Congress's War Funding Bill - A Victory Over Common Sense

Both Republicans and Democrats declared victory last night as congress finally passed a war funding bill that gives the president everything he asks with no time table. The amazing thing is that congress seems to have been outsmarted by a president with a brain roughly the size of one of Rush Limbaugh's Oxy-Codones. Or is it that they've simply been outstubborned, like a parent who finally gives in and buys his kid a toy, simply to put a stop to the endless screaming and crying?
Because no serious student of the Iraq war seriously thinks that keeping our troops in Iraq benefits anyone. Whether we pull out tomorrow or twenty years from now, our pullout will result in an explosion of religious violence unheard of since the Reformation. Sticking around builds unnecessary resentment among Iraqis towards the US, puts our troops in the crossfire, and temporarily contains the pressure-cooker that is Iraq.
Of course, Bush doesn't know this. Not that it would make a difference if he did, because Republicans in congress are calculating that if they can delay the pullout until a Democrat is elected president (which will almost certainly happen given the laughable assortment of Republican candidates), they can blame all of the ensuing violence and death on the Democrats, hoping voters will forget that they are the ones who started and perpetuated the war.
Which is not to imply that the Democrats are not complicit. Being both spineless and not terribly farsighted, they think that if they only vote for a bill with a timetable, they will somehow be characterized as not supporting the troops. Never mind that Bush vetoed the bill which would have funded them. Never mind that, pushed to its conclusion, Bush would have ultimately been forced to sign the bill anyway. No, the Democrats don't want to take the blame for the consequences of an Iraq pullout either, even if they know it's going to happen eventually.
So our troops remain in Iraq, fighting, killing, and dieing each day, not for freedom, not for democracy, not to fight terror, but because it is politically expedient for the politicians in Washington to keep them there. Bravo, Congress.

Virginia Tech Massacre

I didn’t intend to write two consecutive posts on gun violence, but current events have forced my hands. In the coming weeks, parents, teachers, and law enforcement officers are likely to present the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech as further evidence that we need stricter gun laws. Surely, they will say, these shooting would never have occurred if guns were outlawed. In response (preemptively) to that, allow me to first quote the Virginia Tech Violence Prevention Policy:

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Policy 5616
Revision: 1 August 23, 2005
Campus and Workplace Violence Prevention Policy Page 2 of 7

2.2 Prohibition of Weapons
The university’s employees, students, and volunteers, or any visitor or other third party attending a sporting, entertainment, or educational event, or visiting an academic or administrative office building or residence hall, are further prohibited from carrying, maintaining, or storing a firearm or weapon on any university facility, even if the owner has a valid permit, when it is not required by the individual’s job, or in accordance with the relevant University Student Life Policies. Any such individual who is reported or discovered to possess a firearm or weapon on university property will be asked to remove it immediately. Failure to comply may result in a student judicial referral and/or arrest, or an employee disciplinary action and/or arrest.

As you can clearly see, guns were already forbidden at Virginia Tech. Of course this didn’t stop the perpetrator, who clearly planned his attack long in advance. It did, however, guarantee a school full of unarmed victims. Imagine if the law abiding student in the back of the class, who has a concealed carry permit but left his gun at home in compliance with school policy, had been carrying his firearm on the day of the attacks. Who knows how many lives he might have saved? The administrators at Virginia Tech believed that students might feel unsafe if they knew that some of the people around them might be carrying firearms. Unfortunately, it seems that they confused feeling safe with being safe.

How To End Gun Violence

Like drugs, attempting to fight the supply of guns directly is useless (it is also harmful and dangerous for a number of reasons, but that can wait). To get guns off the streets, we need to fight the demand. Violent crime is a social disease caused by poverty, hopelessness, and alienation. To fight it we need to give young people from the underclass a sense of hope beyond the personal goals of wealth. They need hope for their people – to feel as though they have a stake in the future of this country.

