Why Peace: I love a good argument. (Must imagine that with Monty Python accent.) Currently there has been a "blog debate" proposed which seems interesting. Partisans of both sides, for and against war on Iraq, have developed questions to ask the other side. (I didn't take part in that; I might have suggested some other questions for the warmongers, but the ones there are good enough.) Anyway, without further ado links to Cross-Blog Iraq Debate: The Questions, and also the same questions posted on Stand Down.
Here's my take on the questions from the warmongers.
1) If you were President of the United States, what would be your policy toward Iraq over the next year? What advantages and disadvantages do you see in your proposed policies versus the current path being pursued by the Bush administration?
I would, first of all, pull back all military forces. I would apologize to the world for my shameless warmongering, and announce the new US policy of isolationism: trade with all, entangling alliances with none. And I would announce in particular that the US renounces aggressive, unprovoked war. That we view it as profoundly destabilizing.
Second, I would end the American sanctions. It is the right of all peaceful people to trade freely, including American citizens, and this right should not be abridged by the US government. (If the UN wants to keep up the sanctions, I would disapprove, but that's their business.)
The disadvantage of such a course should be obvious enough: Saddam stays in power. The Iraqi people continue to groan under his boot. Lucrative oil-service contracts remain with French, German, and Russian companies, not American companies. The advantages I will get into shortly.
2) Is there any circumstance that you can conceive of where the United States would be justified in using military force without the support of the UN Security Council --- or does the UN always have a veto against US military action for whatever reason?
I put little credence in the U.N. So it matters not what they say: that a war is justified or not; their support has no bearing on whether or not the US should fight.
The US should go to war only to defend the life, liberty, and/or property of US citizens. In such circumstances, assuming the offender is another state or organization which cannot be negotiated with to cease its offenses, then war may be justified. Otherwise, war is unjustified, and being what war is, evil.
3) American and British military force has allowed Northern Iraq to develop a society which, while imperfect, is clearly a freer and more open society than existed under Saddam Hussein's direct rule. Do you agree that the no-fly zones have been beneficial to Northern Iraq --- and if so, why should this concept not be extended to remove Hussein's regime entirely and spread those freedoms to all Iraqis?
Yes, the no-fly zones are beneficial. There's a simple reason for this: nonhomogeneous states don't work, to the extent that they are socialistic. And Iraq is extremely socialistic. In such circumstances Kurds cannot live "with" Tikrits, for the simple reason that "with" isn't really "with"; it's "under". The Kurds are clearly better off not under Saddam's thumb. Saddam is a cruel dictator. No surprise there.
Bush, if he had balls, would carve up Iraq and make three nations that might actually work as modern nation-states. But this won't happen.
The reasons not to "extend the zone" are the reasons not to be at war in the first place. There are two. First, aggressive war is unjust, and thus evil. See above. Second, war is not the national interest of the United States. Pushing around Arabs will not make us friends in the Arab world, long term, or short term. The exertion of force certainly can get us fearful allies, like Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. But they are not friends. Bullies don't have friends.
Other nations are our friends not because we push them around, but because they are tied to us by culture, history, and trade. These are things which build lasting friendships. Not aggression.
Nation-destruction is something modern nation-states can do effectively. We can conquer Iraq. Nation-building is not something the nation-state can do. We may even try, halfheartedly, to rebuild Iraq. But regardless of our effort level, we will fail. Iraq will get a new dictator, though, one quite friendly to the US - just like the Saudis. This will leave a bunch of pissed-off Iraqis. And they will, with some fairness, blame the US. This will be a new pool of talent for Muslim extremists to recruit in.
Meanwhile, the American belligerent stance vs Iraq, and our dovish negotiation with North Korea, are making it clear to every repressive regime in the world that the US respects only nuclear weapons. What they will do, given this awareness, seems rather obvious.
Given nuclear proliferation, and given the open nature of our society, it becomes obvious that someday terrorists will have both the will and means to hurt us badly. We may be able to affect the speed at which that day comes, but not its coming. The main warmonger argument seems to be that somehow the nuclear genie can be contained. It cannot, barring a world-state with police powers that should be unacceptable to any American.
