Why we need a presumption against aggression

Al Queda seeks softer approach

Joe Nye's ideas around soft power are excellent. They are the basis for my own work. His insights into the need to look at the broader picture of values and culture to understand power are very important, I think, and unique enough to have his work stand out for me as some of the most important in international policy and security.

Having said that, there is something missing in Joe's analysis. And it is something that has consequence.

Soft power is a good idea. Except when it is used to rationalize manipulating others for ends that are not their own. Meaning, soft power is a good idea except when it is used to circumvent the very liberal democratic principles and liberal values - namely self-determination and self-governance - that are the basis for its strength.

As I argued for Joe on his blog, soft power, without a presumption against aggression, force, and the use of power, is illiberal in both theory and practice unless there is an understanding that aggression, force, and power are to be presumed against.

Gangsters, terrorists, and despots all use some combination of hard and soft power to seek their ends, as this article on the changing tactics of Al Queda demonstrates. Gangsters pay off allies as well as kill their enemies. Terrorists persuade their followers - and, most recently, terrorist groups like Hamas and Al Queda have been explicitly using manipulation around concepts of forgiveness, just as too many in the West have done the same in popular political arguments - as well and as a means of continuing their efforts to murder innocent civilians. Dictators like Saddam Hussein and terrorist groups like Hezbollah or violent groups like the Black Panthers provide social services as well as killing and intimidating.

Decent liberal democratic peoples need to create and carry a presumption in their thinking against such barbarism and rationalization if we are to honestly account for distinctions between the aims and values of liberal democracies and the aims and values of gangsters, terrorists, and despots. Otherwise such groups have a much easier time persuading civilian populations to join or support their ranks.

It is what made pursuing and prosecuting the ugly and power-hungry practices of the Mafia in the early 20th century so difficult, as prohibition against alcohol made heroes of murderers and thugs for citizens fed up with laws against a favorite pasttime. And it is what fuels the violence in both that trade and in the contemporary drug trade, where a favorite, if often foolish, recreation of so many citizens is made illegal and therefore underground and enforced by the arbitrary use of weapons and mayhem by gang leaders rather than openly consumed with an expectation of responsibility for its use and decency and rough law-abidance in the trade, a fact that is undermined by the laws against its use as much if not more than by those who use it and break the law doing so.

But much more important than the folly of the drug war, an absense of a presumption against aggression, force, and power as a means in a liberal democratic society for resolving problems, and a presumption for conscience, thought, engagement, debate, discussion, and committed efforts for doing the same, means that other actors who also carry no such presumption, like Hezbollah, Hamas, Chinese Communists and the Myanmar military junta, dictators like Kim Jong Il and Robert Mugabe, and groups like Al Queda, featured in this article, simply switch tactics, become softer in their approaches to win support, and never face the clear need to take liberal values and liberal democracy more seriously.

And neither do we.

The liberal democratic world, and Americans as members of that community, needs to presume against aggression, force, and power, as a general principle, if they are going to make the distinctions between liberal values and the tactics of gangsters, terrorists, and despots clear enough, and to make the choice more clear between liberal and illiberal values and instititutions.

Otherwise, people in liberal societies and institutions really do begin to look much more like their illiberal brethren. And the harder it is to make the distinction, the more support organized crime figures like the mafia and violent gangs leaders and members, terrorists like Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al Queda, and dictators and despots like Kim Jong Il, Fidel Castro, and Robert Mugabe and less despotic yet still illiberal leaders like Vladimir Putin and Wen Jiaboa, and all of the less liberal practices and their practicioners in liberal and illiberal corners of the world and those who take seriously, practice, and elaborate on more genuinely liberal values. And that does not even mention the poor governance practices in liberal governments that romanticize power and fail to account for its failure to address, and often exacerbate, serious problems in their societies.

I have a lot more to argue about this to make it clearer, I know.

But we need a presumption against aggression, force, and power in our dealings with one another if reason and conscience are to have any of the breathing space they need to do for us what it has clearly done for the length of liberal history - help us solve problems that aggression, force, and power cannot solve and which they often make worse because of their propensity to crowd out the very reason and discussion that is needed to solve them.

There is no way to force our way out of this one or to fake progress by force, aggression, or power. These just aren't more genuine means for progress. They are, at best, artificial compromises that have often created as much trouble as they have resolved our problems, and, at worst, rationalizations for the ugliest crimes against humanity that have ever been committed.

It is time we ended that rationalization. And understood, more humbly, liberty and the limits of power.

While I'm at it

I thought I'd share something I haven't shared in a few years. Seems appropriate, right now.

On Valentine's Day, February 14, 2004, Michael Wolmetz described the death of his father two years earlier and then surreptitiously proposed to his girlfriend, Debora Brakarz, on a taped Storycorps audio broadcast for National Public Radio.

A Couple's Tender Moment, on Valentine's Day

It was one of the most beautiful moments I've ever heard caught on radio. A really touching moment.

To all lovers out there, take heart. Valentine's Day is the day to remember why you have it so good. And for single guys like me, it's a day when hope springs eternal.

Is is coincidence that I am so love-obsessed right before Valentines? I have no clue. I just know that I won't ever take such moments for granted ever again in my life. They are too precious. And worth sharing as often as possible with the one you love.

Happy Valentine's, Debora and Michael. And to everyone with and without a sweetie.

Love,
Ben

The Book of Love Part Deux

That Peter Gabriel cover of the Book of Love has been in my head, now, all week. It's gorgeous, if you've not heard it.

It also happens to been originally written and performed, it turns out, by Stephen Merrit and the Magnetic Fields.

I love highlighting less-well-known singers or bands who deserve recogition for the music they write and perform. Dar Williams, a gorgeous folk artist, is one of my favorites for this purpose. Jamie Cullum is a really exciting jazz singer and performer. Patti Griffin is a folk singer who wrote and sang the original version of the Dixie Chicks' Top of the World, both versions being brilliant, if you ever get a chance. Aesop Rock is a recent hip hop artist with a lot of potential who I like (for fun more than for meaning). There's a million of them, really.

But this song really bowled me over. I love the Peter Gabriel version. But the Magnetic Fields version is really authentic and terrific. If e.e. cummings writes a love poem, I want to hear e.e. cummings deliver it, if I can. He's the one who felt what's being said, after all. And if Stephen Merrit writes the Book of Love, and I want to hear him sing what he felt.

Enjoy.

Looking a gift-horse in the mouth

The ever insightful George Will says exactly what should be obvious, at this point, to Democrats, if they will get their heads out of their asses

Democratic Re-gifting

As Will writes:

"Forewarned, Democrats now are forearmed -- not that they will necessarily make sensible use of the gift. Tuesday's voting armed Democratic voters with the name of the candidate that their nominee will face in the fall. Will their purblind party now nominate the most polarizing person in contemporary politics, knowing that Republicans will nominate the person who tries to compensate for his weakness among conservatives with his strength among independent voters who are crucial to winning the White House?

Perhaps. The Republican Party's not-so-secret weapon always is the Democratic Party, with its entertaining thirst for living dangerously."

George Will is undeniably right, here. For Democrats to nominate Hillary Clinton, at this point, would be an incomparable blunder. They know who they're hitting. They know which one of their candidates is more likely to compete for votes in the general election (at least they should know, if they weren't so blinded by partisanship and political fights of the 60's and the New Deal). If Democrats don't know which one of their candidates is more likely to win a general election, independents like me and Republicans like my family members do. And it ain't Hillary Clinton, that's for damned sure.

The truth is that if anyone listens to the right, these days, as they have discussed and contemplated which Democratic candidate they would rather live with, while they have tossed and turned and waxed ambivalently on the matter, there is a slow but recognizable preference for Obama and his willingness to listen to conservative ideas.

It's so ironic. Bill Clinton was an effective executive, when he was, for exactly the reason that Hillary Clinton and the Clinton campaign, fresh from nostalgia for their fights over Vietnam in the 60's, are running away from today.

Who would have known that the Democrat who would carry the more honest mantle of what worked in the Administration of William Jefferson Clinton would not be another candidate by the name Clinton? Who would have guessed, that in their fond memories of foreign protests against American "imperialism" and impeachment proceedings against a President of a different era, that the Clintons would run away from the very ideas that made Bill Clinton such a far from perfect but very good President?

The Clinton era was marked by a commitment to public/private partnership, a domestic and international outlook that consulted others and other nations as it took action, and a third way that transcended conventional polarized politics of the 20th century. It's dark side was a triangulated arrogance that prioritized positioning over substantial engagement and give and take with the Republican Congress with which Bill Clinton governed.

And, as it turns out, an important shard in that dark crystal has been Hillary Clinton's radical posture, a self-righteous liberal flanking position which assumes that power is more important than reason in politics and political discussion and decisions, at least once you figured out that liberals were right and conservatives were wrong and everything else was just formalities.

