There is No Difference

Conservatives are upset over the results of a new study released by the University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC) regarding immigration. KCMO 710′s Greg Knapp‘s main beef this week was that the study didn’t seem to differentiate between so-called legal and illegal immigrants. In his opinion the two groups were conflated by the researchers.

But is this a problem? What if there isn’t any significant difference? Could it be that not having official permission from federal bureaucrats to live and work here isn’t really necessary to ensure productivity and peaceful coexistence? The answer of course, is no. There is no fundamental difference.

The fact that some immigrants resort to using forged documents — such as driver’s licenses and social security cards — to get hired is viewed negatively. It’s supposed to be an indicator that such immigrants are prone to breaking the law. The legitimacy of these laws, particularly needing government permission to work, are the real issue, and that should be the focus of the conversation, not where someone’s mother gave birth to them.

It’s pretty clear that most conservatives are opposed to expanding immigration on the basis that it will expand the Democratic party’s voting roles. Remarkably, Republicans seem to have decided that opposing changes to immigration legislation, building walls, raiding businesses, harassing, jailing, and deporting people is the solution.

Goldberg: Jesus Was a Warmonger

Jonah Goldberg was a guest of Greg Knapp Friday promoting his new book, The Tyranny of Clichés. As might be expected, the depth of intellectual exchange was exceedingly shallow. The two mocked those who say “violence never solved anything,” and Knapp, a professed Christian, commented that it would be fun to punch someone who eschews violence and watch them get mad.

They discussed Adolf Hitler and Mohandas Gandhi in the context of civil disobedience, with Goldberg suggesting the latter was successful only because the British were civilized enough to eventually accept nonviolent resistance. Knapp agreed that Gandhi would not have been so successful, had his methods been used against the Nazis. This is of course only speculation, since there was no such attempt at peaceful non-compliance during the rise of the National Socialist movement.

This is due in part to the fact that so many felt as if they were free. Indeed, journalist Milton Mayer studied the German people after the war, and published his findings in a book entitled They Thought They Were Free. For the most part this is the case here and now – very few recognize how little freedom now exists.

Goldberg noted (correctly) that Gandhi referred to Hitler as “friend.” What went unmentioned, in fact what was denied, was the context of the exchange, and what Gandhi actually wrote in his appeal to Hitler not to start a war. He wrote:

It is quite clear that you are today the one person in the world who can prevent a war which may reduce humanity to a savage state. Must you pay that price for an object however worthy it may appear to you to be? Will you listen to the appeal of one who has deliberately shunned the method of war not without considerable success?

But this is neither here nor there since, as Walter Block points out, it was the Allies who made it possible for Hitler to rise to power after the U.S. entered the war and helped enforce the Treaty of Versailles:

There were not two separate wars, so-called World War I, and then so-called World War II. There was only one World War. It started in 1914 and ended in 1946; yes, yes, there was a slight cessation of hostilities between 1919 and 1939, but the so-called ‘interwar period’ consisted of the Allies taking steps that brought Hitler front and center, in effect created him, and thus assured the continuation of this one World War.

Had the U.S. not entered the war, that is to say, had it taken a non-violent approach, it’s doubtful the terms of the ceasefire would have been so harsh against the Germans, and the war could have ended much sooner.

The two then went on to discuss Jesus’ admonition to carry a sword, apparently a reference to Luke 22:36, cause it wouldn’t have been Ephesians 6:14. I mean, you know that Jesus guy, he was all about violence and returning evil for evil, as Peter wrote in 1 Peter 3:9. As many know, Jesus taught that “blessed are the [war-makers], for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9); if “someone slaps you on the right cheek, [strike their] other cheek also” (Matthew 5:39). And who could forget that epic battle scene in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus leads the disciples in hand to hand combat after one cuts off the ear of one of the arrestors (Luke 22:49-51)?

As a Christian it frustrates me to no end that so many followers of the Prince of Peace will so readily promote violence and war. Not only do they ridicule those who denounce violence, but they also fantasize about hurting them.

Audio of the interview is below; skip to 6:00 for the relevant segment.