The question is thus: when the day comes that terrorists have a nuke, what sort of relationship do you want the US to have with the world? One of aggression, hegemony, and the resulting anger and resentment? Or one of peace and free trade, and the resulting uncaringness?
I choose the latter. And given the level of anger and resentment that there currently are, I think it is imperative for the US to start acting peacefully now, so that in ten or twenty years when the bad proliferation happens, it is not us that terrorists select for their target.
4) Do you believe an inspection and sanctions regime is sufficient and capable of keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of the Hussein regime --- and should this be a goal of U.S. policy? In what way is an inspection/containment/sanctions regime preferable to invasion? Civilian casualties? Expense? Geopolitical outcome?
Yes, I believe an inspection and sanctions regime is sufficient and capable of keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of the Hussein regime. For instance, something like what the Germans and French are currently proposing.
However, I do not regard having anything to do with inspections as in the interest of the US. Saddam is no threat to us, with or without WMDs. Or anyway, no more of a threat than many other possessors of WMDs. These weapons, in general, are a threat. Their possession by any country increases the risk that they will fall into undeterrable hands. But we cannot eradicate WMDs; the best we can do is try to maintain a world where most regimes don't feel the need for them. Especially tinhorn dictators and impoverished basket-states, which are the ones which will feel most imperiled by US aggression.
Furthermore, as the warmongers' question above alludes, I think an inspections regime which works can only be maintained by rather high levels of threatened force. Iraq is cooperating more now only because of the threat of war. Remove the army (as I would do), and Iraq would cease to cooperate. Inspections cannot work without threats. (National sovereignty is like that.)
I am rather agnostic on the question of whether or not inspections (with necessary force backing them) is superior to simple invasion. Either are acts of war. Outright attack has the disadvantage of destroying the lives and property of many priceless, precious innocent individuals. But it promises liberty for the survivors; and over time inspections (and the army placed there to make them happen adequately) are injurious to our own liberty, while being useless to Iraqi liberty. It's a hard call either way.
Fortunately, I regard this choice as moot. Simple withdrawal and peaceful relations are better than either option. Peace is both moral and practical.
5) What, in your opinion, is the source of national sovereignty? If you believe it to be the consent of the governed, should liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein's regime be U.S. policy? If so, how do you propose to accomplish this goal absent military action? (And if in your view the sovereignty of a state does not derive from the consent of the governed, then what is the source of sovereignty?)
The source of national sovereignty is the willingness to unjustly use force. The state is akin to a criminal gang writ large, although, very much domesticated. Sovereignty is the bargain between the individual and the State: I "agree" to let it violate my property and liberty. The State agrees not to violate me worse than, well, the average person will put up with. (That's democracy in action.)
Government should spring from the consent of the governed, it is true. But government is not sovereign, unless it arrogates to itself the sole, ultimate right of decisionmaking. This can, practically, never come from the governed, for the exact same reason that I cannot bind third parties in my contracts. You cannot give consent for someone else (at least, not without his consent, or the consent-power of guardianship). In theory one might have a valid nation-state where each person has fully offered his or her consent to the arrangement. It won't happen in practice. People are not uniform like that.
These things stated, I have answered the question. But let me address what I think the 'mongers are getting at.
Is Iraq a horrific example of a state? Yes it is. Is it morally superior to the US? In no way I can think of. Does it violate the life, liberty, and property of its unfortunate citizens far more egregiously than the US does? Yes.
Does this justify "regime change"? Yes, or at least, it certainly justifies force against Saddam and the Ba'athist party, the police, and anyone else in Iraq who is violating people's rights.
If individual Americans want to go and attempt to change the regime in Iraq, I believe that is their right. To the extent that warfare is actually good for foreigners, it should be treated as other international welfare: let it be done privately. Let the bigmouth birds show if they are eagles, or chickens. Let them go to war themselves, not send the army that should be defending me. Let them send their own money, not my taxes.
