Jujitsui Generis

Vacuity of the Day

Here's actress, Rachel Weisz getting all deep and stuff.

Economic Development Incentives: There's A Line Forming

This story should come as no shock.  If a government is going to make a habit of offering 'incentives' to every outstretched hand, then it should not be surprised when a queue forms around the block.  More proof that the Economic Development game is hopelessly corrupted and politicized. And is likely to go on for quite some time.

A Hopeful Constitution

Don't let the gloom and doom scenarios fool you.  David Brooks is arguing that the proposed Iraqi constitution is actually the best hope for protecting rights and decentralizing authority in a country historically riven by ethnic divisions:

Galbraith's argument is that the constitution reflects the reality of the nation it is meant to serve. There is, he says, no meaningful Iraqi identity. In the north, you've got a pro-Western Kurdish population. In the south, you've got a Shiite majority that wants a "pale version of an Iranian state." And in the center you've got a Sunni population that is nervous about being trapped in a system in which it would be overrun...

This constitution gives each group what it wants. It will create a very loose federation in which only things like fiscal and foreign policy are controlled in the center (even tax policy is decentralized). Oil revenues are supposed to be distributed on a per capita basis, and no group will feel inordinately oppressed by the others.

The Kurds and Shiites understand what a good deal this is. The Sunni leaders selected to attend the convention are howling because they are former Baathists who dream of a return to centralized power. But ordinary Sunnis, Galbraith says, will come to realize this deal protects them, too.

It's a first step toward the promise and hope of pluralism and liberal democracy, no?

Still The Right War

Here's Christopher Hitchens arguing well for perspective and offering a thorough explanation on why the war in Iraq is a war to be proud of.  No one does like it Hitchens:

(1) The overthrow of Talibanism and Baathism, and the exposure of many highly suggestive links between the two elements of this Hitler-Stalin pact. Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who moved from Afghanistan to Iraq before the coalition intervention, has even gone to the trouble of naming his organization al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

(2) The subsequent capitulation of Qaddafi's Libya in point of weapons of mass destruction--a capitulation that was offered not to Kofi Annan or the E.U. but to Blair and Bush.

(3) The consequent unmasking of the A.Q. Khan network for the illicit transfer of nuclear technology to Libya, Iran, and North Korea.

(4) The agreement by the United Nations that its own reform is necessary and overdue, and the unmasking of a quasi-criminal network within its elite.

(5) The craven admission by President Chirac and Chancellor Schröder, when confronted with irrefutable evidence of cheating and concealment, respecting solemn treaties, on the part of Iran, that not even this will alter their commitment to neutralism. (One had already suspected as much in the Iraqi case.)

(6) The ability to certify Iraq as actually disarmed, rather than accept the word of a psychopathic autocrat.

(7) The immense gains made by the largest stateless minority in the region--the Kurds--and the spread of this example to other states.

(8) The related encouragement of democratic and civil society movements in Egypt, Syria, and most notably Lebanon, which has regained a version of its autonomy.

(9) The violent and ignominious death of thousands of bin Ladenist infiltrators into Iraq and Afghanistan, and the real prospect of greatly enlarging this number.

(10) The training and hardening of many thousands of American servicemen and women in a battle against the forces of nihilism and absolutism, which training and hardening will surely be of great use in future combat.

Read the whole thing.

Sheehan Update

Sheehan continues her slide into eccentricity while the far Left is outraged over the 'sliming efforts' of the right.  Honestly, it hasn't taken all that much effort.  She just keeps setting them up.  And since she's the one jumping freely into the arena of national security policy, can she really keep using her dead son as a shield against criticism?

Here's Cindy Sheehan honoring her dead son by referring to the insurgents in Iraq (including, presumably the various al-Qaeda cells) as 'freedom fighters'.  As Sheehan steps farther and farther to the left, it's getting more difficult to take anything she says all that seriously - grieving mother or not.

Here's What Capitulation Gets You

Here's Hamas' infamous bomb-maker on the Israeli pull out from Gaza:

In his speech, Deif praised the hundreds of militants who have died in attacks against Israel.

