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Clayton Cramer's BLOG |
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Clayton's commentary on news and events of the day. Broadly speaking, I'm a conservative with libertarian sympathies (getting more conservative as my children get older).
 Never forget! I'm running for Idaho state senate I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page).
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Saturday, April 05, 2003
Can The Government Compel You to Fund Attacks On Yourself? Interesting article from the Sacramento Bee about a lawsuit being filed by the tobacco companies: Two giant tobacco companies have sued the Davis administration, saying they are tired of the bashing they get in state-sponsored anti-smoking television advertisements and don't want to take it anymore.In essence, Governor Davis is saying that the results of those ads (and they are very well done--being a former resident of California, I remember them) are so good that it doesn't matter that they may not be accurate. That's the sort of answer I would expect from one of the most effectively cynical and dishonest politicians in America today. (I voted for him in the 1998 primary--boy, do I feel stupid.) Now, some of you are probably saying, "They deserve it!" I don't have any respect for the tobacco industry--it's a vile habit, and one that causes severe health problems for a sizeable minority of smokers--but that doesn't mean we can let the government do anything it wants to them. Let's change a few of the players a bit--and see if your sentiments stay the same. The State of Utah decides to tax restaurants that are open seven days a week, and uses the money to run an ad campaign that portrays businesses that are open seven days a week as greedy, utterly unconcerned for their employees--perhaps with an implication that the owners of such businesses aren't "one of us" (read: non-Mormon). (I tried to find a nice sit-down restaurant open in Provo, Utah, on a Sunday evening once--hence this example.) Do you suppose that such restaurant owners might have reason to be upset about being forced to fund a campaign of personal attack on themselves? Let's imagine that the State of Idaho (where anal and oral sex are still illegal) figured out a way to tax homosexuals (I don't know how--maybe a tax on Village People albums, vibrators, and lubricating jellies). Then, they used that money to fund an ad campaign that portrayed homosexuals as transvestites, child molesters, serial killers, and a few other common stereotypes. (They could use film of the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade, and some clips of John Wayne Gacy in his clown outfit). Do you suppose that homosexuals would object to being forced to fund a one-sided media campaign that portrays them in the worst possible light? The State of Montana adds a special tax on all meals served in restaurants that do not contain meat, fish, cheese, or eggs--and uses the money to fund an ad campaign that portrays vegetarians as weirdos, perhaps with pictures of the best known vegetarian of the 20th century, implying that vegetarians at any time might decide to do Holocaust II. Do you suppose that they might get a bit upset about this? There might be a case for taxing cigarettes to discourage buying them. There might be a case for advertising that directly describes the established health risks of smoking cigarettes. There might be a case for showing some of the actual statements by tobacco executives before Congress, denying that cigarettes are addictive, and then showing the internal documents in which they acknowledge that cigarettes are addictive. These fictional ads, however, are a whole different matter--why, you might as well give a pack of falsehoods like Bowling for Columbine an Oscar for Best Documentary. Sounds Like More Despicable Behavior By the Iraqi Government... From an AP news story: British forces in southern Iraq have found hundreds of boxes containing human remains in a warehouse near Zubayr and are investigating how they got there, military officials said Saturday.Why hold on to these remains? I know that most Muslims consider it important to get their dead buried as quickly as possible. Was this some sort of revenge against the families of Iranian soldiers killed in battle? The rest of the story--a bit unpleasant to read in parts, as it describes the bodies and associated photographs--makes it sound like this might be the case. UPDATE: BBC reports that these are indeed, Iranian soldiers, whose remains were recently discovered, and had not yet been returned to Iran. There's a disturbing sentence in the article: "Evidence found at the scene suggests many of the deaths occurred on the premises." That sounds like Iraq executed POWs. Friday, April 04, 2003
