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Doug Bandow urges Republicans to rebuild based on calls for a modest foreign foreign policy

November 28th, 2008 No comments

Doug, you were right on Iraq in 2003 and are right now, but haven’t you forgotten one little thing? 

What gives you any cause to believe that the stiff-necked neocons and others who fell for their war-mongering (the Christian right and other) will either admit their mistakes or be neutralized in the Republican party?

Categories: Doug Bandow, Iraq, neocons, republicans, war Tags:

The evolution of Palin: Is the battle over evolution a struggle against science, or a proxy war with the state?

September 8th, 2008 4 comments

In the context of a review of the focus on “creationism” that Alaska governor Sarah Palin has injected in the presidential election, Christopher Caldwell, a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, has attempted to explain (in The Financial Times, oddly enough) to his readers in the UK the strange American politics of “intelligent design”.  While insightful, Caldwell has missed an important part of the bigger picture (which few Americans seem to have grasped).

Caldwell’s key points are below; I follow with my own views.

“The point of intelligent design is to take science down a peg. To warn enthusiasts that they risk “discrediting science itself” is a bit dense. For them, evolution is a potent symbol of the way “scientific materialism” leaves people feeling demeaned, disenfranchised, stripped of prerogatives and less free. This feeling is not groundless. Dostoyevsky and Marx said similar things. The scientific world-view poses challenges to religion only in the course of posing challenges to a whole lot besides. To take one obvious example: fewer offices permit smoking today, but it is a stretch to call this a choice. In the US, at least, there was little democratic participation in the decision. There was scientific research and then there were mandates from health boards and courts. Maybe these mandates were “all to the good”. That does not make them democratic.

“The anti-evolution activists in America’s small towns are wrong on the science – but wrong in a way that is of absolutely no consequence to them unless they choose a career in horse-breeding or molecular biochemistry. Their feelings of disenfranchisement, on the other hand, are real and consequential. Experts control an ever larger share of decisions about where roads can be built, what people can ingest, what can be taught and whether the decisions of democratic bodies pass constitutional muster. Like so much else in US public life, the battle over evolution is a class conflict disguised as a religious or moral conflict. It is comforting to look at the fight over evolution as one that pits the educated against the ignorant. It is that. But it is also a fight that pits technocrats against democrats.”

Roger Pielke Jr., a science policy analyst (who comments frequently on climate change matters) posted the above paragraphs without comment other than to praise Caldwell’s “incisive analysis”; I cross-post below verbatim my own comments to Roger:

Roger, I’d say that Caldwell has a thoughtful analysis, but it misses at least as much as it sees.

Some of what Caldwell misses is captured by Francois’ fears about a “scientist caste” that depends on public funding and is seen as part of a rigid, “dictatorship-like” social order who presume to have “ultimate authority”.

Caldwell is closest when he notes the feelings of disenfranchisement by “the anti-evolution activists in America’s small towns”, but this is NOT a “class conflict disguised as a religious or moral conflict”. Rather, it is a struggle between local parental choice over what their children are taught and state and federal governments and courts, on a battle ground created by the continued legacy role of governments in providing public education.

One simply does not see the creationist debate in private schools, and if state governments ever got out of the business of being educators (as opposed to providing support to parents to have their children educated in schools of their choice), the whole issue would disappear. As a legal matter, the legal battle is about the separation of church and state – if the state isn’t the educator, then the issue dries up. If we left school choice and education up to parents, most parents would prefer the best education. So the problem is chiefly one of parents being upset that organs of governments over which local parent have little influence – courts, legislatures and distant bureaucracies (Caldwell’s “technocrats”) – trump parental rights. This in turn is played into a larger power struggle between the rights of local government and more distant state and federal ones.

While the teaching profession itself leans Democrat, the NEA doesn’t run the courthouses or state houses, so this is hardly a “class” struggle. That does seem to be somewhat of a meme from the Right, however – that the evolution debate is about Godless communist lefties trying to dictate to small-town America. The irony, of course, is that while Republicans like to foster that resentment (as well as other resentments and fears – of ragheads, enviros, gays and French-speakers) for political gain, Republicans have consistently exacerbated the real concerns of small-town America by further federalizing education, increasing the power of federal government and doing nothing to put political power back in the hands of local citizens.

Ron Bailey/Reason: Gore’s proposal to generate all power carbon-free in 10 years requires trillion$ on nukes

July 30th, 2008 6 comments

On July 17, Al Gore challenged our nation to produce “100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly carbon-free sources within 10 years“.

