if I were to witness such a spectacle, I would feel somehow that I had failed. That if I had just paid more attention, I would have seen the signs: late nights at Jack-in-the-Box; missing work to go “follow the Ringling Bros. tour”; inexplicable cotton-candy stains on … everything; trying to pay the paperboy with circus peanuts; the long nights lamenting why Fergie would never become Queen. They were all there. If only …

I just would feel … so … diminished.

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Hammer of Truth has the latest news from the Smither Campaign:

Bob Smither, the Libertarian nominee for Congress from Texas District 22, announced today that he has filed as a candidate for the Special Election to fill the remainder of Tom DeLay’s term. Both the Special Election and the General Election will be held on November 7th.

Apparently, Smither will be the only candidate on both the General and Special Election ballots. According to his press release, Smither will be listed as a Libertarian candidate on the Special Election ballot despite the fact that no one else will appear (and he could, therefore, run as a Republican).

Over the past week many voters suggested that I consider filing as a Republican since I have indicated I will caucus with the GOP. I appreciate their support and reiterate that if elected I will be supporting the Republican choice for Speaker of the House. I decided to file as a Libertarian though because it is the party I belong to. A candidate must be honest with the voters, and it is important to me that when the voters see my name on the ballot they will know exactly who I am and what I offer to the residents of CD-22. I first took an interest in politics in 1964 as a Barry Goldwater volunteer, and I am proud to have many Republican supporters who share my commitment to smaller government, lower taxes, and individual freedom. In return I will honor my promise to caucus with the GOP. As a Libertarian I ask CD-22’s voters for their support as the only small government candidate on the ballot and the only viable choice to prevent the election of a liberal Democrat.

Go over to Hammer of Truth for more information, and be sure to check our Smither page as well.

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In paying a tribute of respect and of regard to an eminent man who has been taken from us, no one is obliged to alter the opinions which he has formed or expressed upon issues which have become a part of history; but at the Lychgate we may all pass our own conduct and our own judgments under a searching review. It is not given to human beings, happily for them, for otherwise life would be intolerable, to foresee or to predict to any large extent the unfolding course of events. In one phase men seem to have been right, in another they seem to have been wrong. Then again, a few years later, when the perspective of time has lengthened, all stands in a different setting. There is a new proportion. There is another scale of values. History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days. What is the worth of all this? The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honour.

Few passages have given me more discomfort or been so filled with wisdom in helping me try to work my way through the thicket of rhetoric, tempestuous events and human folly that characterizes any discussion of foreign policy over the years. This great orator is quoted often, and justly, but it is here that we find the truth of what made this man great and this speech rarely receives its due. A man known for his purposeful and forceful determination reveals that to be truly steadfast requires an awareness of the unknown contingent character of the future one is facing. The man is Winston Churchill, the man he is eulogizing, Neville Chamberlain. Churchill goes on to say with no lack of sincerity:

It fell to Neville Chamberlain in one of the supreme crises of the world to be contradicted by events, to be disappointed in his hopes, and to be deceived and cheated by a wicked man. But what were these hopes in which he was disappointed? What were these wishes in which he was frustrated? What was that faith that was abused? They were surely among the most noble and benevolent instincts of the human heart-the love of peace, the toil for peace, the strife for peace, the pursuit of peace, even at great peril, and certainly to the utter disdain of popularity or clamour. Whatever else history may or may not say about these terrible, tremendous years, we can be sure that Neville Chamberlain acted with perfect sincerity according to his lights and strove to the utmost of his capacity and authority, which were powerful, to save the world from the awful, devastating struggle in which we are now engaged. This alone will stand him in good stead as far as what is called the verdict of history is concerned.

Churchill was wrong, in the popular imagination Chamberlain has suffered grievously and unfairly at times, if understandably so. His fundamental error is so discredited that in some quarters even bringing up his legacy is a sign of bad faith, a kind of moral blackmail. WWII is a singular event dominated by a singularly evil figure and no lessons are to be drawn. In other quarters Chamberlains error is used as if history were a blueprint that we must permanently alter in order to proceed towards a safer freer world. This is a mistake. The lessons of that time, as Churchill without a knowledge of what lay ahead could see, were complex and I believe if seriously considered can give us a larger common intellectual vocabulary for dealing with the crises of the moment as well as the unknown to come. Please read the entire speech. I will post the follow up later (I have barbecue to eat.) If Winston Churchill could defend Chamberlain certainly I can.