The Iraqi Military Can't Even Win When They Cheat An AP news story reports this violation of the laws of land warfare--using an ambulance for military purposes: At one point Friday night, U.S. troops patrolling checkpoints south of Baghdad found an ambulance left behind after an accident. Inside, along with a stretcher, were rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades, military uniforms and helmets - not exactly medical supplies.Think about what this must be doing to the highly macho culture of the Middle East--Iraq's military can't even slow us down when they violate the rules of land warfare--using soldiers in civilian clothes; pretending to surrender, then opening fire; blowing up civilians in cars to get our forces; using civilians as human shields. They are so ineffective as warriors that even cheating doesn't help them. At least part of the problems that the Arab world has are because there's a lot of pride in their past--and there was much to have pride in, six centuries ago--but precious little to be proud of today. Warriors? Only by attacking unsuspecting civilians. Arts and sciences? Not much recently--and the best of their current work tends to be pretty hostile to the current culture, like some of the feminist literature out of Egypt. The only thing that most of the Arab world has going for it is a pile of oil--and that's not something that the Arabs developed, or for which they found a use. Nice To See Civilized Behavior From a Lawyer And an Iraqi lawyer, at that! This ABC news story is about the Iraqi lawyer who, at considerable personal risk, assisted the U.S. in rescuring PFC Jessica Lynch. Do you suppose that there might be a job for him in the occupation government? I sure hope so! Thursday, April 03, 2003
Why Lying Doesn't Work Very Well A BBC report: Despite the government denial of coalition forces being near Baghdad, Iraqi officials reportedly told Reuters they had captured five US tanks and downed a helicopter during fighting near the airport, and promised to broadcast video on TV shortly.I thought the thugs that ran Iraq were smarter than this. Maybe without the only brain that was trusted to tell them what to do... Who Wants Iraqi Civilians Killed? The Iraqi govenrment, it seems. There is a major battle under way at the airport, so CNN is reporting: Checkpoints around the capital were closed and Iraqi civilians were not being allowed to leave, a source in the city told CNN.I expect that when civilians get killed (as is inevitable, walking into combat), liberals will blame the U.S., not the Iraqi govenrment. It seems like liberals hate America more than they hate totalitarian thugs. Why is that? Iraqi Torture Chamber Yeah, another reminder of what happens when you "make peace peacefully"--the victims don't get the benefits of that peace. Why Are They Wearing Gas Masks? From an AP news story about the current battle at Baghdad International Airport: _South of Baghdad, the 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry, came under sniper fire and saw something truly chilling, according to CNN's Walter Rogers: upward of 20 dead Iraqi troops wearing gas masks. Rogers, attached to the unit, gave no indication that chemical weapons had been used.I don't know how many of you have ever worn a gas mask, but even for a couple of minutes, it's not pleasant, and especially so in 90 degree plus weather. Keep in mind that you lose quite a bit of peripheral vision with most gas masks--not at all nice in combat. I have enough experience wearing one that I wouldn't do it in a combat situation unless I thought there was some possibility that gas was going to be used. This may be why the battle has been so mild up to now--Hussein is getting ready to prove that we were right about his weapons of mass destruction. More Evidence That Women Can't Be Effective Soldiers From the Washington Post account: Pfc. Jessica Lynch, rescued Tuesday from an Iraqi hospital, fought fiercely and shot several enemy soldiers after Iraqi forces ambushed the Army's 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company, firing her weapon until she ran out of ammunition, U.S. officials said yesterday.For those of you who are sarcasm-impaired: the title of this entry is sarcasm. I would love to know what the Iraqi soldiers who captured PFC Lynch were thinking. I would hope one of their thoughts was, "No wonder we're losing to the Americans. Even their teenaged girls are dangerous warriors!" "Nearly one in 10 schools have reported incidences of guns being brought onto their premises, a survey claimed today." Where? Which benighted American state has such loose gun control laws? Whoops! Britain! From today's Guardian: Nearly one in 10 schools have reported incidences of guns being brought onto their premises, a survey claimed today. Wednesday, April 02, 2003