Jonah_Goldberg_051812.mp3

The irony of all this is how the two excoriate the Left for using clichés and Orwellian language manipulation to promote their policies, all the while glossing over historical facts and taking scripture out of context to fit their own agenda.

A True Defintion of ‘Cultural Suicide’

During this morning’s commute, conservative talk show host Greg Knapp was discussing radical Islam following the State Department’s latest declaration that the War on Terror has come to a close. He questioned the wisdom in ending the War on Terror in light of such groups as the Muslim Brotherhood gaining political traction in Egypt.

One of Knapp’s points was that, given the sentiments of certain Muslims the US should continue fighting terrorism. The host then went on to list some poll results, which showed that 26 percent of American Muslims, and half of Muslims worldwide, supported suicide attacks. A clip of Rep. Allen West was played, during which the congressman suggested that appeasement of Muslims would lead to “cultural suicide,” which Knapp agreed with.

Of course context is everything, and the polling of Muslims shouldn’t be isolated from the polling of other Americans. For instance, 60% of Americans were in favor of the Iraq war. After it started, 75% of Americans approved of how President Bush “handl[ed] the situation in Iraq,” and 70% thought the costs outweighed the benefits. So it’s not as if Muslims are the only group which advocates death and destruction.

The most important detail left out of Knapp’s analysis is why Muslims might support suicide bombing. This is a question few ever consider, and even fewer look to answer, but as I mentioned, it’s the most important one. Why would someone deliberately use suicide as a means of fighting?

Most chalk it up to Muslims being promised a life in paradise as martyrs. But that doesn’t explain why other groups use suicide as well. Robert Pape, of the University of Chicago has compiled a database of virtually all suicide attacks since 1980, as well as written a book on the subject, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.

In his book, he notes that throughout history suicide has been used by Japanese Kamikazes, Islamic rebels in Chechnya, and the secular and atheist Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka. So rather than the Muslim religion being the chief motivator, what Professor Pape found in his research is that repelling invaders served as the primary means to drive individuals to kill themselves. Indeed, it was driving out democratically elected governments specifically, that lead more than 300 people in the last thirty years to take their own lives.

Just in the last two weeks we heard from one of those American Muslims who ostensibly supports suicide terrorism. Tarek Mehanna, an American Muslim who was recently sentenced to 17 years for aiding terrorists, explained exactly how and why he became sympathetic to Muslims overseas. His conclusion after studying the situation was that Muslims have been the victims of terrorism themselves, and when they’ve retaliated, the cycle starts all over again, with Muslims being labeled as the terrorists.

Rep. Allen West is entirely wrong about what constitutes cultural suicide. It is not appeasing terrorists; cultural suicide is failing to realize what leads to terrorism and continuing to exacerbate the problem by killing innocent people. Not only does the US government invite further retaliation, but society in general becomes less and less inclined to reject warfare and violence. Once violence becomes acceptable overseas it’s only a matter of time before it becomes acceptable here at home.

We’re starting to see this now, with the militarization of domestic police forces, many of whom more closely resemble commandos than peace officers. It’s becoming less common to see the standard blue uniforms and simple tool belt worn by policemen for decades. Now we’re seeing the policeman’s uniform shift to black or charcoal, with body armor worn on the outside, and covered with equipment.

It’s as if the officer isn’t pulling traffic duty, but is instead setting out to raid fortified positions in a hostile neighborhood. They now carry a pistol and a tazer, many with special leg harnesses that allow more weapons and ammunition. When someone tried to rob a business in Mission, KS last year, several of the officers who responded brought M-4 carbines of the type used by SWAT and the military.

This is overkill. It serves no purpose, except to intimidate people and condition them to seeing larger caliber weapons and a more aggressive police presence in their lives. It will allow governments at all levels to one day perpetrate the same violence here that the state levies against “terrorists” overseas. Because people don’t see this militarism as anything to be afraid of, and because they’ve been taught to be servile, the situation will continue to deteriorate.

It need not go this way, however. If people will look at what is happening and recognize the move away from liberty for what it is – a large-scale decivilization of society, this trend could reverse. We don’t need an authoritarian police force to protect us from criminals, especially if that agency is equally ruthless and capable of dolling out the kind of violence they’re expected to defend us from.

The Space Between

Using a recent debate sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) as a spring board, Tim Hartnett tackled the question of “What is the Conservative Movement?” in a piece for the Mises Institute. The debate, between Reason’s Matt Welch and National Review Online’s Jonah Goldberg, centered on whether “libertarians [are] part of the conservative movement?”

Hartnett posits that: “A simple way to demonstrate the chasm that separates libertarians from ‘conservatives’ of the 21st century is to use news incidents and media images as Rorschach inkblots and consider how differently each would respond.” He goes on to list several news items from recent history to show how wide indeed the “chasm” is between “Dittoheads” and libertarians.

The first image he uses is of a generic reality TV show depicting police officers in their daily activities. There are many such shows, and Hartnett is correct when he writes: “When a libertarian witnesses an emaciated destitute, confronted, seized, and roughly rifled by the constabulary under dubious pretenses on ‘reality’ TV, he is not immediately elated.”

He continues:

We are offended by the image of a man abject — on the ground and in the clutches of enormous, armored, and heavily armed men — without substantive evidence that he has harmed someone else. That these same public servants can bust into people’s homes, terrorize their children, kill their pets, shackle their persons, and destroy personal property on the flimsiest of pretexts is repellent to anyone placing even a modest value on the word liberty.

For an idea of just how far into the clutches of tyranny we have slipped, one need only browse the many “reality” TV shows glorifying the police state. “COPS” was first, but in the decades since its debut one can now watch a host of shows, including “Lockup,” “Cook County Jail,” “Wardens,” “Border Wars,” and “SWAT.”

While at times actual criminal suspects are booked in the jail shows, many are brought in for non-crime crimes such as drug possession or prostitution. Wardens is, of course a show about game wardens, who patrol (mostly) “public” lands looking to bust anyone who hasn’t paid to hunt on the King’s land. Not too long ago someone who hunted the King’s dear was considered a hero; not anymore. “Border Wars” is mostly video evidence of how futile the drug war is, and how inhumane the fed’s immigration policy is. And finally, “SWAT” chronicles the daily violence doled out to the populace in support of the drug war. There are times where violent offenders are targeted, but those instances, like the many jailhouse shows, are few and far between. The audience is mostly treated to clips of over-paid, trigger-happy storm-troopers of the sort Thomas Jefferson railed against in the Declaration of Independence.

But on the other hand, conservatives have no apparent disdain for such displays of state violence. As I noted last fall, they practically cheered as police at UC Davis showered non-violent protestors with harsh chemical agents.

From here the author discusses the career of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, who claims, as a sniper in Iraq, to have killed more than 250 people. I once heard a radio interview with Kyle where he boasted of his killing, and the host, Greg Knapp, who claims to be a Christian, hailed him as a hero. (That Christians ought only to have one hero, and that only soldiers in God’s army should earn their admiration is sadly lost on many Evangelicals). Knapp went on to ask if he’s experienced emotional problems or has any regrets from his “profession,” and Kyle’s response was no. His only regret was that he hadn’t taken even more lives.

That the war he helped wage was not defensive in nature at all means that he was the aggressor in the situation. He is said to have killed a woman attempting to throw a hand grenade at an invading army. How is that noble? Where is the heroism in that act?

It’s precisely this distinction between defensive and offensive action that is lost on conservatives who, as Hartnett shows, know only to reflexively defend the military and its adventures. On the prevailing conservative attitude he writes that: “Not only may we invade nations that never attacked us, but now anyone defending his homeland risks becoming the subject of the sadistic whims of federal agents.”

Hartnett finishes with an indictment of the conservative news media which serves to perpetuate the conservative ethos of state-worship.

Much of today’s professional television ‘news’ revolves around name calling, subjective characterization, innuendo, one-upmanship, distorted context, and other gimmicks that get no one any closer to the truth or to valid conclusions. Dissenters are shut down with the ‘conspiracy-theory’ bludgeon by the very people finding plots against their vague ideals lurking in every shadow. Cable news continues to strive for the dignity of pro wrestling, even if Bill O’Reilly has learned to stop telling his guests to ‘shut up.’

