Hope Clint Eastwood likes this post. (And given that he's a Republican in leftwing-dominated Hollywood, I'll bet he probably would :-)
The Good:
Roberts confirmed as Chief Justice. Glad it finally occurred.
A victory for academic freedom on college campuses.
Residents starting to return to New Orleans.
Blog of the Day: Good News From Iraq (and Afghanistan). An absolute must read, on what the liberal media will never tell you.
The Bad:
Saudi prince Al-Waleed buys stake in Fox News. This could be very troubling indeed if Al-Waleed, the same prince whose $10 million check was rejected by Rudy Giuliani after 9/11, gains influence over the company's direction. His ownership share is relatively small, so chances are he won't, but this certainly should be monitored.
Liberal media pandering to radical Muslims. Now at first glance, you might wonder - what's wrong with this article? After all, it's only about a few Latina women who converted to Islam. But let's examine things more closely. First of all, this is not a noteworthy event that should ordinarily grace the front page of a national news site. Far more Hispanics, for example, have converted to Mormonism (and such converts outnumber Islamic converts by about 100 to 1), but you never hear their story. Secondly, the article portrays fundamentalist Islam in a sugar coated light at great odds with reality. The article, of course, does not identify the brand of Islam that these women practice, but given that they all wear full-body hijabs and attend a mosque that denies Israel's existence (click and scroll down for a telltale map on its website), they clearly are not moderates. This article exists only so the liberal media can try and convince themselves that radical Islam is normal and not the dangerous threat that it actually is.
And, unfortunately, The Ugly:
So a particular country has built a razor barb-wire fence to keep certain people out. Those on the "wrong" side of the fence, so to speak, have complained insistently that it infringes their rights. The nation that built the fence has deployed its army to assist with protection. Surely the U.N. must be furious, demanding that the fence be torn down!
But nope, not a peep from Kofi and company. What could possibly be wrong?
Oops, the country is not Israel. The U.N. is absolutely silent.
And hence yet another reason why the organization is not a trustworthy partner for America (as I discussed in the previous post). The U.N. in no place to oversee the Internet, and needs serious immediate reforms.
Friday, September 30, 2005
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
U.N. - Stay Out of the Internet
There is an old song by the Hollies called "King Midas In Reverse" in which the lyrics go: "He's King Midas with a curse / He's King Midas in reverse...He's not the man to hold your trust / Everything he touches turns to dust / In his hands..."
This tune may have been a clever twist on an old myth, but unfortunately it also quite aptly describes the recent state of the United Nations. While the UN has certainly accomplished a few worthy goals such as programs to reduce poverty and disease, by and large its recent activities have been tragic failures. To name just a few, this includes utter failure to stop genocides in Rwanda and Sudan, failure to even define (much less stop) terrorism, the allowance of Libya (!) to sit at the head of its commission on human rights, non-stop resolutions against Israel while ignoring far worse actions by many other countries, according dictatorships the same respects as democracies, and wasting billions of dollars on scandals and fraud such as the oil-for-food scheme.
And now the UN wants to take over the Internet. The SolidSurfer.com's response: terrible idea.
With all the UN's demonstrated failures and incompetence, they are in no position to take over the Net. The Internet and World Wide Web have been a great force for the exchange of free ideas and growth-oriented capitalism, unrestrained by excessive taxation, regulation, and red tape. But as the linked article states, UN control would most likely bring exactly those restraints. The organization has consistently capitulated to dictators at the expense of free and democratic nations, and sadly there is no reason to expect this to change regarding the Internet.
If we want to keep the Internet free and prosperous, we should press the U.S. government to keep its regulation in American hands. And the linked article in this piece is a great place to start.
This tune may have been a clever twist on an old myth, but unfortunately it also quite aptly describes the recent state of the United Nations. While the UN has certainly accomplished a few worthy goals such as programs to reduce poverty and disease, by and large its recent activities have been tragic failures. To name just a few, this includes utter failure to stop genocides in Rwanda and Sudan, failure to even define (much less stop) terrorism, the allowance of Libya (!) to sit at the head of its commission on human rights, non-stop resolutions against Israel while ignoring far worse actions by many other countries, according dictatorships the same respects as democracies, and wasting billions of dollars on scandals and fraud such as the oil-for-food scheme.
And now the UN wants to take over the Internet. The SolidSurfer.com's response: terrible idea.
With all the UN's demonstrated failures and incompetence, they are in no position to take over the Net. The Internet and World Wide Web have been a great force for the exchange of free ideas and growth-oriented capitalism, unrestrained by excessive taxation, regulation, and red tape. But as the linked article states, UN control would most likely bring exactly those restraints. The organization has consistently capitulated to dictators at the expense of free and democratic nations, and sadly there is no reason to expect this to change regarding the Internet.
If we want to keep the Internet free and prosperous, we should press the U.S. government to keep its regulation in American hands. And the linked article in this piece is a great place to start.
Sunday, September 25, 2005
On Freakonomics and Abortion
In arguing in my previous post that Roe vs. Wade is much less politically relevant than believed by the mainstream Left, I left out one potential criticism recently raised by the bestselling book Freakonomics. The book, by economist Steven Levitt (along with journalist Stephen Dubner), advances the theory that Roe Vs. Wade caused the massive national decline in violent crime during the 1990s, because legalized abortion prevented the criminals who would have committed such acts from being born.
Of course, as one might expect, this claim has been attacked on multiple fronts, from moral criticisms by the Right to direct challenges of Levitt's statistical methods by other economists (here is one example). But given that pro-choicers will probably ignore the pro-life criticism and most non-economists (honestly, including myself) may lack the time to thoroughly analyze the statistical challenges, I'd like to offer a criticism from a different angle - Levitt's basic theory itself.
Levitt's claim that Roe vs. Wade caused the 1990s crime drop rests on a gigantic and unproven assumption - that the babies aborted since 1973 (when Roe was signed into law) would have contained a large criminal element. Levitt bases his view on the facts that Roe made abortions available to lower income women, and that low income today correlates with increased crime.
A correlation, however, is not the same as a cause. Low income was not always associated with crime; at the height of the Great Depression in the 1930s, for example, national incomes plummeted yet crime failed to noticeably rise. Rather, low income and crime are together strongly linked to certain third factor causes, such as the lack of a father in the home. Plus, with the upward mobility common in American society, those with low incomes in the 1970s are by no means consigned to remain as such today.
No, Levitt does not prove his assumption, and in fact, he cannot prove it, because the people in question were never born. For all we know (and I would say this is a much more likely scenario), far from contributing to crime, these aborted babies would have instead solved America's social security crisis.
We commonly hear that "population aging" is the cause of social security's impending fiscal deficit, but the term is misleading. After all, everyone has always grown older, but the social security issue is a recent phenomenon. The real cause is that, unlike previous and current generations, the baby boomers born from 1948-1964 had fewer children than the number needed to replace themselves in the workforce. As a result, the next few decades will see a shortage of working age people needed to support the retiring boomers.
Now why did the baby boomers have so many fewer kids? Well, millions and millions of them were aborted following Roe vs. Wade in 1973.
That said, this conclusion is of course rooted in the assumption that the aborted children would have become, by and large, productive taxpaying members of society. Like Levitt's claim, I cannot prove this, because the people are not around for us to know.
But I certainly believe this is a more likely outcome than the one Levitt advances, and at the very least, it demonstrates how Freakonomics' abortion theory rests entirely on an unproven and unverifiable assertion. And as such, contrary to its claims, the book adds no relevance to the liberal support of Roe vs. Wade that I argue against below.
Of course, as one might expect, this claim has been attacked on multiple fronts, from moral criticisms by the Right to direct challenges of Levitt's statistical methods by other economists (here is one example). But given that pro-choicers will probably ignore the pro-life criticism and most non-economists (honestly, including myself) may lack the time to thoroughly analyze the statistical challenges, I'd like to offer a criticism from a different angle - Levitt's basic theory itself.
Levitt's claim that Roe vs. Wade caused the 1990s crime drop rests on a gigantic and unproven assumption - that the babies aborted since 1973 (when Roe was signed into law) would have contained a large criminal element. Levitt bases his view on the facts that Roe made abortions available to lower income women, and that low income today correlates with increased crime.
A correlation, however, is not the same as a cause. Low income was not always associated with crime; at the height of the Great Depression in the 1930s, for example, national incomes plummeted yet crime failed to noticeably rise. Rather, low income and crime are together strongly linked to certain third factor causes, such as the lack of a father in the home. Plus, with the upward mobility common in American society, those with low incomes in the 1970s are by no means consigned to remain as such today.
No, Levitt does not prove his assumption, and in fact, he cannot prove it, because the people in question were never born. For all we know (and I would say this is a much more likely scenario), far from contributing to crime, these aborted babies would have instead solved America's social security crisis.
We commonly hear that "population aging" is the cause of social security's impending fiscal deficit, but the term is misleading. After all, everyone has always grown older, but the social security issue is a recent phenomenon. The real cause is that, unlike previous and current generations, the baby boomers born from 1948-1964 had fewer children than the number needed to replace themselves in the workforce. As a result, the next few decades will see a shortage of working age people needed to support the retiring boomers.
Now why did the baby boomers have so many fewer kids? Well, millions and millions of them were aborted following Roe vs. Wade in 1973.
That said, this conclusion is of course rooted in the assumption that the aborted children would have become, by and large, productive taxpaying members of society. Like Levitt's claim, I cannot prove this, because the people are not around for us to know.
But I certainly believe this is a more likely outcome than the one Levitt advances, and at the very least, it demonstrates how Freakonomics' abortion theory rests entirely on an unproven and unverifiable assertion. And as such, contrary to its claims, the book adds no relevance to the liberal support of Roe vs. Wade that I argue against below.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Why Liberals Should Focus Away From Abortion
If you are a liberal, abortion is much less politically relevant than you probably think.
Now before anyone knee-jerk dismisses this essay as a typical anti-abortion "conservative rant," know that I am judging the matter only as a political issue and not as a practice itself. I do, of course, have a personal view on the pro-life vs. pro-choice debate, but that's not what this piece is about.
Rather, my argument is this: Contrary to popular belief, liberals' overwhelming support for Roe vs. Wade has in fact been a largely detrimental practice both to them and to America at large.
Of course you would never guess this from the Left's continuous focus on Roe in politics, media, and celebrity culture. But in reality, Roe vs. Wade is more symbolic than substantive, and liberals' singular focus on it detracts them from important issues that would otherwise assume primary relevance.
Abortion's legality does not actually rest on Roe vs. Wade. Should the court decision be overturned, abortion would not become suddenly illegal throughout the nation; rather, each individual state would decide its preference. And almost all current abortion clinics are located in states that, if given the choice, would most likely vote to allow the practice. USA Today recently conducted an analysis and determined that overturning Roe would close only 36 of the nation's 1819 abortion providers. Liberals are defending a court decision that does little more than uphold the status quo.
This effort, meanwhile, often influences liberals (especially moderate liberals) to vote against their other self interests. Many liberals so highly value Roe vs. Wade that it acts as their default political litmus test; the issue primarily determines whether they will vote for a particular candidate. (As a textbook example, witness the constant Roe-related grilling of John Roberts throughout his confirmation hearings.) But this often leads to moderates supporting candidates with whom they disagree on most issues except for Roe.
In the past, this problem may have remained largely a personal matter. But today, it unfortunately has become a vital issue of national security. Countless liberals who personally support strong responses against terrorism often vote for candidates weak on said issue simply because the candidates support Roe vs. Wade. These same voters will then reject able national defense types who are against Roe.
Cumulatively, these attitudes have dealt a great blow to America's fight against terrorism. This is not to say Roe vs. Wade is entirely irrelevant, but with America under threat from rogue states and fanatical terrorist organizations, national defense clearly should be a more important consideration. If these liberals could only shift some of their Roe-focused energy onto security concerns, both they and all Americans should benefit immensely.
Now before anyone knee-jerk dismisses this essay as a typical anti-abortion "conservative rant," know that I am judging the matter only as a political issue and not as a practice itself. I do, of course, have a personal view on the pro-life vs. pro-choice debate, but that's not what this piece is about.
Rather, my argument is this: Contrary to popular belief, liberals' overwhelming support for Roe vs. Wade has in fact been a largely detrimental practice both to them and to America at large.
Of course you would never guess this from the Left's continuous focus on Roe in politics, media, and celebrity culture. But in reality, Roe vs. Wade is more symbolic than substantive, and liberals' singular focus on it detracts them from important issues that would otherwise assume primary relevance.
Abortion's legality does not actually rest on Roe vs. Wade. Should the court decision be overturned, abortion would not become suddenly illegal throughout the nation; rather, each individual state would decide its preference. And almost all current abortion clinics are located in states that, if given the choice, would most likely vote to allow the practice. USA Today recently conducted an analysis and determined that overturning Roe would close only 36 of the nation's 1819 abortion providers. Liberals are defending a court decision that does little more than uphold the status quo.
This effort, meanwhile, often influences liberals (especially moderate liberals) to vote against their other self interests. Many liberals so highly value Roe vs. Wade that it acts as their default political litmus test; the issue primarily determines whether they will vote for a particular candidate. (As a textbook example, witness the constant Roe-related grilling of John Roberts throughout his confirmation hearings.) But this often leads to moderates supporting candidates with whom they disagree on most issues except for Roe.
In the past, this problem may have remained largely a personal matter. But today, it unfortunately has become a vital issue of national security. Countless liberals who personally support strong responses against terrorism often vote for candidates weak on said issue simply because the candidates support Roe vs. Wade. These same voters will then reject able national defense types who are against Roe.
Cumulatively, these attitudes have dealt a great blow to America's fight against terrorism. This is not to say Roe vs. Wade is entirely irrelevant, but with America under threat from rogue states and fanatical terrorist organizations, national defense clearly should be a more important consideration. If these liberals could only shift some of their Roe-focused energy onto security concerns, both they and all Americans should benefit immensely.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Asimov and al-Qaeda?
A few minutes ago, I decided to check if my recent post comparing Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels with current events was listed on search engines, and in the process came across a fascinating article from 2002 that, believe it or not, claims that Osama Bin Laden was inspired by Foundation.
According to the piece, the terrorist kingpin believes that America and Western Civilization represent the fading empire of the novels, while he and al-Qaeda are the scientists of the Foundation, aiming to build a new, enlightened Second Empire on the ashes of the old. Bin Laden views himself as a Hari Seldon-like figure who has predicted the future, and indeed, just like Seldon, he transmits messages to his followers via pre-recorded video clips. On top of this, the term "The Foundation" is translated into Arabic as - you guessed it - "al Qaeda."
Could all this actually be true? The article also presents ample evidence against it, so perhaps the best we can say is that the jury is still out.
But whether the books influenced Bin Laden or not, I still fully stand by the prediction (as espoused in my piece) that radical Islam will not win. And in fact, my piece specifically analyzes the America-as-empire possibility and demonstrates its inaccuracy. The fictional scientists of the Foundation are all about technology, freedom, and peace. Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden, on the other hand, are all about terrorism, lack of freedom, and war.
No matter what Bin Laden thinks, the fact remains that he is a terrorist who has committed horrible acts of evil. And in the end, he will lose.
According to the piece, the terrorist kingpin believes that America and Western Civilization represent the fading empire of the novels, while he and al-Qaeda are the scientists of the Foundation, aiming to build a new, enlightened Second Empire on the ashes of the old. Bin Laden views himself as a Hari Seldon-like figure who has predicted the future, and indeed, just like Seldon, he transmits messages to his followers via pre-recorded video clips. On top of this, the term "The Foundation" is translated into Arabic as - you guessed it - "al Qaeda."
Could all this actually be true? The article also presents ample evidence against it, so perhaps the best we can say is that the jury is still out.
But whether the books influenced Bin Laden or not, I still fully stand by the prediction (as espoused in my piece) that radical Islam will not win. And in fact, my piece specifically analyzes the America-as-empire possibility and demonstrates its inaccuracy. The fictional scientists of the Foundation are all about technology, freedom, and peace. Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden, on the other hand, are all about terrorism, lack of freedom, and war.
No matter what Bin Laden thinks, the fact remains that he is a terrorist who has committed horrible acts of evil. And in the end, he will lose.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Isaac Asimov's Foundation Novels and the War on Terrorism
Some time ago, I promised that this blog would touch upon the relationship between Isaac Asimov's Foundation series of novels and events in the real world. As it turns out, the books contain striking parallels to our current geopolitical state of affairs, but not at all in the way that might seem most obvious.
The Foundation novels take place in the distant future, when man has colonized the stars and created a giant galactic empire. This empire has reigned for thousands of years, but crippled by its vast size, is beginning to decline and decay. The Emperor and his subjects are fully oblivious to this slide, but a scientist named Hari Seldon, who has created a novel science of prediction called psychohistory, has mathematically forseen the impending collapse leading to a 30,000-year dark age of war, ignorance, and barbarism. To save mankind from these horrors, Seldon gathers the best and brightest from around the galaxy, and creates a colony on a faraway planet called the Foundation. This, as his psychohistorical calculations predict, will shorten the dark ages to a 1000-year period, at the end of which the Foundation will rise to form an enlightened and peaceful Second Empire.
But, of course, the Foundation must first survive the interim with its wars, political instability, and other myriad obstacles. Psychohistory predicts that the Foundation will do so, based upon the colony's nature as opposed to that of the empire (don't worry, this isn't a plot spoiler). But the Foundationers have no idea how they will actually make this occur.
Asimov wrote the original Foundation novels (a trilogy) after having read Edward Gibbon's The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire. Now based on this, it is entirely forgivable if you are thinking that surely the books must parallel America and its current "empire." And indeed the stability of the post-Cold War "pax Americana" -- what Francis Fukuyama referred to as the "End of History," with liberal democracy emerging as the winner -- has come under serious strain as of late, with unrest in the Middle East, China, Venezuela, and elsewhere.
But such a comparison, in my view, is not really accurate. For Asimov's fictional empire is a true colonizing power, led by corrupt, unelected officials with an all-powerful Emperor at the helm. This empire indeed epitomizes the hallmarks of ancient Rome, with its hereditary leadership, few (if any) checks and balances on power, and numerous bloody palace coups. America is nothing like this.
Rather, the Foundation novels mirror current events via the science of psychohistory. Just as Hari Seldon predicts with virtual certainty that the Foundation will ultimately win, the nature of radical Islam predicts with virtual certainty that it will ultimately lose.
Now I know a lot of people probably aren't so confident of this. But I am. And I will explain Hari Seldon-style why this is so.
Psychohistory is, of course, a made-up science. But in Asimov's fictional world, Hari Seldon uses it to mathematically analyze the entirety of possible galacticopolitical stimuli that humankind may encounter, and then, based on the known reactions of mass behavior to these stimuli, predict the outcomes to about 99% accuracy. (Once again, none of this is a plot spoiler.)
Unlike Seldon, I'm not using any formal science here, and I doubt the word "galacticopolitical" is even in the dictionary. But based on a general knowledge of certain broad characteristics of radical Islam versus those of competing cultures, I believe that the outcome of the jihadists' current conflict with the rest of the world (and yes, it certainly is against the rest of the world) can be predicted just as accurately as that of the war between the Foundation and the empire. And radical Islam will not win.
Why? In a nutshell, for two overarching reasons. First, unlike all other world powers today and in the past, radical Islam's strength is entirely artificial and dependent on the West. And secondly, the jihadists have an insurmountable weakness in their absolute refusal to question or compromise any of their core goals.
Let's touch on both points. Radical Islam is an anomaly among powerful movements in that it created virtually none of its strength on its own. All other nations that have ever achieved a modicum of power, from ancient Greece to the colonial British to modern-day America, and even evil powers such as Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, did so by developing their own governments, economies, and militaries. Whether good or evil, they all conquered and/or influenced mighty swaths of territory primarily due to the fruits of their own internal labor and developments.
The Islamists, on the other hand, have never developed a successfully functioning government, economy, or military. And in fact, the ultra-authoritarian nature of radical Islam utterly prevents them from doing so. Any society that does not allow any questioning of authority and any true freedom of any kind cannot possibly function as a modern society. And as we can see, every terrorist-sponsoring country is mired in dire poverty, a weakly functioning government, and weak militaries. Their only strengths are in ideological radicalism and terrorism, which are funded and permitted entirely by oil money and foreign aid, neither of which the Islamists produced themselves.
So the only way for the Islamists to advance are to 1) fundamentally change so that they can indeed produce a modern successful society, or 2) defeat the West as they surely aim to do so. The problem for them is that if they choose Option 1, they will no longer be Islamists. And if they begin to make any real headway in Option 2, they will lose the source of their strength far before they can come close to completing the job.
Now the second reason for the Islamists' eventual defeat, their refusal to question or compromise anything, is related to Option 2 above. Because the jihadists won't budge from their all-or-nothing position, there is no room for the enemy (i.e. the rest of us) to negotiate anything with them. And this will inevitably lead to all-out war, where it is virtually certain that the West, which built itself up via its own internal strengths, will soundly win. Once again, the Islamists face an insurmountable choice - either change themselves and compromise, which they cannot do without losing their core identity, or fight the West and lose.
This also answers the question of whether the Islamists can exploit the West's one key weakness, which is the left-leaning infatuation with multiculturalism and relative values that allowed radical Islam to emerge as a threat in the first place. And the answer is yes they can, but not indefinitely. Right now, many voices in America and in Europe continue to delude themselves that they can negotiate with the jihadists, that our enemies have placable goals, and that by helping and understanding them we can calm them down. This continues because, by and large, we have been very military successful against them in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, and the leftist relativist element always feels guilty about being ahead. But anytime the jihadists commit acts of terror, tougher Western voices always emerge, and at some point (and I pray this occurs sooner than later), we will take no more and finally clamp down to utterly defeat them.
So there you have it - due to their very nature, the Islamists have no way to win. Ultimately, their only option is to lose.
But wait, you might be thinking, the Islamists acted the same way and yet carved out a mighty empire in the Middle East for a thousand years; how can you say this won't happen again? Well, the comparison may seem apt initially, but in reality the Islamic empire of old was very different than the jihadists of today. Back then, bloodthirsty and uncompromising as they were, they at least built up their own militaries, and while their their governments and economies were poor, so were everyone else's. Today the jihadists have none of these strengths.
No, the jihadists will not be successful and the rest of the world will ultimately come out victorious. Unfortunately this does not mean that the battle will be a cakewalk; just as Hari Seldon can predict only mass behavior and not the actions of any one individual, the Islamist-defeat model as presented here can forecast only the eventual outcome of the war at large. Very likely, there will be a number of challenges in the interim, which we must face and overcome strong and vigilantly. It is tragic that we have had to suffer even a single terrorist attack, and undoubtedly the jihadists are planning more evil actions as we speak. But make no mistake - in the end, we will win and they will lose.
The Foundation novels take place in the distant future, when man has colonized the stars and created a giant galactic empire. This empire has reigned for thousands of years, but crippled by its vast size, is beginning to decline and decay. The Emperor and his subjects are fully oblivious to this slide, but a scientist named Hari Seldon, who has created a novel science of prediction called psychohistory, has mathematically forseen the impending collapse leading to a 30,000-year dark age of war, ignorance, and barbarism. To save mankind from these horrors, Seldon gathers the best and brightest from around the galaxy, and creates a colony on a faraway planet called the Foundation. This, as his psychohistorical calculations predict, will shorten the dark ages to a 1000-year period, at the end of which the Foundation will rise to form an enlightened and peaceful Second Empire.
But, of course, the Foundation must first survive the interim with its wars, political instability, and other myriad obstacles. Psychohistory predicts that the Foundation will do so, based upon the colony's nature as opposed to that of the empire (don't worry, this isn't a plot spoiler). But the Foundationers have no idea how they will actually make this occur.
Asimov wrote the original Foundation novels (a trilogy) after having read Edward Gibbon's The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire. Now based on this, it is entirely forgivable if you are thinking that surely the books must parallel America and its current "empire." And indeed the stability of the post-Cold War "pax Americana" -- what Francis Fukuyama referred to as the "End of History," with liberal democracy emerging as the winner -- has come under serious strain as of late, with unrest in the Middle East, China, Venezuela, and elsewhere.
But such a comparison, in my view, is not really accurate. For Asimov's fictional empire is a true colonizing power, led by corrupt, unelected officials with an all-powerful Emperor at the helm. This empire indeed epitomizes the hallmarks of ancient Rome, with its hereditary leadership, few (if any) checks and balances on power, and numerous bloody palace coups. America is nothing like this.
Rather, the Foundation novels mirror current events via the science of psychohistory. Just as Hari Seldon predicts with virtual certainty that the Foundation will ultimately win, the nature of radical Islam predicts with virtual certainty that it will ultimately lose.
Now I know a lot of people probably aren't so confident of this. But I am. And I will explain Hari Seldon-style why this is so.
Psychohistory is, of course, a made-up science. But in Asimov's fictional world, Hari Seldon uses it to mathematically analyze the entirety of possible galacticopolitical stimuli that humankind may encounter, and then, based on the known reactions of mass behavior to these stimuli, predict the outcomes to about 99% accuracy. (Once again, none of this is a plot spoiler.)
Unlike Seldon, I'm not using any formal science here, and I doubt the word "galacticopolitical" is even in the dictionary. But based on a general knowledge of certain broad characteristics of radical Islam versus those of competing cultures, I believe that the outcome of the jihadists' current conflict with the rest of the world (and yes, it certainly is against the rest of the world) can be predicted just as accurately as that of the war between the Foundation and the empire. And radical Islam will not win.
Why? In a nutshell, for two overarching reasons. First, unlike all other world powers today and in the past, radical Islam's strength is entirely artificial and dependent on the West. And secondly, the jihadists have an insurmountable weakness in their absolute refusal to question or compromise any of their core goals.
Let's touch on both points. Radical Islam is an anomaly among powerful movements in that it created virtually none of its strength on its own. All other nations that have ever achieved a modicum of power, from ancient Greece to the colonial British to modern-day America, and even evil powers such as Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, did so by developing their own governments, economies, and militaries. Whether good or evil, they all conquered and/or influenced mighty swaths of territory primarily due to the fruits of their own internal labor and developments.
The Islamists, on the other hand, have never developed a successfully functioning government, economy, or military. And in fact, the ultra-authoritarian nature of radical Islam utterly prevents them from doing so. Any society that does not allow any questioning of authority and any true freedom of any kind cannot possibly function as a modern society. And as we can see, every terrorist-sponsoring country is mired in dire poverty, a weakly functioning government, and weak militaries. Their only strengths are in ideological radicalism and terrorism, which are funded and permitted entirely by oil money and foreign aid, neither of which the Islamists produced themselves.
So the only way for the Islamists to advance are to 1) fundamentally change so that they can indeed produce a modern successful society, or 2) defeat the West as they surely aim to do so. The problem for them is that if they choose Option 1, they will no longer be Islamists. And if they begin to make any real headway in Option 2, they will lose the source of their strength far before they can come close to completing the job.
Now the second reason for the Islamists' eventual defeat, their refusal to question or compromise anything, is related to Option 2 above. Because the jihadists won't budge from their all-or-nothing position, there is no room for the enemy (i.e. the rest of us) to negotiate anything with them. And this will inevitably lead to all-out war, where it is virtually certain that the West, which built itself up via its own internal strengths, will soundly win. Once again, the Islamists face an insurmountable choice - either change themselves and compromise, which they cannot do without losing their core identity, or fight the West and lose.
This also answers the question of whether the Islamists can exploit the West's one key weakness, which is the left-leaning infatuation with multiculturalism and relative values that allowed radical Islam to emerge as a threat in the first place. And the answer is yes they can, but not indefinitely. Right now, many voices in America and in Europe continue to delude themselves that they can negotiate with the jihadists, that our enemies have placable goals, and that by helping and understanding them we can calm them down. This continues because, by and large, we have been very military successful against them in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, and the leftist relativist element always feels guilty about being ahead. But anytime the jihadists commit acts of terror, tougher Western voices always emerge, and at some point (and I pray this occurs sooner than later), we will take no more and finally clamp down to utterly defeat them.
So there you have it - due to their very nature, the Islamists have no way to win. Ultimately, their only option is to lose.
But wait, you might be thinking, the Islamists acted the same way and yet carved out a mighty empire in the Middle East for a thousand years; how can you say this won't happen again? Well, the comparison may seem apt initially, but in reality the Islamic empire of old was very different than the jihadists of today. Back then, bloodthirsty and uncompromising as they were, they at least built up their own militaries, and while their their governments and economies were poor, so were everyone else's. Today the jihadists have none of these strengths.
No, the jihadists will not be successful and the rest of the world will ultimately come out victorious. Unfortunately this does not mean that the battle will be a cakewalk; just as Hari Seldon can predict only mass behavior and not the actions of any one individual, the Islamist-defeat model as presented here can forecast only the eventual outcome of the war at large. Very likely, there will be a number of challenges in the interim, which we must face and overcome strong and vigilantly. It is tragic that we have had to suffer even a single terrorist attack, and undoubtedly the jihadists are planning more evil actions as we speak. But make no mistake - in the end, we will win and they will lose.
Thursday, September 8, 2005
Leftism and Hollywood's Downturn
As many of us know, Hollywood in 2005 has experienced its worst downturn in recent memory, with box office takes plunging, fewer films becoming blockbusters, and many expensively produced movies becoming major flops. Studios have largely fingered as the culprit the increasing abundance of other entertainment options, such as home theater and DVDs, video games, and the Internet.
But are these really to blame? Entertainment choices actually have been increasing for many years, starting with radios and television sets in the 1950s. Video games went mainstream in the '80s, while the Web has been around for a decade and DVDs for nearly as long. Certainly these may play a partial role in the Hollywood downturn, but I believe that the primary cause is a different beast altogether - bad movies. And are these related to the Tinseltown crowd's leftwing tendencies? You bet.
To most Hollywood actors and filmmakers, achieving artistic credibility among their peers is of paramount career importance, even more so than earning large sums of money. (Just to point out, this is no different than artists in fields from painting to poetry; hence the term "starving artist.") That's why you see directors like Woody Allen and Roman Polanski, neither of whom have scored a hit in many years, continue to attract top acting talent and generous studio funding for films that are almost assured to pull great reviews but poor box office results. As the Hollywood crowd sees it, who cares how many people actually watch the movie; it's Woody Allen and he makes great art.
Thing is, when most of your peers have political and cultural values far different than most Americans, you may be impressing your friends but you're also alienating most of your audience. This, I believe, is why moviegoers shunned well reviewed films with ultra-liberal viewpoints like Kinsey and The Interpreter, but flocked to critically savaged yet family-friendly movies like Napoleon Dynamite.
Now certainly this is not the only cause of bad-movie syndrome; Hollywood has in recent years relied far more on formulaic sequels, remakes, and TV adaptations than on fresh and original scripts. But the confluence of leftism and artistic peer-review has no doubt played a significant role.
But are these really to blame? Entertainment choices actually have been increasing for many years, starting with radios and television sets in the 1950s. Video games went mainstream in the '80s, while the Web has been around for a decade and DVDs for nearly as long. Certainly these may play a partial role in the Hollywood downturn, but I believe that the primary cause is a different beast altogether - bad movies. And are these related to the Tinseltown crowd's leftwing tendencies? You bet.
To most Hollywood actors and filmmakers, achieving artistic credibility among their peers is of paramount career importance, even more so than earning large sums of money. (Just to point out, this is no different than artists in fields from painting to poetry; hence the term "starving artist.") That's why you see directors like Woody Allen and Roman Polanski, neither of whom have scored a hit in many years, continue to attract top acting talent and generous studio funding for films that are almost assured to pull great reviews but poor box office results. As the Hollywood crowd sees it, who cares how many people actually watch the movie; it's Woody Allen and he makes great art.
Thing is, when most of your peers have political and cultural values far different than most Americans, you may be impressing your friends but you're also alienating most of your audience. This, I believe, is why moviegoers shunned well reviewed films with ultra-liberal viewpoints like Kinsey and The Interpreter, but flocked to critically savaged yet family-friendly movies like Napoleon Dynamite.
Now certainly this is not the only cause of bad-movie syndrome; Hollywood has in recent years relied far more on formulaic sequels, remakes, and TV adaptations than on fresh and original scripts. But the confluence of leftism and artistic peer-review has no doubt played a significant role.
Wednesday, September 7, 2005
Where Is Everyone?
Did you know that just a few days ago, a Palestinian Muslim mob attacked a Christian village as retaliation for a woman having had an affair with a Christian resident of the village? You probably didn't, because as expected, the mainstream news media barely reported it. But wait, you might be thinking, what about the UN, Amnesty International, the Red Cross, and similar organizations? Surely they must be concerned for the welfare of the victims.
But nope, these leftwing groups (who most certainly would be livid had the attackers and victims been reversed) were nowhere to be found. It is clear that these organizations don't truly care about universal human welfare; they help others only when it benefits their political agendas. Fortunately, no one was hurt in the Palestinian incident and order has been restored. But there is no excuse for these groups' utter silence on the situation. All of these organizations are in serious need of reform, and we can all make a difference by continually pressing the matter until it spurs them to action.
But nope, these leftwing groups (who most certainly would be livid had the attackers and victims been reversed) were nowhere to be found. It is clear that these organizations don't truly care about universal human welfare; they help others only when it benefits their political agendas. Fortunately, no one was hurt in the Palestinian incident and order has been restored. But there is no excuse for these groups' utter silence on the situation. All of these organizations are in serious need of reform, and we can all make a difference by continually pressing the matter until it spurs them to action.
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