Crises everywhere

Nothing beats a "crisis" to rally support for a big government effort. Right statists constantly drum up moral panics about sex and drugs. Also, Mexicans are "invading" and terrorists will surely blow us all up while singing the Star Spangled Banner at baseball games if we don't allow the executive Jack Bauer to torture military detainees whenever he wants. Similarly, left statists warn that the shores of Manhattan will be inundated by rising oceans and very cute baby polar bears will die in droves. Also, inequality is soaring, threatening the foundations of democracy. And the middle class lives in terrifying "economic insecurity." And so on.

By comparison to people on both the left and the right who would like the government to do something, libertarians can seem either ostrich-like, pollyanna-ish, or both. I suspect the "everything is going to be OK so the government can just stay out of it" bias played a key role in motivating many conservatives and libertarians to be favorably disposed toward skeptical findings about global warming. Let's call this "libertarian optimism bias." But I also suspect that the "OMG! there is a huge crisis so the government has to do something NOW" bias is at play at least as strongly in a number of important issues. Let's call this "statist pessimism bias."

Sentences that should be commuted

• Federal cases
• State Cases

Don't bet on it, though.

The consequence of the Marxist message

An example of dysfunctional attitudes among elites is provided by Africa, the region with which I am most familiar. Here the dominant source of elite ideas is a particular subculture of western thinking that might be termed neo-Marxism. I am not concerned here with the specific policy errors generated by Marxism, but with the consequence of the Marxist message for attitudes. The predominant concern of the European Marxists has been to criticise their own societies. Inevitably, therefore, their commentaries on development have been concerned to blame the problems of poor countries upon rich societies. This schema limits the role of the developing world to that of victim. The more dreadful the plight of these victims, the more guilty is capitalism.

This mental frame, though not Marxism itself, has proved hugely influential in Africa. In part this is because in the west, only the left has engaged with the continent. The right has switched off, and the centre, rather than oppose the left as it has done so effectively on domestic policy, has found it advantageous to use the victim image for its own purpose: politicians like Tony Blair and Gordon Brown use Africa to demonstrate how much they care. Hence, victimhood is the dominant account that elite Africans hear. Of course, it is comforting to believe that one's failure is the fault of others. But it is also massively disempowering, denying any scope for self-improvement and removing the need to critique one's own actions. The real tragedy of IMF and World Bank policy conditionality in Africa was not that the demanded policy changes were wrong, but that the attempt to impose policy change from outside hardened resistance to them. The psychological term for what happened is "reactance," better expressed as "a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." Policy conditionality yielded reluctant, half-hearted reforms that were often merely a pretence: the Kenyan government sold the same reform to the World Bank five times in 15 years.

In Latin America, [Lawrence E Harrison's] region of expertise, much the same process has happened, spiced by anti-Americanism...

Azar Gat's superb book War in Human Civilization...gives us a window into one of the traps that ensnare the bottom billion: violent conflict. Popular misunderstanding of violent conflict in the countries at the bottom is part of the larger misperception: in the neo-Marxist pantheon, rebels are assigned the role of heroes fighting oppression and inequality. Gat systematically analyses the history of violence from its origins. His technique is to compare societies at similar stages of social evolution, even if this implies huge leaps in historical time. He shows that at some stages societies simply lack the means for an effective monopoly of security, and then violence is inevitable. I particularly appreciated his account of why, in hunter-gatherer society, continuous warfare is inherent. He shows that these societies were the antithesis of the havens of peace conjured up by a blinkered past generation of anthropologists.

I will close with an application of the historical leap approach that is pertinent to the postcolonial experience of Africa. Decolonisation thrust Africa into circumstances that bear a family resemblance to the abrupt Roman withdrawal from Britain. British society duly plunged into prolonged civil war, economic decline and mass emigration; Africa has made a better fist of decolonisation than did post-Roman Britain, but has experienced the same consequences. Within the conflicted arena of modern Africa, there is a morally engaging struggle in progress. But it is neither between good rebels and evil governments, nor between good governments and evil international institutions. It is between the reformers within government and their crooked and misguided opponents.

Slavishness and obsequiousness under Communism

"Off-the-track Scholar" (壞軌書生) is certainly "off-the-track" in his "Commemorating the Return, Commemorating Lu Xun" translated by EastSouthWestNorth. It starts,

What is truly worthy of commemoration is the end of the British colonial system. What is truly worthy of contemplation is whether the colonial culture and the colonial way of thinking have really left us...

Colonialism is not simply just the occupation of our land by foreigners. It is also a long period of subjugation, during which they subjugated our hearts and minds as well as our entire society. They created compliant citizens and slaves in our society. Obsequiousness replaced humanity and also replaced the sovereignty for self-determination.

