Jay Reding.com

All I can say is “thank God Al Gore never became President.”

Imagine you’re an American politician after September 11th. What’s the dumbest thing you can do other than show up to the State of the Union in a kaffeyah and an “I (Heart) Osama bin Laden” T-Shirt?

That’s right, give a speech saying that America mistreats Arabs in freakin’ Saudi Arabia.

As in the place where 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 came from.

As in a country where young girls are left to burn to death because they didn’t have their veils on.

As in Saudi Freakin’ Arabia.

It’s like traveling to Munich in 1937 to say that Americans need to be nicer to the Jews. You cannot possibly get any more idiotically and insanely tone-deaf than that.

And to think that screwball was 537 votes away from the White House…

Glenn Reynolds calls Ann Coulter “objectively pro-terrorist” - a charge that almost (but not quite) rings true. Coulter’s schtick got old a long time ago, and her sort of attention-whorage is the last thing this country needs. For the good of the nation, Ann, put a damn sock in it.

I know I cover this subject quite a bit, but I do so because it’s critically important to the future of our world. Fareed Zakaria has a very astute piece on Europe’s continuing decline. Zakaria points out the usual litany of problems: an aging population, a stagnant economy, and cultural decline. Anne Applebaum also piles on at Cato Unbound. She writes:

I was reminded of a recent conversation with a friend, another American Europhile, now resident in East Asia. Sadly, we agreed that the Europeans who bash “wild” Anglo-Saxon capitalism, who believe America is an unregulated jungle, and who feel smug and safe within their secure welfare states are deeply, deeply deluded. They haven’t yet realized that the economic and social challenge presented by the successful societies of Asia is hundreds of times more dangerous to their way of life than the caricature they’ve created of the challenge presented by the United States, a country which is nearly as over-regulated as their own. If the rise of China continues apace, I’m afraid Dr. Dalyrymple’s final phrase—that Europe is “sleep-walking to further relative decline—might even be too mild. At some point, it’s also possible that Europe’s decline, for all the reasons he listed, might even cease to be relative.

Why do I keep bringing up this topic? For the reason that in a globalized economy, if Europe declines, we all lose. Secondly, because Europe is a warning to us. We can see the liberal social experiment as they would have it in Europe. Europe is what they would like us to become, and it is becoming quite clear that experiment is failing there. If we fail to learn from the mistakes of others, Europe’s problems will soon be our own - and in some ways, we’re already facing some of the same problems they are.

We can’t expect to follow the same path as Europe and avoid the same results, and should we try our larger population and greater diversity will only mean our fall will be harder and faster. Already we’re seeing a push for more isolationism even though the supposed horrors that would befall us if we passed NAFTA never materialized. We’re seeing an increasingly restrictive regulatory environment that is binding our society in a web of red tape. While Hispanics aren’t as alienated from our societal values as Arab immigrants are alienated from European societal values, we cannot ignore the fact that unchecked illegal immigration threatens our economy and society as well. Europe’s bleak future could well become our own if we’re not careful to avoid it.

It is not too late for either Europe or the US to stray from the road to serfdom and start the necessary and vital task of reform. Margaret Thatcher already created a new renaissance in the UK, and her economic legacy continues on despite Tony Blair’s Europhile meddling. The Irish economy has gone from sickly to strong under the leadership of Bernie Ahern. The “center-right” is surging in European politics with victories in Portugal in Germany. In statist France, reformist candidate Nicolas Sarkozy’s political fortunes look strong for next year’s elections. Yet none of these leaders have quite the political will that the Iron Lady did.

Eventually, Europe will have to reform, just as we will. The great question which hangs over all of us is how bad things will get before that happens, and whether it will be a case of too little, too late.

Jonah Goldberg has a brilliant little evisceration of Glenn Greenwald in The Corner. Greenwald made the following, and altogether too common, argument:

It used to be the case that in order to be considered a “liberal” or someone “of the Left,” one had to actually ascribe to liberal views on the important policy issues of the day – social spending, abortion, the death penalty, affirmative action, immigration, “judicial activism,” hate speech laws, gay rights, utopian foreign policies, etc. etc. These days, to be a “liberal,” such views are no longer necessary.

Now, in order to be considered a “liberal,” only one thing is required – a failure to pledge blind loyalty to George W. Bush. The minute one criticizes him is the minute that one becomes a “liberal,” regardless of the ground on which the criticism is based. And the more one criticizes him, by definition, the more “liberal” one is. Whether one is a “liberal” — or, for that matter, a “conservative” — is now no longer a function of one’s actual political views, but is a function purely of one’s personal loyalty to George Bush.”