I'm referring to Hillary's radical feminism in her youth - if you are not familiar with radical left circles, I strongly suggest David Horowitz's Radical Son which is a damning and all-too-accurate, if somewhat harsh, indictment of the radical left; her repeated engagement in political pressure tactical positioning almost her entire tenure in the Senate, especially her disastrous leadership during Hurricane Katrina (what leader starts a criminal investigation during an emergency rather than helping out with the emergency response?); her triangulating vote for the Iraq war and then whining that she was fooled by the big bad President Bush about weapons of mass destruction when the popular tide favored a left tilt (do you really want someone that gullible to be President? Even if you thought it was true, which is the biggest load of shit I've ever heard in my life. Unless she really is that stupid, in which case, what better reason to not want her in the White House); her work to shore up the liberal base, the majority of voters who go Democratic who are largely uneducated, economically insecure, and otherwise looking for a messiah and thus plenty pliable and easily manipulated by the all-too-manipulative Clinton campaign.

The truth is that radicalism, like terrorism, another more extreme form of political flanking and political pressure for negotiating position, is what weakens liberal democracies. It doesn't weaken the democracy because it compels them to its will, which rarely happens in the bigger picture. It weakens the democracy because it appeals to vanity of its ideological allies that they, and they alone, have the answers to the political problems that individuals, communities, countries and the world face, and that what is necessary is not more thought and debate and discussion and engagement and understanding of those who disagree with you and your thinking. What is missing is action, and enough power to flank efforts to impose their superior wisdom on a recalcitrant population unawares of its unassailable wisdom.

It weakens democracies because it undermines the centrality of the original and not-so-original thought and diverse and democratic engagement in an open marketplace of ideas which is the most important strength, along with the liberty and self-governance central to democratic principles to make decisions for our own lives, in democratic politics. And, more relevant to contemporary politics, it weakens liberal democracies because it feeds the rationalization for terrorism, another form of political flanking and pressure group activity, because it is an identical rationalization taken to a much more deadly and tragic extreme. That is the reason that left-wing and right-wing fringe groups often engage in terrorist activity - to pressure the population into taking their priorities seriously. It's kind of laughable, really, to look to every other explanation of terrorism than the really obvious one as its central purpose. And it's bad for everyone, liberal democratic or not.

In case you missed it, it's bullshit. Same ol' bullshit you see from televangelists and dictators and a whole host of folks through the centuries who were certain that they knew what was good for people whether they fuckin' liked it or not.

And the irony of the whole Clinton charade is that - given all of this bullshit and clearly more unfavorable ratings it has created for the manipulative Clinton campaign - Hillary Clinton now has the gall to argue that she, and she alone, can bring home a Democratic crown in November.

Clinton says she can beat McCain

But the truth is that George is right. It's actually pretty obvious if you're listening outside of your radical/liberal soundproof existence who is more likely to get support from Republicans and independents like me, this election. And it ain't Hillary Clinton. She's just too full of herself to see the writing on the wall on this one.

I'm saying it ahead of time. If Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton, absent some very good argument for her candidacy that I have yet to hear, I am voting for John McCain.

He's just more honest than Ms. Clinton. And I do not live with the pretension that Democrats know more or have better policy prescriptions than they do, and certainly not Hillary Clinton, who has shown very little policy imagination beyond what appeals to that liberal base, meaning very little imagination or original thought, at all.

It's so disappointing watching a party that I have identified with most of my life behave this way. And it makes me very glad that I recognized this ugly, arrogant tendency - in so many liberal politicians, activists, professors, and so many progressives drinking too much of their own koolaid that they have more answers than they do - rather than feeding it.

George Will is right, whether Hillary Clinton likes it or not.

If Democrats are interested in making this race both a meaningful one and one where Democrats will have a shot at having a voice in what leadership will look like in the next 4 years and perhaps having one of their own represent that voice in the form of the Presidency, then Barack Obama is clearly their better pick. He just doesn't carry the baggage with him that entitled ex-first-lady carries. And while radical feminists come out of the woodwork to encourage the shrewd quest for power of their sister-in-arms, Republicans, like most of my family, and independents, like me (my immediately family is very liberal, which has something to do with my skepticism of liberalism as having more answers than it does), are clearly far more enamoured by the humility, the original thinking, the unifying themes, and the inspirational message of Barack Obama.

But, if Democrats aren't interested in that, there's always John McCain. I don't always agree with John. But he's more honest than Ms. Clinton, by my lights, at this point (I'm open to argument about that and everything else in this campaign and anything anyone want to debate anytime, of course; but that's the way I call 'em, at this point).

George may be right. Democrats may look a gift-horse in the mouth on this one. Wouldn't be the first time that Democrats have tripped over their own pride.

But it would be nice to have a more honest race and a more honest choice for the Presidency, this November. Choosing between Barack Obama and John McCain would be much more difficult for me than choosing between Hillary Clinton and either of those two candidates. It'd be nice for me and for America to actually have a decent choice to pick from this November.

America will survive, no matter what she chooses. The question is will we take steps forward in our national debate and discussion and the way it informs our policies and who we are or will we flounder or take steps forward despite our President rather than supported by the quality of their leadership.

Barack Obama and John McCain offer a forward path in that discussion, by my lights. Hillary Clinton offers far less in the way of such leadership. I wish I could say that I had a choice between two really good options among Democrats to move America forward, but that's really not true.

Democrats can either make my choice easier or harder in the 2008 election. I hope for my sake and for the sake of the country, they make my choice more difficult. Because that makes things much more interesting and makes for a much more meaningful discussion of how we can tackle the problems America and the world faces.

May we choose wisely.

Jesus Christ

I thought speech and debate in the States was hypercompetitive.

Scandal hits famed Oxford debating club

Though, to be fair, that kind of drama is everywhere.

We hit an Oxford debate team my freshman year of college. They traveled all over the U.S. debating American teams. They kicked our asses fair and sqaure. On our home turf with our own students and professors and hometown folks voting. It was a great time.

Wouldn't it be nice to have reasonable debates and discussions, somewhere, about important matters where the ideas and outcomes mattered more than the egos?

Though I have to say that speech, debate, literary, comedy, film, research, and university cirlces are about as close as you get. It'd just be nice to have more of that, especially around important political issues, occur in a location that you could count on. Presidential debates hardly fit the bill. The blogosphere is nice and broad and accessible, which is what I like about it. But I'm thinking about something more engaged and serious, with maybe some room for the Eric Cartman in all of us. I'll keep working on that one.

An Obama endorsement

I'm caucusing, tomorrow, in the Democratic primary.

I've been a lifelong Democrat, now independent, who voted in his first election for Republicans like George H.W. Bush for President and, sadly, Eric Yost for Kansas Attorney General. Bill Clinton was a better president than either George Bush, I think. But I don't think he would make a better President another time around, and I definitely don't think his wife, with fewer intellectual or people-person gifts of her husband, would be a better President.

I'm not an Obama fanatic. As an independent, I think I'm pretty realistic about the limitations of an Obama Presidency. I don't like his more conventional liberal turn to government to solve more problems than I really think it can. But I do have to say that the reasons for an Obama candidacy expressed in this Washington Post editorial are ones that resonate with me, especially relative to the cynicism of the Clinton campaign and Hillary Clinton's leadership in most situations I have seen her in, up to this point.

Obama vs. the Phobocracy

It is true that the elements of the Democratic party that turn me off, most, are the fear-mongering, attack-dog, cynical leftist circles that Clinton grew up in, affirms with far too much self-righteous attachment, and which seem to fuel too much of her outlook on the world. It is these circles, on both the left and the right, that are the heart of what is wrong with American democracy, these days. People with far too much bitterness and certainty of their cause with far too little real engagement or skepticism of their own ideas or listening or appreciation of what those who disagree with them think. That is an especially pernicious habit when you are wrong on issues or where the jury is still out, nevertheless when you are right.

It is this kind of arrogance and obsession with power at the expense of reasonable and broad engagement that I think lies at the heart of everything that is corroded and dysfunctional and unwilling, though not unable, to let more reasonable and thoughtful discussion, debate, ideas, engagement, and serious attention to empirical consequence from policy - everything that Enlightenment thinkers wrote and spoke about and often made enormous sacrafices for those of us in liberal democracies to enjoy, today - lead our policy decisions rather than the bitterness, sanctimony, and all-too-certain cynicism that animates too much of politics and far too much of the Clinton campaign, and, I think, another Clinton Presidency.

I think we can expect better. I have my disagreements with Barack Obama and John McCain. Very serious disagreements, often. But I think they come at the discussion more honestly than Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, or other candidates running, right now (though I do hope that the spirit of Ron Paul informs our discussions, even as I am unconvinced that Ron would be a terribly effective leader).

I want politics to get more honest. And I just don't think that Hillary Clinton will take us in that direction, right now. I think Barack Obama will. So I'll be caususing for him tomorrow.

The Book of Love

I am such a cheeseball. I love these things.



This is now one of my favorite Youtube marriage proposals, along with My Early Muir Owl (which I also recommend, if you get the chance), and a million others. It's just so goddamn sweet.

And a love song by one of my favorite singers, Peter Gabriel, The Book of Love, that I'd somehow never heard before. Not everyday that happens. And a really beautiful song.

Way better than porn. Not quite the same, obviously. But you get the idea.

Voluntarism and self-governance

The American Interest has a fascinating cover story in their January/February 2008 edition that gets at the heart of the democratic principles at stake during this political period.