Technorati Tags: Munich 1938, Neville Chamberlain, appeasement, Winston Churchill, World War II, Hitler, Foreign Policy, Mussonlin, National Socialism, Hayek, David Ramsey Steele, Lenin, Stalin

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One of the world’s greatest champions of wildlife education and conservation died this weekend doing what he loved best. Known to many as “The Crocodile Hunter,” Stephen Robert Irwin was killed when the poisonous barb of a stingray’s tail pierced his heart during filming at the Great Barrier Reef. I think this article helps, but by no means gives the true depth and breadth, . Many have, and will continue to try to fill Steve’s shoes, but I don’t think anyone will ever really succeed. It wasn’t just his technical knowledge, commitment, or personal courage. It was everything about him. You knew from the moment you saw this man that he was absolutely in love with his career. He loved life, he loved animals, and he loved doing what he did best. It can honestly be claimed that he educated more millions of people about wildlife conservation than any number of charitable foundations have. He helped to make the message “mainstream.” If for no other reason than that, Steve Irwin should never be forgotten. He is survived by his wife Terri and two children, Bindi and Bob.

Technorati Tags: Crocodile Hunter, Stephen Irwin, Stingray, Great Barrier Reef

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The Blogosphere, and politics in general, is full of arguments. We are not always fair, clear about what we say, or clear on what others mean. That should be no surprise nor is it in my mind of any particular concern. Like many issues that have many of us outraged these days, this is not new or exceptional.

Often the way we characterize others or phrase our arguments is technically dishonest, but I don’t really care much. It is part of the gag, a running stream of rhetorical slipperiness that is as much entertainment as commentary. Admittedly this is not generally what I read online, but it is often hilarious and as long as we realize it is what it is, so be it. Unfair attacks are the meat of partisan politics, it won’t change and we can all just take it a little less seriously.

Therefore I could care less about Ann Coulter’s overheated rhetoric, with its allusions of violence or other outrageous statements that nobody takes seriously. Insensitivity may be a problem in our world, but I think we all have bigger fish to fry. No, what makes Coulter offensive to me is the fundamental dishonesty. Not her quips and asides, obviously they distort, that is what makes them funny to those who want to hear liberals and other assorted victims made to look ridiculous. We hear the same from commentators of all stripes. What is offensive is what she says when she is attempting to be serious. Not what she says about her own views, though like most of us her own views are offensive to many as well. I mean what she says about others. Even when I believe she is right or has a good point she makes her case in a dishonest manner.

The technique is old, but it is so pervasive in her work that I use the term Coulteresque to describe it. I have noticed that some when I call their argument Coulteresque miss the point, because to them what makes her so offensive is her mocking, insensitive, mean spirited and often cruel jabs and quips. What I am talking about is how they make their case. Coulter, exemplified by her book “Treason,” starts by setting the stage with a grave charge. Then the evidence of that charge begins with real evidence of that charge being true for some, though even then crucial distinctions are lost, quotes are taken out of context and footnotes (or links on the web in a blogger’s case) are piled up, though they often do not actually say what she claims they say. Then others are lumped in who have similar statements, but do not actually believe everything the guilty party or parties believe, so the association is tenuous, but that is unclear from the evidence presented. Thus an actual communist in the pay of the Soviet Union can be lumped in with a democratic socialist who underestimates the threat of communism, or who merely wants some programs similar to those of communists, such as nationalizing our health care system or extensive welfare programs for the poor. Certainly one can criticize socialists, I would, but it isn’t the same as being a Soviet sympathizer. Then it goes further as people who are adamantly opposed to the Soviet Union, but see a role for the state in managing our economy, are lumped in as well using one time statements, poorly worded statements, conjectures, out right false characterizations of statements taken out of context and sometimes just a footnote (or link) to a source which says nothing of the sort.

Why does this work? Because partisans want to believe that those they are arguing with really are less intelligent, morally venal or riddled with motives which they are hiding and that should be brought to light by those who see what is really up. Sometimes writers truly believe what they are writing in these instances and actually believe they are characterizing others fairly. Often they don’t care, because they believe that behind the distinctions and qualifications the truth of their opponents’ position is clear. The readers of course, should they follow the footnotes or links, already believe the same and read what is written as described by the writer, or even if they notice, they assume in the context presented it is only one piece of evidence, not quite right, but good enough. It gives them a sense of correctness. Psychologists have noted that this process actually has a physiological component, we literally feel better, the brain releases chemicals that make us feel happy. We can in fact become addicted to this form of confirmation bias. We are looking for what will make us feel better.