Which, as Goldberg notes, apparently means that National Review has become a “liberal” publication, the Cato Insitution is staffed by liberals, John McCain is a liberal, Bill Frist is a liberal, and hell, even I am now apparently a liberal too. No doubt I’ll be changing the site’s tagline to “Liberalism With Attitude” any day now…

Goldberg later notices that there’s quite a bit of truth to what Greenwald is saying, except Greenwald confuses liberals with conservatives:

Several readers have observed something that I should have noted had I not been in vent mode. The opposite of what Greenwald and Sullivan is saying is far closer to the truth. So long as you hate Bush or attack him, you’re basically ok in the eyes of liberals. Often, when a conservative goes after Bush Andrew Sullivan will say something like “finally, a conservative with integrity” — the implication (repeated again and again) is that if someone does see things Andrew’s way, he lacks integrity.

As for actual liberals, I get email all the time from Kosites and the like saying, “Listen to Buchanan!” Or “Bob Barr’s right!”

It used to be that abortion, affirmative action etc defined who liberals would celebrate. Now, all it takes is going after Bush.

I think Goldberg hits it right on the head here. Since 2001, and especially since the beginning of the Iraq War, “liberalism” has allowed itself to be defined as nothing more than negation of George W. Bush. Liberalism has lost any sense of overarching purpose and is united strictly in its opposition to the President. It doesn’t take more than five minutes of looking through lefty blogs or reading publications like The Nation or Mother Jones before realizing that every issue, no matter how great or small, inevitably turns into an opportunity for vitriolic criticism of George W. Bush.

Furthermore, look at the coalition of the “right” these days, especially the “right-wing” blogosphere. Glenn Reynolds voted for Gore in 2000 and has always been a lukewarm Bush supporter at best. Ditto Stephen Green. Of the more popular “right-wing” blogs, many of them are hardly members of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. In fact, Reynolds, Green, Roger L. Simon, and others lean liberal on a whole host of social issues and aren’t afraid to take Bush to task on them.

And that’s the biggest difference I notice between the right and the left these days. The right has no problem taking shots at Bush when they are warranted. In fact, I’ve long stated, and it’s still been true that if you want an intelligent criticism of the Bush Administration, you’re far more likely to find it coming from the right than from the left. The idea that the right has “blind loyalty” to the President is categorically absurd.

Consider what happens to anyone who has even as much as a word of praise for Bush at a place like The Daily Kos or Eschaton or one of the other left-wing blogs. They’re instantly branded a “Bush apologist” and a “traitor” to the “progressive” cause - and usually shut down and kicked out in short order. It’s all or nothing for the left these days - either you join in their unending hatred of Bush or you’re not part of the clique.

Stephen Green also notes the disparity in rhetoric these days:

“Spendthrift Republican Congress” isn’t exactly a catchphrase, but I’ve used it five times in the last three years. Total comments from Democrats saying “Amen?” Next to zero. Thanks for the support, fellas. I did, however, hear from a bunch of conservatives who were just as disappointed as I was with their party.

When I virtually assaulted Canadian neocon columnist David Warren for his slipshod essay against gay marriage, I got the same result. Read the comments for yourself, but by and large I found Bush voters (and the usual libertarian suspects) on my side. Not one proclaimed Gore voter slapped me on the back and said, “Well done.” Not one of them said anything at all.

Last fall, I went out of my way to offend Republican sensibilities. I accused Bush and his science council of “tying their shoelaces together” in the race to develop new medicines. Again, the same pattern emerged. Republicans took me to task, libertarians shouted their atheistic hosannas, and Democrats said… nothing.

I could give more examples, but it’s late and my martini glass is empty. Besides, regular readers see it here every day: The right seems to love a good debate, and the left seems to love pissing on them for it. I’m speaking in broad terms here, obviously, but in my experience the point remains.

That is the single biggest issue I have with the left these days. Granted, I still think they’re wrong on the issues, but one can and should be able to have a respectful disagreement on the issues without resorting to the sort of hyperpartisan crap that is currently poisoning American political discourse. The issues we face are far more complex, far more nuanced, and far more important than to be distilled down to either hatred of or support for one single individual. Yet the war in Iraq has become less about American foreign policy, democratization, weapons of mass destruction, intelligence failures, or anything else than it has been about being another stick to use in the flogging of the President.

No matter what the issue, everything on the left revolves around President Bush. Whatever substance their critiques may have, eventually it all boils down to the personal. It’s no longer about policies it’s about the person of George W. Bush. Our national political rhetoric has turned into a massive circle-jerk of ad hominem arguments. Just for once I’d like to see a substantive argument from the left without the pathological need to drag the President into the argument. I’d hold my breath for one, but I don’t think I can go without oxygen that long.

Greenwald is right, but his comments reflect more of a sense of projection than anything else. The left’s current identity is one of negation: all that is required is a passionate dislike of George W. Bush.