In a way, the real problem is the culture. Many of the urban poor disdain education, community service, and even the idea of upward mobility. Their alienation is so deep that they glorify violence, mayhem, and destruction for the sake of destruction. This requires a propaganda campaign – the only way I know of for a society to consciously change its own culture. I know ‘propaganda’ invokes images of Nazi Germany, but while Hitler used it to empower himself, our leaders could use it to empower their own people. I don’t know much about propaganda, but it seems to me that such a campaign would involve insidiously placing messages into television shows, movies, and music.

Of course, words are meaningless without actions. It would be essential that a growing desire of America’s impoverished to elevate themselves in society coincide with a real campaign to help them do that. This means investing in education and social programs. Schools need more teachers and better facilities. The minimum wage needs to be raised so that single moms can spend time at home with their kids. Drug addicts need to be rehabilitated, not thrown in jail. In short, people need both the desire and means to lift themselves out of poverty.

As long as there is a demand for illegal weapons, there will be a supply. That is why 95% of guns used in crimes were obtained illegally (much as 100% of opiates abused recreationally were obtained illegally). In a broader sense, as long as people want to keep hurting each other, they will – whether it is with guns, knives, rocks, or their bare hands.

A Bit About Afghanistan

A place we have a right to be, and a fight we can win! One of the best things that would come from leaving Iraq is that it would give us the resources to fully commit to Afghanistan. The Taliban must be crushed, so that we can leave Afghanistan as our permanent and secure ally.

Iraq: Great Fiasco or Greatest Fiasco?

The Iraq 'war' continues to cost innocent lives and billions of dollars which are needed elsewhere. It also leaves our homeland largely unguarded. We need to convince Iraq’s neighbors that regional stability is in their own best interests, and promptly proceed to evacuate. If our presence was beneficial to the Iraqi people, we would have a moral obligation to stay as long as possible, but it isn’t. In the meantime, we need to either go after Sunni and Shiite militias equally, or pick a side and back it all the way to victory. Our policy of half-supporting, half-opposing Shiite militias isn’t helping anyone.

What Do Polar Bears and Poor People Have in Common?

“The arid torpor of inaction will be our demise.” –Bad Religion, “Kyoto Now!”

There is a lot of debate over whether or not global warming is caused by human beings. Virtually none of that debate is taking place among climate scientists. The experts in the field, the people who have devoted their lives to its study, agree with 90% certainty that humans are responsible for climate change. We cannot afford to wait until the climate scientists are 100% certain. Global warming already has great momentum, and will do much damage before we can ever hope to stop it. A delay would be disastrous. Global warming needs to be confronted immediately on all fronts. Among the things we need to focus on:

Energy conservation: Greenhouse gasses come from power plants. The less power we use, the less power plants will emit. The same logic applies to automobiles.

Clean energy: Wind and solar power produce electricity with virtually no emissions. We need research and government grants to make these alternatives affordable.

Developing countries: Even if Western nations stopped emitting greenhouse gasses immediately, soon developing countries such as China and India would take our place. These countries are building dirty coal power plants at a fantastic rate. We need to provide them with the means to develop clean power plants.

Government mandates: Corporate leaders agree, the market is not capable of cracking down on emissions on its own. That is why they are demanding mandatory caps on emissions. This is clearly a case where government intervention is appropriate.

Tibet - Tomorrow's Kosovo

China’s actions in Tibet have been and continue to be unforgivable. Sadly, China cannot now leave Tibet without losing face. Furthermore, for economic reasons the US cannot antagonize China by forcing the issue. I predict that the peaceful resistance of the Tibetan people will die with the Dalai Lama. Tibet could very well become China’s new Chechnya – a nexus of terrorism designed to provoke a response so brutal as to force the international community to intervene.

This is clearly not in China’s best interests. Perhaps with diplomatic pressure the international community can convince China that this is a real possibility, and that their best interests lie in ending cultural imperialism, reaching an agreement with the Dalai Lama while he still lives, and granting Tibet the regional autonomy it deserves. The smart money is on violence.