Is This a Sign of Cultural Progress? Rape isn't shocking. It wasn't shocking when I was a kid. What's shocking is the complete lack of fear that these rapists had of being caught in the act--and their ages: 12, 12, 13, and 14. Police say a 12-year-old student at Eugene Butler Middle School said she was late for class and was heading to the office to get a pass when she was pulled into the bathroom by one of the boys.When I was young, this sort of thing might have happened in high school, and been shocking. But when the rapists and their victim are this young? I have to ask myself: what's going on here? Is the constant exposure of boys this young and younger to sexually explicit and degrading material perhaps a factor? Oh, this isn't an isolated incident: School officials tell us that of seven sexual attacks in Duval schools last year, five of them happened at Eugene Butler. The Antiwar Movement: Keeping the Torturers in Business A couple of reminders that torture is the order of business for the government of Iraq. I was watching NBC this morning, and one of their embedded correspondents told how he was approached by an Iraqi who spoke English. "Are you a journalist?" On being told that he was, this Iraqi told him that an American POW was being held in a local hospital, and was being tortured. That POW turned out to be PFC Jessica Lynch, rescued yesterday by U.S. forces. The two Newsday reporters that were released a couple of days ago from Iraqi prison have this account of life in the prison: Adding to the tension, they said, was that they often heard the screams of other prisoners being tortured and saw some with their eyes and faces bloodied and swollen. "There were beatings and torture going on outside our cells, in the corridor, literally," McAllester said. Other inmates hobbled around, apparently because the soles of their feet had been burned or otherwise injured. I keep getting these emails that say, "Make peace peacefully." And how does one make peace peacefully with people that torture? What possible excuse could the Iraqi forces have had for torturing PFC Jessica Lynch? There could not have been any useful intelligence information that she had--a PFC in a maintenance unit. Some people just like to cause suffering. What appeal to conscience can the antiwar movement make to such people? UPDATE: A reader pointed out that a number of countries with whom we are allied (like Saudi Arabia) are rather partial to the use of torture. No question about it. If any of them were a threat to our safety, it wouldn't bother me in the least to use force to prevent them from injuring us. It also wouldn't bother me to use force to stop them from torturing their citizens. But that doesn't mean that the U.S. has an obligation to resolve all the world's ills. If Saddam Hussein was content to mistreat, torture, and murder his own citizens, year after year, but didn't have weapons of mass destruction programs, a history of invading other countries, and what seem to be at least plausible connections to al-Qaeda, it would be hard to justify spending the blood, the money, and the political capital to remove him. I would be more than happy to fund with my taxes, and out of my own pocket (were it lawful) revolutionary groups trying to remove him. The moral case for invading Hussein is his tyranny, but the reasons of state case for it is that he represents a serious and undeniable threat to U.S. allies in the region (some of which, like Kuwait, are actually pretty respectable governments), and a plausible threat to the U.S. itself. This doesn't mean that every government that represents a threat to us is a good reason to pull out the weapons and start firing. The People's Republic of China has an awful human rights record (per capita, not as bad as Iraq, which isn't saying much), represents a clear threat to a U.S. ally and functioning democracy (Taiwan), and has made veiled threats against the U.S. as well. But it should be obvious that going to war with China would be one of the greatest disasters in recent history--with millions of Americans killed, perhaps hundreds of millions of Chinese killed, and an economic disaster unprecedented in my lifetime. I do not doubt that in 10-15 years, this disaster may happen, as a result of Chinese miscalculation about Taiwan, or China's government becoming arrogant in its expansionism (a recurring problem for centuries with China--Tibet's just the most recent example). We might also get lucky, and see China liberalize as a result of economic growth, preventing this coming disaster. As long as the possibility of liberalization remains open, and the risk of them starting a war with us relatively controlled, it would insane and immoral to go to war against China--the losses would be so large. These same cost-benefit calculations do not fit Iraq. The risk was very high, and the costs relatively restrained. Tuesday, April 01, 2003