"Without this jihad and this steadfastness, we did not achieve the liberation of the Gaza Strip," he said...

The man, identifying himself as fugitive bomb maker Mohammed Deif, described Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as a victory for armed resistance, rejected calls for his group to disarm, and vowed to continue attacks on Israel until the Jewish state is erased from the map. (Italics added)

"You are leaving Gaza today in shame," he said in comments directed toward Israel. "Today you are leaving hell. But we promise you that tomorrow all Palestine will be hell for you, God willing."

The world did not have to wait long to witness the first major Palestinian response to Israel's major concession:

Twenty-one people were wounded Sunday, two seriously, in a suicide bombing at a central bus station in the southern Israeli town of Beersheba, Israeli officials said.

It was the first such attack by Palestinian militants since Israel's historic pullout from Gaza and the West Bank.

If the Palestinians have not yet learned their lessons, than they will never get the independent state they desire and neither will they deserve one.  And no one much will care.

New Additions To The Blogroll

Welcome the new addition of three fantastic blogs to J-G's blogroll:

First, there's Volokh Conspiracy, an excellent legal blog that tackles a wide spectrum of legal topics.  Then there's The Speculist, a site dedicated to emerging technologies and their effect on social issues.  Finally, I have added Memeorandum, a site that collects big stories and news flashes from across the web and from around the world.  Enjoy.

The (Mis)Use of A Mother's Grief

Much has already been said of the Sheehan affair, but I can't resist dropping my two cents:

It’s hard not to be skeptical of grieving mother, Cindy Sheehan. Protests, particularly one as well-publicized as that set up outside the President’s Crawford ranch, are rarely spontaneous. They require organization and careful planning. And if they are to stretch on for more than a couple of days they require sustenance - both logistical and media. Despite the media’s attempt to portray Sheehan’s protest as the spontaneous outcome of the compelling force of grief over the death of her son, the efforts undertaken in Crawford have been well planned and calculated so as to inflict the maximum amount of pressure and embarrassment on the President. She has an agent and her efforts are being coordinated by a host of left wing groups eager to smear the President. None of that necessarily renders Sheehan’s grief any less sincere, but it does force a pause; and it does mean that her efforts should be taken in context. The full weight of Sheehan’s protest must be considered against the backdrop of the various far left groups sustaining her, groups with whom she has rallied and supported. And who is to say whether Sheehan is a willing political operative of these groups or has simply been employed as a pitiful pawn. But none of that really matters because no one can know what’s in her heart.

Regrettably, some GOP faithful aren’t waiting to find out. They have derisively impugned and mocked her efforts, at times coming close to belittling the grief Sheehan undoubtedly feels over the loss of her son. On the other hand, it’s not likely that her supporters on the far Left are somehow more grief-stricken over her loss than the callous denizens on the right. Their rallying cry, of course, is a product of the political conclusion Sheehan has reached - not outrage over the death of Casey Sheehan. Folks from all over the left, like the artists, activists, and actors over at Huffington Post, are salivating at the chance to produce unbearably bad hyperbole (like labeling this protest Bush’s Tiananmen - though it is unlikely that the protestors will be broken up by soldiers mowing down the crowd) while commiserating with Cindy Sheehan. But Sheehan’s grief is not the final trump card against those whom support the war, nor does her loss supply an extra degree of legitimacy to those in opposition.

Christopher Hitchens has already made the brutally logical point that - contrary to Maureen Dowd’s fatuous claim that Sheehan speaks from a stance of unassailable authority - grief alone is not sufficient to bestow absolute moral authority. Those stubbornly pretending otherwise must be prepared to let that logical knife cut both ways: If losing a loved one to a war grants one absolute authority to speak on matters of military policy, than not losing a child to war has the opposite effect - it means that one has no authority whatsoever to speak on matters of war and peace. Worse still, by extension, granting absolute moral authority on the condition of having lost a child to war necessarily means that those who have lost children to war, yet still support the military’s efforts, are imbued with the same sort of authority that now presumably resides within Sheehan (two contrary policy positions stemming from absolute moral authority is an odd outcome for ‘absolute moral authority’). Those relying on Sheehan’s grief as a substitute for argument are sure to be disappointed, for they are simply offering one more variation on the ‘chicken hawk fallacy’: the idea that - despite our history of civilian control of the military - the lack of military service disqualifies one from supporting or planning military action.