It is foolish for the American state to attack Iraq (or in general act as a hegemon), for the reason discussed in question (3). The USA is chartered to protect and serve Americans. It is not to help foreigners. If individual Americans, or American organizations, want to help Iraq, then they are welcome to try. But please, leave my country out of it. I don't want the taxes to pay for your bombs. I don't want the liberty restrictions that come with the terrorism your policies provoke. And I don't want the death and destruction that an atomic weapon will bring, to us, as part of that terrorism.
When it comes to welfare - politicians spending your money on others - most conservatives get it. They understand why it doesn't work:
waste caused by a bad incentive structure: people spend money most carefully when they are spending their own money on themselves. They spend money less carefully if it is someone else's money, or if it is being spent on someone other than themselves. Money is spent least carefully when it is someone else's money, being spent on others. This status describes welfare.
moral hazard: you get more of what you subsidize; rewarding antisocial behavior is a bad idea.
rent-seeking: subsidies create client classes; in democracy those classes can vote and make ending or altering subsidies politically impossible.
But when it comes to aggressive warfare, the same people don't get it. Note that none of the three reasons above are different for warfare or welfare.
The main beneficiaries if we remove Saddam are Iraqis, not American taxpayers. By paying for far more "defense" than we need for defense, we encourage warfare; standing armies get used. And quite obviously the warfare state has created a client class: soldiers, defense workers, and the military-industrial complex.
The Rev. Richard "Rich" Weaver, nicknamed "Handshake Man" because of his knack for getting up close and personal with the high and mighty, struck again yesterday morning. ... Weaver, a nondenominational Christian minister from Sacramento, crashed the National Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton, breezing through the ballroom entrance without a ticket and handed President Bush what he later described as an eight-page typed "message from God" about Iraq.
"It's just God, buddy," Weaver [said]. "They asked everyone else for a ticket. They didn't ask me." With his conservative blue suit, neat haircut and hearty, gregarious manner, Weaver easily passed through the metal detector. "I don't try to sneak in," Weaver explained. "I just go where I feel like God wants me to go."
The most heavily protected person in America, and a borderline loony can walk right up to him. He did walk through a metal-detector. Nonetheless, it's a bit surprising.
Conservatives are always saying take a lesson from history. Well, here’s a lesson to take from history: Don’t scorn popular culture. Everyone who bet against the dominant form of popular culture at any point of history has lost the aesthetic bet. Conservatives of Shakespeare’s day hated the theatre, they wanted to close it down and eventually succeeded in doing it in the 1640s. But, again, there’s almost no form of what we now regard as high culture that was not, in it’s own day, condemned. The reason is simple. When a cultural form is popular and alive and vibrant it produces lots of stuff and the majority of it is bad. It is, again, a familiar market argument. What popular culture does is to produce lots of stuff and it has to be sorted out in market fashion over time. You look at products in the marketplace. Most new products are bad and they lose. They lose in the marketplace. At first, it’s easy to criticize them. So, indeed, popular culture is a form of marketplace and, over time, the cream comes to the top and that becomes the source of our great art.
Read the whole interview; it's a very interesting discussion of popular culture and its history, and how conservatives have viewed it.
1) Don’t kid yourself that Saddam might really have nothing to hide. Of course he does. He’s a mass-murderer and an international gangster: a bad man running a wicked Goverment; the British Prime Minister and the US President are good men running good Governments.
2) Don’t hide behind the UN. The organisation may in the end be browbeaten into “authorising” an attack. If it really is your judgment that an attack would be morally wrong or practically hazardous, how could UN endorsement make it wise?
3) Don’t count on France, Germany or Russia to maintain their opposition to war. They may just be holding out for improved offers.
4) Don’t attach yourself to predictions about the military outcome. If the Pentagon thinks an invasion could easily succeed, the Pentagon may be right.
5) Don’t become an instant pundit on internal Iraqi politics, and how Shias, Kurds and Sunnis will be at each other’s throats when Saddam falls. You do not know that.
6) Don’t assume that moderate Arab opinion will be outraged. Moderate Arab opinion likes winners. America may be the winner.
7) Don’t get tangled up in conspiracy theories about oil. It is insulting to many principled and intelligent people in the British and US administrations to say that this can be understood as an oil-grabbing plot. Besides, you drive a car, don’t you? Is the security of our oil supplies not a consideration in foreign policy?
