How big is that minority again?

Thomas Friedman, a man I usually respect even when I disagree, has an article in the times 1/23/05 Divided We Stand.

He quotes Bernard Kouchner, the founder of Doctors Without Borders, saying "This is not a war with the Muslim religion, he stressed, but with a violent "fascist" Muslim minority."

I agree with that. But the real question is "how big a minority?" Is this 1% or 49%? At some point it doesn't matter that less than 50% of the people are our fascist enemies.

At the end of the article we find two French born muslim girls who don't trust French TV, admire Osama before all other world figures, support suicide terrorism, consider themselves Muslims first and French last. They report that all their friends agree.

Mr. Friedman interviewed these women, one of which was in a full burkha, in front of their French public high school which is a short subway ride from the Eiffel tower.

That minority seems to look fairly large, Mr. Friedman. In fact, how exactly do we know that it IS a minority?

Social Security Ideas.

Attempts at SS reform are a potential disaster for the Republicans. Our system simply isn't set up to deal with a problem like this, and perhaps no republic is. (The Bread and Circuses Disease).

Phillip Longman believes we should Give More Credit to Prolific Parents and I agree.

I think, however, there is much merit in combining the proposals a bit. My own is: Freeze guaranteed benefits at there current levels for people who do not contribute high school educated children to the system. Give full wage indexing (as an example) to parents who contribute 3 college educated children to the system. The details would be shaped by complex actuarial calculations as well as various social policy ideas. We could reward foreign adoption. We could make the credit for well educated children dependent upon legitimate birth.

I'd love to see actuarial analysis of things like this, but I lack the information to even start.

He can take Saddam, I'll take Bush

In response to Samuel Hazo of December 18, 2004.

Larry Diamond, a long time supporter of human rights, had this to say in the current Foreign Affairs issue:

"Let Smith and other critics visit Iraq and talk to Iraqis who are organizing for democracy, development, and human rights. Let them talk to the families that lived under constant, humiliating, Baathist rule. Let them see some of the roughly 300 mass graves of opponents of the regime who were brutally slaughtered in the hundreds of thousands. Then they will find out who the devil really was."

War Mongers? If that be the truth make the most of it. The effort in Iraq is a moral choice Americans can be very proud of. The proper question isn't "Why did we attack Iraq?", in purely moral terms the question is "What took us so long."

It is Mr. Hazo's opposition to the war in Iraq that is a moral monstrosity. Mr. Hazo, fighting evil isn't immoral. Colluding with it and protecting it is.
The Devil isn't the United States. The Devil was Saddam, the Islamofascists, and their enablers like Mr. Hazo. Mr. Hazo is pro-Saddam. There is no other honest way to interpret it.

He can stand with Saddam. I'll stand with Bush.

Racial Differences

If this doesn't get me voted off the island I don't know what will.

Lynne Varner’s article “Conquer your fear and face America’s complex palette” (Dec. 7) continually implored the reader not to tune out since she was talking about ‘race relations’. She focuses on the different impact, heavily correlated by race, of people living in White Center compared to where she lives. I can understand why Ms. Varner might want to find a racist reason for the disparities. If she could, then people like her could fix the disparities they view as so unsightly.



But those large disparities are not something racist strangers do to the people of White Center. It is a result of behavior they inflict on themselves. In 1999 the illegitimacy rate of Washington State black mothers was over 50% (and more than twice that of whites). There is no reason to look for further cause of the lower expectations and quality of life in White Center than this behavioral difference. Outsiders did not cause this, and outsiders can not fix it. The residents of White Center will do better when they behave better, and not before.



Statistics Vital Statistics of the United States 1999 Vol 1 Natality Tables 1-12 and 1-20.

Self aggrandizing left

I was directed to www.tikkun.org, where I read a nice ditty about how the left criticizes those bad selfish self-interested people in the name of justice and freedom.

Yeah, right. That is why so many Americans drown trying to swim to Cuba. It was why the Communists had to build a wall to keep the hordes from all moving in to their leftist paradise.

Pardon me while I gag.

More Details Here.

Marines get Serious

BoingBoing

quotes the Boston Globe, talks about our troops in Falluja taking certain actions. These include:

No more Opera sensitive stuff. WE are the alpha group.

DNA tests, Retna scans, required visible ID badges.

Perhaps a requirement that all the men have jobs even if we have to assign them, or perhaps only the jobs we assign (with pay).

Works for me.

Course, the original blogger probably doesn't think so. I'm just guessing.

Peace Through Superior FirePower
Four more years of dead terrorists and lower taxes. I can dig it.

Poetic words for the fighting man

Fightin' Words by Russ Vaughn

To hell with you wimps from your Ivy League schools,
Sittin’ far from the war tellin’ me about rules
And preachin’ to me your wrong-headed contention
That I should observe the Geneva Convention,
Which doesn’t apply to a terrorist scum
So evil and cruel their own people run from,
Cold-blooded killers who love to behead,
Shove that mother’ Geneva, I’m leavin’ em dead.

I enjoyed it all.

Explaining America ...

I liked this article which is full of observations on the very large differences between Americans and the rest of the world.

Yes, all the world drinks our culture from a 5" firehose. But they don't really understand us.

I'll comment more later, but go read it. Peace

Comment: How about reduced spending?

Last post, I linked to a horrified lefty talking about his fears for the next four years. Fears that are, without exception, things I'm hoping for.

I had a comment on this:

I would settle for President Bush and the GOP coltrolled Congress simply reducing spending by about 10% to 15% by sticking to the things actually proscribed by the Constitution.

OK, fair enough. I'd probably axe more than 10% to 15% of federal spending if I could. But it probably won't happen for structural reasons. The deficit, sad to say, is about the only way to restrain spending. But I'd be happy to talk about how to do better or what I would do if I could.

Note: in the lefty article they implied Bush would, indeed, impose a draft. Sorry, that is fever swamp stuff. Won't happen. Period. The only people who talk about the draft or have supported the draft in the last 30 years are Democrats.