A Call to National Service

The emphasis in this article on voluntary service and self-governance is encouraging during a period of romanticism of top-down and coercive governance. It both embodies DeToqueville's celebration of American democracy as a land of citizens who solved problems without government oversight or prompting and is the basis for much of what has always made American democracy special - in its capacity to inspire Americans to do for themselves and for one another - in a world where monarchs and empires were too often driven by the narrow and often self-centered ambitions of powerful leaders and those with power.

If you have not read Alexis DeToqueville's Democracy in America, I highly recommend this Frenchman's descriptions from his experience trekking across the American landscape providing a first-hand account of the new American democracy in the 19th century and its unique capacity for self-governance and voluntary citizen efforts. Carl Kastle's Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780-1860 is an excellent history of this very spirit among committed citizen in the creation of common schools that are the antecedent to our contemporary public schools and the commitment to education for all children that they embody in America.

This commitment to voluntary citizen efforts being the backbone of American democracy and the American economy are the fundamental strengths in American society and the source of the most sustainable strength in liberal democracies outside of official government responsibilities - national defense and law enforcement, most notably - that only government can exercise authority over (though for both of which voluntary efforts are also required and function most effectively the more citizens are freely responsible for the underlying duties involved).

So a focus on voluntarism and self-governance, during a period of illusions about the power of coercion and top-down governance to solve more problems than either actually can solve is a welcome contribution to the public discussion.

I am ambivalent about the authors' proposal for a National Service American Dream Account, not because I do not believe in its purposes, but because it seems to have serious tension with the underlying strengths of this commitment - that it is self-governing and voluntary rather than goverment taxed and run - and that it seems to be a strange proposal at a time when it is clear that the the Federal budget is very much in the red.

This is the bottom-line on such proposals. I like the idea, generally. If Americans want such an idea, they need to be prepared to pay for it and not bitch about the taxes involved. I think such efforts are better and more sustainably funded and have more integrity to their missions if they are in the private and non-profit sector. But if people want to pay for such an idea through government, so be it, as long as they are willing to pay for it and as long as they are willing to cut government programs that need cutting to balance the budget and end this remarkably foolish policy of servicing the national debt at a rate of more than $400 million for more than $9 trillion dollars of debt.

This is the inherent weakness of having the Federal or even state or local governments be responsible for such efforts rather than having them be genuinely voluntary and self-governing - meaning citizen founded and run. The authors' cite the KIPP Academy as an example of the spirit they would like to encourage, missing the irony, I suppose, that the KIPP Academy, a series of charter schools to help disadvantaged youth, was started explicitly to get out from under government bureaucracy and mandates that had often been counterproductive in regular public schools. Genuinely voluntary efforts - non-profit groups like KIPP or the Red Cross or the United Way, for instance - offer a more sustainable path to more flexible and effective efforts, more room for experimentation and diversity of purpose, activities, and ideas, and more sustainable funding for such efforts that do not require the drama of national and state political fights that generally serve to polarize support for otherwise good and decent programs.

But if people want to adopt such a program, I just suggest that they do so and make peace with the taxes that are involved with funding such efforts and give the administrators plenty of room to handle such programs as they see fit rather than perpetually polarizing such efforts with ideological disputes that often undermine their purposes.

You may note a touch of skepticism on my part that such programs will actually be able to do this while being government run and funded, which is more than reasonable given our history, I think. Because too typically the noble intentions of such programs get drug into the mud of polarized and endless ideological sniping which often undermines decent efforts. When groups like KIPP raise money for their own efforts and they are responsible for its administration, there is often less room for sniping and polarized political efforts to undermine their operations. Not so for publicly funded and operated programs, sadly. Though it would be nice if were not so.

It also would be nice if Americans would reconcile what they want to spend on government programs with what money they are actually willing to spend so the Federal Government does not end up being saddled with almost half-a-trillion dollars in interest on such debt - outside of the over 9 trillion dollars in debt that the U.S. Federal government carries - in order to live beyond our means.

It is a perpetually dysfunctional cycle we have in our politicization of government efforts like this one and our capacity to pay for them, which I think is bogged down in the inherent problems of a budget that noone feels final responsibility for, programs that inevitably get loaded down with ideological baggage, and the coercion inherent in taxation. But if we can somehow escape that tendency with a program like this, it, like the G.I. Bill, might be a worthy effort.

I would like to see us find some resolution around these more fundamental issues, which I'm fairly convinced will only happen the more we transition such efforts into the genuinely voluntary and civil sector, for-profit and non-profit. But absent that, have at it, I suppose. Maybe we can still do some good with a model of governance that will only get better the more we genuinely make peace with the commitments we make. I don't think the fundamental issues will be resolved until we start making a transition of such programs to the private and non-profit sectors and show the willingness necessary to cut the Federal budget to sustainable levels that also free up the economy to do the magic we need it to do to support growth and jobs.

The bottom line is that we need to be more responsible on our choices around such issues. This will happen better the more such efforts are genuinely voluntary in the civil sector rather than government-run, I am convinced. And, worst of all, our current budget and government commitments are a terrible example to the American public for the kind of fiscal self-discipline that they need in their own lives to save, invest, and grow sustainable nest eggs for their own lives and which is the larger and more important solution to many of our more serious budget issues, like Social Security and Medicare, which, ironically, were both started with the same purpose in mind. As always, I am open to being wrong on such issues. But it seems to me that we need to be focussed on helping Americans to learn the kind of fiscal self-discipline that the Federal budget is the poorest possible example for if many of the issues we care about are going to be funded and if those working such programs are to have finances over the course of their lifetimes and in their retirements that will support them. This kind of proposal makes that harder, I think, rather than easier.

Diplomacy or force and the wisdom of Shirin Ebadi

Nobel Peace Prize winner and Iranian human rights activist, Shirin Ebadi, urges direct diplomatic talks to end the stalemate between Iran and the America and the West.

Follow the path of negotiation and peace - An interview with Shirin Ebadi

If I had to choose between Shirin Ebadi or the Bush Administration, the U.N. Security Council, and Western observers for whom would know better the direction of peace, denuclearization, and democracy in Iran, Shirin has the inside track, I think. She does the dirty work that all of those others would not dare to do - pursuing those goals while living within the repressive conditions of Iran. She also has the benefit of being both committed to peace and human rights and being an Iranian citizen aware of the interests and perspectives of her home country and the limitations and pace of more genuine change in her homeland.

What Americans and the West have long misunderstood is that all of the provocative gestures with Iran have not only shored up too much support for a weak leader, but produced dissent among even reform-minded Iranians concerned both with Iran's right to a peaceful nuclear program, it's right to self-defense - independent of American or Western aims - and much more wary of the motives of Washington than suspicions Washington harbors for itself.

That's the problem with an obsession with power. Everyone has good reason to be mistrustful of your designs as long as you pursue it. Because it is a sign that you are more interested in winning your position rather than winning their trust.

And trust is what all parties in this drama, and all parties in most political dramas, must earn if genuine resolution of competing aims is to take place. There is no win that finally resolves our most serious concerns. There is either resolution, or there is not.

And, generally, I trust someone like Shirin Ebadi who clearly is more interested in such resolution than any of the players, especially the Bush Administration, hoping to bluster their way to an endgame. The movement towards diplomatic resolution on the part of Secretary of State Rice is a hopeful one, in this direction. Let's hope that such movement translates into better results than the current policy has produced.

The limits of pressure

The Economist and I have long seen the situation with Iran very differently.

They have favored efforts to pressure Iran, convinced that enough pressure would halt a nuclear weapons program. I have been skeptical, at best, that pressure would resolve this situation in the direction the West preferred, and concerned, at worst, that such efforts had been counterproductive and, in fact - the NIE conclusions not in the least resolving either my concerns or the concerns of the Economist and other observers - accelerated Iran's ambitions to get the bomb. Meaning, my concern has long been that the more the West pressures, the more defiant Iran becomes, and the more they pursue the bomb in their own bizarre and half-witted paranoia and desire for attention and rogue prestige.

Today, the Economist publishes the best case that they or any other publication I have read has made for a likely nuclear program and the closest I have ever read them come to conceding that perhaps pressure is not working.

As the enrichment machines spin on

It is difficult to acknowledge that a favored policy is failing. It is difficult for anyone to admit failure. And it is the sign of wisdom when one is able to do so and correct course accordingly rather than stubbornly clinging to a failed strategy. It is wisdom I have come to expect from the Economist.

It could be that I am wrong and the basis for much of my thought about the world is wrong too. In which case, it would be up to me to admit the same. I'm not convinced of that, yet. And the Economist seems to be conceding that perhaps I am right. But I still may be wrong. And the Economist and others who favor pressure as a political strategy may turn out to be right on this question. In which case I am a kindly young fool who needs to stay in a classroom and out of the way of those real men and women leveraging our way to progress.

As you can see, I'm somewhat skeptical of that notion.

And the fact that the Economist, a long-time advocate of this policy, is skeptical of it, too, should give all of us pause to really consider if, perhaps, such skepticism can yield wiser policy.

Either way, we should all hope that the world community, including Iran, takes the commitments to peace and security that the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty embodies is taken seriously by all of its member countries. And that we do not return to a world of nuclear brinksmanship that was the norm of the Cold War and too much of the 20th century.