All good advice excepting (7). The war is about oil - in part. And it's worthwhile to point that out. What we should avoid is the meme that the war is only about oil, which is obviously false. Yet it is the clear suggestion of "no blood for oil".
My predictions: there will be a war. The US will win, easily, inflicting perhaps 20000 Iraqi deaths at the price of a handful of American deaths. Most of the deaths will be Iraqi soldiers. Thousands will be civilians. Nobody will care, much. Most of the US casualties will be accidents, not results of enemy activity per se. In the aftermath of the war, all sorts of unsavory things will come out about Saddam and his regime. Chem and biological weapons will be found. Scientists will come forward to tell what they have been doing - trying to develop WMDs. And the torture victims will tell their stories. The Iraqi people will be happy to have been liberated.
France, Germany, and Russia will come around. Their interest in peace comes from three things: great power politics, public opinion, and their current privileged oil-service contracts under food-for-oil. As it becomes clear the USA will attack regardless of what the security council does, the politicians concerned with great-power politics, and the corporations concerned with oil-service profits, will change their tunes. This will result in the states changing policy. Public opinion will remain against the war, but most will shut up quickly after the quick victory comes. (Just look at how much people now talk about Afghanistan.)
The aftermath of the war is what is to be feared. American statists (both right and left) will learn what they always learn from war: that it "works". (It certain does work to destroy; but the state is awful at building.) America will be just as belligerent in future. Iraq will flounder as a democracy. The Wilsonian mission will fail. Muslims worldwide will continue to hate us. The victory will temporarily dampen their enthusiasm, but the failure of the resulting regime and its descent into despotism, unchecked by the USA, will reawaken their hatred. Terrorism will not be affected.
Worst of all, the USA has clearly signalled that every state that does not want to be pushed around by the USA had better get nuclear weapons. The leaders of these states have their own self-interest in mind. So, they will get nukes ASAP. The resulting proliferation will make it easier for terrorists to get a bomb, and eventually they will. And, what with America still pushing around the world, supporting authoritarian regimes like Saudi Arabia, and still being hated for doing so, terrorists will use the bomb on us. New York or Washington. 10-20 years.
NASA Admits Failure: About 2/3 of the way down this page, NASAs 2003 budget estimate from the Office of Management and Budget, there is a graph of launch costs per-pound to orbit. Click here . It's a chart that shows three numbers: the cost to orbit of the shuttle, the cost to orbit of "U.S. Commercial Rockets", and the cost to goal for the "Space Launch Initiative". These numbers are: $12000/lb, $6000/lb, and $2000. Source: NASA and FAA.
NASA's own numbers admit the shuttle is obsolete. And it is striking that even with competition from the heavily subsidized shuttle, commercial vendors still have their launch costs down to $6000/lb. Imagine where they would be if NASA had not monopolizing the business for the past 30 years. Shuttles carry payloads up to 25000 kg, or 55000lbs; so they waste up to $330 million per mission.
It's worth remembering here how NASA sold the shuttle to Congress, way back when. Launch costs then, on Saturn V, were about $10000/lb. (Yes, they are actually worse now.) The shuttle was billed as going to cut costs tenfold - to $1000/lb. That was the promise, the bait-and-switch. Now we have the lemon that resulted. 30 years of technical development; computers cost 1/1000 of what they did then; and the shuttle has actually raised costs. The state in action.
Synthetic Radio Programming: I don't normally link the NYTimes because access to the material is lost after two weeks. But this is really cool: Turning a Digital Database Into Local Radio. The host, Carson Daly, is real. He records snippets: names of songs, intros to artists, jokes, etc. This material is then digitally composed to make different top-ten shows for 11 different cities.
That has not always gone smoothly. Mr. Dunston, the sound designer, said that at one point a new Michael Jackson song, "You Rock My World," unexpectedly showed up on the charts. Mr. Daly was unavailable that day, and because he had never introduced a song by Mr. Jackson, the engineers had to dig through old recordings to find a segment in which he made an offhand reference to the singer. Then they hunted down bits of the song title and assembled all the pieces.
"We had to cobble things together," Mr. Dunston said.
How long until they dispense with the human?