Ron Bailey, science correspondent of Reason online, has examined whether Gore’s proposal is at all practically achievable.  Bailey reviews the main options mentioned by Gore (solar, wind and geothermal) and the chief option implied but unmentionable – nuclear power – and concludes that low ball estimates of the costs for realizing Gore’s target are on the scale of $1 trillion to $6 trillion, with nuclear being by far the cheapest.  Concludes Bailey:

Curiously, nowhere does the “N-word”—nuclear—appear in Gore’s speech. Currently, 104 nuclear power plants generate about 20 percent of America’s electricity. Once a nuclear plant is up and running, it is essentially carbon-free. Westinghouse claims that it can build a third generation 1,000 megawatt nuclear power plant for around $1.4 billion. Assuming this estimate is right, all U.S. carbon-emitting electricity generation plants could be replaced with nuclear power at a cost of about $1.2 trillion by 2018.

“Of course there are those who will tell us this can’t be done,” warned Gore. I am not one of those people. I am sure it can be done. But before embarking on his “generational challenge to re-power America,” I would like the former vice-president to sketch out a few more details on how it’s going to be paid for and who’s going to be stuck with the bill.

These numbers – roughly on the scale of our out-of-pocket and committed costs for our Iraq and Afghanistan adventures (largely corporate welfare for the defense/logistics industry, good friends of Republicans) – help us get a bit of a handle on the opportunity costs of those wars, which have undermined rather than improved our security and jacked up oil costs.

Bailey also comments on the costs of shifting our automobile fleet to one that is powered by electricity.

Bailey’s piece is here: “Al Gore’s Curiously Cost-Free Plan to Re-Power America“. 

 

Hope from Democratic candidates on War? See "A Responsible Plan to End the War"

April 23rd, 2008 No comments

Democrats presently in Congress don’t seem to care too much about doing much to stand up to Pres. Bush on the war in Iraq, despite becoming the majority party on the back of a wave of voter revulsion over the war in November of 2006.

This lack of action has fuelled a wave of newer candidates among the Democrats – led by Marcy Burner in Washington State – who have made putting an end to the war a principal part of their campaign laid out a clearly stated  agenda to put an end to the US military role in Iraq as soon as possible.  The agenda, laid out in a declaration called “A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq”, has now been endorsed by 54 candidates for US House seats, 4 candidates for the US Senate – apparently all Democrats – along with:

  • Major General Paul Eaton (U.S. Army ret.), former Security Transition Commanding General, Iraq,
  • Brigadier General John Johns (U.S. Army ret.), specialist in counterinsurgency and nation-building,
  • Dr. Lawrence Korb, former Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration, and
  • Capt. Larry Seaquist (U.S. Navy ret.), former commander of the U.S.S. Iowa and former Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning

http://www.responsibleplan.com/home  The main page links to press coverage.

Christopher Hayes, the Washington editor of The Nation, summarized the Responsible Plan as follows:

Developed in collaboration with retired military officers and national security professionals, the plan attracted the support of fifteen additional Democratic Senate and House challengers in the first week after it was unveiled (see ResponsiblePlan.com). Unlike the withdrawal plans offered by both Democratic presidential candidates, the Responsible Plan opposes any residual forces as well as permanent military bases. It flatly states, “We must stop counter-productive military operations by U.S. occupation forces, and end our military presence in Iraq.” It looks toward restoring “Constitutional checks and balances and fix[ing] the ways in which our governmental, military, and civil institutions have failed us.”   

… it is an explicitly legislative road map, to be pursued by Congress with or without a President committed to withdrawal. Among other actions the plan calls for war funding to be brought into the normal budgetary process, as opposed to the ersatz emergency supplementals, which detach the cost of the war from the rest of the nation’s discretionary spending.

(emphasis added).  http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080414/hayes

I am not a fan of Democrats in general, but I am strongly in favor of ending this ongoing and tremendously costly and destructive folly.  Those who prefer to vote Republican ought to consider pushing their preferred candidate to support the Responsible Plan and to make it part of a truly bipartisan agenda.

Categories: Democrats, Iraq, republicans, war Tags:

Climate spin: Who changed "global warming" to "climate change"?

April 8th, 2008 No comments

Answer:  It wasn’t the enviros who changed the use of this term, but rather high-powered corporate lobbying interests and their allies in Bush government and the Republican party, spearheaded by leading Republican pollster/ spinmeister Frank Luntz, who in 2002 pushed Republicans to move the public discussion away from “global warming” to “climate change”.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2003/mar/04/usnews.climatechange.

Luntz wrote that :

“’Climate change’ is less frightening than ‘global warming.’ … While global warming has catastrophic connotations attached to it, climate change suggests a more controllable and less emotional challenge”

http://www.ewg.org/node/8684.