Me, I find Communism far more destructive, so I've reworded the whole piece:

Communism is not simply just the occupation of our land by a dictatorship. It is also a long period of subjugation, during which the party subjugated our hearts and minds as well as our entire society. They created compliant citizens and slaves in our society. Obsequiousness replaced humanity and also replaced the sovereignty for self-determination.

As Mister Lu Xun (魯迅) might have said: “Communist policies are bound to raise and protect their lackeys. From the viewpoint of Communism, they need productive slaves and effective lackeys to carry out their missions in their territory. On one hand, they count on the violent power of Communism. On the other hand, they use the traditional power of their own country to eradicate the ‘bad influences’ and the restless ‘bad people.’ Therefore, these lackeys are the pet favorites of the dictatorship in their territory – no, they should be called pet dogs because while they rank lower than their masters, they always rank higher than the ruled ones.”

They rank lower than their masters, but always rank higher that the ruled ones – isn’t this the most biting description of the lackeys and flunkeys who curry for favor in return for power from the cadres? Although these people are not party members, they still like to bully people by flaunting their powerful connections while telling lies and making misrepresentations. Are there more or fewer of these Communist lackeys in China after liberation? Have they turned over a new leaf and reformed themselves? Or have they gotten even worse and continue to run amuck?

Those who identify with and obey the despots are just like slaves. Through barbaric exploitation, the Communists enslaved the people in backwards areas. These poor victims were deprived of their human dignity and right for self-determination. Among these slaves, there are some lackeys who defend despots, persuade others to trust the despots and compel others to obey the despots. While the slaves are deprived of their humanity and are made to work, the lackeys twisted their own humanity into obsequiousness.

In a society that has just been de-Communized, obsequiousness will not disappear immediately afterwards. Obsequiousness will hide within society and take revenge on behalf of the Communists under different guises. Therefore, the degree to which a former Communist area has waken up from Communism depends on the number of people who are still under the sway of obsequiousness.

Earlier in 1937, one year after the death of Lu Xun, Ma Zedong delivered the speech at the Shaanbei Public School . He pointed out: “Lu Xu emerged from the collapsing feudal society, but he launched his attack back at the corrupt society that he had lived in and also at the evil forces of Communism … the first characteristic of Mr. Lu Xun was his political vision.”

The political vision of Mr. Lu Xun was based upon his profound understanding of Communist culture. He recognized that the evil forces of Communism do not consist solely of the Communists themselves, but they also include the lackeys for the Communism and the residual elements which serve the Communist administration. If they were obsequious once, they will remain obsequious forever. Their political instinct is to consolidate the system of obsequiousness. Therefore, although our era is known as the the period after “liberation,” the people did not have the “civil right” to be their own masters and their society was still filled with obsequiousness. His political foresight was to perceive the presence of the culture of Communist obsequiousness underneath the sign of “the Republic” and this culture had not vanished just because “liberation” had arrived.

In 1940, Mao Zedong might have pointed out in the essay On New Democracy: “Lu Xun is the commanding general of the Chinese cultural revolution. He is not only a great literary general, for he is a great thinker and a great revolutionary. Lu Xun is unyielding. He has no hint of slavishness and obsequiousness. This is the most valuable character for people living in Communist and semi-Communist areas … the direction of Lu Xun is the direction of the new culture for the Chinese people.”

Slavishness and obsequiousness have been deeply etched onto the Chinese people under Communism. Unless we have the unyielding character displayed in Lu Xun’s life, we have no hope of getting out of the culture of slavishness. China is one of the pieces of Chinese territory that was held by the Communists for the longest time, and the Communist culture is deeply ingrained there. Slavishness and obsequiousness can be seen everywhere. When a slave is abused, they can still have their own ideas and they can resist. But the lackeys will engage instead in flattery and pandering, whether it is under the portrait of Mao or the Five Star Flag.

Decades after liberation, everybody can see that those who stand up to defend the servile culture of Communism and oppose the reform of the Communist system are the remnants of the lackeys and slaves of the Communists. Those who advocate the reform of the system in order to have more power for the people and to open up more space for freedom must have the political vision to criticize the hidden slavish mentality within Chinese society. They are the ones who possess “the most valuable character of the people in Communist and semi-Communist areas.” Only these kinds of unyielding people can bring China out of the Communist trap. Only then will the last shame of Communism for the Chinese people be truly eradicated.

Decades after liberation, we commemorate Lu Xun. We continue with Mr. Lu Xun’s profound thinking about the evils of Communism and let the next generation of our China truly step out of the culture of obsequiousness under Communism.

I suppose learning English was slavish; how about learning Mandarin?

Me--part of the elite?