Sheehan’s tragic loss may make her policy stance more poignant, more personal, more heart-wrenching - but it does not make it more authoritative. Sheehan’s anguish may provide a human face to the tragic losses suffered in this war, but so to do the small town newspapers that publish pictures of the soldiers lost, but those commemorations do not represent an argument against a war nor a prescription for a more secure national security strategy.

Those fanning the flames of this media firestorm are hoping to substitute argument and rational discourse with high drama and tension - they are seeking to create an emotional movie moment. Sadly, the dramatic moment lacks much political punch. The fact that a volunteer solider dies in a war does not invalidate the war. And Sheehan’s grief is not a policy prescription. When Sheehan has turned her attention to policy it’s been a disappointing jumble of all the same predictable canards typically spouted by the far Left: ‘The way to prevent terrorism is to get Israel out of Palestine’; Bush and his oil cronies should be impeached (which would presumably include the members of Congress that approved the war)’; ‘Bush is the real terrorist’, etc…. But we’ve heard all these before. And why would Sheehan’s policy suggestions carry any more weight than any other citizen? Why would her policy disagreements on a host of national security issues merit an audience with the President?

Predictably, the left is investing their hopes in Sheehan, hoping that her grief is the trump card which will achieve an audience that arguments alone will not. Bush has already met with Sheehan once to express regret for the loss of her son. He has no further obligation - grieving mother or not - to meet with anyone to hear how he’s the real terrorist or that Israel is the biggest threat to America’s national security. That’s a policy critique. And Bush is likely not very interested in the policy critiques of Cindy Sheehan. For that matter, neither are we.

The Secular War

Niall Ferguson has written an interesting essay on the decline of the Christian faith in Europe:

Now it is Europeans who are the heathens. According to the Gallup Millennium Survey of religious attitudes, barely 20 percent of West Europeans attend church services at least once a week, compared with 47 percent of North Americans and 82 percent of West Africans. Fewer than half of West Europeans say God is a "very important" part of their lives, as against 83 percent of Americans and virtually all West Africans. And fully 15 percent of West Europeans deny that there is any kind of "spirit, God or life force" -- seven times the American figure and 15 times the West African.

The exceptionally low level of British religiosity was perhaps the most striking revelation of a recent ICM poll. One in five Britons claim to "attend an organized religious service regularly," less than half the American figure. Little more than a quarter say that they pray regularly, compared with two-thirds of Americans and 95 percent of Nigerians. And barely one in 10 Britons would be willing to die for our God or our beliefs, compared with 71 percent of Americans.

Christianity is a particular historical phenomenon.  And it's true that parts of the world are trending less religious.  Liberal democracy and a commitment to pluralism treat religion and matters of personal conscience as private matters and thus, discourage their political use.  By treating religious matters as apolitical, the open society - primarily through benign neglect - ultimately drifts toward the secular (at least in its institutions).

Similarly, and for a variety of historical reasons having to do with its experience with wars and its religious beginnings, it should not be surprising that North America remains, by and large, a Christian continent, though it has certainly become more secular over time; nor is it surprising that Africa has begun its initial embrace of Christianity.  In fact, in an odd historical parallel to Europe and America, as Africa has begun developing its economy and fashioning its entrance onto the world stage, many parts of the continent have embraced particularly fundamental and violent forms of evangelical Christianity.  Those will likely decline over the long haul as their societies become more tolerant and diverse.