I don't really get why people worry about Clear Channel owning lots of stations. But this is a good example of the market adapting to stupid regulation. Radio stations are mandated to serve local audiences. Well, CC does: digitally. It's a national, localized show.
Interventionism Always Spreads: Jim Henley discusses whether it would be possible to have a libertarian system at home while being interventionist abroad:
It still looks to me like statism abroad leads to more statism at home. For instance, suppose we not only can "rebuild Afghanistan" (which I doubt), but do. Liberals will then demand "How about some 'nation-building' in our [inner city/distressed agricultural regions/declining industrial areas]?" Conservatives will want to know why we shouldn't insist on the same respect for authority at home as we do in the provinces.
I quite agree. There is no bright line separating the rest of the world from us. "Our actions" there are in fact actions of specific Americans, both here and abroad. Those molding foreigners do not cease to be Americans when they return to the states (or when they step out of their government buildings into the DC burbs). If they are successful in molding foreigners, they will naturally feel that American problems need their touch.
As with all socialism, trying to control anything is like trying to push a balloon intro a certain shape. Every squeeze you make will create a bulge elsewhere; only by completely enclosing the balloon, so that you are controlling all of its surfaces, can you dictate the shape.
Shuttle Warning from 1986: "This letter was run in its entirety in the November 1986 edition of Physics Today, the general interest magazine of the American Physical Society.":
Unfortunately, there is another safety problem that has no easy remedy. The problems with the insulating tiles are well known, and the potential for disaster if a tile is lost over a critical area of the shuttle reentry is obvious. What is not so well known is that such a disaster has almost occurred. One shuttle on the reentry came within seconds of burning through a main wing support due to loss of tiles. The failure of this support would have caused the shuttle to crash, killing all on board.
Given the size of the shuttle, it is not feasible to return to the proven heat-resistant alloys used on previous manned space vehicles. Given the problems with keeping the tiles attached during launch and reentry, it is inevitable that despite NASA's best efforts a critical tile will someday fall off and another shuttle crew will go up in flames with their shuttle.
It seems that we're going to blow up Iraq. Some folk will call it a war, but it'll be more like drowning a litter of puppies. Iraq is a primitive country and hasn't got a chance. That's convenient, and lots of fun, but it ain't war.
Now, understand: I'm patriotic, and believe in blowing up as many people as possible, wherever we can find them. But… why Iraq? It's mysterious. Sure, Hussein is a good, serviceable, every-day sort of monster and ought to be shot. So are about half the rulers in the world. Why this one? Bobby Mugabe needs it more, I reckon. Have we thought about Zaire?
Explain it to me. A ratpack of Saudis blew up New York, so we're going to wreck Iraq. We're going to do it because Hussein has Weapons of Mass Destruction, except that he doesn't, as far as anyone can tell. The more he doesn't have them, the more we want to blow him up because he does, or doesn't, or would if he did. Maybe.
Expand "Choice": David Boaz would like to see politicians support a woman's right to choose things other than abortions:
I'd like to hear a presidential candidate say, "I believe in a woman's right to choose. I believe in a woman's right to choose whether to have a child. I believe in a woman's right to choose any job someone will hire her for. I believe in a woman's right to choose to own a gun. I believe in a woman's right to choose the school she thinks is best for her child, public or private. I believe in a woman's right to choose what kinds of art she will spend her money on, even if she prefers Madonna or Randy Travis and Congress wants to give her money to Robert Mapplethorpe or Luciano Pavarotti. I believe in a woman's right to choose to drive a cab, even if she doesn't have a license. I believe in a woman's right to choose the employees she wants for her business, even if they don't fit some government quota. I believe in a woman's right to choose the drugs she prefers for recreation, whether she chooses Coors or cocaine. I believe in a woman's right to choose how to spend all of her hard-earned money, without giving half of it to the government."
I'd like to see this line of questioning come up in the campaign. Not that I expect philosophical consistency out of politicians; or even philosophic thoughts, or even thoughts at all. Thinking is not their job. But I would like to see 'em squirm and try to change the subject.