In Coulter’s case I actually find this less alarming than with others. Her fans want what she provides and she gives it to them. Yet amongst the intellectual leaders of politics, regardless of party, she is pretty much a joke. Even partisans as fierce as David Horowitz have condemned “Treason” for its smearing of liberals and Democrats.

The sad thing is when intelligent, humane writers and commenter’s fail to distinguish these fraudulent arguments. When they become so ingrained that they accept and in essence perpetuate and absorb these arguments into their own discourse, distorting their own politics as well as those whose views they oppose.

Last week Michael started a bit of a dustup over the analysis of statements from Charles Johnston of Little Green Footballs and John Hindraker of Powerline by Glenn Greenwald. Michael does a great job of pointing out how Glenn sets up a distressing narrative and takes two statements out of context and accuses the two of them with not only sanctioning, but advocating the murder of journalists. If you haven’t read it, and the comments, do so. In the end, even if you wish to argue that their statements could be inferred so as to endorse such things, the question is does it necessarily do so? Michael and I didn’t think so, but a better question, and the crucial one, is do they? This seems to some ridiculous. “Of course they will deny it.” My question is why would they? If they feel that journalists who report, or fabricate news to support terrorists are worthy of not just condemnation, but killing them and supposedly they have said so, why would they say otherwise now? If it is so obvious that that is what they are advocating then they must obviously have no trouble with advocating it? So my simple response is, why don’t we ask them? Luckily in Charles Johnston’s case we have no need, he says here: (more…)

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hacked by tugra, Turkisd hacker, NO WAR!

This is the claim of responsibility for the latest escalation in the war on terror. It is now official. Jon Henke and friends at QandO are now at war with Turkey. Jon and McQ are locked in a life and death struggle with the terrible enemy, but Jon is deep in tense discussions over the proper course of action. Jon’s initial rage led to discussions of an immediate invasion, McQ being generally less prone to hawkishness has reportedly held sway for the moment. These are dangerous times, but I suggest we and the QandO administration not act rashly. Words of support from the Kurdish Government in Iraq have already been received along with assurances that the 4th armored division will be given safe passage if necessary. Stay tuned.

Update: McQ with news from the front.

It’s the front page. You can still post to the blog and get to it through a
google search for a topic (and then once on a blog page, hit an “authors”
button and read all of that author’s posts to include new ones). We
(meaning Dale) have to wrestle the front page back from the hacker.

Further Update: Early reports of the 4th armored division’s deployment have been shot down due to the fact it no longer exists.

On the diplomatic front France has offerred to help staff a UN sponsored peacekeeping force. Early reports are it will include at least 15,000 men and women devoted to monitoring and disarming rogue terrorists working out of Turkey. France has offerred to take the lead in providing both manpower and the servers necessary to maintain a credible threat to Turkish hackers.

Reports have emerged as to why more decisive action has not proceeded. The combative head of all QandO military affairs, Dale Franks has been incommunicado. Has he been hit by special forces? Have his body guards spirited him away? Is Jack Bauer aware? Is it possible he has merely been sleeping in?

More to come.

The latest as of 4:00 CST:

While The Turkish hackers remained firmly ensconced on QandO’s home page negotiations proceeded apace. The resistance had already achieved heroic status, but the heated rhetoric from Jon Henke was poorly received in Europe:

Never fear! We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in cyberspace, we shall fight on the blogs, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the tubes, we shall defend our website, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the internets; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this blog or a large part of it were hacked and disabled, then the blogosphere beyond would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the Neolibertarian Network, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of QandO!

McQ as well has been critcized for his ill thought out “eliminationist” rhetoric:

Me? I’m ready to hang the *******

Glenn Greenwald insisted that this ongoing scourge of ill tempered language is not hyperbole, but expresses a desire for bloodshed on an unimaginable scale:

The right wing obsession with war and ever increasing levels of violence is threatening the very fabric of our nation, our liberties and freedom for sock puppets everywhere.

Thomas Ellers and Jim Henley have e-mailed their support for this lonely fight against the Henke war machine.