And that is a commitment that none of us should blink from.

That's what I'm talking about

Mohammed Yunus is my homey. He and I are very much on the same page.

We can improve capitalism

I highly recommend this interview. This is the future of both addressing wealth inequities, markets, and the future politics of such issues. The American Democratic party doesn't see it quite yet. But they will.

Power follows great ideas. Not the other way around.

The good news

The world's silver lining

The Economist notes our progress at a time when many economies are feeling a little under the weather.

What guts really look like

This is what heroism looks like in the face of force as a governing philosophy.

'I Little Slave': An Interview With Bounsang Khamkeo

Thank you, Bounsang Khamkeo, for your courage.

Why humility matters in foreign policy and in life

Because you really never know.

Interrogator: Invasion surprised Saddam

George Piro, an FBI interrogator who questioned Saddam Hussein after his capture reports on 60 minutes that Saddam intentionally allowed the world to think that he might have weapons of mass destruction to deter another Iranian invasion, believing that his country would experience an attack similar to the 4-day aerial attack the United States inflicted in 1998.

You really never know. That's why it is best to keep communication lines as open as much as possible, so you can always know better than when you shut them down, say when you threaten aggressive action.

It's better to have the lines of communication open, to have access to as much information as possible, because your guessing and conjecture and suspicion and cynical pondering will never, ever come as close to the truth as the truth itself.

Take it from an FBI interrogator.

Maybe it's matters more to play it smarter than tougher?

Generally.

Because a bluff or even the use of blunt force is never as good as knowing for real what you're doing, better. And knowing when and how to use force and what presumptions we have on its use are what make liberal democracies great. So knowing better only makes us greater. And far more effective, generally, while we're at it.

If you doubt that, go talk with Saddam Hussein.

Underwhelmed by kids, these days, and MLK

I never thought I'd hear myself say this.

But, kids, these days.

We studied Martin Luther King in all of my classes, yesterday and some today. King has a lot to do with who I am, today, and the work I do. My school specializes in kids with the most serious behavior and academic issues because I care about the kids and people who are easy to write off, a commitment inspired by King as much as anyone else.

And while some kids showed interest, a lot of kids, both this year and last year - my first two years teaching - have been both underwhelming and often just downright nasty and unbearable in their responses.

One of the responses of my more thuggish children last year to a discussion about Dr. King was "Fuck Martin Luther King."

Thankfully, I've been spared that particular response, this year. But I still faced enough apathy and could-give-two-shits attitude about Martin Luther King and the holiday and the legacy that it honors that I found myself pretty infuriated about it yesterday and still somewhat discouraged today (that and a couple of knuckleheads who just don't seem to ever be able to take responsibility for their behavior).

A lot of it is the particular kids I teach. I teach kids who have the most serious behavior issues. Many of these kids are thugs trying to impress their friends by how cold and hard they can be. And being cold and hard about MLK has got to be a perverse thrill for a lot of kids. I've told my share of Holocaust and dead baby and otherwise un-PC humor to understand this impulse. But it's a pretty shitty impulse to have when you're having a discussion about the serious risks people took and sacrafices people made in that civil rights movement, and King, in particular. And anyone who spends their visit to the Holocaust Museum making Holocaust jokes is kind of a sick puppy and really missing the point in a serious way.

Maybe they're young. Maybe they just don't give a shit. That latter reason is more likely, really, given my experience with them.

It's just discouraging to see people not give a shit about something as important as King's legacy. I imagine attending a funeral with the Phelps' would be worse, so I suppose I should have some perspective.

But it does make me yearn for the days I spent sharing African American seders and engaging in race dialogues with people who gave a shit about such things. It's just nice, knowing how little some people give a shit, to hang out with people who do, every once in awhile.

I gotta go find me an MLK celebration. Or maybe just a decent political discussion. Or maybe just a church. Or maybe take a class.

Wherever decent people congregate.

The pretensions of intellectuals (or why I'm happy to know that my shit stinks)

This is what I cannot abide in the scholarly world.

On the cusp of economic history

It's an interesting article discussing some novel ideas for dealing with equity issues and globablization. The proposal by Nicolas Sarkozy, a conservative politician, commissioning Amartya Sen, the most important liberal economist in the world that I have studied, and Joseph Stiglitz, another recognized liberal economist, to develop a better indicator of economic progress than gross domestic product, is particularly intriguing.

Stiglitz's analysis of economic and policy matters concerns me since he and I work from different assumptions. Stiglitz assumes in much of his analysis that politicians and policymakers can better correct for market failures than participants in markets themselves.

I don't doubt that government can do good at times, and believe in active government efforts that are consistent with free trade principles and the principles of a free economy, generally. Federal Reserve efforts to improve economic growth with interest rate cuts to stimulate investment or tax cuts as economic stimulus for investment and spending are measures that make an immeasurable amount of sense to me to preserve the integrity of free markets and to provide some relief from political pressures for government to "do something" while offering some moderate and temporary stimulus which does moderate good within the market.

I believe government efforts to, for instance, regulate environmental issues would be better cast as collaborative efforts between government, business, non-profit, and other actors to solve environmental problems with freedom for participants to find approaches that best address various issues and accounting for different interests and concerns that parties might have, with coercion as an option only when death or serious health issues are certain and imminent and parties are not in good faith (and with an understanding that such measures will, generally, be far from as successful as genuinely collaborative efforts, no matter how much coercion or incentives are used).

Meaning, I think people work together better when they are free to do so without presuming, generally, that one party knows best, especially since, generally, no one party, no matter how smart they are, does know best, and, as such, parties shouldn't coerce, as much as possible, because it interrupts and corrupts this process and it can never, in any of its best case scenarios, be as successful as genuine, honest, voluntary collaboration. Efforts by Bruce Babbit and Bill Clinton to bring together logging interests and environmentalists to discuss ways to address issues of nature preserve and logging in the 1990's were a model that closer approximates what I think constructive activity would look like on this front than the current liberal obsession with regulation.

I guess my concern with Stiglitz's work and with the tone of this article is that it seems to presume that people in government have sufficiently better understanding of markets and other issues impacted and that impact markets than those who participate in markets themselves that, of course, we should presume in favor of government intervention because markets are just never perfect and economists like Joseph Stiglitz, on the other hand, are just overflowing with unchallengeable economic wisdom to make those markets operate more efficiently.

As someone who has spent much time in scholarly and policy circles at this point in my life, I just think that's a load of shit, no offense to scholars like Joseph Stiglitz who spend their lives studying such matters.

While I have been a liberal more of Stiglitz's breed, in the past - although I must restate; I am an independent, today and have no such liberal attachments, these days - I have never shared that level of faith in scholars and academics, nevertheless in politicians and policymakers who often employ their skills.

I remember reading Plato's Republic my freshman year of college and thinking, "What an arrogant and dangerous worldview." I shared Plato's concern that government was often not intelligent enough. I still share it. I shared his view that thoughtful, wiser people needed to be making decisions, if we were going to have a representative democracy, than more rash and less thoughtful people.

But I never shared Plato's faith that intellectuals, philosopher kings, could be trusted to govern for the rest of us without a liberal democratic discussion and marketplace of ideas that was always a better barometer of better ideas and policies and the freedom of individual conscience taken more seriously than any of it.

It is why I like Twain and Mencken so much and why I aspire to write in their vein, as well. Because they just didn't swallow the bullshit that academics fed themselves that they knew more than they did. And it is obvious, really, to anyone who is not being defensive of academics or anyone, for that matter. That's why I like Twain and Mencken and humorists and comedians, of all stripes, to parody the flaws that all of us and each of us have, no matter how smart we think we are.

That's why I am much more seriously skeptical of Stiglitz's worldview and the standpoint of this International Herald Tribune article than I am of the market and its failures. Because anyone whose perspective starts from, "I am smarter and therefore know what is best for others" reeks of arrogance and smugness to me. And my nose for bullshit is stronger for those who reek of that kind of smugness much more than my nose for perhaps any other kind of people. It is the fact that they are so intelligent that makes them so dangerous, in this regard, and which gives such a bad name to intellectuals and institutions of education, for those for whom such people and institutions have a bad name, than any other kind of people.

I'm plenty arrogant, at times, I'm sure. I try to be as humble as I know how. But I carry with me more humility than that line of reasoning offers, and, in the case of folks like Joseph Stiglitz, seems to offer at every corner where someone might defend the right of people to make their own decisions, even when Joseph Stiglitz doesn't think it's good for them and even when he might be right.

I have many friends who smoke, for instance. But if Stiglitz takes after their right to smoke, on the grounds of "inequitable market information," one of the funniest and most foolish arguments that could made against smoking and one of the best reasons to presume that people should be able to do even bad things to themselves without others meddling, even if those arguing for "corrections for market inefficiences" don't approve, you can be sure that I will be protesting such a move with the whole of my passionately free-thinking being, even as my smoking friends, as with many bad things in the world, would have to concede that smoking isn't good for you.

This is what concerns me most about the current political period. This assumption that so many people carry with them that they are smarter than everyone else therefore they know better. And if you don't like it, you can sit in jail for awhile while they help you sort it out for yourself better.