When Progressive Newspapers Tell The Antiwar Movement to Grow Up... It means that the antiwar movement has lost the battle for the hearts and minds of the left--never mind the vast majority. This is a really, really interesting piece out of LA Weekly which, along with its mistrust and dislike for George Bush, at least admits: The full energy of this article, however, is devoted to pointing out that the antiwar movement is more interested in venting its rage, than in persuading anyone to their point of view: But talk about quagmires. The peace movement, which promises so much in its scope and energy, itself remains bogged down in a minimalist program of simply and only opposing U.S. military action. That’s hardly enough. The movement suffers a malady similar to that of the Bushies, but in reverse: smart principles but dumb — no, make that stupid — operational politics. Pure rejectionism, since the outbreak of war makes the peace movement as blind and indiscriminate as a WWII-vintage iron-cast bomb, though considerably less dangerous and infinitely less powerful.To the credit of the author, instead of making excuses for Saddam Hussein--as too many leftists have--he says quite directly that as much as he opposed this war, there is a silver lining: Second, and more to the point, about the only silver lining in this American misadventure for the Iraqi people is that it does the spell the end of one of the most barbaric 30-year dictatorships on the face of the Earth. To call off the tanks at this juncture, thereby saving Saddam’s skin, would be a double betrayal of the Iraqi people. With all the miscalculation, hubris, arrogance and imperial disdain that undergird this war, at least let its only saving grace be consummated by leveling Saddam’s regime. Arguing By Analogy One of the hazards of arguing by analogy is that analogies are necessarily imperfect; the map is not the place it describes. A peace activist relative sent me the following recently: "Waging war to make peace is like committing rape to encourage chastity." (Those of you old enough to remember Vietnam will recognize this as a slightly cleaned up version of a very popular antiwar saying.) Let's see if two can play at that game: "Waging war to make peace is like infecting people to prevent disease." Except that "infecting people to prevent disease" is also called "vaccination"--the introduction of either a live or attenuated version of an organism into the body to prevent a later full scale infection. War is also like that--sometimes. Italy, Germany, and Japan, not so many years ago, were warlike nations under fascist leadership. We made war against them, and transformed those societies. None of them are particularly warlike anymore. (One might even make the case that the cure was a little too successful with Germany--a nation now so hostile to war that it budgets for smallpox vaccine for the whole population, while pretending that the likely source of such a biological warfare agent isn't a threat.) Remember: if an idea fits on a bumper sticker, it's seldom terribly thoughtful. Monday, March 31, 2003
Boise Area Iraqis Speak Out On The War This article is from the Idaho Statesman, by Idaho standards, a very liberal newspaper: Although Iraqi troops appear to be fighting harder than some expected, Boise Iraqis persecuted by Saddam Hussein's government say they remain confident that U.S.-led coalition forces will succeed in liberating their homeland.Boise has "peace protests" pretty regularly, but I don't see anyone at them that looks like they are from the Middle East. It's a spoiled rich kids and aging Vietnam War protesters sort of thing. Sunday, March 30, 2003
A Heart-Warming Story To Upset Peace Activists Everywhere From Yahoo: Iraqi civilians fleeing heavy fighting have stunned and delighted hungry US marines in central Iraq (news - web sites) by giving them food, as guerrilla attacks continue to disrupt coalition supply lines to the rear. Sorry, I've Just Suffered An Irony Overload I have an old email account from an ISP out in California. Even though I closed out the account more than a year ago, the email account still works. Unfortunately, at some point, that email address got handed around to the professional spammers, and the volume of spam that arrives in that inbox makes it nearly useless. As I was going through, trying to update my list of spam-deleting rules, I found myself REPEATEDLY getting email for a product named Mail Wiper that starts out with: "Tired of Deleting Junk Mail?" Oh yes, I'm tired. And I'm tired of deleting email that starts out with: "Tired of Deleting Junk