From France. Dominique Villepin announced that things looked grim if the normally taciturn and cautious McQ was swept up in the bellicose assault of Henkeism upon the world. Unfortunately the address was so long and punctuated with extensive allusions to Sartre and Marcuse that literary critics are still culling out the appropriate quotes for a press release.

Meanwhile the embattled Dale Franks emerged form his secret hideaway refreshed from a long nap and took the battle to the perfidious foe and recaptured the homepage of the hub of neo-libertarian activity.

Unfortunately the battle may only be on hold. The UN is deep in negotiations as France has so far only agreed to send in a force of 200 retired executive secretaries. Matthew Yglesias has applauded the French diplomacy as a briliant maneuver to bring matters back to status quo. Oddly enough the mercurial Jon Henke thinks he might agree.

In memory of this the Bard himself, Michael Wade, leaves us with this stirring address prepared for Dale to deliver just prior to leading the valiant Special Forces of our network into battle with our dear allies the Peshmerga across the Turkish border:

If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our Neo-libertarian brethren loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for ad revenue,
Nor care I who doth troll upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men link my posts or not;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my Turkish nemesis, wish not a man from Neo-libertarianland.
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, my friends, through my website host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And bus-tokens put into his purse;
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call’d the feast of Labor Day.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of, er, Labor.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Sainted Labor Day.’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say ‘These wounds I had on Labor’s Day.’
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Jon the Kingmaker, Dale and McQ,
Omar the Bard and Lance, MichaelW and the rest-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Labor Day shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in Neo-libertarianland now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Sainted Labor Day.

Good Day, Good Night, Courage.

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Ah, CAIR.  Where do I even begin?  If you’ve not had a chance to catch-up on the ongoing debate about “moderate” Muslims and the assimilation of Muslims in America or the quest for a “moderate” Muslim spokesperson/spokesagency, then CAIR is probably not the right place to start.

 The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) is an agency that bills itself as America’s largest Islamic civil liberties group.  See their about page for more information:

http://www.cair.com/default.asp?Page=About

Looking at this, one unfamiliar with the group’s leaders and history would conclude that this is the Muslim ACLU or NAACP.  One would be quite wrong.

Although I hardly agree with many of the innuendos or rhetorical bombs that the gentleman behind this organization throws out there or the fact that his coverage and opinions of Muslims are distinctly one-sided, he does make some excellent points about CAIR and, in their lawsuit to shut down his website, questions about CAIR’s finances emerged which were never answered.  In fact, CAIR withdrew its suit immediately after the questions about their financing were raised.  Smoke without fire?  You be the judge, see the Anti-CAIR version of the story here:

 http://www.anti-cair-net.org/

So, despite CAIR’s changing its logo (http://www.cair.com/default.asp#) and marketing presentation, the same old KIQ’s are still in charge and despite their claims of transperancy, I still don’t see them addressing the very serious questions about their financing that the Anti-CAIR group brought up.  Until they do that and answer some of the other lingering charges against them, I must assume that CAIR itself is nothing more than a front for Saudi-financed Salafist groups.  While some of CAIR’s members may be well-meaning, but naive people taken in by CAIR’s slick marketing, the leadership of CAIR is anything but.

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Better late than never!  It’s time again for my weekly Questions and Answers session covering the beliefs and practices of Islam.  Feel free to jump in and ask any questions you’d like about Islam or Muslims.  The only rule, as always, is to keep the questions fairly general.  I don’t want detailed or highly technical questions like, “Well, sura xyz says this…,” etc.  Devolving into technical discussions defeats the point of this post.  Don’t be shy or embarassed to ask questions here.  Remember, the only foolish question is the unasked one. 

As always, I like to issue the following disclaimer:  I am neither an Imam nor one of the Ulema.  I am just “Joe Muslim,” the man on the street, so to speak.  I am not a recognized, legitimate authority on Islam.  In short, I’m the guy in the pew, not the guy on the altar.

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WYATT: “Daddy, do you know what your favorite drink is?”

ME: (amused) “Orange juice?”

WYATT: “NooooOH!”

ME: “Hmmm … apple juice?”

WYATT: “NooooOH!”

ME: (now puzzled) “Swee’tea?”

WYATT: “NO! You’re favorite drink is wine, Daddy.” (pointing to a freshly cracked bottle of Stella Artois).