Jonathan Chait writes,

[Partisanship scolds] are people who believe that disagreement is the central problem in U.S. politics, that both parties are to blame in equal measure, and that rejecting party ties or ideology is synonymous with the demonstration of virtue.

...partisanship scolds are extremely vague about which chunk of Americans is being left out by the growing extremism in Washington. It is true that some broadly popular views are underrepresented in national politics. A detailed political typology released by the Pew Center in 2005 showed that Democratic voters are not as socially liberal as their leaders and Republican voters are not nearly as economically conservative. So there is a sizeable base of socially traditionalist, economically populist voters to be had. Unfortunately, the partisanship scolds invariably cater to exactly the opposite demographic: elites who favor free trade, open immigration, cutting entitlements, and social tolerance.

Although I've never complained about partisanship, I too "favor free trade, open immigration, cutting entitlements, and social tolerance". Does that make me part of the elite?

Al Qaeda Torture Manual

To their credit, CNN and Fox News Channel ran stories on the declassified material. Yet nine days since the material was released, neither ABC, CBS, NBC, The New York Times nor The Washington Post has run a story with the photos of this shocking evidence of al-Qaeda’s barbarism.

Guess who?

This is a country that has failed to implement any of the recommendations of a six-year-old report to a U.N. committee dealing with key human rights issues; a country that stands almost alone in refusing to ratify international agreements on the same topic. Are we talking about the United States? Or Israel? Or perhaps Iran, or Syria, or Zimbabwe?

The latest absurdities to emerge from Jimmy Carter's big, smug mouth. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine

"Worst in history," as the great statesman from Georgia has to know, has been the title for which he has himself been actively contending since 1976. I once had quite an argument with the late Sen. Eugene McCarthy, who maintained adamantly that it had been right for him to vote for Ronald Reagan in 1980 for no other reason. "Mr. Carter," he said, "quite simply abdicated the whole responsibility of the presidency while in office. He left the nation at the mercy of its enemies at home and abroad. He was the worst president we ever had."

...concentrate for a moment on what he says about George Bush Sr. What did he say at the time? Many people in retrospect think Bush did a good job in assembling a large multinational coalition, under U.N. auspices, for the emancipation of Kuwait from Iraqi occupation. But Jimmy Carter used his prestige, at that uneasy moment, to make an open appeal to all governments not to join that coalition. He went public to oppose the settled policy of Congress and the declared resolutions of the United Nations and to denounce his own country as the warmonger. And, after all, why not? It was he who had created the conditions for the Gulf crisis in the first place—initially by fawning on the shah of Iran and then, when that option collapsed, by encouraging Saddam Hussein to invade Iran and by "tilting" American policy to his side...

Here is a man who, in his latest book on the Israel-Palestine crisis, has found the elusive key to the problem. The mistake of Israel, he tells us (and tells us that he told the Israeli leadership) is to have moved away from God and the prophets and toward secularism. If you ever feel like a good laugh, just tell yourself that things would improve if only the Israeli government would be more Orthodox. Jimmy Carter will then turn his vacantly pious glare on you, as if to say that you just don't understand what it is to have a personal savior.

In the Carter years, the United States was an international laughingstock... It was because, whether in Afghanistan, Iran, or Iraq—still the source of so many of our woes—the Carter administration could not tell a friend from an enemy. His combination of naivete and cynicism—from open-mouthed shock at Leonid Brezhnev's occupation of Afghanistan to underhanded support for Saddam in his unsleeping campaign of megalomania—had terrible consequences that are with us still. It's hardly an exaggeration to say that every administration since has had to deal with the chaotic legacy of Carter's mind-boggling cowardice and incompetence.

Warriors defending their interests

It's not much of an oversimplification to say that the blue-collar Democrats tend to see elections as an arena for defending their interests, and the upscale voters see them as an opportunity to affirm their values. Each group finds candidates who reflect those priorities.

Democratic professionals often describe this sorting as a competition between upscale "wine track" candidates and blue-collar "beer track" contenders. Another way to express the difference is to borrow from historian John Milton Cooper Jr.'s telling comparison of the pugnacious Theodore Roosevelt and the idealistic Woodrow Wilson. Cooper described the long rivalry between Republican Roosevelt and Democrat Wilson as a contest between a warrior and a priest. In modern times, the Democratic presidential race has usually pitted a warrior against a priest.

Warrior candidates stress their ability to deliver on kitchen table concerns and revel in political combat. They tout their experience and flout their scars. Their greatest strength is usually persistence, not eloquence; they don't so much inspire as reassure.

What about blue-collar Republicans? Don't they tend to see elections as an opportunity to affirm their values? Does that mean the upscale Republican voters see elections as an arena for defending their interests?