Mail?" The vast majority of this spam claims to have an "unsubscribe" button, but I don't believe for a second that any of these vultures are doing anything with those unsubscribe requests except dropping them into the bit bucket. It seems that 3/4 of this crap is extraordinarily poorly targeted--with an enormous number of emails that start out, "We know how important golf is to you...." Golf? I've never golfed in my life, and I doubt that I ever will. Another 1/4 or 1/5 of the spam of it probably violates federal statutes about obscenity and minors. I have tried my best to remain libertarian on the notion of Internet freedom, but when people are sending out unsolicited email offering pictures of women having sex with animals, I start to think of the virtues of prison time. How do they know I'm not ten years old? Some of this stuff crosses the line from degrading to encouragement of criminal behavior. One piece of pornospam I received recently suggested sharing their product "with any adolescents in your house," with an implication of where this might lead. I am angered and exhausted by how much of this garbage I have to dispose of daily. Even the process of adding message process rules exposes me to stuff that should only be found in an abnormal psychology textbook (or the San Francisco Bay Area, which is much the same thing). Another discouraging sign: diploma mills offering "UNIVERSITY DIPLOMA'S." If you don't know when to use apostrophes, why should I buy a bogus diploma from you? Another Peace Activist Goes to Iraq, Becomes a War Activist Astonishing article by a second generation Iraqi-American who went to Iraq to show "solidarity" with his people--and was told, at a Christian "peace service," out of earshot of spies: Sitting next to me was an older man who carefully began to sound me out. Apparently feeling the freedom to talk in the midst of the mingling crowd he suddenly turned to me and said `There is something you should know.` `What` I asked surprised at the sudden comment.Not a spectacularly well-written article, but truth is more important than eloquence. Thanks to instapundit.com for pointing me to it. Read it--send it to your peace activist friends. Another Reason That Liability Lawyers Need To Be Held Accountable For Frivolous Lawsuits Remember that horrible nightclub fire February 20th in Rhode Island, when a band called Great White set off fireworks inside, the "sound insulation" (really, just foam) caught fire, and huge numbers of people died? The lawyers aren't content with suing the band (who set off the fireworks inside), and the nightclub (who might have some liability if they knew the band was going to set off pyrotechnics, and probably have some liability for the non-fireproof insulation). Now they are suing Clear Channel Communications, which owns a radio station that ran a paid advertisement for the concert, and Anheuser-Busch, because they had arranged a Budweiser T-shirt giveaway for that night at the nightclub. Deroy Murdoch at National Review Online reports: Rather than simply target this rock act and the owners of the now-incinerated venue, one trial lawyer already has sued Clear Channel Communications and Anheuser-Busch. Others are considering joining in. Supposedly, those companies should pay, big time, for promoting this event.This is one of the reasons why lawyers are held in such contempt in America. (Sign here in Boise: "99% of lawyers discredit the rest.") Does anyone seriously believe that either the radio station or Anheuser-Busch could have, or should have, forseen that: 1. Great White would set off pyrotechnics indoors. 2. That the nightclub had cheaped out on non-fireproof sound insulation. 3. That there would be a fire that would cause massive loss of life? You advertise a lawful product; that doesn't make you liable for unforseen--and unforseeable--results of a chain of disasters. The only way that Clear Channel Communications and Anheuser-Busch could protect themselves from a suit under this legal theory would be to take over the government's job--performing governmental regulation, and doing it more effectively than the government managed to do--because the government failed to prevent this tragedy. This suit makes the lawsuits against gun makers for actions taken by people that are four and five steps removed from the gun maker seem almost reasonable by comparison. You could make a much stronger case for suing whatever Rhode Island agency regulates bars for having failed to determine that the bar had failed to use non-fireproof sound insulation. Make no mistake about it--this is the sort of greed that discredits trial lawyers, and lawyers in general--a desire to find some deep pockets no matter how irrelevant those parties are to the injuries. Thanks to Zonitics for the pointer. |
