Archive for 2015
December 8, 2015
ILYA SOMIN: The expanding role of women in combat and the future of male-only draft registration. “Male-only draft registration is one of the last bastions of open sex discrimination in US government policy.”
I had some related thoughts.
MISSING FROM THIS ACCOUNT: Pat McCarran Was A Democrat.
Likewise, this NPR segment talks about Father Coughlin, but doesn’t mention that — as Jonah Goldberg noted in his Liberal Fascism — Coughlin was a socialist who attacked FDR from the left. But to listen to this, you’d think he was a right-winger.
THE DARK SIDE OF STATINS.
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ANALYSIS: TRUE. Kurt Schlichter: Being A Man And Having A Traditional Family Is A Rebellious Act. “By being man, you reject the role the liberal elite has prepared for you, that of a weak, confused manchild unfit to be sovereign over your own destiny. Taking care of your family yourself repudiates them. Defending your family (especially when you exercise your fundamental Second Amendment rights) repudiates them. Raising your children as strong, independent Americans instead of spoiled, crybullying snowflakes, repudiates them. Just being normal repudiates them.”
THE COMMENTERS AT XOJANE AREN’T SO HAPPY ABOUT THIS: I’m a Giant Liberal But I Fell In Love With a Republican.
If I’m being honest, perhaps I would admit that I got a little tired of the “progressive” guys I was dating. There was a lot of talk, but often I found my boyfriends had trouble walking the walk. I still seemed to be doing the housework. On a few occasions I was even covering the rent while my boyfriends pursued their unrealistic dreams (bands, the great American novel etc). In one extreme case, a professed male feminist cheated on me with a much younger woman.
Well, yeah, your “male feminists” are a sketchy lot.
MISSTATING THE CONSTITUTION: The mainstream media and politicians across the political spectrum are having a field day excoriating Donald Trump for his statements that he would ban Muslims from entering the country. Glenn has already posted Eric Posner’s piece that explains why limiting immigration–to any category whatsoever, whether it be race, religion, national origin or otherwise–is within the “plenary power” of Congress, and hence, perfectly constitutional, as the Supreme Court has long recognized.
The latest iteration of PC-induced apoplexy over Trump’s comments comes in the form of comparing restricting Muslim entry to the Japanese internment camps during World War II. But once again, commentators on both the right and left seem to have conveniently forgotten that the Supreme Court upheld the internment of individuals of Japanese ancestry, including American citizens, in Korematsu v. United States (1944). In another case upholding the imposition of a curfew on Japanese-Americans, Hirabayashi v. United States (1943), the Court explained the constitutional basis for such actions:
The war power of the national government is “the power to wage war successfully.” . . . Since the Constitution commits to the Executive and to Congress the exercise of the war power in all the vicissitudes and conditions of warfare, it has necessarily given them wide scope for the exercise of judgment and discretion in determining the nature and extent of the threatened injury or danger and in the selection of the means for resisting it. Where, as they did here, the conditions call for the exercise of judgment and discretion and for the choice of means by those branches of the Government on which the Constitution has placed the responsibility of warmaking, it is not for any court to sit in review of the wisdom of their action or substitute it judgment for theirs. . . .
The alternative, which appellant insists must be accepted, is for the military authorities to impose the curfew on all citizens within the military area, or on none. In a case of threatened danger requiring prompt action, it is a choice between inflicting obviously needless hardship on the many or sitting passive and unresisting in the presence of the threat. We think that constitutional government, in time of war, is not so powerless and does not compel so hard a choice if those charged with the responsibility of our national defense have reasonable ground for believing that the threat is real. . . .
There is support for the view that social, economic and political conditions which have prevailed since the close of the last century, when the Japanese began to come to this country in substantial numbers, have intensified their solidarity and have in large measure prevented their assimilation as an integral part of the white population. In addition, large numbers of children of Japanese parentage are sent to Japanese language schools outside the regular hours of public schools in the locality. Some of these schools are generally believed to be sources of Japanese nationalistic propaganda, cultivating allegiance to Japan. Considerable numbers, estimated to be approximately 10,000, of American-born children of Japanese parentage have been sent to Japan for all or a part of their education. . . .
Viewing these data in all their aspects, Congress and the Executive could reasonably have concluded that these conditions have encouraged the continued attachment of members of this group to Japan and Japanese institutions. These are only some of the many considerations which those charged with the responsibility for the national defense could take into account in determining the nature and extent of the danger of espionage and sabotage in the event of invasion or air raid attack. The extent of that danger could be definitely known only after the event, and after it was too late to meet it. Whatever views we may entertain regarding the loyalty to this country of the citizens of Japanese ancestry, we cannot reject as unfounded the judgment of the military authorities and of Congress that there were disloyal members of that population, whose number and strength could not be precisely and quickly ascertained. . . .