ME:

WYATT: (still pointing)

ME: “But this is a Belgian beer, the culmination of 600 years of craftmanship and superior brewing techn…”

WYATT: (cutting me off) “You like wine, Daddy. That’s you’re favorite drink.”

ME: [*blink*blink*]

WYATT: (smiling)

ME: (internal monologue: “Y’know, the kid’s got a point. I do enjoy a good Bordeaux.”)

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Ever since the Bush administration adopted the term Islamic Fascism as its moniker for the threats arising out of the Muslim world the debate on the appropriateness of the term has been bubbling through the blogosphere. McQ argued for the virtue of such a term almost immediately and again today. He brings up the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Yasser Arafat’s clear line to Hitler as one example of the fascist history of the Middle East totalitarian and terrorist groups. Dan Allen at The Conjecturer argued that he wasn’t sure the term fascist works for the Islamic terror groups, but I begged to differ. Dave Wiegel today goes on a rant that argues the term is just a buzzword designed to instill fear and inspire dark images of the Nazi’s to get us to go along with the march to WWIII and others agree, sort of. So where does that leave us?

I think the term Islamic fascist is good enough for government work. It describes movements undoubtedly designed to set up religious states, but religious fascism is a legitimate term as Mona is so kind as to point out:

Sociologically, Islamofascism can properly and usefully be regarded as a species of “clerical fascism,” a concept quite respectable — if not universally so — in the field of religious studies and allied academic disciplines. Further, it is not a new notion, manufactured for deployment by today’s polemicists. Scholar Roger Eatwell, in an article titled Reflections on Fascism and Religion, points out:

The term ‘clerical fascism’ was popularized in Italy during the 1920s, especially by opponents who sought to point to those within the Catholic Church who supported Fascism. Later, the term was broadened to encompass links between the churches and fascism elsewhere (in the case of the Nazis, the links were much stronger with Protestantism). The term ‘clerical fascism’ has also been applied to fascist movements which were overtly and sincerely religious – such as the Romanian Iron Guard, led by the devoutly Orthodox Corneliu Codreanu. Most historians who use the term, like Hugh Trevor-Roper, are seeking to refine typologies of different forms of fascism – especially contrasting authoritarian-conservative ‘clerical fascism’ with more radical ‘dynamic’ variants.

As I pointed out previously in my post approaching Islam:

The Muslim world is filled with fascist, odd Marxist and Islamic totalitarian movements. They have morphed over time and adopted a more Islamic face, Saddam and Arafat presided over steadily more Islamicized states (okay, in Arafat’s case state is hardly accurate, but bear with me) and Assad is moving in that same direction as well, but at their heart they are not dangerous because Islam is dangerous, but because totalitarianism is dangerous. These movements have less in common with the ancient caliphate (and exactly how it was worse than the states of Europe at the time is beyond me) than they do with European fascist, Nazi and communist movements.

To Roger Eatwell’s list of religious fascist states I would add Franco’s Spain which was trying to establish “The Reign of Christ the King.” So I feel the term works as does Mona. She however, and many others want to shy away from the term, because even if the term is accurate they wish to avoid the term for the same reason as Wiegel, they feel it helps their political adversaries, the Bush administration who, in the words of Jack Reed:

And what they’re looking for is a kind of a connection, a symbolic connection, between the struggle against Nazism and fascism in Italy. And I think, again, it misperceives the nature of the threats we face today.

……

And again, I think it goes to the point of that their first response is, you know, come up with a catchy slogan, and then they forget to do the hard work of digging into the facts and coming up with a strategy and resources that will counter the actual threats we face.

It is common in politics to approach those you disagree by claiming it is all just politics, but that hardly seems to fit this case. Men and women from various ideological perspectives have argued for defining the struggle in this way for some time. The Bush administration has avoided it until recently. I suggest a better explanation. They believe it’s true. Many people, hardly fans of Michael Savage as Wiegel wants to claim, have been arguing for this outlining of the problem accurately for a long time. Acting as if our beliefs are just a sham to drum up fear is false. The Bush administration may be wrong in how to deal with Islamic Fascism and the other totalitarian threats we face in the Muslim world, but they believe that that is what we are facing. For those such as Mona who acknowledge what we are facing, they just disagree about its danger, or how to deal with it, yet want to avoid the term I have to say I think that is very short sighted. (more…)

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