Warning: Learning Might Happen: via instapundit I found this curious item about a class at Berkeley. You don't need to read all of it; just skip to the quoted part:
This course is an elective. That means you are not required to enroll. It is a course predicated on the conviction that students have not been trained to think coherently, rationally and empirically about the modern world. It conveys non-standard opinions, which you are not required to accept, but with which you must deal.
Tony Martin, the farmer jailed for shooting dead a teenage burglar, last night learned he will not be freed early because he still refuses to concede what he did was wrong.
The parole board is believed to have taken into account probation reports suggesting he might again attack a burglar if his home was broken into, and also that he was living in the past.
Look for crime rates in Britain to continue to escalate. How long until they regain sanity? Prohibition lasted for years here in the US...
It all began when the Omer city government promised to extend the existing water line to connect the new home the Perrys were building, but halfway through construction, the government changed its tune, claiming the city government's coffers were bare and it couldn't afford the pipeline extension. ... [but] Omer is still levying taxes on the Perrys for providing water!—a tax bill for service the Perry's weren't even getting.
In an interview Cheryl Perry had a very common sense reaction to this action by Omer's governmental bureaucracy: "I don't feel I should have to pay because I don't get the water."
Such effrontery!
When petitioning one's government for redress of grievances proved to be a farce, Cheryl Perry turned the tables on the bureaucrats: if she had to pay the tax because she lived in Omer, she would secede from Omer and take her new house and land with her.
And she did! A tiny hint of the power of anarchy in action. When there is competition for government services, when you can take your business elsewhere effectively, there is an inherent limit on the ability of the state to screw you over.
Protest: I attended the antiwar rally in Washington. I had intended to meet up with Jim Henley and his crew, but that did not come off as planned. So I walked to the rally by myself, and spent the first half hour or so wandering around the edges of the crowd. Lots and lots of lefties. The crowd was very white given the general makeup of the left in America, and also given that it was meeting in the middle of a city full of African Americans. "No blood for oil" and Bush hatred leave me cold as antiwar arguments. War is the health of the state - that's the argument that matters to me. No taxes for war. No liberty for oil. Aggressive war is evil.
Eventually I found some people with libertarian Party signage, so I went over and introduced myself and stood with them. They had cleverly positioned themselves where people were walking around the edge of the demonstration, so they could hand out propoganda, but enough to the side of the stage and speakers so that we could not make out what the speakers were saying. Met some interesting folks, very normal seeming libertarians. Eventually Jim found me and we chatted briefly, but it was already 12:30 by that time. I had a lunch date with my brother so I took off.
I need to get a big Gadsden flag for this kind of thing. That way the few other anarchists and libertarians who might be there can see where to meet.
"I want it to be run like a real business. Like, 'here, we have our people,' and they come. The people who bring me pot - they're like that. You call a number; they're there in ten minutes. Every time, any time. They're these cute indie rocker bike messengers. I really like that. But it's the nature of the drug - the service, you know, because you've all of a sudden you've gotta screen people for not stealing it, and cutting it, and I guess that's where the problem comes."
She pauses.
"And the illegality of it," she adds.
Well, certainly an entrepreneurial opportunity here. How much longer will the insane war on (some) drugs continue?
Equality of Outcome: the fight for true equality in America continues: Radley Balko reports on new legislation for Affirmative Casualties:
WASHINGTON - Rep. Charlie Rangel (D- NY) took his "fairness in the military" proposal a step further this week. The congressman is now calling for what he calls "affirmative casualties" in war, a move he says will "ensure that the dead and maimed statistics coming back from the battlefields of any future U.S. military engagements look more like America."
Nonproliferation is slowly failing. North Korea has won already, and other countries will win too. Why? Because the entire international community simply is not going to follow a course of nonproliferation in concerted cooperation. The "international community" is more fictitious than most "communities" that get invoked in domestic politics. Just as the United States is not, pace what you hear when the Democrats hold their conventions, "like a family," the nations of the world are not a meaningful community
Read it all; it's long but all good (and perfectly correct).
The Liberal Press: an old Slate piece on How Slatesters Voted. 40 people working for Slate explain their 2000 Presidential votes. Three are noncitizens, so I give their would-be votes in parentheses:
