Posted by Dan Ewert : 8/29/2002 02:03:00 AM (Archive Link)
I’ve come to the realization recently that there’s a new form of cold war starting. It’s much more benign in a way and far more nebulous than the old U.S. vs. U.S.S.R. version, but it’s brewing. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. stood astride the world as the lone superpower and it still holds that distinction. What this has done, however, is make the rest of the world awfully wary of us. The EU, especially, is giving the impression that they fear America will use its economic and military power to have its way wherever it pleases just because it can. They therefore feel it’s their duty to oppose such actions… even it’s for the good. Take Iraq, for example. Hussein needs to go. He’s a dangerous man with dangerous weapons who has proved both of these in the past. He mocks U.N. resolutions, aids suicide bombers, and harbors terrorists (more on that in the next post). Bush would love to remove him from power. Many Americans would love to remove him from power. The EU, the UN, and a host of others, however, have vigorously opposed the idea. They say there’s no proof of weapons or terrorists or any wrongdoing. They all know better but they still oppose it. The real reason? Because America wants to do it and it involves force. When those aspects come together, then America must be opposed. My favorite opposition tactic is when leaders say that no action should be taken unless the UN blesses it. Of course, they know very well that the UN will not bless it and that’s why they say it. At the same time, it allows them to not directly oppose action. They sidestep the issue. So yes, I think we’ll see an increasing number of disagreements between America and the world on a number of issues and this will be the new cold war. Hopefully, it won’t lead to any conflicts.

What really irks me about these countries' behavior, however, is how almost all of the now disagreeable countries benefited from America’s involvement and use of force. When it was America against the Soviets, they couldn’t line up fast enough to be our friends. Now they’re filling the Soviet power vacuum. And in the process, they will blithely ignore the dangers in their midst and the dangers just a block down from their neighborhood. They did it with Yugoslavia and they’re doing it now with Iraq. As I’ve said before, it never ceases to astonish me at how Europe has an utter inability to learn from their historic mistakes, especially where dictators are concerned. They choose appeasement every time and every time their inaction results in terrific suffering.

Posted by Dan Ewert : 8/29/2002 02:03:00 AM (Archive Link)
You may have read recently about the U.N. conference that took up the cause of helping Third World countries develop to… well, at least to the 2.5 World. The poor countries, of course, said how it was the moral duty of the rich Western nations to provide them with more aid. The West is balking and for good reason. Throwing money at these countries is money wasted.

The first problem I see with aid is that most of these governments are hopelessly corrupt. Foreign aid in the form of cash is largely pocketed by officials or squandered on projects that benefit only themselves. Foreign aid in the form of grain or food is controlled by these same people and is distributed to friends or resold for profit as they see fit. The citizens, then, continue to wallow in poverty and the same bloated emissaries cry out about how the world oppresses them and they deserve more aid. A fine example of this is the Palestinian Authority. Here’s a group that receives money from the U.S., the U.N., the E.U. and who knows how many Arab nations. For the population and geographic size, they have a huge aid income. And yet the people suffer while the PA officials build and live in mansion/palaces. It’s well known that it’s impossible to accomplish anything there without extensive bribery. And so you can see similar behavior in any number of the Third World countries. So aid accomplishes little because of the entities who are entrusted to handle it. The entrusted can’t be trusted.

Secondly, I don’t like aid because it has the tendency to keep these corrupt governments in power. Not only in the sense that the liquid money and the power of distribution give them exceptional power and military might, but if the people have just enough to keep from starving, they’re likely to tolerate an oppressive regime… especially when combined with the military might. North Korea is a prime example of this. A Communist country with a leader worship mentality, it is unable to feed its own people. Many have starved there and this is in spite of much food aid from other countries. I’m willing to bet that when that food aid reaches the masses, it’s never presented as foreign aid… it’s more likely presented as food that the great leader has provided to his people, he’s such a swell guy. Without such extensive aid, though, the greater suffering of the people would create a groundswell to overthrow the bad government. Instead the aid preserves it. Cruel? Yes. It’s the realpolitik in me. Another part of me doesn’t like the idea of letting many more people starve for the purpose of revolution, but then again I wonder if it’s better in the long run.

And third, I dislike aid because even at its best, it ultimately teaches reliance on that aid. If you keep giving people fish, there’s little reason to learn to fish.

What I would like to see instead is a larger presence of private enterprise in these countries. Since many don’t have the capital to start this out and those who do just become part of the corruption problem, then foreign private enterprise would have to get involved. International corporations have the ability to cater to corrupt regimes and once they have a foothold, they can resist them. At the same time, they can increase the overall wealth of the nation and its people which enables the citizenry to conduct their own private enterprise and it’s a snowball effect from there to the establishment of a well-to-do and effective middle class.

Some will no doubt call my proposition simplistic, that it ignores how many international companies have a tendency to pay poorly, that they can further enrich and empower the rulers, and that some examples of foreign companies in the Third World haven’t been the best. All this is true and they are issues to be worked on. Nevertheless, well-applied capitalism has been a far greater boon to the world than any other system. For this reason alone, it deserves consideration in developing nations instead of milking the already developed countries of ever more foreign aid.

Posted by Dan Ewert : 8/29/2002 02:02:00 AM (Archive Link)
So on the issue of Iraq, many are saying we have no right for attack because we can’t prove Saddam’s development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and we can’t prove that he is harboring, protecting, or aiding terrorists. This is what they say in public to avoid another Persian Gulf War and to oppose the U.S. However, I cannot for a minute believe that any of these people actually buy into this. Here are some facts… we know Hussein has developed WMD in the past; we know he tossed UN inspectors out of Iraq before they had come close to completing their mission of ensuring the WMD had been destroyed; we know that while the inspectors were in Iraq, they hit so much red tape and brick walls that they were utterly ineffective anyway; we know that Hussein hates the U.S. and that Iraq is just a stone’s throw from Afghanistan, a country from which a number of al Qaeda terrorists and Taliban lackies escaped. So for somebody to actually believe that Iraq isn’t developing and producing more WMD and that he isn’t helping terrorists who have proven they can strike at America is not just absurd… it’s stupid… incredibly stupid. And while I think that the countries who put forth such nonsense are stupid in their own ways, I don’t think their stupid in this way. They know better; they know Hussein is up to no good. But again, they would prefer to stand by and do nothing except talk, talk, talk. Stupid.

Posted by Dan Ewert : 8/29/2002 02:01:00 AM (Archive Link)
One more thing that irks me is how Saddam has been pleading his case up and down and issuing all sorts of propaganda about why Iraq shouldn’t be attacked. And everybody else is eating up. They’re being manipulated by a madman. And why not… it’s happened before. I guarantee you that if nothing is done about this, it will all blow up in our faces and that will be the most tragic thing of all.

Posted by Dan Ewert : 8/29/2002 02:00:00 AM (Archive Link)
Just read this article on CNN.com which exemplifies some of the things I’ve just discussed. The Europeans are afraid of unilateralist U.S. action, the EU wants to just talk, and they’ll stand idly by. This is my favorite part: “Louis Michel, the ever-outspoken Belgian Foreign Minister, told the Belgian daily newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws that [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair was undermining the rest of the European Union. ‘Morally and politically we could take charge in the world. But the UK are blocking that. They still don't understand they could play a pioneer role in Europe instead of submissively following the U.S..’” He’s essentially accusing the British of not being European enough. It’s the same as old fashioned race baiting. The pioneer role they could play in Europe is actually being pioneers… that typically involves not being like everybody else and blazing your own path. What the good Mr. Michel is really frustrated with is that the UK isn’t submissively following popular EU opinion. Let’s hope they don’t.

Posted by Dan Ewert : 8/26/2002 12:39:00 AM (Archive Link)
On a lighter note than usual… I tried watching the Anna Nicole Smith Show on E! today. I spent most of it amazed at just how… well… stupid she is. The lights are on but not only is nobody home, but the house is completely empty and the cockroaches are scurrying around. She seems like a 5 year old, if that. I can’t really describe it, you just have to watch it. About three minutes will be enough to get the proper impression.

One scene I found amusing was when she was giving her decorator, Bobby Trendy, directions on what she wanted in her bedroom. I got the feeling he was appalled at her choices (lots of leopard skin and fuzzy pink stuff) but he was going along with it… afterall, he was getting a lot of free publicity from the show.

Posted by Dan Ewert : 8/23/2002 11:05:00 PM (Archive Link)
In a previous post, I mentioned human rights and a notion occurred to me. I believe that a good barometer of the quality of a country’s human rights record is to what degree that country’s rhetoric says they have great human rights. In other words, the volume and boasting of their rhetoric is inversely proportional to the actual conditions; the more they claim good human rights, the worse they really are. Take this quote from Libya, for example, “Libya is a country where the respect of human rights is enshrined. The security, political stability and economic prosperity enjoyed by Libya are the proof of its respect of human rights.” (It must be so… African nations just voted for Libya to be head of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights… can the U.N. get any more backwards?) I’m sure you can find similar absurd quotes from those nations with the least respect for humanity. I tried to find a few but not many sites compile ridiculous propaganda statements from totalitarian governments and dictatorships. At any rate, the more a country talks up its record, the less true it is likely to be. For fun, let’s look at the opposite end of the spectrum… let’s try replacing “Libya” in the above quote with “the U.S.”: “The United States is a country where the respect of human rights is enshrined. The security, political stability and economic prosperity enjoyed by the U.S. are the proof of its respect of human rights.” Sounds silly, right? Not because there isn’t truth in it, but because it’s something of a “duh” statement. We wouldn’t go to the trouble of pointing out something like that if for no other reason than that it would appear gauche. It’s also a little overwrought in its language and we would never put it that way. Besides, the attitude of Americans towards almost all things is, “We’re good, probably better than everybody else, but we still have work to do… I mean, have you seen our past?” It’s that Puritan guilt coming into play. People would like to think that the Puritan aspect is no longer pertinent in American society, but we’re Puritan even in our liberality. The right got the values and the left got the guilt. Getting back to the point, however, if a foreign ambassador ever regales you at a dinner party about how great their country’s human rights record is, you should probably question why he feels the need to tell you that. If the record isn’t already obvious and transparent, then there’s a problem.

Posted by Dan Ewert : 8/23/2002 11:02:00 PM (Archive Link)
Speaking of countries with poor human rights records, Cuba's web site has this little snippet celebrating 80 years of radio in Cuba. What I find surprising is that they’d be celebrating something that happened before the country’s Communist revolution. Well… I guess it is an awfully small snippet.

Posted by Dan Ewert : 8/23/2002 11:01:00 PM (Archive Link)
I read a letter to the editor in today’s USA Today and a reader opined that we shouldn’t invade Iraq because it will just turn into another Vietnam. How many times have we heard that? Panama was supposed to be another Vietnam… The Persian Gulf War I was supposed to be another Vietnam… Yugoslavia was supposed to another Vietnam… Afghanistan was supposed to be even worse than another Vietnam. Of course, there hasn’t been another Vietnam and there won’t be another one. Heck, we could go back to Vietnam and it wouldn’t be another Vietnam. The actual Vietnam War was unique for the time period, culture, geography, politics, and military. You simply can’t transplant the experiences of that war into conditions that are vastly different from the conditions in the aforementioned categories. It simply doesn’t work. Saying that such and such will be another Vietnam has almost as much effect as saying it will be another War of the Roses or another Punic War (you can pick your favorite of the three). It’s simply incorrect to say that events in scenario A will occur in scenario B even though the circumstances and conditions surrounding B are nothing like A. Ever since the Vietnam War’s unfortunate conclusion, those on the left and those who are afraid of armed confrontation have used it as the war bogeyman. No matter where we propose our armed forces should intervene, we can’t go there because it might be like Vietnam. The notion doesn’t hold water but it is a silly piece of rhetoric that’s invoked to make Americans nervous. As Bush Sr. once said, it’s about time we kick this Vietnam syndrome once and for all. If only there weren’t people who kept trying to reinfect us.

Posted by Dan Ewert : 8/22/2002 11:30:00 PM (Archive Link)
It hasn’t received a great deal of national news, but Mexican president Vicente Fox recently canceled a planned trip through Texas because the state executed a man who was a possible Mexican national. They were slightly irked that the convicted man wasn’t allowed to contact the Mexican consulate, even though his nationality was very much in doubt. For the most part, I like Fox, but he’s annoying me on this matter. He’s been taking the moral high road and condemning Texas and the U.S. in general for using capital punishment. Said Fox, “When you believe in values, you live by them. We don’t believe that the death penalty is the way to go. The whole world is moving in the direction of the elimination of the death penalty.” He also pointed out that even though Mexico’s military courts allow the death penalty, nobody has been executed there for decades (yeah, at least not officially). So yes, even our southern neighbors are looking down their moral noses at us. What I find appalling about this… well, laughable, really… is that it’s Mexico. Mexico of all places! Does anybody hear the pot mocking the kettle? Allow me to point you to a few sites regarding Mexico’s sparkling human rights record… let’s see… there’s Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and well, here’s a whole bunch of Amnesty International articles and almost none of them are complimentary. My point is that if anybody should be lecturing the U.S. on human rights, it’s not Mexico. While Fox might be the man to help turn things around, I think he should clean his own house before pointing fingers at the mansion next door.

Posted by Dan Ewert : 8/22/2002 11:29:00 PM (Archive Link)
While we’re on the topic of Mexico and President Fox, I’ll also discuss his view on immigration. To quote the newspaper, “In negotiations with the Bush administration over immigration, Fox pointed out he has requested a ‘legalization’ of undocumented immigrants, not a blanket amnesty that would open the doors to naturalization, the process of becoming a U.S. citizen. ‘We did not ask for their naturalization. We do not want it, nor do they want to be Americans.’” “Undocumented immigrants,” of course, is another way of saying, “illegal immigrants.” I’ll be honest with you, I greatly dislike the idea of “legalizing” or naturalizing illegal immigrants. These are people whose very presence in the U.S. is a violation of its law. Some will say that these are just poor downtrodden folks trying to better themselves. Even so, I hardly think it’s an auspicious start when you flaunt the sovereign laws that govern the nation you intend to make your own. As such, I think the idea of legalizing or naturalizing such people is absurd. You’re basically rewarding people for committing a crime. It’s like capturing a burglar and then letting him go… while allowing him to keep his plundered swag.

This reminds me of something similar that was causing some debate not too long ago. Texas decided that any foreigner, whether they’re here legally or not, will be deported if they’re convicted of a violent felony. And the law agencies were interpreting “violent felony” to include such things as drunken driving. There was the rub. You had these foreign nationals who were sent packing for this particular moving violation and you heard sad stories about people who had legally been in the U.S. for 20-30 years and had a family, etc., and the state was trying to ship them back from whence they originally came. So the protests mainly centered around the unfairness of it all and how such a thing as drunken driving shouldn’t at all be considered a violent felony. I could not disagree more. Driving while intoxicated is about as violent as you can get. You hop in a two ton machine and pilot it around at high speed, all the while not being fully in command of either yourself or the vehicle and endangering everybody around you. And the people you’ll harm aren’t targeted, they’re just mere innocents who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time… the most tragic variety of victims. So a violent felony, yes.

Should such people be expelled? Absolutely. Whether they’re in the U.S. legally or not (but especially if they’re legal), they’re here under the good graces of the government and its citizens. As such, they have the moral, ethical, and legal responsibility to obey its laws. When they fail to do this and when they willingly and stupidly endanger the lives of its citizens, they have lost the privilege of enjoying the country’s hospitality. They have become persona non grata. I don’t particularly care how long they’ve been here, if they are not citizens, have not bothered and/or desired to become citizens, then they are guests of the U.S. And much as you would toss out a houseguest for waving a knife at your kids, so these people should be tossed out as well.

Posted by Dan Ewert : 8/21/2002 09:26:00 PM (Archive Link)
Just read this article on CNN.com concerning the suggestions educators have made about how to properly teach about the events of 9-11. Not surprisingly, some of the suggested methods have a liberal bent about them. To quote the piece, “Among the materials offered as the anniversary of the attacks approaches is a guide by Brian Lippincott of John F. Kennedy University's Graduate School of Professional Psychology. Lippincott suggests that adults avoid stereotyping people of countries that might be home to terrorists. ‘We must not repeat terrible mistakes such as our treatment of Japanese Americans and Arab Americans during times of war,’ he says.” After some looking, I was able to track down a few of the sites… NEA.org, a listing of the lesson plans, and what I think is the aforementioned tolerance plan. It seems to me that some liberals have just been tripping all over themselves in order to preserve blind tolerance to everything. Ever since 9-11, they’ve just about wet themselves in the fear that Americans are going to start locking up Arab-Americans in camps or that we’re going to go Nazi. This is absurd. American culture has been worshiping at the altar of tolerance for so long that it would take quite a bit more to erase the abundance we have.

Now I think tolerance is a fine thing (although, if you’ve read previous posts, you know I hate the usage of the word). However, I think some degree of intolerance is required where our enemies are concerned. Like or not, the fact remains that Middle-Eastern Islamic extremists have committed grievous acts of violence against our country (Iran hostages, Beirut barracks bombing, Pan Am 103, African embassy bombings, 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Saudi Arabian barracks bombing, USS Cole attack, 9-11 World Trade Center attack, Pentagon attack, and countless isolated incidents) and we need to realize that they have it in for us. And as much as we’d like to not stereotype, the people who are against us are, with few exceptions, the aforementioned Middle-Eastern Islamic extremists. Additionally, many of the Middle-Eastern countries are far more supportive of terrorism in either a de facto or de jure sense than they are supportive of our efforts to eradicate it. So if we continue to preach blind tolerance to all, we will fail to recognize the enemy for what he is. When you teach people that they should hug wolves, then it’s your fault when they start getting mauled by the wolves. I remember how right after the attacks, many people proclaimed that the sleeping giant of America was being awakened or how we had finally woken up to the threat of terrorism towards us that we had been ignoring. Some people, it seems, are determined to put us back to sleep.

Posted by Dan Ewert : 8/21/2002 09:21:00 PM (Archive Link)
On a related note, there are debates going on about how to commemorate the anniversary of 9-11. Specifically, the networks are trying to figure out what images to use. For example, the tapes of the planes crashing into the twin towers have been restricted on most stations… ABC banned it outright. And, of course, nobody ever showed the people leaping from the buildings or the full aftermath of the destruction. People say it’s all too horrible and so they shouldn’t be aired. I say that’s exactly why they should be aired. Americans need to realize that this terrorism problem is ongoing. Americans need to remember what was done to us. Americans need to view the enormity and pain of those attacks. We should by no means white wash it. Even though we won in Afghanistan, the war on terrorism is by no means over. However, when we forget what happened, when we focus only on the pain and the sadness, when we sterilize the images of the event, then our anger dulls and our resolve wilts. And as unpleasant as watching these images may be, it’s one of the few things that will give us the emotional fuel to see this war through to completion.

Posted by Dan Ewert : 8/21/2002 09:20:00 PM (Archive Link)
Today’s Mallard Fillmore strip, featured “Liberals, The Early Years,” and starred two cavemen. Their discussion went thus:

“The Zugs have a cow, and WE don’t.”

“That's NOT FAIR!! Let’s ask the tribal council to kill the Zugs’ cow.”

Oh, how true.

Posted by Dan Ewert : 8/21/2002 09:18:00 PM (Archive Link)
An article I read on NationalReview.com discusses the current revamp of the SAT test and they’ve had a number of other pieces railing against the tests’ critics. Frankly, though, I think the SAT is a flop. Although not for the usual reasons given about how its design and questions are discriminatory. I simply don’t think it’s an accurate gauge of intelligence or future college performance. For a while, I taught SAT training classes for The Princeton Review and so I got to know the test rather well. I ultimately came to the conclusion that the SAT tests nothing except for how well you can take the SAT. With a little personal application, most students can easily raise their scores 200-400 points just by learning certain test-taking strategies. They don’t actually learn anything new or meaningful, they just learn how to more effectively take this particular test, the SAT… what types of math problems are used, how to solve them, what to do for the verbal problems, how to do better in the reading sections. You also teach them how the test is specifically designed to make them miss problems and not to test what they know.

I also find it interesting that the test has its roots in the eugenics movement of the early 20th century, and the test’s founder, Carl Brigham, ardently resisted the efforts of those who wanted to turn the small scale Ivy League test into a nationwide test. As the Bathroom Reader puts it (it sounds like a dumb book... well, actually, it's a series of books... but it's stuffed full of fun trivia which is nice for useless trivia buffs like myself), “He worried that if a national testing agency were established, it would inevitably become more interested in promoting and defending the test than it would be in questioning whether the test really was as effective as advertised.” Brigham’s resistance was successful… for awhile... however, in 1943 he died. The SAT’s nationwide administrator, the Educational Testing Service (ETS) was up and running by 1948 and Brigham’s fears came true. For him, the SAT was an experimental thing to be constantly examined and looked at. For others, though, it was a meal ticket. Keep in mind that ETS is a commercial entity. As such, their main interests are in profits and they will preserve and expand their profits wherever and however possible. They care little for how effective the test actually is. If you want to learn more about the SAT's origin and history, check out Nicholas Lehman’s book, The Big Test.

So, no, I don’t like the SAT. And I’m not thrilled about the recent revamp they’ve come up with either. Instead of having objectivity on a large scale, they’ve added subjectivity on a large scale and just added some other new stuff and taken away some old stuff. Same crap, different smell. The problem I run into, though, is that I cannot yet think of a good alternative.

Posted by Dan Ewert : 8/21/2002 09:13:00 PM (Archive Link)
TheNation.com is obviously opposed to a possible confrontation with Iraq, as you’ll see here. I’m sometimes aghast at how people just can’t seem to realize monsters for what they are. Make no mistake, Saddam Hussein is a monster. He’s gone to war with two of his neighboring countries, killed his own citizens (some with gas no less), rules with an iron fist, has developed weapons of mass destruction, has thwarted international efforts to ensure the elimination of those weapons, has absolutely been developing and producing more such weapons since those monitoring efforts were ceased, has smuggled in weapons, has prevented aid from getting to his people while he’s establishing billion dollar defense fiber optic networks… and yet, people don’t think he’s a problem? Some think he’s a swell guy? Others think he’s unfairly put upon by the mean ole U.S.? Stupid, stupid, stupid. This guy is a threat. Even if you don’t think he is now, rest assured, it’s only a matter of time before he will be.

Posted by Dan Ewert : 8/20/2002 10:20:00 PM (Archive Link)
Alright, I promised good stuff, but this isn't it. It's a little light. Anyway... I was watching the old 1980 movie Nine to Five earlier today on TV. You may recall the film starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton in which they kidnap and torment their horrid boss (Dabney Coleman). Well, I realized that the ending used the classic deus ex machina method of resolving the plot at the very end when the company CEO comes down from on high to send the bad boss packing to Brazil. Strange observation, yes, but obvious when you watch it. What? You don't have it on DVD?

Posted by Dan Ewert : 8/15/2002 12:55:00 AM (Archive Link)
Yes, yes, I know I haven't posted in a while. I've been occupied with other matters recently, but I'll be back with some good stuff soon!