But Ferguson's concerns mirror the same old concerns that theologians and moralists have expressed for years - the idea that a increasingly secular populace will find itself a country without a center, a country no longer bonded by the glue of a common religion.  Ferguson finds the trend toward declining religiosity alarming because he believes that without a grand, monolithic religious edifice girding the walls of our society, morality itself will crumble - that we will be unable to lock arms as a bulwark against the threat from without:

Over the last few weeks, Britons have heard a great deal from Tony Blair and others about the threat posed to their "way of life" by Muslim extremists such as Muktar Said Ibrahim. But how far has their own loss of religious faith turned Britain into a soft target -- not so much for the superstition Chesterton feared, but for the fanaticism of others?

That concern has proven reactionary time and time again.  American and European culture has become increasingly secular yet has managed to retain a common political heritage.  That Europe has found itself hosting nests of religious extremists has more to do with the misguided tenets of multiculturalism, lax immigration, an unwillingness to shoulder the burden of fighting extremism, and a lack of focus on assimilation than it does the decline of Christianity.  Only by advancing one religious bigotry over another (in the spirit of the Crusades) could Europe have used the unity of religion to keep the Islamists at bay.

On the other hand, Ferguson does manage to make use of the warnings of G.K. Chesterson and C.S. Lewis, the idea that the vacuum created by the death of organized religion would be filled with ever more virulent strains of fundamentalism or a hodgepodge of silly superstitions:

Chesterton feared that if Christianity declined, "superstition" would "drown all your old rationalism and skepticism." When educated friends tell me that they have invited a shaman to investigate their new house for bad juju, I see what Chesterton meant. Yet it is not the spread of such mumbo-jumbo that concerns me as much as the moral vacuum that de-Christianization has created. Sure, sermons are sometimes dull and congregations often sing out of tune. But, if nothing else, a weekly dose of Christian doctrine helps to provide an ethical framework for life. And it is not clear where else such a thing is available in modern Europe.

C.S. Lewis was right in that regard.  There's no denying the religious impulse, and in an increasingly open society - one that facilitates pluralism in just about every sphere of life and is less dependent on the strictures of the church - that impulse may find its expression in any number of ways, including a host of inane superstitions and utter nonsense.

But the beliefs of the mystic will never rival organized religion.  Such silly beliefs in tree nymphs or shamans or some animistic foolishness lack the historical depth, order, and richness of the major religions.  The mystics lack any deep rationalistic tradition. Those superstitions will never represent a tradition - but just the idiosyncratic flights of fancy of a few weak-minded individuals.  It may be decadence, but they don't hearken the end and such foolishness will never represent a significant threat to the pillars of Western society.

Besides, that seems a small price to pay for an increasingly tolerant and pluralistic society.  And in the end, it's not a theological soundness (though that may be one weapon in the arsenal) or a renewed sense of Christian righteousness that will defeat the barbarians we now face.  Uniting against Islamic fundamentalism on religious grounds is not likely to unite us at all if only because religious conceptions differ from person to person, community to community.  The place where each community of the West is most likely to find common ground to unite against the barbarism of the fanatic is within the polis, the shared political sphere.  And in the political sphere of the West, a rabid and murderous fundamentalism - one intent on subsuming all spheres of existence under its mandates - will find itself incompatible with our beliefs in secularism, tolerance, pluralism, and the rule of law.  And in those beliefs - on that secular ground - is where we will all unite to fight the threat to the society that we all share.

The Pope Condemns the 'New Barbarism'

The catholic church’s usual insistence that it remain above the fray of the topical and political has led it to be mealy-mouthed in the face of Islamic terrorism, just as it was reticent to address the threat of fascism in the 20^th century.  But Pope Benedict XVI is taking a stand:

Pope Benedict XVI went before an Islamic audience Saturday and delivered the strongest rebuke of terrorism of his papacy, asking Muslims to join Christians in trying to combat its spread and ‘turn back the wave of cruel fanaticism’ behind it.

The Catholic Church’s condemnation, of course, means very little to those sympathetic to Islamo-fascists.  But Pope Benedict has shown courage in recognizing the apolitical nature of terrorism and daring to speak the name of a particular brand of horrifying fundamentalism, a brand Pope Benedict rightly labeled ‘the darkness of a new barbarism’.