It smacks of Ahmadinejad, in more stylish clothing. But I'm not convinced, in the least, that such emperors wear enough clothing to cover for their hubris.

This inspires me to write.

That's why he's the master

From David Mamet's recent New York Magazine interview. Brilliant stuff.

So what made you decide to write a comedy set in the Oval Office?
Like a lot of other Americans, I’ve gotten very interested in politics lately.

And what do you make of the primaries?
I was shocked, after Iowa, to find myself thinking, Well, you know, if there were the two candidates, McCain and Obama, either of them would probably make a hell of a president.

And what about Hillary’s tearful turnaround?
Well, I only heard something on the radio. I don’t think I’m misquoting her. She said, “I have so many opportunities for America.”* [Long pause.] That’s kind of wonderfully revelatory. It’s not that there are so many opportunities for America, but she has so many opportunities for America.

"[From his newest play, November]'People say we’re a country divided, but we’re not a country divided, what we are is a democracy.' And I think that is the meeting ground of the two positions. That the only country that’s not divided is totalitarian.

The good news is it’s a spectacular country. We’ve been around for 230 years in spite of human nature, because that’s what the Constitution is all about. It’s saying, of course everyone’s gonna try and take control. Of course they’re gonna subvert every law that’s supposed to keep them in line. Of course the president is gonna want to be imperial, of course Congress is gonna want to become obstructionist, of course the judges are gonna be activist. Duh. They figured this out in 1787 and drew up a few sheets of paper that have kept the country in line. It’s a great place to live."

What is this world coming to?

Romney wins quiet Nevada caucuses

This just in: Kucinich takes Utah and West Virginia.

Wild ass shit.

Jimmy Carter tells it like it is

I Got What America Needs Right Here

Some of the funniest fucking shit I have a read a long goddamn time.

Bill Clinton looks like a goddamn fool

Bill Clinton just looks foolish, right now.

Bill Clinton paints Obama as 'establishment' candidate

What kind of desperate and dishonest argument is this? Now I see why Republicans hated this guy.

I used to find this stuff cute in debate. When people would argue every position from every angle, no matter how ridiculous, as a matter of getting the win.

But it's dishonest in real life. And it reeks of the central thing that drove me crazy about speech and debate: people more concerned about winning than about being more thoughtful and, in policy speeches, adopting better policy.

I hated it. It was what motivated me to want to study policy, in the first place. I wanted to be a part of more honest conversations about politics which is constantly muddled, distorted, and undermined by the persistent dishonest positioning for a win. I hated it about speech and debate and I hate it about politics. It drives me up a wall. And too many people, just like Bill Clinton, persistently act like it doesn't matter, in the least, no matter how much policies fail and self-centered politics like this is, by my lights, the largest contributor to the neverending, fruitless, futile, and foolish defenses of failed policies.

How refreshing it would be to have honest policy discussions that didn't involve defending the failures as well as acknowledging the successes of the Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, Roosevelt, Hoover, Coolidge, Harding, Wilson, Taft, Roosevelt, McKinley, or any other administration. Wouldn't it be nice to have honest, empirical, thoughtful discussions about policy that weren't centered around defending the flaws and failures of our favorite presidents rather than just being open, ready, and willing to acknowledge whatever failures of policy of whatever President, Congress, Supreme Court, political party, ideology, or whatever ever individual or group that might have been responsible for failures in the past?

Those discussions happen more regularly, though far from ideally, in scholarly policy, economics, history, and other social science circles. And that is why I prefer them. That and the fact that the participants are generally more sober, honest, knowledgeable, and seriously responsible for the world and the cultural, economic, social, and policy events, failures and successes that occur within it.

When we favor particular candidates and Presidents, we are more want to overlook those failures and flaws. God knows I was more willing to do so when Bill Clinton was playing on the team I rooted for. But it's grating in the extreme to watch him throw bullshit arguments at the wall just to see what sticks and act like the bullshit really has no consequence in discussion and the level of faith or not that people have in the political process.

If there is one thing I would most want to see in my lifetime more than any other it would be an honest and sober discussion of policy matters in formal political circles and not just in the universities and the marketplace of ideas around those circles.

If you have a self-righteous political identification and you think what matters is your side wins, then you probably won't be interested in those kinds of discussions. Then again, that really is the problem.

But I care enough about that process to expect something more honest than Bill Clinton's remarks yesterday.

Otherwise, who really cares?

The end of lawlessness

Marion Jones is Sentenced to 6 Months

I guess we can all breathe a deep sigh of relief as the plague of steroids is finally behind us.

From that article:

"Jones had hoped to avoid prison, but U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas said he was giving her six months the maximum called for under her plea deal 'because of the need for general deterrence and the need to promote respect for the law.'

As she pleaded for mercy, Jones talked at length about her children, including the infant son she is still nursing.

'My passion in life has always been my family,' she said. 'I know the day is quickly approaching when my boys ask me about these current events. I intend to be honest and forthright ... and guide them into not making the same mistakes.'"

I want this scofflaw off the streets. A nursing mother, no less. What a foul, filthy, unhallowed recreant. Thank goodness Marion Jones is finally behind bars and this dangerous influence is not in the general vicinity of children and crippled persons.

What do we want in America? A bunch of hoodlums ignoring and scorning laws around illegal drugs? What would this world come to if average people regularly transgressed our sacred legal frameworks around illegal drug use? How could we live with such a parody of the law?

All I can say is thank goodness this harlot is finally behind bars where she clearly belongs. Marion Jones down, 88 professional baseball players to go. We'll start with Roger Clemens and finally end this scourge of wickedness and corruption.

It's enough to drive a man to drink. Forcing people to clean up their lives and clean up the world is a tough business.

But as Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani will tell you, somebody's got to do it.

Real strength lies in our deepest values

Madeleine Albright writes a column, today, that has needed to be written for more than 6 years, now.

Confidence in America

"America's standing in the world has been in free fall these past few years because our country is perceived as trying to impose its own reality -- to fashion a world that is safe and comfortable for us with little regard for the views of anyone else.

I love America deeply and I believe our country is still the best in the world, but I also believe we have developed a dangerous lack of self-awareness. No nukes, we say, while possessing the world's largest arsenal. Respect the law, we demand, while disregarding the Geneva Conventions. You're with us or against us, we declare, while ignoring the impact of our actions on Turkey and the Middle East. Hands off Iraq, we warn, while our troops occupy Baghdad. Beware China's military, we cry, while spending as much on defense as the rest of the world combined. Honor the future, we preach, while going AWOL on climate change.

We need to do a better job of seeing ourselves as others do. It strikes the world as ludicrous that we -- with all our wealth and power -- seem so afraid of terrorists, rogue states, illegal immigrants and foreign economic competition. People put themselves in our shoes and expect us to act with confidence, and so we should, but true confidence is shown by a willingness to enter into difficult debates, answer criticism, treat others with respect and do our share or more in tackling global problems. Confidence harnessed to purpose is what America at its best has been all about.

We are 4 percent of a planet that is half Asian, half poor, one-third Muslim and by and large far more familiar with recent American actions than with our country's past accomplishments. To many, the Bush administration is America. Our reputation is in disrepair. We will not recover by acting out of fear but by educating ourselves about the world around us, learning foreign languages, appreciating other faiths, studying the many dimensions of historical truth, harnessing modern technology to constructive ends and looking beyond simplistic notions of evil and good.

I pray that the next president, when taking the oath of office, will have uppermost in mind not the need to scare us but, rather, the need restore our faith in the American idea. That idea is based on our sense of unity and our commitment to one another. That idea is grounded in belief in democracy and burnished by our sense of responsibility to generations past and still to come. This is the glue that enabled us to overcome partisan political differences in earlier decades and to keep our nerve in the face of adversaries far more potent than those we face today. Combine faith in our traditions with the confidence to search for value in others, and we will have a far stronger platform for American leadership than any appeal to fear."

It is living up to our most profound liberal values that offer ourselves and the world the kind of confident leadership that we all need. It always has been. It always will be.

I say that as someone who has failed on this course many times. And it is only by facing up to our failures that we can find the more genuine success and strength we seek. And I say that as someone who has had to face up to an awful lot of failure.

And it's nice to see people take our most genuine liberal values seriously as the source of our strength in liberal democracies, and not confuse it with our most serious weakness: our propensity to confuse aggression with wisdom out of our insecurity in our liberal values and to fail to more honestly face our failures. It is our wisdom - the product and the source of our liberal values - that offers us - liberal and illiberal peoples, alike - real strength.

Now it is up to us to recognize and develop it. And to build a better world out of that strength.

"The dumbest opening column ever penned"

I want to laugh at the hyperbole of contemporary politics. "The worst Administration in American history." "The most tragic mistake in American foreign policy." I love how lost everyone gets in both the moment and in their own bullshit to announce "the greatest tragedies and victories ever conceived in the history of humanity right at this very moment in time."

Having said that, Bill Krisol's column endorsing Mike Huckabee is pretty dumb.

President Mike Huckabee

This is where I appreciate George Will and think Bill Kristol needs to go the church and pray to God that his yearning for a Christ-like Presidential savior doesn't come true.