Because racial discriminations are in most circumstances irrelevant, and therefore prohibited, it by no means follows that, in dealing with the perils of war, Congress and the Executive are wholly precluded from taking into account those facts and circumstances which are relevant to measures for our national defense and for the successful prosecution of the war, and which may, in fact, place citizens of one ancestry in a different category from others. “We must never forget that it is a constitution we are expounding,” “a constitution intended to endure for ages to come, and, consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs.” The adoption by Government, in the crisis of war and of threatened invasion, of measures for the public safety, based upon the recognition of facts and circumstances which indicate that a group of one national extraction may menace that safety more than others, is not wholly beyond the limits of the Constitution, and is not to be condemned merely because, in other and in most circumstances, racial distinctions are irrelevant.
The Constitution is not a suicide pact. Protecting national security is a “compelling” government interest that should survive the strictest of judicial scrutiny. The only open constitutional question, it seems to me, is whether today’s Supreme Court would change its mind about these pragmatic realities, or instead sacrifice commonsense national security measures to the God of Political Correctness.
Trump’s statements about Muslim immigration/entry do not even rise to the level of World War II’s internment of Japanese Americans. His less intrusive measures–aimed at individuals who are outside US borders, not US citizens, and reasonably viewed as a potential threat to US national security interests during a War on Radical Islamic Terror–are clearly constitutional. Korematsu and Hirabayashi also suggest that even more severe measures against Muslims present within the country–including US citizens–could also be constitutional if narrowly tailored to further compelling national security interests.
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Police release mugshot of teacher accused of sex act with student.
INFECTED: David French, “Dispelling the ‘Few Extremists’ Myth-The Muslim World Is Overcome with Hate.”
It is simply false to declare that jihadists represent the “tiny few extremists” who sully the reputation of an otherwise peace-loving and tolerant Muslim faith. In reality, the truth is far more troubling — that jihadists represent the natural and inevitable outgrowth of a faith that is given over to hate on a massive scale, with hundreds of millions of believers holding views that Americans would rightly find revolting. Not all Muslims are hateful, of course, but so many are that it’s not remotely surprising that the world is wracked by wave after wave of jihadist violence.
To understand the Muslim edifice of hate, imagine it as a pyramid — with broadly-shared bigotry at the bottom, followed by stair steps of escalating radicalism — culminating in jihadist armies that in some instances represent a greater share of their respective populations than does the active-duty military in the United States. The base of the pyramid, the most broadly held hatred in the Islamic world, is anti-Semitism, with staggering numbers of Muslims expressing anti-Jewish views. . . .
The next level of the pyramid is Muslim commitment to deadly Islamic supremacy. In multiple Muslim nations, overwhelming majorities of Muslims support the death penalty for apostasy or blasphemy. . . .
Moving beyond Islamic supremacy to the next step of the pyramid, enormous numbers of Muslims are terrorist sympathizers. . . .
It’s definitely a problem the Muslim faith needs to address. But will anyone left-of-center admit these inconvenient truths? Or will political correctness blind liberal/progressives to serious national security risks emanating from a particular religion?
THERE WERE U.S. MILITARY FORCES AVAILABLE TO RESPOND TO BENGHAZI TERRORIST ATTACKS: Judicial Watch obtained an email from then-Department of Defense Chief of Staff to Hillary Clinton’s top aides during the attack telling them American forces were “spinning up” and available at that very moment. Brooklyn, you have a problem.
LARRY CORREIA: Guns and Vultures.
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ERIC POSNER: IS AN IMMIGRATION BAN ON MUSLIMS UNCONSTITUTIONAL? “Probably not.” Which isn’t to say that it’s a good idea, only that people referencing the “religious tests” provision (which applies only to public office) or the Establishment Clause don’t know what they’re talking about.
Related: “Restricting immigration was as central to the progressive agenda as regulating railroads.” Donald Trump as Woodrow Wilson? Well, he’s certainly no Warren Harding.
RICHARD EPSTEIN: We Need More Guns On The Ground.
No matter what the state of play is on the ground, gun control advocates around the country think the solution to mass shootings is tougher restrictions on gun access. President Obama leads the charge when he plumps “for common-sense gun safety laws, stronger background checks,” and insists that an effective countermeasure against terror is prohibiting people on no-fly lists from buying guns.
Worse still, many gun control advocates pillory anyone who disagrees with them with invective that it is hard to sort out. Perhaps the most visible attack came from U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, who right after the shooting directed his venom not toward the killers, but to the Republican Party: “Your ‘thoughts’ should be to take steps to stop this carnage. Your ‘prayers’ should be for forgiveness if you do nothing again.” But do what? According to a New York Times front-page editorial, we should not “abet would-be killers by creating gun markets for them.” And further: “It is past time to stop talking about halting the spread of firearms, and instead to reduce their number drastically.”