This seems to be a surprising bit of news to more than a few, who seem to forget not only the constant efforts of various statist corporate interests to win advantageous policies from politicians and regulators, but the active interest of Republicans in selling favorable policies that has led to such corruption in this Administration and among Republican Congrescritters.  Yes, the same folks who brought us fear of “Islamofascists” also deliberately brought us fear of gay marriage, fear of abortion, fear of immigrants and fear of enviros, the better to divide and hoodwink us while giving valuable favors away to friends willing to grease the wheels.

Hmm.  And what else did Luntz set up in the way of political strategy for Republicans and fossil fuel interests?

In his memorandum on environmental issues, Luntz provided the following “communication recommendations” in a section devoted specifically to “Winning the Global Warming Debate”:

 

The scientific debate remains open.  Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate, and defer to scientists and other experts in the field.”

 

The most important principle in any discussion of global warming is your commitment to sound science.”

 

The scientific debate is closing (against us) but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science.

 

You need to be even more active in recruiting experts who are sympathetic to your view, and much more active in making them part of your message … [because] People are willing to trust scientists, engineers, and other leading research professionals, and less willing to trust politicians.”

 

(emphasis added)

 

Luntz offered these specific language suggestions – which the careful reader would see are full of canards and misleading statements:

LANGUAGE THAT WORKS
We must not rush to judgment before all the facts are in. We need to ask more questions. We deserve more answers. And until we learn more, we should not commit America to any international document that handcuffs us either now or into the future.

WORDS THAT WORK
Scientists can extrapolate all kinds of things from today’s data, but that doesn’t tell us anything about tomorrow’s world. You can’t look back a million years and say that proves that we’re heating the globe now hotter than its ever been. After all, just 20 years ago scientists were worried about a new Ice Age.

Luntz has now changed his mind, as he noted in an interview last year – even though he is actively peddling to Canadians his spin program, which still runs on at home among Republicans and their pet rent-seekers: 

TONY JONES: It will be an interesting experiment anyway. Frank Luntz, let me come to another issue that may well be a defining issue in the 2008 US Presidential campaign and the elections, the congressional elections there, but also certainly will be in the Australian elections. That is the whole issue surrounding global warming. Have you crossed a sort of scientific rubicon here yourself?

FRANK LUNTZ: I have, and as have most people. When I started doing work on this issue about a decade ago, a majority, a clear majority of Americans, in fact all over the globe, did not buy the science at that point. But over the last 10 years the science has been much clearer. The results have been much more comprehensive and I, like millions of Americans, have changed my point of view and you will see across the globe that people now have come to accept that there is an issue here.

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s1912828.htm.

How convenient that neither then, when Luntz knew that the scientific window was closing, nor now, when he has finally accepted the science, that his personal views haven’t gotten in the way of him making money by selling slick, convenient “truths” to those who profit by distracting voters with them.

Looks like Luntz has done a good sales job on himself, as well.

The discerning reader might note that all Luntz did was to repackage the devices that the tobacco industry deployed in the 60s, 70s and 80s:  viz., the game of “no consensus”, “scientific uncertainty”, and the “need for more facts”.  Not surprisingly, many of precisely the same people who helped the tobacco industry have been very busy helping fossil fuel interests – and their political enablers.

 

— “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.” Richard Feynman
Categories: AGW, climate, Luntz, republicans, statist, tobacco Tags:

Ron Paul on the environment and energy

October 18th, 2007 2 comments

1.  There is an excellent interview of Dr. Ron Paul now up at Grist, the environmental news and commentary site, that explores some of his views on environmental and energy issues. I am with him in principle but think he has underestimated the seriousness of the climate change problem and not seriously thought through the issues yet.


http://www.grist.org/feature/2007/10/16/paul/


Selected remarks on international issues include the following (emphasis added):



If it is air that crosses a boundary between Canada and the United States, you would have to have two governments come together, voluntarily solving these problems.”


Q:  “What’s your take on global warming? Is it a serious problem and one that’s human-caused?”


A:  “I think some of it is related to human activities, but I don’t think there’s a conclusion yet. There’s a lot of evidence on both sides of that argument. If you study the history, we’ve had a lot of climate changes. We’ve had hot spells and cold spells. They come and go. If there are weather changes, we’re not going to be very good at regulating the weather.

“To assume we have to close down everything in this country and in the world because there’s a fear that we’re going to have this global warming and that we’re going to be swallowed up by the oceans, I think that’s extreme. I don’t buy into that. Yet, I think it’s a worthy discussion.”


Q:  “So you don’t consider climate change a major problem threatening civilization?”

 

A:  “No. [Laughs.] I think war and financial crises and big governments marching into our homes and elimination of habeas corpus — those are immediate threats. We’re about to lose our whole country and whole republic! If we can be declared an enemy combatant and put away without a trial, then that’s going to affect a lot of us a lot sooner than the temperature going up.”