Luckily, I have absolutely zero to worry about. Because if it were an Obama-Huckabee race, Huckabee gets his ass handed to him in a serious way.

There's a reason why George Will is the most respected conservative columnist in the country and Bill Kristol is not. And this column - which essentially argues that Bill might just be willing to take an uneducated and foolish hick from Arkansas as long as he opposes abortion and gay marriage just like Bill - is about the dumbest thing I have ever seen Bill Kristol write.

And I have to say that if America was dumb enough to elect a President Mike Huckabee - about the only prospect other than a President Mitt Romney or a President Dennis Kucinich and perhaps a few other of the loons running for President these days that would give me no other best option than to vote for a President Hillary Clinton (shudder the thought) - we would deserve him.

And a President Mike Huckabee would epitomize the most serious vanity that Americans have of themselves: that being dumb or being smart doesn't matter. What matters is in their own sweet, confused, and easily misled hearts.

Mike Huckabee is a boob. And he would be an embarrasment as President. I like him, personally. But I'd be seriously embarrassed to have him as leader of the free world. And the only good to come from that prospect would be a serious humbling of American power in front of a befuddled world wondering what dumbasses populate this bountiful land of ours. And I would have to turn to them and say, "A whole lot of them. Just like every one of your countries. Dumbasses are the rule, rather than the exception, after all. Go figure."

Gladly, my country is not quite that fuckin' stupid.

And I can thank a liberal democracy initiated by some very thoughtful founding fathers for that. And God bless America for that.

Winning for the right reasons

George Will endorses Obama's ambitions in the Democratic party for all the right reasons.

Iowa's Histrionic Hucksters

Obama's not perfect. His commitments in Iraq are shaky. His commitments to the market are far from reassuring.

And, like me, George Will has to overlook Obama's strong advocacy, as with Bill Bradley, on one of his signature issues: campaign finance regulation.

But I think George's instincts are similar to mine. For all of Obama's weaknesses, he comes by his liabilities as well as his strengths honestly and thoughtfully and rather exploiting or inventing boogeymen that do not, in fact, exist. He also, and most importantly, happens to be thinking bigger and more constructively about how to resolve many of our most serious international policy messes, today, without having to defend our poor handling of such messes in the past.

Every Presidential race, I'm beginning to discover, is one long choice between less than ideal options.

This race is no different. But it would be nice to have candidates who genuinely have faith in the American people and their ability to resolve many of their own problems and keep their eye on issues that only the President can be responsible for and handling them better than in the past.

Obama's not my ideal candidate, in that respect. But he is better, I think, than his Democratic rivals. And George sees that for all the right reasons.

Bill Bradley looks set to endorse Obama, by the way. And any candidate that gets endorsements from Bill Bradley and George Will should be taken seriously if just as a matter of respect for thoughtful reflections of people who care about politics but have some perspective on its role, or lack thereof, in our lives.

Looking for quality thought? Keep an eye on conservatives, these days.

Charles Krauthammer has a really interesting column in today's Post.

Anytime that a credentialed conservative like Charles says, "How many decades will it take before we acknowledge that the axiom that economic liberalization leads to political liberalization may not be axiomatic?" you should sit up and pay attention.

Crooked Roads to Democracy

It is Charles' first line that impresses me.

"'My mother always said, democracy is the best revenge.'

-- Bilawal Bhutto Zardari,

son of the late Benazir Bhutto

Of all the understandings of the democratic idea, none could be more wrong than this one. Democracy at its very core is an antidote to the kind of dynastic revenge young Bhutto was suggesting."

Now, I'm about to say something personal that I hope doesn't hurt Charles' feelings, too much, but I'm going to say it anyway because it's the only way I can explain why I was so impressed with this line and Mr. Krauthammer lately, in general.

I've always respected Charles Krauthammer. His intelligence. His secular outlook. His willingness to marshall secular thought to make cases for otherwise religiously-associated ideas (Charles' opposition to creating stem cells for research, for instance; he makes a really interesting case for why researchers and the market makes the discussion moot for all kinds of reasons that he thinks are good, although I'm not quite sure, frankly, what I think of the concern for not creating human embryos to destroy them. Something tells me we're not going to be seeing embryos protesting about it anytime soon).

But there has always been one thing about Charles that has stood out for me that has always meant that I never really quite trusted him, no matter how intelligent his analysis.

He always seemed like kind of a snotty and vindictive prick. He just had that air about him. Like Hannibal Lector without all the canibalism and serial killing. Really smart. And kind of creepy.

But I have to say that Charles has really impressed me, lately. And this column really kind of takes the cake.

It is a solid analysis of American strategic interests vis a vis democracy promotion with a much stronger appreciation for the need of local populations to determine their own destinies.

I would add a very important caveat: ultimately, no matter what we think, every individual, local population and sovereign authority for that population will and must be free to determine their own destinies. They will look backwards. They will be illiberal, often. But liberal values are best upheld by our example which respect the choices, learning, and free and voluntary adoption of liberal democracy and the values that sustain it out of the free will of individuals and self-governing populations alike. Everything else is a serious distortion of liberal values and even illiberal folks hostile to those values can sense it and are rightly hostile to our hypocrisy when it involves running rough-shot over their priorities, choices, and governance. We can and must criticize illiberal practices, in ourselves as much as in others. But when we defend our own illiberal practices, especially against the interests of other populations, cultures, or governments, and criticize or strong-arm the illiberal practices of others, we don't just get "branded" as hypocrits, we are hypocrits. And we need our behavior, including our talk and thinking, to live up to our liberal ideals.

Charles' piece is an excellent example of that, today, and I, for one, appreciate reading his insight and that kind of growth on the part of one of our brainier national columnists.

You know what I really appreciate, today? People of all ideological credentials, these days, willing to challenge the dogma of their own ideological stripes and searching deep for the principles and the liberal democratic values in those ideologies - the ideas in those ideologies - that are really worth valuing.

What I like about the smarter political folks out there is that you can see them doing just that, right now. At least conservatives, as they watch the frenzy of progressive piety sweeping the country, these days. It would be nice to see the same from liberals, these days. If only so I wouldn't have to be so ashamed that I come from roots in liberal political circles with folks who cannot live up to the true meaning of that name - liberal - and be willing to give more open-minded, open-hearted, open-ended, engaged thought to what in progressive ideology is just ideology - meaning a more temporary and less valuable political idea associated with a group and its political practices more than a sustainable idea which supports the learning and growth of people for whom those ideas are meant to serve - and what ideas are genuinely better ideas. Liberals will have to get off their high horses to do that. And that is exactly why I like watching the ideological pondering of those out of popular fashion, because it is then that most people do their best thinking.

Someone like me

I'm about to write about something that I know I'm not supposed to but I don't care.

If you haven't seen Reign Over Me, by the way, you really need to. It's really powerful.

So I'm watching it because last night, I can't sleep. And for awhile, all I can think about is Brandi. It's so weird. I haven't thought about her like that - with all kinds of pain still to work through; I think about her every day, of course, that's how fucked up I still am 6 years after we broke up - in a long time.

So it's on my heart in the morning. I'm about to take a shower and I'm trying to get my apartment cleaned up and I try to listen to some Feist. 1-2-3-4 has this line that is so wierd, because I'm never had a pop song make me want to cry every time I hear it. She says, "1-2-3-4-5-6-9 and 10. Money can't buy you back the love that you had then."

And every time I heard that goddamn line I want to cry. And I'm trying to unpack my boxes and clean up my apartment and after awhile I have this haunting feeling on my heart that I'm trying to let go or to ignore or to get some comfort for in the music. And nothing's working.

It really sucks. I don't pine to get back together with Brandi. I'm happy for her. She's married. I heard rumor she had a child. I want her to have a happy life. I just miss my friend and not being able to talk and reminisce with her about old times. And I guess I'm still working through pain, obviously. I work on it every chance I get. It's just been a lot to work through. I've had pain, now, for longer than we even knew each other. We were friends for 5 or so years before we broke up and it's been 6 years since that time. It's ridiculous, I know.

So I turned on Reign Over Me because of the scene where Charlie finally opens up and talks about his wife and three girls dying in one of the 9/11 planes that was used to take down the World Trade towers. And I'm watching it and I'm balling like a little bitch and I'm thinking, this guy lost 3 daughters and a wife. What's a fuckin' girlfriend in the scheme of things.

I know. It's so fuckin' pathetic, ain't it. That's why I tell it to my blog and not to my friends who I am quite sure will tell me in no uncertain terms what a fuckin' loser I am for still pining for some girl I haven't seen in years and who I haven't dated in 6 years. So I blog it and forgo my friends that hassle. That's the irony. That's why Brandi was my best friend for all that time. Because she was the first person to just listen to me about my break-up with Jenny and not try to get me to shut up for her own convenience. It meant a lot to me. So she became my best friend.

Anyway. I haven't had these feelings in a long time. I need some Vietnamese from the Orient and a new girlfriend. I want family and kids, honestly. I gotta get down to Dallas and Wichita and see family and my sister's kids before they're all grown up. They really do grow up so quickly. But, really I just need a friend that close, again. I have lots of friends. I love them all dearly. But I've never had a friend that close again. Someone like me.