Dream on. Moral indignation is never in short supply during such crises, but what is needed is some assurance that the means selected will achieve the desired end. In this case, an inexcusable combination of boorishness and ignorance pushes matters in the wrong direction. The boorishness of people like Senator Murphy undermines the social solidarity needed to boost morale and allow a nation to meet the perils at hand. When people say their thoughts and prayers are with others, they are making a small but vital gesture that tells people who have lost loved ones that they are not alone. To mock that behavior is just a thinly veiled way to attack those who are opposed to new forms of gun control.
Worse still, this level of moral superiority comes from the same people who never once try to meet the substantive arguments against them.
Well, actually the faux-moral-superiority card is played because they can’t meet the substantive arguments against them.
IT’S NOT MADE OF PAPER: Watch a Ridiculous 12.3-liter Quad-Turbo V-16 Dyno at 5000 Horsepower.
NOT JUST WOODROW WILSON: Pretty much everything Donald Trump says was said in more stately and respectable prose by early-20th-century academics. My latest Bloomberg View column draws on the forthcoming intellectual history Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era (plus a host of pre-1923 sources easily available through Google Books):
Early 20th-century progressives transformed American institutions, and the movement’s premises continue to inform thinking and policy across the political spectrum. “It was the progressives who fashioned the new sciences of society, founded the modern American university, invented the think tank, and created the American administrative state, institutions still defined by the progressive values that formed and instructed them,” writes Leonard, a research scholar at Princeton’s Council of the Humanities.
The progressives believed, first and foremost, in the importance of science and scientific experts in guiding the economy, government, and society. Against the selfishness, disorder, corruption, ignorance, conflict and wastefulness of free markets or mass democracy, they advanced the ideal of disinterested, public-spirited social control by well-educated elites. The progressives were technocrats who, Leonard observes, “agreed that expert public administrators do not merely serve the common good, they also identify the common good.” Schools of public administration, including the one that since 1948 has borne Woodrow Wilson’s name, still enshrine that conviction.
Leonard also brings to light an embarrassing truth: In the early 20th century, the progressive definition of the common good was thoroughly infused with scientific racism. Harvard economist William Z. Ripley, for example, was a recognized expert on both railroad regulation and the classification of European races by coloring, stature and “cephalic index,” or head shape. At the University of Wisconsin, the red-hot center of progressive thought, leading social scientists turned out economic-reform proposals along with works parsing the racial characteristics — and supposed natural inferiority — of blacks, Chinese, and non-Teutonic European immigrants. (Present-day progressives somehow didn’t highlight this heritage when they were defending “the Wisconsin Idea” against the depredations of Republican Governor Scott Walker.)
The University of Wisconsin has a lot to be embarrassed about. At least The Donald doesn’t talk about “race suicide.” Read the rest of the column here.
ISN’T “ASKING THE TECH SECTOR TO FIGHT TERROR” JUST A CODE WORD FOR LIMITING ENCRYPTION? Obama wants Silicon Valley “to make it harder for terrorists to use technology.”
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THAT’S KIND OF COOL: This Tiny, Functional V8 Engine Is Made Almost Entirely Out of Paper.
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF CALIFORNIA: A new e-book by Victor Davis Hanson, with an introduction by yours truly.
CHARLES KENNY: Saudi Arabia Is Underwriting Terrorism. Let’s Start Making It Pay. “For years since 9/11, U.S. and Western officials have mostly looked the other way at all this ideological support for extremism: Saudi oil was just too important to the global economy, even though many of these Saudi petro-dollars were underwriting repression at home and the growth of Salafist fundamentalism abroad. But today, two things have changed: first, the global cost of Saudi-backed extremism has continued to climb—with the rise of ISIS and Boko Haram, the bombings in Beirut and Paris and the shootings in San Bernardino. The other factor that has changed is that there is no longer as much economic justification for America to kowtow to the Saudi regime.”
Thanks to fracking, we’re now the world’s #1 oil producer and we’re just getting started.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: These Professions Are Most Likely To Have Sex At Holiday Work Parties.
SIGN OF THE TIMES: Vet’s mom forced to sell Obama letter to cover VA failures he promised to fix.
The mother of an injured Army veteran of the Iraq war is selling a rare letter from President Obama to cover her son’s medical and personal expenses despite the president’s handwritten promise to do “everything we can over the next four years to support your family.”
Cherry McKimmey told Secrets, “Something good might as well come out of that. It is doing no good lying in my drawer. It means absolutely nothing to me.”
Expiration date, reached.