The so-called conservative movement, unmoored by any true desire for limited government, can only evolve into a party of national mythos. Lacking any lodestar, it must eventually return to the fold of elite institutions that have repeatedly failed in their duties. Any idea of US ‘exceptionalism’ that isn’t rooted in limited government is a deranged political voodoo.

Indeed, because the government school system has neglected to provide even rudimentary education in analytic and basic reason, the populace (from Left and Right) is content to ingest all that is fed to them by the media, without so much as an ounce of critical thinking. Worse still, those who diligently tune into talk radio and nightly cable opinion shows believe they are informed and enlightened, when just the opposite is true.

A reader commented on Hartnett’s piece, writing that “This kind of needlessly obnoxious piece is precisely why libertarians get nowhere as a movement. Making fun of people who are ideologically similar for being insufficiently intelligent is self defeating….” But of course the piece is meant to demonstrate just how dissimilar the two ideologies are.

The chief difference between the two is not in their rhetoric, which in many areas is hard to distinguish, but in their actions. Conservatives often promote the virtues of free enterprise and individual liberty, but so often when the chips are down, side with the state. And that is why libertarians are not part of the conservative movement.

The Right is Wrong on al-Awlaki: The Martin/Zimmerman Case Proves It

In the past two weeks the death of Trayvon Martin has been unavoidable for anyone consuming U.S. news media. The incident has of course become widely politicized. The left has generally declared, or at least implied, that George Zimmerman is a cold-blooded murderer and racist, while the right has been less quick to issue judgment, admonishing everyone to wait for a trial before issuing a conviction.

It is of course instructive to see how the death of Trayvon Martin has been covered by the media and pundit class, vis. a vis. the deaths of Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16 year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki. With but a few exceptions, the left ignored their assassinations, as if they would go away. There were exceptions, of course.

The right however praised those murders. Speaking on the senior al-Awlaki, Bill O’Reilly said he was a “vicious terrorist who got exactly what he deserved.” The editors of National Review had no problem with such an arrangement either.

So here we have the progressive left demanding justice for what they see as a clear-cut case, despite little concrete evidence and at the very least, no criminal charges (yet). When virtually the same situation existed last year, such a murder as described above was all but ignored. No protests, no marches, no endless analysis or extended coverage by 24 hour news networks.

On the right, conservatives have been equally inconsistent. Now they’re telling everyone to wait for a trial before jumping to conclusions on Zimmerman’s guilt. But last year all it took was for the president to assure everyone that who he’d chosen to have killed was a really bad guy, and there was no need for a trial. The right seemed to be saying “due process is outmoded; trust the administration, they’ve got this one. But only on this issue, mind you. Everything else they say is a lie, a half-truth, demagoguery, or a political ruse.”

Just don’t call out the right on this one.

But that’s exactly what I did this morning. Greg Knapp was covering both issues, speaking on the Martin/Zimmerman case and reading listener e-mails on the air. One listener declared that al-Awlaki was guilty of treason (despite no actual evidence, charges, trial, conviction, or appeals process). I called in and got through, noting the seeming dissonance from many on the right.

I was told I had it all wrong, that because al-Awlaki was a known terrorist and al-Qaeda member, it wasn’t an assassination, and al-Awlaki didn’t need a trial to be found guilty. The evidence is on the internet. He admitted to being a terrorist.

The logic of such an argument is so flawed it might be humorous were we not discussing death and murder. Of course the constitution is quite clear on the subject of treason: “No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.”

The 5^th Amendment also makes it abundantly clear: “due process of law” is required before any person is “deprived of life, liberty, or property.” In either case a trial must occur.

The government must present two credible witnesses to testify to the act of treason, or the defendant must confess in open court. The fact that the constitution is explicit in this regard seemed to frustrate Knapp. He again told me I was wrong, as if merely saying so makes it factual. I countered by saying I didn’t write the law, someone else did and the states ratified it. Like it or not, that’s the law.

As is standard, I was cut off before I could elaborate. Given the opportunity, I would have argued that if the evidence were so overwhelming in favor of guilt, why didn’t the government just bring charges against Mr. al-Awlaki before having him killed and make a slam dunk case of it? I suspect I would have been told again that I was “wrong.”