Leslie Feist looks like she'd be cool to hang out with. I'd love to pick her brain and heart, sometime. Adam Sandler looks like he'd be a cool guy to hang with, at some point, though I don't see a future for us. Natalie Portman and I should talk about FINCA, sometime (John Hatch was one of the greatest guys I ever met when I was a kid). I have to admit, there are no academics that I just want to hang with, these days, that I can think of. Scholars are kind of dry, much of the time, is the truth. And they like to pretend that they don't really have time for real people feelings for fear that it might interfere with their presumed omniscience. And policy scholars are too often the same way but with pointy teeth. It's about the dumbest goddamn attitude about life that I've ever encountered. Too many people trying to prove that they're tougher and smarter than they really are. And almost every single one of would just about fuckin' wilt if they were ever in a real fight. And, in the meantime, who wants to fuckin' hang with someone who knows it all all the fuckin' time.

Maybe that's why Brandi didn't want to hang out with me, anymore. I completely understand if that or if literally a million other explanations I've come up with for why Brandi won't talk with me (the most likely, of course, being that she's afraid for her marriage; it just leaves me in a bind and it's one of those weak-ass things that I know would have driven me up a fuckin' wall had we stayed together).

I need some Taco Bell. And I've got work to do. And to keep an eye out for someone like me.

Love,
Ben

George Will gives me hope

I love George Will, these days, because he says bold and smart-minded things like this:

Mr. Ways and Means

"Ronald Reagan opposed using the tax code 'as a means of achieving changes in our social structure.' [U.S. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles] Rangel -- in his 19th term, a man of House proprieties -- says, 'I don't think the tax code should be a substitute for the appropriations process in making social change.' Social policy should be, he thinks, the province of 'the standing committees.' The question for tax writers 'is not just what is fair and equitable but what is good for the economy.'

Furthermore, Rangel proposes reducing the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 30.5 percent, a rate that still would be higher than the average corporate rate among major industrialized countries. Rangel would entertain arguments for an even lower rate if compensatory revenue could be found.

The rate actually should be zero, for three reasons: Corporate taxation discourages investment by reducing the return on capital; it is a hidden tax passed along to corporations' customers; it is double taxation because corporate earnings are taxed again as dividends. Still, it is heartening that the Democratic chairman of the tax-writing committee favors reducing corporate America's tax burden."

George Will gives me hope that this world has not gone completely mad amidst the progressive zeitgeist.

Man of the Year

Bill Kristol and I have agreed on more over the course of this war than I ever would have expected. I do think Bill needs to be thinking seriously about the mistakes involved with a military campaign of liberation on behalf of a population that is not on board, is likely to view their liberators as aggressors, invaders, and occupiers, and who do not trust their liberators' motives.

Gen. David Petraeus: Man of the Year

But, on this matter, I think Bill gets it right and Time Magazine is both obtuse in its pick of Vladimir Putin and too squeamish to support our noble efforts in Iraq.

5 Questions

Gustav Niebuhr asks several good questions of candidates, today, that caught my eye.

In Assessing Morality, I'll Start with 5 Questions

He writes:

"Based on the experience of having lived through the past seven years, I think I can boil down to five the questions I consider important in trying to assess a presidential candidate's moral grounding. Sure, these overlap with broad religious principles, but they work from a secular standpoint, as well.

'First, are you able to admit a mistake and, as a chief executive, take responsibility for it and work humbly to undo any damage resulting from it?

Second, will you listen to others and give thoughtful weight to reasonable arguments with which you may be inclined to disagree?

Third, will you show sufficient curiosity about the world to believe that you can learn from and respond with care to changing global circumstances that affect your fellow citizens?

Fourth, will you demonstrate enough respect to other human beings to be truthful with them, even if that costs you politically?

And finally, will you state categorically that you will not start a war?'"

I responded thusly:

"All of those sound reasonable, though the fourth question, and all of them, really, will, realistically, depend our own behavior as citizens, journalists, colleauges, activists, scholars, and others involved in the democratic process. If we continue with our leveraging, strong-arming, tough-guy ways, we can expect that last answer to be the same as it is ever been: "Yes," when asked the question, and "No, not really" when leaders face real challenges. It's the most consistent and ridiculous exercise we engage in as an electorate: let our politicians have it when they tell the truth and then sit around complaining that they never tell the truth. The truth is that I can't think of a real exception to that much more realistic rule of life and I have no confidence that we will be facing it soon and even less confidence that things will get significantly better until we do.

On the fifth question, I would vote against any candidate who answered that question yes. What this country needs is a public debate and discussion about when and how military action is engaged. Wars and military action should be avoided as much as possible. But they are necessary for purposes of defending ourselves and defending others when that defense is welcomed and warranted. Iraq is a complicated case where defense was warranted but not completely welcomed. And we must think and engage seriously in the future about how we might support or defend people, like the Iraqi people, who need it but who do not trust us.

There are ways to do that, I think, that can respect the self-determination of the Iraqi people. Peaceful means should be preferred, when possible. But military means may be necessary when peaceful means cannot realistically achieve genuinely democratic ends. Iraq was likely a case of a country where peaceful efforts to introduce democracy were not likely to work absent some kind of internal revolution, at which point, the Iraqis would likely need the overwhelming force of a country like America or other countries in the West, to support them in order to avoid being slaughtered. But we did not ask them if they wanted our help. And many of them were not on board with our effort to liberate them. And we are dealing with the consequences, as we did in Vietnam, for that decision.

Having said that, neither committing to never starting a war nor leaving the chaotic mess that we helped create in Iraq are adequate answers to that original mistake. A full and substantive discussion and debate that assumes good faith about this matter of policy and all matters of policy need to take place so we can discuss them in their totality.

But we are a lazy and cynical lot, too often, who will settle for politicians solving such problems for us, even if they clearly do not have the answers we seek, and avoiding those discussions, no matter how critical, in this case, life-and-death, they might be, and settling for this cynical election process and a larger democratic debate and discussion that is woefully lacking in substantial disagreement and discussion that assumes good faith of those we disagree with because so many people have decided that either they have more answers than they really do or that those they disagree with cannot possibly offer more to their understanding of the world and policy than they really do.

That is our most serious failing and the most serious failing on the part of candidates and failing of integrity in our democracy.

If I were asking the candidates similar questions, I might ask, "Do you take your job and all matters of policy seriously enough that you will lead, initiate, engage, follow, listen to, learn from, and otherwise improve democratic life in America with the most substantive discussions and debates about American and international political life possible? And will you take those discussions and debates more seriously than your job, your ego, your next election, your friends in Washington, or how much it flatters or upsets those who want life to be simpler than it is or can be?"

"Will you lead America in the direction that it and those near power in Washington so often resists being led - by engaging it in serious, rigorous, thoughtful, good faith reflections and discussions about policy with others who care about such matters, even when people get bored of it, overwhelmed by the complexity of the problems we face and the need to engage that complexity, when they call for government to solve more problems than it can really solve, and even when doing so would mean challenging America and the world to fix the godawful mess that is democratic politics in absence of a more serious, respectful, civil, thoughtful substance and respect for liberal values at its core and front and center in its discussions?"

"And after all of that, will you learn to have a sense of humor about what a incredibly dysfunctional lot we are - human beings, in general, and the political class, in particular - and perhaps lead and teach by example that sense of humor about ourselves so that we can, perhaps, learn some humility about our place in the world and how seriously many if not most of our opinions should be taken, by ourselves, nevertheless by others? Could you maybe be a real human being as well as a leader, no matter the impossible expectations and pressures from the American electorate, and teach us how to be at ease with being real human beings, for all of our failings, ourselves, so we are not constantly scurrying around using politics to prove just how genius, superhuman, moral-beyond-belief, righteous members of the human race we are and that we expect you to be? Could you maybe teach us to look at ourselves and one another and the world more honestly and not always defending ourselves and our foolish notions and unrealistic outlooks on ourselves and one another?"

That's a lot to ask of a President. But that's what we need. From someone, if not the President.

Because no matter what we do, this process is going to go on being a seriously tragic, perplexing, and entertaining little mess until we can face up to our failures in that process and those in our lives which make American and democratic politics so amusing and sad all at the same time.

I don't know if one President or Presidential candidate can fix that. All I know is that it won't be fixed until those questions get addressed, in our lives as much as in our elections. And I'd rather those problems be fixed than be so entertained."

A vision of democratic change

Amar Bakshi, of the Washington Post's PostGlobal section, offers a really touching and telling story of desperation and courage from Kwang Soo, the daughter of a professor and a party administrator, made her journey from a privileged family of status in North Korea to poverty and near-starvation and finally to escape to neighboring China.

Dear (American) Leader

It is a very moving personal story of the harrowing realities of the threat of starvation in a closed, centrally-planned economy, and her suggestions for the U.S. to help the people of the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea.

Here is my reply to the article and one of its respondents.

"'The fact of the matter is that the only way to deal with the North Korean problem is to force Kim Jong Il to bring about significant economic reforms (like China). Failing that, we will have to stomach the continued suffering of many innocent civilians until someone decides that enough is enough dispatches Kim and his haircut once and for all.'