On January 20, 2009, George W. Bush becomes part of history, and when that day comes, what will the left stand for? When one’s entire ideological basis becomes inextricably enveloped in the singular hatred for one man, where does that ideology stand when that man becomes irrelevant? The anti-Bush side better start asking themselves that question now, because unless they want to be full players in the marketplace of ideas in this country they’d better have an answer before that day comes.

Fareed Zakaria has a very insightful commentary on Islam and democracy in Newsweek. He argues that while it may seem like Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise with the election of Hamas and situation in Iran, the reality is that democracy is slowly but surely taking root. However, Zakaria also argues that we need to look beyond mere democracy if we’re to see a sane and sensible Middle East:

Elections have not created political Islam in the Middle East. They have codified a reality that existed anyway. Hamas was already a major player to be reckoned with in Gaza. The Muslim Brotherhood is popular in Egypt, whether or not Hosni Mubarak holds real elections. In fact, the more they are suppressed, the greater their appeal. If politics is more open, these groups may or may not moderate themselves, but they will surely lose some of that mystical allure they now have. The martyrs will become mayors, which is quite a fall in status.

But to accept these forces is not to celebrate them. It is important that religious intolerance and antimodern attitudes not be treated as cultural variations that must be respected. Whether it is Hindu intolerance in India, anti-Semitism in Europe or Muslim bigotry in Saudi Arabia, the modern world rightly condemns them all as violating universal values. Recent months have only highlighted that promoting democracy and promoting liberty in the Middle East are separate projects. Both have their place. But the latter—promoting the forces of political, economic and social liberty—is the more difficult and more important task. And unless we succeed at it, we will achieve a series of nasty democratic outcomes, as we are beginning to in so many of these places.

This fight is not one the fundamentalists are destined to win. The forces of liberalism have been stymied in the Middle East for decades. They need help. Recall that in Europe for much of the last 100 years, when liberal democrats were not given assistance, nationalists and communists often triumphed through the democratic processes.

Zakaria is quite right here. As Glenn Reynolds is fond of saying, democratization is a process, not an event. Elections are the most visible part of a democratic process, but they’re also the most superficial. In order to have a lasting and stable society, it takes more than just elections, you need a sense of civil society.

For decades, civil society in the Middle East was systematically suppressed - except in the mosques. The only place where an Egyptian, an Iraqi, or a Saudi could talk openly was at Friday prayers. The authoritarianism of the Middle East wiped out civil society except for Islam which they dared not touch. It is only national that as the old authoritarianism is swept away in an Arab society, the first vestiges of civil society will be the religious groups.

In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood proclaims that “Islam is the solution” - which is the argument that forms the basis of the Islamist worldview. The fact is that given a free choices, the people of Egypt would very likely elect the Muslim Brotherhood into power instead of the corrupt and autocratic Mubarak regime - just as the elections in the Palestinian Authority elected Hamas rather than the corrupt and equally anti-Semitic Fatah.

However, that doesn’t mean that Islam really is the solution. As Zakaria points out, there’s a big difference between a martyr and a mayor, and groups like Hamas have flourished because they have positioned themselves as the great alternatives to the autocratic status quo. Yet once they’re in a position where they have to make good on their promises, the luster quickly fades. It’s one thing to paint yourself as a brave fighter for Islam against the Great Satan. It’s another thing to have to fix the potholes on the road and keep society running. In fact, Fatah is an example of just that - once Fatah had to assume real political power and get things done, they showed that they couldn’t hack it.

What is crucial is to support democratic civil society in the Arab world, but realize that it will take at least a generation, and probably longer for the region to go from autocracy to illiberal democracies to liberal democracy. The greatest threat we face is not Hamas, it’s that we’ll give up on the democratic experiment because of groups like Hamas. That would be a fatal mistake. The first step on the road to a sane Middle East is to ensure that the people there have an expectation that they can and should be able to elect their leaders. Elections are the first step. Once people have accepted a democratic system, it makes tyranny far less palatable.

At first, we should expect the people to elect governments that are not to our liking. The whole point of democracy is that there’s popular rule. There are very few people in the Middle East who are liberals in the classical sense. A democratic Iraq or Palestine won’t look like Switzerland or Vermont - at least not at first.

What is important is that there be boundaries. We can’t dictate who the people of the Middle East can vote for, but we should be setting institutions like the military as protectors of the democratic tradition. Turkey has suffered several democratic reversals, but the Turkish military has quickly come in to restore order and democracy. In Iraq, a strong military can serve as a bulwark against a government instituting true theocracy - which is why it remains important to have them trained well and given the mandate to protect democratic values in Iraq.

So long as the system remains democratic, the power of the radicals will fade. Zakaria is right, the radicals can’t win over the long term. A group like Hamas either has to morph itself into a political organization and lose its revolutionary zeal or end up discredited like Fatah.