 

Q: “What, if anything, do you think the government should do about global warming?”

A:  “They should enforce the principles of private property so that we don’t emit poisons and contribute to it.

And, if other countries are doing it, we should do our best to try to talk them out of doing what might be harmful. We can’t use our army to go to China and dictate to China about the pollution that they may be contributing. You can only use persuasion.”


Q:  “You have voiced strong opposition to the Kyoto Protocol. Can you see supporting a different kind of international treaty to address global warming?”


A:  “It would all depend. I think negotiation and talk and persuasion are worthwhile, but treaties that have law enforcement agencies that force certain countries to do things, I don’t think that would work.”


Q:  “You believe that ultimately private interests will solve global warming?”


A: “I think they’re more capable of it than politicians.”

Q:  ” What’s your position on a carbon tax?”


A:  “I don’t like that. That’s sort of legalizing pollution. If it’s wrong, you can buy these permits, so to speak. It’s wrong to do it, it shouldn’t be allowed.”


[Note:  This seems ambiguous, but I suppose RP intended to disagree with the concept of permits as well as taxes.]


Q:  “You’ve described your opposition to wars for oil as an example of your support for eco-friendly policies. Can you elaborate?”


A:  “Generally speaking, war causes pollution — uranium, burning of fuel for no good purpose. The Pentagon burns more fuel than the whole country of Sweden.”


Q:  “Do you support the goal of energy independence in the U.S.?”


A:  “Sure. But independence does not mean to me that we produce everything. I don’t believe governments have to provide every single ounce of energy. I see independence as having no government-mandated policy: If you need oil or energy, you can buy it.”


Q:  “What about being independent from the Middle East, so we’re not buying oil from hostile countries?”


A:  “I think it’s irrelevant. We wouldn’t be buying it directly, we would be buying it on the world market. I don’t think the goal has to be that we produce alternative fuel so that we never buy oil from the Middle East. The goal should be to provide all useful services and goods through a market mechanism instead of central economic planning or world planning. That system doesn’t work.”


2.  Dr. Paul also discussed energy and the environment in an interview in June, when he said the following:



Q:  “Especially after the release of Al Gore’s global warming documentary, the environment has been very much on people’s minds.  Where do you stand on global warming?”   



A: “Global temperatures have been warming since the Little Ice Age.  Studies within the respectable scientific community have shown that human beings are most likely a part of this process.  As a Congressman, I’ve done a number of things to support environmentally friendly policies.  I have been active in the Green Scissors campaign to cut environmentally harmful spending, I’ve opposed foreign wars for oil, and I’ve spoken out against government programs that encourage development in environmentally sensitive areas, such as flood insurance.”


Q:  How about KYOTO?  



A:  “I strongly oppose the Kyoto treaty.  Providing for a clean environment is an excellent goal, but the Kyoto treaty doesn’t do that.  Instead it’s placed the burden on the United States to cut emissions while not requiring China – the world’s biggest polluter – and other polluting third-world countries to do a thing.  Also, the regulations are harmful for American workers, because it encourages corporations to move their business overseas to countries where the regulations don’t apply.  It’s bad science, it’s bad policy, and it’s bad for America.  I am more than willing to work cooperatively with other nations to come up with policies that will safeguard the environment, but I oppose all nonbinding resolutions that place an unnecessary burden on the United States.


http://www.teamliberty.net/id447.html 


3.  The New York Times has a new article on the views of the Republican candidates on climate change, but somehow they managed to miss Ron Paul:


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/us/politics/17climate.html?bl&ex=1192852800&en=07847552491b852f&ei=5087%0A

Why are Republicans unhinged on energy policy?

September 28th, 2007 No comments

In a post of the same title at at NRO, Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren of Cato do a great job of demonstrating  there is absolutely no relationship between energy policy and national security.

However, they forgot to provide the answer to their own question – Republicans are “unhinged” on energy strategy for a very simple reason – because “energy security” is a very convenient way of justifying a meddlesome and paternal big government, and the Republican administration is in charge of the pork spigots and can control the flow of favors to special interests. 

Do Taylor and Van Doren find the Republicans “unhinged” only because they expected that Republicans actually meant their disavowals of “nation building” and the like?  Though Americans seem to share a congenital idealistic streak, I suspect that they are not that naive. 

No doubt the Dems will also find “energy security” to be a convenient way to aggrandize their own power, reach into Americans’ pocketbooks to direct federal largess their friends and to keep the US involved in the internal affairs of other countries.  They will have been aided by a Republican administration that was more liberal in the assertion of the right to exercise power than many Democratic administrations that preceded it.