That's funny, anonymous. I don't remember the U.S. forcing economic reforms on China. Quite to the contrary, what I remember was China, like Vietnam and other Communist states, reforming their economic systems with greater freedom of trade and more open economies after years of economic decay, and, much later, a diplomatic tour by then-President Bill Clinton to open up diplomatic relations and economic ties. In fact, what I remember is a China that was highly suspicious of U.S. efforts to pressure it, leverage it, or otherwise act "imperially" in any direction, that made such reforms only after many years of poor results from Maoist central planning and force as a governing philosophy.

This author makes clear in no uncertain terms the consequences of U.S. hegemony and aggressive dominance of the Korean peninsula and generally in world affairs - namely that is makes peoples we wish to persuade to make liberal democratic reforms wary of us and our motives - and yet people still rally for the very kinds of policies that are clearly responsible for that mistrust.

How foolish could we possibly be to repeat all of those same mistakes in this arena trying to validate some backwards and clearly counterproductive notion of progress in our own country?

The beauty of a democracy is that when one leader or group is celebrating a bad governing philosophy, that I can vote for another, no matter how self-righteous the first group might be.

The commenter who noted that Koreans will, eventually, either wait for the U.S. and the international community to open North Korea up to economic reforms a la China or Vietnam, or, given the foolish directions that our own leaders, liberal and conservative, are taking us in, these days, North Koreans will have to make the sacrifices that are prerequisites to freedom, is essentially right.

Either wait for the slow and unpredictable pace of gradual reforms that may one day occur that free up the Korean economy, some, and open it up to the outside world. Or revolt, which would be a perfectly legitimate, and, given enough courage on the part of the Korean people, perhaps a better option, given no movement in the a more liberal or democratic direction, given a realistic possibility of success.

Personally, if I were a North Korean citizen, knowing what I know today, I would try to escape to somewhere where freedom and democracy are taken more seriously and the fruits of those commitments and the opportunities that make them available are more plentiful. And I would work for as peaceful a transition to a free and open democracy and market in North Korea as I could possible witness in my own lifetime. But if North Koreans chose to revolt, I would fight with them, if I were still living with my homeland, and support them morally and materially, if I had escaped abroad.

Having said all of that, Americans and Europeans should stave off the humanitarian crisis in North Korea, given the awful and ugly state of affairs in that country, until Koreans are able to determine their own fates, for political as well as for humanitarian reasons, as a matter of leadership as much as a matter of compassion (and as a matter of making clear that the two go hand in hand in the real world of 21st century democratic politics).

But the readers who are concerned about what North Koreans do for themselves and what the American government is expected to do for them may have a point in the sense that what North Koreans and Americans have in common is that both need to learn to be responsible better both for their own fates and for the fates of others in need on their own accord, more, and less from the largess of their governments. We might question whether the U.S. government should be relied upon to provide such aid not because it is not needed or because Americans shouldn't provide it, but because Americans need to learn such generosity of their own accord and not always rely upon their government to provide such aid when Americans are perfectly capable of helping out with or without their government. Americans, as much if not more than North Koreans, need a lesson in self-sufficiency, in dealing with international aid and times when others are in need of our assistance, learning to be responsible for such problems because it is the right thing to do and not because their government makes them help others by taxing its citizens.

That's a lesson for the whole world to learn, not just Americans or North Koreans.

And that is a lesson that will be learned with greater freedom and the responsibility that comes with that freedom rather than anyone forcing anyone to do anything."

Obama vs. Clinton: Living the Experience

Funny and insightful commentary on Obama and Clinton.

From Mark Wanner of Daily Kos:

"Barack Obama shocked his loyal liberal supporters today when he used the word "the". "The" is a common right-wing talking point used to smear Democrats like Al Gore, who wrote a movie called "An" Inconvenient Truth. "An" is a left-wing indefinite article and a progressive article. Progressives do not believe in black or white, so they use "a" and "an". When Obama uses the definite article "the", it is an endorsement of the Bush black or white philosophy, and it is a direct attack on Al Gore, who used the progressive friendly indefinite article in his movie title...

...Obama's use of the right-wing talking point 'the' is a clear endorsement of all of Bush's 'The' War on Terror policies like waterboarding and blowing stuff up in other countries for no good reason.

The use of this right-wing talking point, 'the', is proof that Obama is evil, his supporters are hysterical, and all of the other candidates are totally awesome.

I just call them like I see them. I'm not blinded by loyalty to any candidate. That's why this analysis is so clear eyed and easy to follow, without any ridiculous spin. Obama, on the other hand, is a liar and a shuckster. He uses Rovian tactics. He even tried to spread a rumor in South Carolina that he had fathered a black child. This is racism at it's worst. And it's sexist too, because it just is.

'The' is the latest in a pattern of right-wing media frames used by Obama to destroy the Democratic party and liberalism forever. Once he's done destroying the Democratic party from within, he will invade Middle Eastern countries for their oil and then maybe even Italy for their olive oil. This guy is not a progressive. He is a neocon. He's an arch-conservative. Look at his voting record: it reminds me of fascism. It's makes me sick."

From Dayo Olopade of the New Republic:

"The breaking news of Hillary Clinton’s unrepentant stumbles on the subject of Pakistan hasn't shocked me. It's an old story. During interviews in the aftermath of Benazir Bhutto’s killing Thursday, Clinton had suggested she was a familiar hand at Pakistani politics and a close acquaintance of Bhutto (which is apparently due more to Bhutto’s outreach in Washington than to HRC’s globetrotting). In the process, she got a few details of her friend’s life wrong—the number of children, the manner of her father’s death—but the worst was yet to come. Candidate Clinton said on CNN Friday:

If President Musharraf wishes to stand for election, then he should abide by the same rules that every other candidate will have to follow.

And on ABC’s This Week two days later:

[Musharraf] could be the only person on the ballot. I don't think that's a real election.

The issue, of course, is that the now-postponed elections were parliamentary. And Musharraf, as president, will most certainly not be on the ballot.

Again, it’s not that Hillary’s experience blanket is looking slightly holey—though it is. (Joe Biden dished a zinger on the subject today.) I’m willing to bet that she doesn’t and needn’t have endless reserves of information on Pakistan handy; most of the major candidates (even Saint Biden) are likely prepping—on issues from guns to farm subsidies—from index cards managed by aides. The best candidates, however, posess a mixture of genuine curiosity, a solid base of understanding and a sharp learning curve that allows them to appear superhumanly knowledgeable on the fly. Clinton is usually very good. But at this point any candidate should get more than the gist of what’s going on in Pakistan. And as one running on her wonkishness and fo-po experience, Hillary is doubly on the hook for this one.

I’ll leave it to the imagination what might happen if another candidate, Democratic or Republican, had made this error. But once again, the issue at hand is one of character. Which to me is not about perfection, but the handling of its opposite (I never thought I’d side with Giuliani on this one). And as I noted a few weeks back, it character doesn’t often change.

The real story is the cynical, egotistic response to Hillary's rare but clear blunder. Handler Howard Wolfson immediately rephrased Clinton's two statements as referring to a political party rather than the “President Musharraf” she spoke of four days after the Bhutto news blitz (if only Mike Huckabee had had that time to catch the NIE). The mind trick captures the instinctive bunker mentality that would pervade a Hillary Clinton administration. She could probably just say she misspoke, and put an end to a story that—if the MSM is working hard enough—should have legs for more than a few days. But she won’t. She can’t. It’s not in her blood. (Bill Clinton’s showiness, I think, is also self-serving but different in kind from Hillary’s defensive crouch)."

Andrew Sullivan sums it up pretty well:

"If you think Bush admits mistakes too easily, vote Clinton."

Progress only force can offer

It sometimes floors me that people cannot see what is right in front of their eyes.

The bloodshed in Pakistan and Kenya are the most recent progress created by the good and decent advocates of force as a political philosophy.

Romantics, boobs, and fools who believe that ideas, decency, compassion, humanity, freedom and other such liberal values are central to liberal democracy and decent life persistently resist the progress offered by impositions of advocates of repressive political philosophies and the causes they force upon the public imagination out of their naivete about the long and forceful road of progress.

How can we be so blind to ignore the clear improvements to the international political order by the aggressive and forceful efforts of these brave men and women who make martyrs of others for their progressive causes?

Are we really so naive that we cannot see just how much better life has become with this kind of political pressure applied upon the political processes of these countries, countries that take force seriously and not as just some kind of sideline to their respective democracies?

Are we really so wide-eyed and simple that we cannot possibly recognize just how much healthier, stronger, more advanced and sophisticated the world is for all of this use of force? Are we really such airheads and goons that we would deny such a clear and present reality?

Terrorism, mob violence, and other forms of bullying and political pressure are progress, you see.

If we would only open our eyes.

Proof

...that even smart people can be remarkably stupid at times.

Beauty and success: to those that have shall be given

What is so fuckin' tough about saying I find this girl hot though I know it is completely irrelevant to matters of her merits as a human being? Why do smart people perpetually feel like they have to go through intellectual gymnastics to rationalize instincts that the rest of us would regard as quite natural?

And they did empirical studies on this shit. Smart people can be such fuckin' morons, sometimes.

I am one of them. So I should know. God bless us.