The most crucial aspect of all of this is the willingness to realize that this is a long-term project. We can’t just wash our hands of the region and hope all goes for the best. The future of the region requires a long-term and worldwide commitment to democratic values. It requires us to keep engaged with Iraq even after our troops are gone. It requires us to support democratic institutions and groups that espouse the values of civil society.

Democratization is a process, not an event, and we are only 5 years into a long-term engagement that will make the Middle East a saner, more democratic place. However, we cannot expect easy answers or quick results. The path of democracy often involves two steps forward and one and a half steps back. There will be setbacks, reversals, and governments elected to office we don’t like. So long as our will remains strong and we continue to support democratization in the region for the long haul, democracy will win out in the end. Democracy is simply a superior system than tyranny or theocracy. However, it doesn’t come easily, which is why this war has always been a war of values more than a war of weapons and armies. We cannot fail to keep the pressure to democratize strong, even when there are setback and stumbles. Democracy in the Middle East will only fail if we allow it to, and our safety and the safety of the rest of the world depends on a more peaceful and democratic Middle East.

Steven Green is planning to come over to the Dark Side of the Force and get a Mac for his next computer.

I’ve been a Mac owner for well over a year now. My iBook is the best computer I’ve ever owned, and my work machine is an iMac G5. If I can run a few games like Battlefield 2 and Civilization IV on the new Intel iMac, I’ll be ditching my PC in a heartbeat. Macs have their own little quirks (like the Finder’s general suckage), but they’re still light-years ahead of PCs. Unless you’re a hard-core gamer, there’s just no reason to own a PC now that Mac are price-competitive. Yes, the initial price may be higher. Then add $50 or so for a virus scanner, plus yearly updates. Figure in the cost of a spyware blocker. Then a program to uninstall all the crap Window programs fling across your system like an enraged bonobo monkey hopped up on speed. Then add the cost of the hastles it takes to do simple things like organize your photos. Then figure that your Mac comes with iLife, which has a very capable video editing program in iMovie, DVD burning software, and GarageBand. There’s nothing like that in the PC world, and the costs of equivalent PC programs would add a lot more to the cost of a PC. A PC is only cheaper if your time is worth nothing.

And just like the VodkaPundit himself, I started getting hooked when iTunes came out for the PC. As Yoda would say, iTunes leads to the iPod. The iPod leads to a Mac. The Mac leads to total awesomness. Except he’d say it in a raspy voice and odd grammar.

You know what they say… once you go Mac you never go back…

Via Instapundit comes this piece on an effort to help foster and promote intellectual diversity in South Dakota higher education:

HB1222, passed by a vote of 42-26, asks the Board of Regents to report annually on what the state’s six universities are doing to promote “intellectual diversity,” defined as “a learning environment that exposes students to a variety of political, ideological and other perspectives.”

“The 2007 higher education budget request is half a billion dollars,” Rep. Phyllis Heineman, R-Sioux Falls, the chief sponsor of the bill, said. “It is simply good governance that legislators ask questions and seek answers. Students and taxpayers deserve no less.”

I’ll admit some level of skepticism about how the Legislature intends to measure intellectual diversity, and how much interference is appropriate in this case. Indeed, despite the fact that the bill has already passed the House, there are some worries about how it would be implemented:

Other opponents took issue with a list of suggestions included in the bill on which reports can be based, such as encouraging a variety of speakers at campuses and creating an ombudsman.

Rep. Tom Hills, R-Spearfish, a retired Black Hills State University professor and dean, said the bill would “micromanage” tasks that should be left up to administrators.

But Rep. Thomas Brunner, R-Nisland, disagreed. He said the criteria are merely suggestions and that an annual report is not a hardship.

However, reading the full text of the bill helps show why this law is narrowly constructed enough to not be burdensome. The bill is quite simple, and lays out exactly what the report should contain. This does seem like a reasonable measure to help foster a climate of intellectual diversity.

The fact is that higher education often has a view of diversity that is literally only skin deep. Diversity is more than the color of one’s skin or one’s geographical position. Universities are often some of the least intellectually diverse institutions in society, where each and every issue from anthropology to zoology seems to be based on the secular Trinity of race, gender, and class. The partisan identification of college professors is overwhelmingly Democratic - and far to the left.

I know many people in academia, and while they aren’t consciously biased against conservatives, they have a worldview which systematically ignores and suppresses ideas that don’t fit within the narrow confines of normal academic discourse. They’ve essentially defined “academics” in accordance with a particular worldview, which is why the academy is often so far removed from the rest of society. Conservatives are kept as a minority, and conservative ideas are rarely if ever given much of a fair hearing. This kind of educational monoculture stands in opposition to the values of free inquiry and intellectual diversity.

As they say, sunshine is the best disinfectant, and ensuring that taxpayer-funded higher education upholds the values of intellectual diversity and pluralism is a goal that’s worth supporting. This bill should pass the Senate and Governor Rounds should sign it into law.